The Witches, is a 2020 supernatural comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis, and stars Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, and is narrated by Chris Rock. It is based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl and is the second feature-length adaptation of the novel, after the 1990 film of the same name directed by Nicolas Roeg. The film starts with narration by an adult Charlie Hansen (Rock) as he gives a presentation on witches. He then transitions into talking about his childhood (younger version played by Jahzir Bruno) and how he first came in contact with witches. In 1968, Charlie’s parents die in a car accident and he goes to live with his grandmother (Spencer) in Alabama. While at the store a strange woman with a green snake offers him a piece of candy, but they are interrupted by Charlie’s grandmother. This encounter scares Charlie and that night he confesses to her what happened. She then informs him what he saw was actually a witch and tells Charlie how her childhood best friend was turned into a chicken by one. In an attempt to get away from the witch for a while, Charlie and his now ill grandmother go stay at a fancy hotel where a family member works. The next day Charlie goes off alone to train his pet mouse (Kristin Chenoweth) as his grandmother rests, and he ends up in a ballroom set up for a meeting. When a group of ladies arrives to start their conference they reveal themselves to be witches. The meeting is presided over by the Grand High Witch (Hathaway) as she explains her plan to get rid of all the world’s children by turning them into mice. Drawing Charlie and his grandmother into a fight with the witches they had been trying to escape from in the first place. In this blog post I will look at how the change in setting and character background for the adaptation works in the story.
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Spangler’s From Sentence to Screen: Sleepy Hollow
Sleepy Hollow is a 1999 gothic supernatural horror film directed by Tim Burton starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, with Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, and Casper Van Dien in supporting roles. It is a film adaptation loosely based on Washington Irving’s 1820 short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The movie is set in 1799 and follows New York City police constable Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) as he is sent to the small Dutch Hamlet of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of murders that have plagued the town. He is given very little information regarding the town or its victims, besides the fact that they all had their heads cut off. When he arrives, Ichabod is told by the town’s leaders that not only were the victims beheaded, but the murderer also took their heads after he killed them. The townspeople believe the murders to be committed by the apparition of a headless Hessian mercenary from the American Revolutionary War who is looking for his own missing head. Ichabod is skeptical about the paranormal elements of the story and takes a more scientific approach to his investigation. Slowly he unravels a conspiracy against the leading families in the town and also comes face to face with supernatural forces which seem to be trying to drive him away from Sleepy Hollow, if not kill him. While at the same time being forced to confront his childhood trauma and developing feelings for Katrina Van Tassel (Christina Ricci), the daughter of one of the town elders. In this blog post, I will look at how the film expanded on the original story and how the character of Ichabod Crane changed between the two mediums.
Continue readingSpangler’s From Sentence to Screen: Stardust
Stardust is a 2007 fantasy adventure film directed by Matthew Vaughn and stars an ensemble cast led by Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mark Strong and Robert De Niro, with narration by Ian McKellen. The film is an adaptation of the Neil Gaiman 1999 novel of the same name. The movie opens roughly 19 years years prior to the start of the main character’s, Tristan Thorn (Cox), story with the meeting of his parents in a strange magical land. Baby Tristan is left for his father, Dunstan (Younger: Ben Barnes, Older: Nathaniel Parker) to raise in the fictional English town of Wall. When the story jumps ahead 18 years, Tristan is a rather naive boy who believes himself to be in love with the vain Victoria Forester (Sienna Miller). After seeing a falling star, Victoria agrees to marry Tristian if he retrieves it for her in time for her birthday. The night he is to set off, Tristan learns the origins of his birth in the magical land next to the town of Wall. Using a Babylon candle, which allows a person to instantly travel to the place they are thinking of when it is lit, gifted by his mother (Kate Magowan), Tristan tries to find her. But Tristan gets distracted by his thoughts of Victoria and the star, transporting him into a large crater where he falls onto a young woman (Danes) who he mistakes for his mother. He quickly realizes that the hurt girl is actually the fallen star and sets out to bring her back to Victoria, which leads to a wild journey for Tristan and the star, Yvaine, including run-ins with princes, witches, and even pirates. In this blog post I will look at the backstory established between the two mediums as well as the ways Tristan’s character is developed in the story.
