There is a movie coming out of Bridge to Terebithia. Trailer can be viewed here. Now, like most people who read BtT as a child, I love the book. It was beautiful and tragic and perfect and unforgettable, and above all, realistic.
And I want to know why the trailer is acting like this film is the frickin’ Lord of the Rings. I don’t think I’ve EVER seen a more misleading movie trailer. If I didn’t know that this was the actual, official trailer to this movie, I’d think it was one of those recut trailer jobs, like “Shining,” “Must Love Jaws,” and “Ten Things I Hate About Commandments.” (All of which, by the way, must be seen to be believed. Brilliant!)
And here’s the really weird part. The screenwriter and producer of this film is the the author of the book’s son. The son she wrote the book for. The son whose childhood friend inspired the story. So I’m trying to figure out what’s going on here. I doubt, given the connection to the son, that the movie will stray too far afield from its source material. I suspect, however, that whoever cut the trailer decided that all the fantasy shots were much more marketable and should be played up.
The downside is that a lot of people are going to be coming to the theater expecting to see The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe — but they’re going to get My Girl without the amusing undertaker comedy. Even the title treatment of the film is that swirly, fantasy, Chronicles of Narnia-esque font.
For anyone who has NOT read this book, let me enlighten you:
1) It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fantasy epic.
2) It’s about coping with senseless death and survivor’s guilt.
I don’t know if the Patersons have any control over what “marketing” decides is the best way to present the story. My guess is that they were probably handed the argument that most people already know what BtT is about, and a misleading trailer won’t make them stay away (I reserve judgment on that), but that it might bring in people who otherwise wouldn’t see the film but loved Narnia to come see it. (Yes, and then they’ll hate you, but who cares, we already have their money, woo hoo!)
I’ve heard from several BtT fans who say they plan to stay away because they suspect a chop job on the story. One’s response was, “Bitch better die.” Macabre, perhaps, but to the point.
You see this kind of thing all the time in the book industry. Historical romances with modern, cartoony covers, paranormal romances without a hint of paranormal on the covers, erotic looking covers with tame sex scenes inside. Probably the most egregious example of false advertising I’ve seen of late is the cover and back cover blurb of Monica Jackson’s “Mr. Right Now,” which is a paranormal romance but has a seventiesish cartoon cover of a chick waiting by a telephone and a back cover blurb that makes it sound like a chick lit about three friends.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, much like most authors, young directors like Paterson probably don’t have much clout against coprorate marketing machines who are convinced that their marketing strategy will get the “best” response. Of course, the “best response” to them is, I suppose, butts in seats, not people actually enjoying the film, returning to see it again, and telling all their friends to see it as well.
If the film footage is there, the trailer makers can use it how they’d like. And, as the recut trailers prove, you can make just about anything look like any genre you want. But unlike the marketing machines, I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Expectation, and the fulfilling of it, accounts for a lot of audience enjoyment. When I went to see Deja Vu a few weeks ago, I was all, “Come on, bring on the time travel, I know you’ve got it.” If I were a parent taking my 6 year old to BtT and expecting it to be Narnia, you can bet there’d be a nasty letter on its way to Disney.
I can’t help but feel like the trailer is doing a massive disservice to the film, both for the people who are going to see it and hate it, and for the people who aren’t going to see it because it looks like they’ll hate what’s been done to it. But what do you do? What, indeed, can you do? If I go to see BtT, they’ll say, “Look, people like misleading marketing.” If I *don’t* go to see it, they’ll say, “Let’s not make any more films from classic children’s literature unless it’s about talking animals and swordfights.”
So what do you do?
PS: Congrats to all NaNoWriMo winners! I’m so proud of you!
November 29th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Diana, I was just as confused! I watched the preview with a sinking heart, wondering if they’d butchered the book I’d treasured so much. I cried and cried, reading that book when I was younger. It was one of those books you read as a child, and it changes who you become.
I really hope the film does it justice. Too bad about the false advertising — I bet a lot more people would go to it, if they weren’t advertising a Narnia-esque experience!
November 30th, 2006 at 8:34 am
I haven’t read this book but I’m glad to have the false advertising warning. After my recent experience with (not so) Happy Feet, I may never trust movie marketing again!
November 30th, 2006 at 8:46 am
I loved Happy Feet! But then, the soundtrack made the movie for me.
I’ve never read Bridge, but I appreciate the warning. From the trailer, I would have taken my daughter. Now that I’m gathering the young heroine dies (?) I won’t. My daughter could not handle that.
