It seems that everything How to Train Your Dragon and this summer’s Toy Story 3 did splendidly, Legend of the Guardians was able to screw up. The trailer was amazing. Absolutely amazing with pie and more pie on top. I would go so far as to name it a work of art. In fact, I recommend watching this thirty times on a loop instead of going to see the movie. Unfortunately, it also portrayed the movie’s desperately hopeful panacea: the graphics. Soaring majestically through rainstorms, carrying blazing fireballs across rough terrain, and generally being really adorable, the graphics astounded me. I knew they were going to be good, having seen the most striking images in the trailer multiple times both in theatres and on my home computer. They continued to impress scene after scene, rippling with profound and surprising detail.
Regrettably, much of the detail in the graphics came out of wild inaccuracies that were apparently thrown together out of a poorly written plot synopsis. I’m quite sure no one involved in the production of this film bothered to glance at any part of the popular book series aside from maybe some character descriptions.
Maybe I’m being unfair; maybe I went about this the wrong way. In general, it is a filmmaker’s dilemma when adapting a book for the screen; it is impossible to please everyone and get the details exactly right. Really, it could be my fault I read the first three books in the series a little too close to the movie release. However, I don’t remember the Harry Potter folks deciding hmm, maybe Harry being the only one Voldemort couldn’t kill is a little dull, maybe we should muck around in there. Ah, I know, Voldemort should instead have had fisticuffs with his parents and James is still alive, willing, and able to kick some ass.
That sounds ridiculous. The story was fine, what would be the reason to change it so drastically, and at the same time affect the rest of the storyline in all of the movies so it is markedly different from the books? That’s exactly my question for these fine filmmakers. Why change it so much? As a result of the drastic plot-altering changes, the movie turned into one huge blood clot of clichés. Oh, can’t think of dialogue for this scene? Let’s recycle a cliché! Not sure what to have the parents talk about to establish their love for their children? A CLICHÉ! WOO!
The book series, Guardians of Ga’Hoole, is a fantastic children’s adventure tale by Kathyrn Lasky. She chose to write about owls because she had been planning to write a children’s non-fiction book about them. She had compiled a lot of research about different species and behavior and this really shows in the series; the characters are developed through their species characteristics and interact with each other accordingly. I wouldn’t say the series is without cliché; after all, it does have a fourth-grade reading level, but the overarching storyline is absolutely powerful.
Some of the changes made for the movie utterly usurped this power, transforming the sturdy storyline into a weak, one-dimensional, and, above all, predictable romp through an uninspiring field of poppies. What bothered me the most were the ratios: nearly the first half of the movie was told in startling plot jumps and the makers failing to develop characters in the smallest sense.
The only thing we know about Soren is that he is a “dreamer” who wants to be a guardian of Ga’Hoole even though no one else seems to think they exist. In the books, his journey through an awful orphanage and search for the guardians takes a whole book to play out. In the movie it takes about ten minutes, and they got it all wrong anyhow. This sort of ten minutes here, ten minutes there continued for a while, but only served to confuse and rush the audience into the “exciting part.”
Imagine all three Lord of the Rings movies condensed into one hour-and-a-half-long “kids” movie. That is exactly how this felt. Perhaps making three books into one movie was just too much. But they’re small, and 2004’s Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events managed to do just fine.
Getting away from comparisons with the book series, the movie evaluated on its own still does not wow. I can see a narrow audience finding this movie great, like 10- 12-year-olds, but anyone outside of that age bracket will either be overwhelmed by the violence and strong imagery or bored to sleep by the banality of the plot.
Zack Snyder, the director, previously helmed Watchmen and 300. I think maybe he forgot that this needed to be more kid-friendly with some semblance of interest for other age groups. Maybe he got mixed up: plot must be kid-friendly and rest of movie must be 300!
Anyway, this movie could have been great if the director had chewed off a little less of the story to make into a movie and perhaps followed the great, moving tale outlined in the books even a little bit. Instead, all that came out was a clichéd, confusing jumble mixed in with attempted fratricide and bloody owl combat. If that sounds like your kind of movie, well, more power to you.
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