NOVEL REVIEW: And Then There Were None By Agatha Christie

"But no artist, I now realize, can be satisfied with art alone. There is a natural craving for recognition which cannot be gain-said."

Mystery stories have always been a subject of great intrigue throughout history. The thrill of a crime with an unknown culprit and the excitement of following the detective around as they find clues, question suspects, and eventually solve the crime is one of the greatest adventures you can get from a story. When it comes to mysteries, two authors (and characters) immediately come to most people's minds: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie & Hercule Poirot/Miss Marple; together, these two are often referred to as the King & Queen of Mystery.

Interestingly enough, although both Doyle and Christie are "mystery writers" the type of mystery novels they write are quite different. The type of mystery stories we are mostly used to are often known as "whodunit" stories where you follow the detective along as they solve the case themselves, giving you an insight to their thought process. Christie's mysteries are much closer to the "whodunit" style, where you are shown all the clues and the process through which the detective (or any sort of mystery solver) solves the case. Doyle on the other hand, is quite different as although he provides mysteries, it is basically impossible to figure the mystery out; this style makes sense as the stories are written by Dr. Watson, so the reader only has access to Watson's viewpoint until Holmes lays out everything right the end using information he had knowledge of or got hold of "off-screen". This is actually why the stories are referred to as "Adventures" rather than "Mysteries" in the title; while there is a mystery to solve, it is practically impossible for the reader to solve them. I've always been more of a fan of the "whodunit" style because my interests lie in actually thinking and solving out the mysteries; however, Doyle's adventures also have their own charm to them as with those you get to really use your imaginations to think of theories, and it's a lot of fun especially if you get it right. 

But enough about Doyle or Christie and mystery novel types. They serve as an introduction to one of Christie's non-detective mysteries, And Then There Were None. The novel is a non-detective mystery simply because there is no detective involved. Neither of Christie's famous Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot are there to solve the crime; in that regard, the story is much more closer to a Holmes story where there really aren't enough clues throughout for the reader to solve the mystery on their own (although I actually managed to solve it right away thanks to a pretty obvious clue). 

The story revolves around ten people trapped on an island who gets killed off by a mysterious host for the crimes they supposedly committed. The people are killed of in the manner described in the poem "Ten Little Soldiers" (in some older versions it's "Ten Little Indians" while the original book's poem was "Ten Little N-Word"). The order they are killed in are from the least worst to the worst in terms of the degrees of the crime they committed. In many ways, the book is very psychological, forcing the people on the island to confront their past crimes and driving a few on the island to genuine paranoia until they go completely crazy.

Something that I found interesting was that there are two different mysteries going on, and the secondary mystery is arguable more interesting than the primary mystery. 

The primary one is, of course, who the killer mastermind is; however, it is actually possible to figure out who the killer is straight away. The recording that accuses everyone of a crime at the beginning is done in the form of a trial, which does point at Justice Wargrave, the judge. Furthermore, out of all the people on the island, Wargrave was the only one who was never explicitly shown to be guilty of the crime he was accused of; Edward Seton was undoubtly guilty, and all Wargrave really seemed to have done was just convince the jury to look at the evidence properly and convict him. So as Wargrave's confession etter said, if one of the ten people on the island was not guilty, then that person must have been the criminal. Furthermore, throughout the book, you get a glimpse into each people's minds as they begin to reveal what crimes they committed; the only exception to this was Wargrave, which basically proved my suspicions that Wargrave was the only one who wasn't guilty of the specific crime he was accused of, which meant that he had to be the murderer.

The secondary, and the more interesting, mystery was the mystery of exactly what the crimes each person was guilty of. Some people, like Philip Lombard and Anthony Marston, admitted their crimes right away, while others, like Vera Claythorne took much longer to accept it. Especially in Claythorne's case, the crime she committed is slowly revealed and hinted at during flashbacks, but is never explicitly said. I found that this was the more interesting mystery to pursue because it delves into the psychology of the people's minds and it was really interesting to see how the paranoia of a mysterious killer and the guilt affected each people as time went on and how they reacted to it. In comparison, the more "central" mystery of who the murderer is, I found to be less interesting just because it was obvious to me.