November 30th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Julie, I loved the music, I hated the movie. I left feeling shocked and depressed and three of the kids in our group asked to leave after the whole “Lovelace and the Orcas” scene. After that scene, I kinda wish I would’ve left, too.
November 30th, 2006 at 8:58 am
OMG, Mel…what happened? I was so going to go see that movie. If they kill off a lot of cartoon characters, I’m not doing it. I’ll cry!
November 30th, 2006 at 11:19 am
No! No one dies in the movie that I can remember. There’s a seal that tries to eat Mumble, but the scene where he can’t reach him was hilarious. It reminded me a lot of March of the Penguins, without all the death. (Which I thought MotP handled VERY well.)
But then, I liked the movie overall and loved the message at the end…which is basically that we have to stop catching all the fish so that the penguins won’t go hungry. It’s a very enviromental message…which I personally don’t mind, even though I’m pretty conservative politically (I say pretty…I’m a moderate and registered Independent, but I *hear* a lot of right wingers didn’t like the enviromental message.)
I loved the scene with the orcas. Very exciting…great animation. Different tastes, I guess.
The ending DID, however, come a bit out of left field. It wasn’t at ALL what I expected to happen. It was like the movie was about penguin life and penguin love and then all of a sudden, it was a message. However, I thought it was an interesting twist. A little preachy, but kids don’t care. Most children are budding conservationists!
November 30th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
D, those fake movie trailers are HYSTERICAL. I had no idea those were out there. Thanks.
November 30th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
I loved Happy Feet, too. But it was a little emotionally heavy at times for small children. And I think the marketing was a bait and switch.
But I still loved it.
November 30th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
Spyscribbler, that’s exactly it. It changes you. Oh, the hours and hours i spent in the wilderness by the beach, pretending other worlds…
Julie, I’m surprised that you haven’t read BtT. You’re the right age. Everyone in my generation read it in school, but maybe it hadn’t hit “classic” status yet?
I have heard negative things about Happy Feet — mostly that there were some bizarre racist overtones. I haven’t heard negatives about the environmental messages — but then, I doubt I would. Frankly, I’m shocked that anyone would! Did people get up in arms about FernGully? Bambi?
November 30th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
Robin, aren’t they hilarious? I love them SOOOOO much. I think “Must Love Jaws” is my favorite — the soundtrack is awesome. But the 10 Commandments one is good, too: “Moses, moses, moses…”
November 30th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
The way I look at it, there’s two ways to make a movie that’s based on a book — you can be very true to the book, like Harry Potter movies (which I love), or you can take some key elements of book and spin them off into another medium. Perhaps this is what they’ve done in BtT. I only read the book recently because it was 6th grade required reading for my daughter (who didn’t like it all, buy the way — she’s definitely not a fan of books where child characters die).
Anyway, my thoughts, having read it so recently, is that so much of the story is introspective that a true adaption of it to the screen would be rather . . . boring. Harry Potter works in an adaptation that’s very true to the actual text because the visual and action-based elements of the story itself are very strong. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the book BtT was lovely, but so much of what happens is going on in the protagonist’s head — it’s a book about emotions more than a book about actions, and even the actions are mostly relevant in terms of the characters emotional response to them. (Whereas in HP you wondering more about the action itself than how the character feels about it).
I think you have to look at the BtT book and the movie as two separate things, and judge each on it own merits.
P.S. Julie, don’t take your daughter unless you’d take her to My Girl.
November 30th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Phyllis, I don’t have a problem the the CGI or all the made up characters, I have a problem with the trailer suggesting that this is what the movie is about. The set up and scene progression of the trailer is basically exactly the same as the one for Narnia, but the latter is a story about children who DO go to an alternate world and have adventures. I think a lot of people are going to see the CGI and think it’s a fantasy.
If the trailer was as is, and then maybe had a scene where the boy skips out for the art show and then a scene of — I don’t know the river swelling, or the storm or him standing alone by the river thinking about how he can’t go back there… then I think they’d have done their duty. Or maybe just a little less CGI monsters and a little more actual real world setting — the foot race that leslie wins at school, teh teacher the kid has a crush on… something that doesn’t make it seem as if it’s a modern Narnia.
November 30th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
You’re absolutely right, Diana — I’m just wondering if the movie really is the same story as the book, or if it really is a fantasy spin-off. (I’ve seen some YA book-based movies — Cheaper by the Dozen comes to mind — that have almost nothing in common with the book they are adapted from and, in that case, I liked both the book and the movie). If the movie really does follow the storyline of the book, then it certainly is false advertising. But if the trailer is a true representation of the movie, then I’ll just have to wait to see it to decide — not that I’ll probably even see it anyway, since my daughter won’t want to go. You can see it and let me know.
