The Dark Is Rising

While Kayli was here I made her watch all my previews for movies I want to see and then we watched a few more. Including this one. That would be The Seeker. It was lamely renamed, the original title from the book was The Dark Is Rising and came from this children's classic fantasy series.

It IS my FAVORITE children's fantasy series ever. (My favorite adult fantasy would be The Attolia series--that may be YA, not sure. Love it though.) Anyway, as you can see from the preview, the movie looks completely LAME. Why do they persist in ruining perfect books?!?!?! The Seeker (surprise, surprise) had the second worst debut of all time for a film released in more than 3,000 theaters and quickly managed to pull into first place in 'biggest theater drops'. Here's a couple reviewers comments, "Dispiriting and certain to enrage the only people who stand to care about it.” (Hit the nail on the head there.) "The producers have tried to gin up the story for multiplex audiences. They've succeeded in making a movie for no audience at all." (That would be me, as I have no plans on watching it.) "The fantasy novel's success was its magic rooted in its ties to Arthurian legend and British folklore, these "grandiose elements" are absent in The Seeker." (Right again.)

Well, anyway, the original series is based on Arthurian, Welsh, Celtic, British, etc. folklore and is about the war between the Dark and the Light, the basis of that war being the principle of free agency. (Interesting from an LDS perspective, eh?) I did just read a review however that condemned the series for being "pagan". Hee. Hee. Since when were Celtic myths Christian?!?! I think the mythology and use of legends are my favorite part of the stories. Anyway, I really don't want to tell more, but just to let you know, I do have a few things about the books I dislike, number one being that all the mortal children FORGET everything at the end. That's just stupid. Second being that the final "apocalypse" battle wasn't all that great. Not nearly the let down that Harry Potter's final battle was though. Uggh. The only hope for Harry Potter 7 is that they make the movie much, much better than the book. But for anyone who likes Harry and Narnia, read this series--it's heads and tales better than those.