Something that always bothered me was the order in which these people were killed. Wargrave's reasoning for selecting his victims were the severity of the crimes and their personal role in it; for example, even though Anthony Marston killed two children while speeding, he died first because of his lack of moral responsibility. This is all well and fine, but I find issue with the fact that Marston died before Emily Brent. Brent's crime was that she fired her teenage maid after she got pregnant out of wedlock, and the girl later committed suicide as a result; Brent doesn't feel remorse about it because she believed she was doing God's righteous work, but at the same time Brent didn't actually kill the girl, while Marston did, which is why I found it weird that Brent died after Marston. Another person whose timing of death felt off to me was Philip Lombard; his crime was that there wasn't enough food left while he was in Africa, so he and his friend ran off with the food and left 21 others to die. Now, I do think what he did was ultimately heartless, but at the same time I find it odd that Wargrave thought that was the second worst crime. Assuming his account of the story is true (and considering his brazen personality it's very likely it is), what he did really comes closer to pragmatic self-preservation more than anything; he needed to survive, and he did what it took to do so. What Lombard did is most definitely heartless and morally questionable at the least, but I don't know if it's worse than Marston killing two kids on a joyride or Dr. Armstrong killing a patient by operating on them while drunk. But then again, Wargrave himself is clearly crazy, so maybe that explains the faulty reasoning.

There's a lot of psychology in the book. In his confession letter, Wargrave analyzes himself as being a sadistic person who liked to kill people but nonetheless with a strong sense of justice; and although Wargrave is clearly a madman in many aspects, his analysis of himself is surprisingly accurate. Most of the people Wargrave kills ARE guilty of some crime that they never properly faced justice for, as he admits, he clearly gets satisfaction out of having power over life and death. It was a really clever idea to make Wargrave as a respected judge. As a judge, he can utilize that "strong sense of justice" he apparently has and also has power over life and death when he sentences people. Furthermore, his position as a judge was useful in the story as he was the most naturally trustworthy figure for everyone to follow the lead of, and Wargrave even uses this aspect to manipulate Armstrong, who refused to consider the notion that someone of Wargrave's stature could be the killer. It's because of this I really liked Wargrave as the murderer; most killers who kill for "justice" (like Wargrave does) often believe themselves to be righteous or deny that there is anything wrong with what they're doing. Wargrave on the other hand, straight up admits that he's messed up and what he's doing is mostly to fulfil his own desires; he doesn't really paint himself as bastion of morality either. He certainly believes what he is doing is just, but he also admits he's a sadistic man obsessed with murder. So I found him and his whole psychological analysis of himself as a crazy person really interesting.

 

The revelation of the mystery and the ending segment overall I personally thought was poorly done. Wargrave's entire plot can only succeed if Vera Claythorne goes paranoid, manages to kill the stronger Lombard, and hangs herself. What would Wargrave have done if that DIDN'T happen? Kill Lombard himself and force Vera to hang herself? But then that would go against the whole poem and Wargrave's methodical planning would kind of be ruined. Considering it was all planned by someone as methodical and calculating as Wargrave, the entire plan seems like it's too reliant on luck and for everything to go exactly the way it planned. His entire plan would be ruined if Lombard killed one of the others first or if Vera just didn't hang herself or if anything even went slightly wrong. Even for someone as intelligent and methodical as Wargrave, the plan just seems so flawed. 

Additionally, I thought the reveal was also just really lazily done. Really? Just listing it all out in a letter in the epilogue? That's just really lazy story telling and I was a little annoyed that Christie didn't attempt to do the reveal a little more creatively. I think it would have been better if after Vera hung herself, we had the narrative reveal Wargrave was alive; he would then walk around the island looking at all the murders he committed, and then he would commit suicide. The letter can still happen in the epilogue describing his backstory and all that, but I just would like for the reveal of the killer to have been written into the narrative so that I didn't have to read through a letter that explained EVERYTHING. Just an extra chapter at the end where we're shown everything after Vera's death through Wargrave's perspective would have been interesting and I think that was a bit of a letdown and a missed opportunity.