November 30th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Phyllis, I wondered that myself, because of Cheaper and Forrest Gump and other movies that have nothing in common with the books they’re supposedly based on — but the screenwriter and director of this movie is Paterson’s son (his childhood best friend’s tragic death inspired the story), so I’m thinking they probably stuck reasonably close.
BTW, will you be at the party?
November 30th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Yep — see you Saturday!
November 30th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
I remember reading that as a kid now. I barely remember the story, but do remember being upset about something. It’s amazing how much I have forgetten about books that I read at age 5.
BtT, A Wrinkle in Time, Swiftly Tilting Planet, The Hobbit, Star Blazers.
Someone jog my memory, what else did I read then?
November 30th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
And what is up with BAD kids cartoon movies?
Did anyone see Valiant? Don’t take a 3 year old to see that. Just plain bad. And they made my kid cry! What about The Barnyard, with Kevin James. Looked funny in previews. Just plain bad and heavy handed on morality. Again, not good for a 4 year old. (his birthday was inbetween the two movie releases)
November 30th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
wHy Is It YoU aNsWeR sOme CoMmEnTs BuT nOt aLl Of ThEm? YoUr CoOl.
November 30th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Patrick, there was a time when I went to see all of the animated films out there, because I believe in animation as a medium, Now I have kind of fallen off the wagon. It helps that they don’t exactly need my support the way they used to. But I do go see a lot of them. I think I might be one of two people who saw Brad Bird (Incredibles) first feature, the Iron Giant, which is one of my favorite movies of all time.
That’s another example of how ads screwed it up. I remember the ads made it look like a robot buddy comedy. Speaking of which, I also saw Robots, and it was baaaaaad. TRON was way better.
I was also one of two people who saw titan a.e., and that was long before Joss whedon was a god and people would go see a phone book he wrote. I didn’t even know it was his until many years later.
December 1st, 2006 at 12:14 am
I went to film school! We talked about previews! (I’m trying to justify my tuition and validate my opinion in one!). Anyway, I don’t remember talking too much about what we said except:
Previews are made to draw people in to see films ($$$). They are not always about the film.
Right now some exec probably thinks a fantasy epic will sell better than something Meaningful. Now, we’ll see whether that was carried into the script as well.
I did not read BtT, but I do like it when the films are different than the books. I hate seeing movies paced like books. But not when they pervert the entire story.
December 1st, 2006 at 12:22 am
Love the Iron Giant. My kids have the video.
December 1st, 2006 at 8:59 am
You’re the other person who saw Titan AE?
I’ll have to check out Iron Giant.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:14 am
I saw Iron Giant. Liked it a lot, but it was many years ago. I need to see it again, I think.
Barnyard was HORRIBLE. It simply had…no plot, no sympathetic characers…and the male cows had udders. It did not work for me at ALL. Of course, the kidlet laughed like a hyena. But she didn’t ask for the DVD, thankfully.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:24 am
I LURVE Titan A.E. We own it as well as The Iron Giant. Both are quality.
Part of my problem (besides the racist stereotypes and the disjointed storyline) was the bait and switch marketing. I expected to see a feel good movie with some funny one liners. It isn’t the happy go lucky movie as advertised, despite some really fun music. But yes, there are people who are complaining about the movie’s message. The biggest complaint is that it got all “Al Gore” on people. It did go a little over the top with its message–but I didn’t have a problem with it for the most part.
When I complained about Happy Feet in my blog, I said if you want a feel good environmental movie, see Ferngully.
December 1st, 2006 at 4:09 pm
(I just want to say that I *love* the false trailers you linked to! The 10 Commandments one was a laugh-riot!!)
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Misleading trailers drive me crazy. Enough that I might do a blog about this topic, too…
December 4th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
Oooh, I feel a bit uneasy about the whole idea of a movie of Bridge to Terabithia. I love it so, probably because of the introspection and the way it handles what it’s like to be a young boy growing up and having to deal with emotions usually made unavailable to him by social expectations. I can’t imagine the movie not being disappointing (sorry double negative there) but then I tend to be a book snob. Or really a primary media snob (I’ve never read a really amazing film-book tie in novel either).
I couldn’t watch the trailer, but I could see a still that already gave me the wiggins. But has anyone seen that NZ film Heavenly Creatures? That managed to show imaginative life in a felicitous way filmically, without lessening the impact of the ‘real’ story (which was also based on true life I believe). So there’s hope that they can tie together the two threads convincingly.