I get your points but they seem to be rooted in having issue with the book.
Ha! Yep! You are damn skippy right about that!
Thank you for sharing your opinions too. I don't think anyone on this board has talked at length about the book so far.
But, before I go off on that let me acknowledge that it is NOT a "bad" story. It is a good young adult story that I did enjoy a lot of. But, it has its 2 weaknesses as I already elaborated on: The ending, and the awkwardly inexplicable transition of the scientist into psychopathic homicidal killer Norman Bates. The first problem I don't really blame the writer for...for the reason that I will explain later, but the second may or may not be the culpability of the writer, for the same later-to-be-explained reason.
Let me iterate that I love this movie. I love the acting, the cinematography, the music, the pacing, and...to a lesser extent...even the ending that some people find to be ambiguous. So yes I do have issues with the book as opposed to the movie...that they wisely decided to make divergent. Which is, of course the point of this whole thread: Why I would not like to see a [100% faithful] adaptation of the book.
But just to get one thing clear: There is NO suggestion in the book whatsoever that Loomis is anything other than a scientist. The holes in the suit has zero subtlety in their existence. They are exactly what they were all but explicitly stated to be. The locations where John Loomis shot Edward the guy who was trying to take the anti-radiation suit.
I agree with you totally that the addition of the third character was my least liked part of the movie. It did devolve what could have been a sublime philosophical look at the duality of man (that whole Carl Jung thing) into a tawdry love trinagle. But, that is an obvious criticism that many others have made.
And, you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, they should have kept the younger-looking actress Amanda Seyfried to play the teenage Ann Burden (Although I do love what Margot Robbie did with the role).
Yes, Loomis can be seen as a threat RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING because of Ann's journaling perspective of his arrival and...well...all the events of the book that we have. However two things:
a. Firstly, Ann's
particular second person perspective is a literary device known as "Unreliable Narrator". She does and thinks more than a few irrational things. It may take more than one reading to catch them all, but I think the opening explanation of why she is even writing in a diary is the easily overlooked thing because it goes by so fast. She says that she started writing because she has started losing track of what things happened, when they happened, and
IF they happened at all.
b. Secondly, as much as I don't like the ending or the transition of Loomis I fully realize we don't have the full story the writer intended. As you probably already know, the writer died before he could finish the story. Now, all we have is what his family later submitted to the publisher, saying that they used his "writing notes".
So, I, like other critics of the book, feel that we only have a
part of what the artist intended...and that there may have been a clearer and/or longer ending in the mind of the author that better explained what was REALLY going on with
both characters
So, right
there is another reason why there is no need to be uber-faithful to his story; he did not write it all anyhow.
And, yeah, Ann was forced to leave in the same sense that if someone starts chasing you with a knife across a bridge and you make the "decision" to take your chances with the fall and the waters below. Not so much a real "decision" so much as a existential ultimatum. I mean, who wants to die?
Ann in the movie WANTS to stay with her John Loomis...as opposed to Ann of the book and her John Loomis. They pretty much reached true amity until the love triangle added the new (second) central conflict of the plot. And that of course is the weakness of the general viewing audience that had to be given-in to by the screenplay writer and the producers. Most audiences would not have sat through the sole plot being the struggle towards reconciliation in a "technological man vs spiritual/natural woman" conflict scenario. Better to make it an Adam/Eve/Snake sexy allegory story.
Peace!
On November 6, 2012 god blessed America...again.
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