Continue readingSpangler’s From Sentence to Screen: The Lovely Bones
The Lovely Bones is a 2009 supernatural thriller drama film directed by Peter Jackson, starring Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, and Saoirse Ronan. It is based on Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel of the same name, which follows a young girl who is murdered and watches her family from “the in-between” as they try and move on from their loss while also trying to find answers. In 1973, Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a 14-year-old girl, is walking home from school through a corn field one night when she is stopped by a neighbor George Harvey (Stanley Tucci). He coaxes her into a hideout he made underground, telling her it is meant to be a clubhouse for the children in their neighborhood. He proceeds to kill Susie, and from that point on the main character moves throughout the film as a ghost watching her family and friends. Another dead girl, Holly (Nikki SooHoo), attempts to get Susie to leave “the in-between,” where she watches her family from, and go to Heaven, but Susie is unwilling to leave her family between until they can find clues from her murder. During this time Susie’s father, Jack (Mark Wahlberg), and younger sister, Lindsey (Rose McIvver), begin to suspect Mr. Harvey of the murder and set out to prove his guilt. In this blog, I will talk about the changes made between the two adaptations like the timeline of events, character development, and how Susie’s death and afterlife are portrayed.
Continue readingSpangler’s From Sentence to Screen: Warm Bodies
Warm Bodies is a 2013 American romantic zombie comedy film written and directed by Jonathan Levine, and stars Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, and John Malkovich. The movie is based on Isaac Marion’s 2010 novel of the same name, which in turn was inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. When the movie opens, the viewer learns there was a zombie apocalypse roughly eight years ago and the main character R (Nicholas Hoult), who is a zombie, spends his days wandering around a deserted airport with others of his kind. This includes his best friend M (Rob Corddry), who he is able to communicate with through grunts, moans, and rudimentary conversation. One day R and a group of other zombies go hunting for humans to eat and they encounter Julie (Teresa Palmer) and her group of friends, who are on a supply run for the human survivor group they live with. When R sees Julie for the first time his heart starts beating again and he is drawn to her. But when Julie’s boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco) starts shooting, R kills him, and eats some of his brain, getting the boy’s memories of Julie and making the zombie more attracted to her. He takes the rest of Perry’s brian to eat for later, then goes to a scared Julie and puts some of his blood on her, so the other zombies will think she is dead, and takes her back to his home at the airport. R lives in an airplane by himself, which is where he takes a thoroughly freaked-out Julie, telling her he is going to keep her safe and that once the other zombies forget about her he will let her go. As he eats more of Perry’s brain, he learns about the relationship between the dead boy and Julie, which makes R start to fall in love with her. A few days later, Julie tries running away, having grown impatient waiting, and gets caught by several zombies that want to eat her, including M. R comes to save her and they try to escape together, not realizing the two of them have set in motion the end of the zombie apocalypse. In this blog post I will be looking at the world building and the mythology given to the zombies for this story, as well as the change in the ending between mediums.
Continue readingSpangler’s From Sentence to Screen: Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers is a 1997 American military science-fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven and stars Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, and Neil Patrick Harris. It is an adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 novel of the same name. The movie drops the viewer into the middle of a battle between humans and an alien bug species as a reporter is giving news on the progress of an ongoing war. It is complete chaos and the Earth’s military is being quickly killed off by the bugs, including the reporter and his cameraman. After this, the movie jumps back in time one year, to before the battle where the audience is introduced to Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien), Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards), Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer), and Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick) who are high school seniors in Buenos Aires. The four high school students all end up deciding to join the military after graduating high school, with Johnny and Dizzy heading to Mobile Infantry basic training, while Carmen becomes a starship pilot and Carl joins military intelligence. Johnny performs well in basic training and is soon given leadership over the soldiers in his group, but after an accident kills one of his men, he decides to leave the military. As he is about to go, the training base gets word of an attack from the aliens, which included the destruction of his home, Buenos Aires, and the deaths of his parents. This prompts Johnny to stay with the Mobile Infantry and service in the war against the bugs. In this blog I will be looking at the use of female characters in the adaptation and how the film dealt with themes presented in the book.
Continue readingSpangler’s From Sentence to Screen: Journey to the Center of the Earth
Journey to the Center of the Earth is a 2008 American science fantasy action-adventure film directed by Eric Brevig and stars Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, and Anita Briem. It is an adaptation of Jules Verne’s 1864 novel of the same name. The film starts with volcanologist and lecturer Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) as he finds out that his late brother, Max’s, lab is being closed. While trying to deal with this, his nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) comes to visit him for 10 days. When Sean’s mother drops him off, she gives Trevor a box of his brother’s things, which includes a copy of Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. In the book, there are extensive notes and Trevor, along with his nephew, go to his brother’s lab to figure out what the notes mean, and the two soon realize they will need to travel to Iceland to get answers for themselves. When they get there, the two meet a woman named Hannah (Anita Briem) whose father believed Verne’s books included factual accounts, like Trevor’s brother did. Hannah agrees to be Trevor and Sean’s guide up the mountain where an instrument used by Max is strangely working again after being inactive for 10 years. When they get up to the site, a lightning storm starts and the three end up trapped in a cave system, and with no way out are forced to go further into what turns out to be a mine system. The three find themselves going deeper in the Earth, and eventually reach the center. In this blog post, I will look at how the adaptation is different from other films based on books and how this affects the characters and their actions.