Overall, I thought it was a creatively and well-written book with a lot of well-used suspense and a clever premise. Apparently Christie herself said this was one of her most difficult books to write, and I can see why; with ten victims and a poem to follow, Christie did have to design all the deaths to fit the poem and create a compelling story for each of them. Although I thought the conclusion of the story was a bit weak, it's overall a very interesting story with a compelling premise and even more compelling characters.

For my next post, I'll be reviewing a movie. This one is an Academy Award-winning historical film about racial segregation and race relations in the United States. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger,

The Connoisseur

NOVEL REVIEW: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

"With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two."

If I had to name my favourite book, it would be a hard decision but I would actually put The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson as a top contender. I'm not quite sure what it is about this book that attracts me; it certainly has a horror and mystery element to it that I like, but the mystery wears off after the first time around since you know the big twist. Why I really like it I think is because it tells you a lot about human nature, suggesting that everyone carries a darkness within them (which I certainly think is true) and that the suppression of this side is maybe not always a good thing. But overall, the book is just really well-written. It gets straight to the mystery, builds all the characters and mystery up well, and gets to the point. It's always a lot of fun to read even if you know the twist, and I always found the ending (which is kind of a massive information dump) really interesting to read. So now let's get down to some of the details and interesting points I want to focus on.

Let's talk about what Dr. Henry Jekyll actually did. I'll talk more about what his experiment implies later, but just the facts for now. To be honest, it's not really clear what he actually did. Although pop culture has largely portrayed the whole debacle as a case of split personality, that's not actually the case. People always have this assumption that Jekyll and Hyde are two different personalities living in the same body and the physical switch (which we still never get an explanation for) is just the other personality becoming dominant. But that's not the case at all, because Jekyll and Hyde are the exact same person. Henry Jekyll is an upstanding member of society and a highly respected doctor, while Edward Hyde is actually just a physical manifestation of his darker personality. The reason why Hyde is smaller and younger is because Jekyll had spent so little time as Hyde.

According to Jekyll, even though he tried to suppress them, he had been dealing with unspecified "dark urges" his entire life; these urges could've been anything from doing drugs, wearing drag, or even murder, rape, and cannibalization. Using his darker urges as his main motivation, he designed a serum that would separate one's evil nature from their good nature, something that he believed would overall benefit the world. The book does not go into any detail about exactly how he figured out how to draw out one's dark side using a serum, but all we know is that it was a liquid and used a powder of some sort. But apparently he is very precise about his experiments, writing down the exact measurements and the steps; we just don't get any detail of the process.

Jekyll has a very interesting character arc that's only clear at the end, but on a second read-through you can see parts of it. Jekyll is a very morally-guided man who clearly strives to do the right thing as much as possible, but tends to fall victim to his base urges. However, he is also (to some degree) a fairly responsible man. Although he does murder a man as Hyde, as Jekyll, he is overly charitable, constantly hosting dinner parties for his friends and whatnot; and at the end, when he realizes he is stuck as Hyde forever, instead of running off to enjoy a life of debauchery, he becomes his own judge, jury, and executioner. At the same time, his "mad science" is also well-regulated and his process of discovery is all written out and organized in his notes. Jekyll, as Hyde, does his best to not hurt anyone, and when he does, he is always filled with shame and guilt over his actions. Jekyll is not really the antagonist of the story; Hyde, the seemingly immoral beast-like man, is the closest thing to an antagonist, but since he's also Jekyll, it's hard to classify him as an antagonist (especially since he doesn't really oppose the protagonists like an antagonist should). Jekyll is definitely a very interesting and the most humane character out of all the characters; he has a caged "darker" side and is prone to bouts of anger that he regrets but at the same time operates with some sense of careful control and morality. He's very realistic as a character and also very appealing as a character. And even though Gabriel Utterson is the focal point character of the story, you could easily argue that Jekyll, with his complex motives and an active character arc, is the protagonist of the story. 

