Comments on: The Seeker: Movie vs. Book (Spoilers)

By: iTunes has The Seeker on special for $4.99 | Y Ceffyl Du

iTunes has The Seeker on special for $4.99 | Y Ceffyl Du — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 03:28:34 +0000

[...] In 2007, Walden Media got their hands on the movie rights and made a horrible version. I wrote my longest blog post about the differences between the movie and the book. [...]

By: Ceffyl Aedui

Ceffyl Aedui — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:34:32 +0000

You really could write a book length piece on why the movie was a sorry waste of celluloid. The most important thing missing to me was the actual character development. Will seems like a spoiled little child. Merriman isn’t present at all, much less in his avuncular role that he has in the books. He’s a bigger-than-life character who brings Will along almost as an apprentice. In the movie, you couldn’t care less about Merriman (who seems awfully young — what happened to the shock of white hair?).

You’re definitely right about the dysfunctional family. Stephen was someone that Will looked up to big time. And now Stephen is more like an annoyance than a big brother.

The sense of history is completely missing.
I watched this movie on Google Video because I couldn’t stand the fact that the movie title had been changed from The Dark Is Rising to The Seeker. (LAME!) I was really glad that I didn’t pay admission fees for it.

Doesn’t it make you furious when a book you care so much about is butchered — bollocksed is a much better term.

By: Ceffyl Aedui

Ceffyl Aedui — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:27:32 +0000

Kittles: You are correct. Maggie is indeed in the book. I had completely forgotten that she worked with Wayland Smith! She has a crush on Max, Will’s older brother. Max already has a girlfriend who constantly sends him letters. I’ve (hopefully) clarified that paragraph in the post.

By: Isquiesque

Isquiesque — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:20:51 +0000

Quite belatedly – wow, you only wrote this much on how much they bollocksed up this film? One could quite easily write a dissertation-length piece on this topic. I was pretty horrified. Will is American, Will’s family is dysfunctional (so that American audiences will relate, perhaps!), Will is older and has a love interest (because, of course, that’s how we reel in the teenage demographic wanting a good ‘date’ movie), Will is not quite the round little chap that its implied he is in the books. Merriman isn’t mentioned by name until quite late in the film, and because he looks nothing like what I envisioned (I, too, thought of Gandalf), I thought they’d omitted him entirely for a bit, until I recalled that Merriman did pose as the butler. Oh, and your above commentor is right – Maggie does appear in the books, but not as a love interest, merely as an agent of the Dark, iirc. I saw this movie while in the RMI. I paid full theatre price to see it, which is rougly the equivalent of an hour and a half’s minimum wage in the local community. Fortunately, it’s a developing nation with a crap minimum wage, so that only translated to me paying $3 to see it. It was still overpriced and I nearly walked out. Very sad.

By: Kittles

Kittles — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:17:46 +0000

I was pretty sure that Maggie Barnes did indeed appear in the Dark is Rising. She was a hired hand that helped the farmer…For the life of me, I can’t remember his name. But he and the blacksmith were Old ones. She did have a crush on Max, I thought. But it’s very possible I’m misremembering it….although I haven’t seen the movie, I’ve heard it’s terrible.