Snow White and the Huntsman

[Pix]

Back from Snow White and the Huntsman. I got a weird feeling that I was seeing a story that had largely been cut & pasted from other movies especially from Willow (many scenes & elements, including Snow White's step mother reminding me of Queen Bavmorda, and the Huntsman seeming to me to be based on Madmartigan, just less of a rake to give him a tragic love backstory instead), but also from Avatar (the surreal forest and if the fairy critters had been taller than humans rather than tiny as well as blue, but then if the Avatar trees were shrunk to Earth size and the Avatar beings shrank to fit in as well they'd be about the same size), Legend (particularly the scene of Lilly touching the unicorn and then Jack communicating for the other unicorn on how to save the world from eternal night), and Princess Mononoke (that WAS the Forest Spirit! And remember how he walked over the water to the island and how in one scene he was also shot, and those fairies kinda remind me of those tiny spirits that showed up around the Forest Spirit, too). Anyone else get that feeling? :confused:

My girl has only seen Avatar (years ago) so she couldn't really say. She did say the scene where the evil queen's brother admitted to watching Snow White (played by the same actress who plays Bella in Twilight) sleep it kinda reminded her of Twilight. Not enough to be a “cut and paste” scene but it still crossed her mind.

But I don't think the movie impressed her over all. She liked it ok (so did I, at least for a one time viewing), but I think she was more curious what Kristen Stewart was like in this movie and Chris Hemsworth is just good eye candy. And maybe she just knows enough of her other friends are going to see it, too.

I'd also like to add that I hated the scene in the Disney animated movie where Snow White totally freaks out in the woods so I did like where they gave a good reason for her to do that in the movie (and not all that dissimilar to a fic I did of Snow White where I explained it as her eating hallucinogenic berries).

[Story]

True originality is hard to find these days, everything we see is a rehash of things we already know. We know about zombies, we have seen countless movies about them so it's not like it's a novel concept, yet we still continue to watch and enjoy things like "walking dead" or whatever that HBO show is because it's a successful reinvention of concepts we've already known. Inevitably you can point to any movie or book and pick out similarities to something else

[Pix]

I almost always see similarities. For example, The Worst Witch had a school that sorta reminded me of Hogwarts in Harry Potter and had other similarities like the sneering potions teacher favoring the obnoxious rich kid (was blonde in Worst Witch as well, IIRC) while giving undue grief to the protagonist. Still, I didn't get the same "cut/paste" feeling as I did this time. This is a feeling I almost never get watching a movie, but I did for this one.

Also, Willow owes quite a bit to Tolkien and all too many noble rebels vs. all powerful & evil governments (as in Star Wars, which also included Luke leaving his farm to become a mystical warrior similar to Willow leaving his farm to become a wizard who was willing to take on much bigger opponents), Avatar owes much to Pocahontas, and Legend and Princess Mononoke owe quite a bit to fairy tales (and there have been other movies like them before, though I'd say Princess Mononoke was one of the few truly original movies in many ways).

Again, I'm not seeing the usual similar concepts and inspiration from other works that are then given a new (and hopefully refreshing) twist in SWatH, instead it just felt too cut/paste to me in this case, a feeling I almost never get. Maybe it just needed more originality to be its own movie.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

As a writer of fiction myself, I can tell you that coming up with a new idea, a whole new concept ain't easy.

Avatar was not an original story. In fact people listed it along side Pocahontas:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/04...10538.html

Write anything and then pickup your copy of 'The Complete Works of Shakespeare' - you will most likely find elements of those stories in your won work. Sure you may have changed the location, the time, the character names, even the species of the characters - but the general plot formula is still there and you will be relying on love, murder, hate, or some concept that Shakespeare already addressed.

There are only a few basic literary plots repeated and rehashed time after time going all the way back to the Epic of Gilgamesh through Shakespeare to Modern CGI 'space operas'.

http://www.ipl.org/div/farq/plotFARQ.html Breaks the basic plot down into numbered ideas depending on how you want to approach the story.

Sure, you can change the character's names, species, appearance. you can change the location/era. You can add technology or subtract it - but in the end you are only dealing with a few basic plots.

[Nick9]

Avatar was not an original story. In fact people listed it along side Pocahontas:

I don't know Pocahontas, but for me Avatar was Dancing with wolves

[East]

If I had to make a living as a movie critic I would starve:biggrin:...I suck at it.

With that in mind...I walked away from the movie with a few impressions...

It was a decent good vs evil movie...the good guys won (essential for me...YAY!)

They used real butter on the popcorn...YAY!

Great Seats in the theatre...almost too comfortable.

I love Charlize Theron.

It was visually stimulating....

a 4/5 for me

I saw Men In Black 3 this week...Snow White was last week. I was a bit more entertained by MIB

[Sylph]

I don't know Pocahontas, but for me Avatar was Dancing with wolves

I loved Pocahontas, I used to have a bed-spread with her on it and I wanted to be her-... oh wait, that was private :biggrin: .

~

I agree with Bowyn, in the regards that, most of what we have now, is an already established Idea or an embellishment of an idea to add more "personality" to it, a good example as noted; Literature.

Most Mobile Os[Operating Systems] have garned something or the other from Apple's iOS, such as Android OS, but where did Apple get their idea for their products from? Science fiction.

Things like Star Trek and what not, has given the world ideas in the form of technology, movies, t.v shows[Battle Star Galactica] and etc, thus not really a completely original idea.

It may be an original product in the sense that it is not what it's based off of, but is essentially based off of something else.

The Guitar is just a Violin for people who don't want to play the Violin. It's a whole new instrument, it has frets when the Violin doesn't, you don't need a bow or rosin and it can be played with an Amplifier, but in essence, it's a modified Violin.

Even the String Family, as well as most other families of instruments, are not original, being based off the concept of a Piano, but for people who don't want to play Piano. [I.e - The Violin is the Treble part, and has the high notes of a piano/ The Viola is the Alto part and has high and low notes/ Cello is the Bass part and has majoritively low notes and the Double Bass is the Contrabass part of the piano, utilizing the most extreme bass notes]

Even the Piano was a spinoff from the Harpsichord. The Xylophone is a modified, percussion oriented Piano, getting ride of the strings all together and rely on pure percussion, although still keeping everything else, while remaining it's own instrument.

So nothing is really a new idea or concept, just a modified version of an already established one, just adding something new to make it different .

[Rainbowmum]

Oh dear , what a pity .
Thanks for the heads up Pix.

[Puck]

I didn't like it either...kept thinking to myself "When did Snow White end up in Narnia?"

Its not the best movie out there....but I liked "Snow White, a Tale of Terror" made way back in 1997.

It sticks fairly close to the original Grimm's Brothers fairy tale and has one of the most creepy, yet poignant portrayals of the Queen. Its worth a watch and a lot better than this crap.

*walks away muttering to himself about the evils of modern day Hollywood*

[pellaz]

eeeek
i cant say; slept through it. I might try to see "Snow White, a Tale of Terror"?