Dr. Hastie Lanyon I thought was a very interesting character. He's not in the book very much and therefore his personality isn't showcased all that much, but I think that he has a very interesting characterization. Lanyon is very much a foil to Jekyll; they're both scientists, but Lanyon is much more grounded in the physical world while Jekyll delves into something much closer to supernatural magic. It's important to remember that Lanyon didn't denounce Jekyll's experiment because he thought the idea itself was morally wrong, but he denounced it because he thought Jekyll was being unrealistic, and his sickness and death after he learns Jekyll's secret seems to come largely from the shock of seeing something so unnatural rather than learning that his friend was a murderer. This once again plays into the notion that Lanyon is a foil to Jekyll; while Jekyll is creative and emotional, Lanyon is more grounded in reality and plays the "cold, calculating scientist"-type role well. One positive thing I can say about Lanyon though is that he is reasonably kind-hearted; he helped Jekyll despite their falling out and had allowed Hyde into his house no questions asked because Jekyll had asked him to. 

Let's close this review up with my little take on what the book was trying to say. I can't say if the book had a special message, but if it did, I think it was something like this: It is never good to over indulge or to over restrain yourself and achieving the perfect balance in life is what you should hope to attain. Yes, Jekyll did horrible things as Hyde because he couldn't keep under control his darker "urges" well. However, it is also important to remember that Hyde is only strong as he is because Jekyll didn't allow that side of himself to be free enough, which leads to an uncontrollable desire to fulfil these urges as Hyde; if he had fulfilled these urges controllably as Jekyll, he would have likely never needed Hyde. So I think that it could be argued that the point if the story is to keep everything in balance and don't let either extreme get too uncontrollable.

Overall, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a great book. It's a mix of science fiction, horror, and mystery all rolled up into one book, and even though it's such a short read, it manages to tell the story thoroughly and well. Dr. Jekyll is a very compelling character to follow, and rereading the story KNOWING the twist is always a lot of fun because you have extra context to what Jekyll does and says. It's a great book and if you haven't read it, I advise you to do so very soon.

For my next post, I'll be reviewing another novel. This one's a mystery written by an author named Agatha Christie and it takes place on an island. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

DOCTOR WHO REVIEW: The Tenth Doctor - David Tennant (2006-2010)

(FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith, Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler, Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, David Tennant as The Doctor, Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones, Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, and John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but, actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff."

The Tenth Doctor played by David Tennant is probably the most iconic and well-recognized Doctor in the whole series apart from maybe Matt Smith's Eleventh and Tom Baker's Fourth. And there certainly is a reason for that; Tennant's Doctor is charming, witty, and a bit of an action hero. His era brings about the return of the most classic of classic Who villains such as Davros, the Master, the Cybermen, and the Sontarans. We also see the introduction of some great companions, supporting characters, and villains. He also has a lot of great, action-packed episodes and just a whole lot of chemistry with his companions. 

As much as I love Christopher Eccleston's the Ninth Doctor, Tennant also deserves a lot of recognition for making the show what it is. He really brought new life to the show and his energy I think did make it accessible to a lot of people, and we can't ignore that.

The Doctor - Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)

David Tennant is just an amazing Doctor. He balances the goofier, light-hearted side of the Doctor and the darker side of the Doctor extremely well. Tennant's appeal I think comes from the fact that he just has a very likeable personality of always being (at least outwardly) positive and friendly to everyone even in dark times. He was also extremely witty and liked to make a lot of really funny one-liners that worked because of how human and casual he felt a lot of time. He has great chemistry with everyone on screen and he feels very much like Patrick Troughton's the Second Doctor in a sense because of how lighthearted and somewhat unassuming he could be at times (although the Second Doctor is much more unassuming in comparison) and his energetic, dashing and "young" energy that he brings to the Doctor is unmistakably very much like Peter Davison's the Fifth Doctor (his favourite Doctor and also his father in law).

Tennant also has really great chemistry with all of his companions, supporting characters, and even the villains and it's really hard not to just really get invested in his character. He's probably the "wide-appealing" Doctor in the sense that he's very much action-focused, charismatic, energetic, and funny, but can also be dark extremely well. He's very versatile and he's a very appealing protagonist to modern viewers (and he's consistently ranked as one of the best Doctors by viewers as well). 

