I rented this film on DVD recently, and even though I thought it had a nice location, it just seemed like a retread of Sparks' previous novel (and film) "Message In A Bottle". So...are all of his novels this formulaic?
shareHave to agree about this movie being too akin to MIAB. When he dies at the end, I thought it was ridiculously too similar. But I suppose there's a demand for weepies out there.
shareyep as much as i love them, i must admit theyre all the same.... the notebook, MIAB, a walk to remember, NIR.... all sad love stories
shareI loved the Notebook! At least in that one they got to spend most of their lives together and be happy. But not in the other 3. I didn't even know it was based on a Nicholas Sparks book until it started and said based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks in the beginning credits. I then turned to my boyfriend and said " it's a Nicholas Sparks, Is someone gonna die?" and sure enough. He laughed at me when the son showed up at her door after they were supposed to meet again and I said " Oh my god, I knew it! He friggin died!" I was pissed.
shareBecause of his books being so formulaic, I call him the male Danielle Steele!
shareThe answer to your question is yes. All of his novels are essentially the same story but with different character names and settings, and with each big screen adapation, you start to see the similarities. He's what people call a 'one trick pony'
shareDepressing all. That's why I stopped reading his novels. And MIAB was the last movie. NIR was on and I mistakenly watched.
sharePretty much! They all involve at least one character central to the plot who is dead, dying, deteriorating or in peril of death... It seems like a cheap way of inducing emotion to attempt to make the audience (I hate to be sexist, but let's face it, mostly women... ) cry buckets in some kind of communal catharsis until he's pumped out some more characters who will slot into the same formula...
The crime of it here is that both Gere and Lane actually managed to rise above the predictability of the genre and make these people interesting characters, but it's a wasted effort, because the author is only interested in having them be ciphers to provoke universal drama... Touching on death as a subject is okay, but consistently resorting to killing or wrecking your principal players as a climax is uninspired, in the extreme.
Love United. Hate Glazers.
Yeah, he sucks. It's sad that someone with so little talent (or a 1-trick pony) can make so much money. What does that say about us?
His stories are all VERY similar. And nearly every one (maybe all) take place near the ocean in North Carolina or somewhere similar. Seriously? You can't come up a different setting??
YES, someone always dies. I feel that life is too short to read depressing books and watch depressing movies. They aren't even depressing in a good way like Terms of Endearment or Blood Diamond.
shareHah I thought the same thing. It's exactly the same as MIAB. He should've made this ending happy, just to make them different.
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