Continue readingSpangler’s From Sentence to Screen: Sherlock – The Hounds of Baskerville
Sherlock is a BBC television series that ran from 2010 to 2017 and starred Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as John Watson. In the series, the screenwriters often referenced the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and sometimes they even adapted whole stories for a specific episode. This is the case for season two, episode two, “The Hounds of Baskerville” (2012), which is a modern retelling of the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902). In the Sherlock episode, Holmes and Watson are contacted by a man named Henry Knight (Russell Tovey), who believes that he saw a “gigantic hound” kill his father when he was a young boy 20 years ago. The way Henry says “hound” instead of “dog” convinces Holmes to take the case and go to Dartmoor to uncover the truth. Once there, Sherlock and Watson find out about a top secret military research base, Baskerville, adjacent to the place where Henry’s father was killed, Dewer’s Hollow. Finding out that the hound is a local legend, the two detectives visit Baskerville using an I.D. card stolen from Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, as it appears that the hound might have escaped from there. Eventually they are forced to leave because Mycroft finds out what they are doing and an alert is sent through the military base. Given the limited information acquitted from Baskerville, Sherlock decides there is only one real way of figuring out if the hound is real, and that is actually finding it. So that night, he has Henry take himself and Watson to the place where his father was killed. Watson gets separated from the two but soon hears growling, forcing him to run and find the others. When he does, they are frightened and in shock after believing they have seen the hound, and Sherlock is forced to consider a possibility his mind can not rationally believe. In this blog, I will be looking at how the tv series adapted the original story for a modern audience.
Continue readingSpangler’s From Sentence to Screen: True Grit
The novel True Grit (1968) by Charles Portis is a highly regarded western, which has been adapted to film twice. The more recent of the two adaptations was released in 2010 by the Coen brothers and starred Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, Jeff Bridges as Deputy U.S. Marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn, Matt Damon as the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, and Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney. The film starts with narration from 14-year-old Mattie Ross, telling the viewer how her father was killed. It then cuts to her on the train, going to see her father’s body and have it sent home to her mother. When Mattie talks with the town sheriff about arresting the man, Tom Chaney, responsible, he informs her that there was nothing he could do because the killer fled into Native American territory. Not happy with this answer, she asks the sheriff if she could hire a U.S. Marshal to arrest Chaney, and he points her in the direction of Rooster Cogburn. After much convincing, Rooster eventually takes Mattie’s deal and agrees to track down Chaney for her. It turns out that Chaney is also a wanted man in Texas, and a Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf, is attempting to arrest him for his crimes in the other state. Mattie doesn’t like that if LaBoeuf catches Chaney, he will not be held accountable for her father’s murder. The two men decide that they don’t want a young girl to get in the way of their search for Chaney and attempt to leave her behind. Mattie is determined, though, to see justice for her father, so eventually, Cogburn and LaBoeuf give in and allow her to come with to catch Chaney. In this blog, I will be looking at how fidelity, the essence of the medium, and story elements contribute to the effectiveness of this adaptation.
Continue readingSpangler’s From Sentence to Screen: The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games is a 2012 American dystopian science fiction action film directed by Gary Ross and stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland. It is based on Suzanne Collins’s 2008 novel of the same name, with Collins also writing the screenplay with Ross and Billy Ray. The film starts with Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci) interviewing the Gamemaker about the Hunger Games and how it is an important part of the dystopian society. The mostly quiet scene is then cut through with a little girl screaming, which is when the main character Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is introduced as she comforts her sister after a nightmare. Katniss then leaves home and goes into the woods outside District 12 to hunt with her best friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) before the Reaping later that day. The Reaping is when one girl and one boy from each of the 12 districts is chosen to fight to the death in the country’s annual event of the Hunger Games. At the Reaping, Katniss’s little sister is chosen to fight in the games, but fearing for her little sister’s life, the 16-year-old volunteers to go in her place. After this, another 16-year-old Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutchinson) is selected out of the boys, and the two tributes are soon taken away on a train to the Capital. Once there, they are given mentors and stylists, train for the games, and are interviewed by Caesar Flickerman along with the other 22 tributes. The children have only a few days to prepare before they are sent into the arena and have to kill each other, as there can only be one winner of the Hunger Games. In this blog post, I will be looking at how the relationships between Katniss and two other characters are affected by the change from book to film.
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