Now that I've given an overview of the Tenth Doctor, I will be going over the Doctor's six(-ish) companions.

The Companions

Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) is back again and she has really good chemistry with David Tennant's Doctor. I wasn't overly fond of her romance story with the Doctor, but that being said, I think she was a pretty good companion. The Doctor genuinely enjoys being around her and throughout Tennant's run you can see her go from the classic "damsel in distress" to a bit of an action hero herself. She definitely isn't one of my favourite companions, but I do think she was really great for Tennant and provided a nice bridge from Eccleston.

Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) is a good companion, even though she's not particularly a favourite of mine. She has great character development of going from a timid med student to a pretty badass soldier. But she spends her entire run being in love with the Doctor and annoyed by the fact that the Doctor's in love with Rose. I mean her lovesick angle was interesting at the start, but it does get pretty annoying after a while. Despite all that, she's a very interesting companion who brings a bit of her medical knowledge to her episodes so that she's not just following the Doctor around completely clueless.

Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) is easily the best companion of the Tenth Doctor and probably one of the best companions of the entire show. She is the only main companion who doesn't have any sort of romantic plot with the Doctor and it really works for her. The Doctor basically treats her as an annoying sister that he cares about, and Donna treats him as an annoying brother that she cares about. Donna is absolutely HILLARIOUS and matches Tennant in the amount of energy and wit she brings to the role. She's extremely outspoken about things she cares about and can be pretty crass at times to get her point across. I think that Tate's acting really shines in this role because she can also be very emotional and act sad scenes extremely well. Donna has a really tragic ending to her character and it was a bit of a shame to see her only for one season.

Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins) is not "officially" a companion since he only was with the Doctor for two episodes, but he still counts as one in my books and is a great one. Wilf is Donna's grandfather, and despite being an old man, he still carries so much energy and joy to the role. Wilf is extremely positive and will attempt to lighten up almost any situation. He can really be described as that crazy but sweet old man who always spouts nonsense about aliens, except in his case he was right. The Doctor and Wilf have a father-son type relationship where Wilf just cares for him greatly. Even though he is a mainly comedic actor, Bernard Cribbins really excels in the darker moments as well, bringing a lot of gravitas to the role when he is needed. I really think they should've made Wilf a regular companion, but I'm happy with what we got too.

Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) is the first (and to my knowledge only) Classic Who companion to appear in New Who. I've seen Sarah Jane's original run in the Classic Era and Elizabeth Sladen still has NOT lost any of her charm. She's not in Tennant's era for many episodes, but she definitely still has the same energy and interacts with the Doctor almost as she had never left him. Sarah Jane also has really good chemistry with Rose as well, both finding common ground in making fun of the Doctor. Overall, she's just a great companion and I understand why she's such a fan favourite.

K9 (voiced by John Leeson) is another one of the Doctor's companions from Classic Who. K9 is this "futuristic" robot dog who basically moves around like a remote controlled toy. That being said, his very straightforward way of talking was really nice and even though he was only in one episode fully in New Who, he was just a fun character.

Jenny (Georgia Tennant) is not technically a companion since she was only in the episode The Doctor's Daughter, but I really liked her character and thought she had a lot of potential. She's essentially created through the Doctor's DNA and she has two hearts like a Time Lord. Her character really affects the Doctor's character because after all that he lost, she gives him a chance to have a family again, but then that chance taken away from him. She also has a really good dynamic with the Doctor who doesn't really approve of her more aggressive side and the way the two interact does remind you of a bickering father and daughter.

Fun Fact: Jenny's actress Georgia Tennant is not only married to David Tennant (I think they met during this episode) but she is also the daughter of Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor, which actually does make her the Doctor's Daughter in real life. 

And these were the Doctor's companions; now it's time to look at some of the side characters and the Doctor's foes.

