Making Allie King Arthur was just plain moronic and rendered most of the characters and film pointless.
I was enjoying the movie unlike how I had expected, I was even open to accepting the far-fetched idea that the family moved there because the parents had a suspicion that Will was King Arthur when the Dad did not even really believe in the prophecy. But then they had to add the stupid, frustrating twist at the end and ruin it all. Ugh.
I shouldn't be surprised, Disney has a way of making idiotic moves such as ruining the character of Jake on HM when that bitch was going to cheat on him with Jesse or break up with Jake for Jesse while she supposedly loved Jake in that one episode. Or writing off Juliet along with Mason in WOWP just because if Alex couldn't have a partner then no one could what with her being the main character and such but then bringing back Mason through the use of magic but not having the brains to bring back Juliet through the use of magic too. Or how in CR2 they like changed every single darn character and ruined them and so much more that went wrong. Oh what am I saying, I could go on for hours so I should just stop here.
The twist at the end was obvious from the start, whether you read the book, or not.
The reason it was obvious was because Disney markets to tween girls ("girl power!"). So, of course, feminist overtones like making Allie (Ellie in the book) King Arthur was obvious from the outset... But this is why "feminism" gets such a bad rap. Like you said, they completely ruined the story (inclusion of other characters that mimicked the Lancelot/Guenevere/Arthur triangle) just so they could have a feminist-type ending.
The shocking part is Meg Cabot (author of Avalon High) approved of this twist apparently... But I also have my doubts about this. Like most authors, once she sold the rights to Disney, she probably did not care one way or the other what they did with her story. Either that, or it would make no difference for her to protest the changes anyway since she did not write/co-write the screenplay adaptation. Or, it would not be good PR for her to bad-mouth one of the biggest corporate entertainment companies in the world, either. Anyway you slice it, she more or less "sold out"...
It isn't that Meg Cabot didn't care what Disney did to her storyline, it's that she has no say in it once she sells the movie rights to somebody else. They may ask her for input but everything else is totally in Disney's control once the rights have been sold. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but Kelso nailed your sister."
I know. The "twist" ending was so obvious from the get-go, what with Allie's dreams/flashbacks, etc. And it rendered the rest of the movie totally pointless. why would Allie even care that she was Arthur? Until the end reveal, she seemed to be sick of her parents' constant references/obsessions with Arthurian legend. (And her parents were terribly-written characters, too--for "professors of medieval literature", they made dozens of childish mistakes, the most obvious being referencing Alfred Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott", a Victorian poem, as a piece of medieval literature and saying that a verse from it described Arthur when it clearly described Lancelot). It made the Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur triangle totally pointless. The only way they could have made the modern version work is if they had Allie and Jen like each other, but there's no way Disney would ever have the guts to hint at a lesbian relationship--they'd receive way too many backlashes from the ultra-conservative freaky parents.
I haven't read the books, though this movie makes me kind of interested. I do know how you feel though they ruined T*Witches. I remember being really excited when the authors posted on the scholastic site about it being made into something, then I still had some hope when I saw the first previews even if they changed the characters. I hate that this is all we will have of T*Witches in real life form. I do have my 10 books however. I will always treasure them. The movies I only bought on DVD because they were all that was going to happen. T*Witches is an awesome read by the way, the movies not so much, they changed everything pretty much but the characters names, and some characters were omitted and don't even get me started on the age change, that is such a strange idea to change their age. Why not make them teens like they were in the book series? Disney is a tween and teen network for the most part.
"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."