Other Characters

The Master (Derek Jacobi & John Simm) is the Doctor's childhood friend and current "frenemy". I liked both of their incarnations but I did like Derek Jacobi's more serious, ruthless version more (even though he wasn't the Master for that long). John Simm's master is a lot like Moriarty from BBCs Sherlock. He's very energetic, witty, and is very much like if the Tenth Doctor was evil. That being said, I still really love the Master because Simm still acts really well and he always keeps you entertained as a villain. There is also a very tragic side to his character where the Master isn't necessarily evil; he's still definitely a chaotic character in general, but his desire to do harm is more out of a part of him that he can't control, and John Simm portrays the "tortured soul" aspect of the character really well. I still much prefer Michelle Gomez's Missy and Roger Delgado's original Master to Simm, but he still gives a really strong performance.

Davros (Julian Bleach) is the creator of the Daleks and one of the BEST Doctor Who villains. He is a megalomaniac who is cruel, ruthless, but extremely intelligent. Even though he is a cruel and sadistic person, Davros is another one of Doctor Who's "tragic" villains in a sense. Even though his goals had become twisted into "eradicate all other races", the underlying goal for him is to ensure the survival of his race and he does seem to actually care about the wellbeing of Daleks. So it does feel a little sad that a brilliant man like him became so twisted, but that's what makes so many Doctor Who villains great; they're evil not necessarily because of any selfish reason but their motivations are firmly rooted in a base desire to either survive or to do what they perceive to be good (except for the space racist in Season 11).

River Song (Alex Kingston) is only in two Tennant episodes, but will become MUCH more significant later and still manages to shine through in those two episodes. She's got a lot of the same charisma that Tennant has; she's witty, smart, and can be really funny. It's hard to write a lot about her in the context of the Tenth Doctor because she's in his seasons so little, but I will just say that she does manage to leave a fairly strong impression even with a fairly limited screen time.

The Weeping Angels are really phenomenal villains. The episode they appear in, Blink is basically a horror story and it's interesting because the Doctor isn't in that episode very much. I thought it was an interesting choice because it really makes the Angels the center of attention. I actually found that by towards the end of the Eleventh Doctor's run they don't become as scary; the episode The Angels Take Manhattan in specific I think kind of cheapened them a little bit. But in this particular episode, they are really scary.

The Sontarans (Dan Starkey) are kind of similar to the Daleks from what I found. They're very interesting in their militaristic ways but I personally don't think they're all that interesting. In the Eleventh Doctor episodes though there's a Sontaran named Strax who is absolutely BRILLIANT though, but I'll hold off on him for later.

The Daleks (voiced by Nicholas Briggs) are once again great. It's hard to write about the Daleks because unlike the Cybermen (whose designs and characterizations often change), the Daleks remain pretty much stationary and they remain consistently good (if a little bit too frequent) villains overall.

The Cybermen (voiced by Nicholas Briggs) are interesting because they aren't the same Cybermen that has appeared on Who or will appear on Who. The Cybermen are originally of humanoid origins whose goal is to upgrade themselves to survive. These Cybermen are actual humans (from a parallel world) who were transformed by a man named  John Lumic, who saw them as the "next step in human advancement". It is the same general idea as the original Cybermen, but instead of the fear being "this could be us", it becomes "this IS us" with these real human Cybermen. Weirdly enough, after Matt Smith becomes the Doctor, the Cybermen are aliens again. I honestly think the new robotic designs took a lot away from the Cybermen. The thing that made them scary was that even though they were alien robots, in Classic Who they were still distinctively human; they were humanoid, and in a lot of cases you could still tell a bit of the pragmatic humanity desperate to survive. In New Who, they increasingly become a second-fiddle villain where they're almost always under the command of a non-Cybermen leader, and I think them losing their individuality makes them a weaker villain.

Caecilius (Peter Capaldi) is only being mentioned because he's being played by Peter Capaldi, AKA, the Twelfth (and one of my personal favourite) Doctor. He is in the episode The Fires of Pompeii, and even though I thought the episode itself was decent, but Capaldi does an excellent job and it's really interesting how this episode (and Capaldi's character) not only showcases Donna's personality as someone who wants to be more than what she is and also the beginning of the Doctor's arc in having control over the laws of time. Caecilius is actually stated explicitly be the reason why the Twelfth Doctor looks like Peter Capaldi and I really liked that the writers tied the two together.

Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) is back again in a slightly more prominent role. Now immortal he still retains all of his charm and it was fun seeing him again especially since I think Barrowman and Tennant have really great chemistry together. There's really not too much to write about him that I haven't said before.

Harriet Jones, Prime Minister (Penelope Wilton) first appeared in Season 1 as an MP for Flydale North and by Ten's first episode, she has been elected Prime Minister. She's a very pragmatic figure as Prime Minister who does what she sees as best for England, not necessarily what is morally right. As a result, she clashes heavily with the Doctor in terms of national defense. Although she becomes antagonistic to the Doctor on matters of national security, she sacrifices herself and dies as a hero. I thought she was a really interesting character because her motivations are very grounded in reality. We want to think our leaders make the morally right choices but Jones' pragmatism forces her to make the hard choices for what she perceives to be the wellbeing of the country, which I thought was interesting.

Now that we've covered some of the other characters related to the Tenth Doctor, I'll be talking about some of the Tenth Doctor's stories.

The Stories

The Tenth Doctor has so many great stories, but since I can't cover them all here are just a few:

The Runaway Bride is a 3rd season Christmas Special, and the first episode in which we get introduced to Donna. It's just a really fun episode because Tennant and Tate have really great chemistry and the moment I saw the episode I fell in love with Donna as a companion. There's actually not that much else to add because the episode alone wasn't anything too special but the addition of Donna is really what makes the episode a standout.

Blink is the first episode that we get introduced to one of my favourite Who antagonists, the Weeping Angels. Like I said previously, I thought it was a great idea to not have the Doctor feature too heavily because it puts the focus on the Weeping Angels. The episode introduces the character Sally Sparrow (played by Carey Mulligan) and I really liked her as a character. She's got a strong independent streak to her and she's smart and very capable on her own, and it would've been great to get her as a companion later on. The episode as a whole has a horror vibe (which I really like) and it's just a fun episode for anyone to watch; even if they aren't familiar with Who at all, it works as a standalone episode.

The Sound of Drums & Last of the Time Lords is a two-part story featuring the Master. It is the first time we get to see the Master in action and I thought it was just really interesting. John Simm is generally great as the Master (although I do think he sometimes overdoes it). I also really liked Martha's character development through just these two episodes. Her transformation into a more action hero type does feel believable as there were moments throughout the whole third season where she was getting thrusted into more dangerous situations, and I thought it was one of the better companion arcs and made a good reason for her departure. The ending where everyone believing in the Doctor gave him power again felt a bit forced and I really could've done without seeing wrinkled old man creepy goblin Doctor, but it's a really good two-parter and it's again a great part of the Doctor's story arc.

The Waters of Mars is the first time that we properly see how dark the Doctor can be. At this point, he has lost Donna, Martha, and Rose, and is traveling alone. The Doctor messes with time on purpose because he doesn't want to let any more people die (despite it being the "right" thing to do). When one of the people he saved, Captain Adelaide Brooke told the Doctor he was wrong for him to save her, the Doctor says, "For a long time now, I thought I was just a survivor, but I'm not. I'm the winner! That's who I am. The Time Lord Victorious!" It's a very powerful scene because this is the Doctor at his darkest; the Doctor has lost so much that at this point, that for a split second, he has become a power-hungry egomaniac (and he's always had a bit of an ego) and we see what the Doctor can be like, and it's not pretty. That very short scene at the end is the greatest bit of acting Tennant has done in the show and even if I don't remember the episode well, I remember that single scene.

The End of Time Part 1 & 2 is the final episode with David Tennant as the Doctor. Not only does it feature the return of the Master and the first appearance of other Time Lords including Rassilon (played amazingly by James Bond himself Timothy Dalton), but it also has Wilf as a full-time companion, which is always an added bonus. John Simm I think gives his best performance as the master in Part Two because he really shows a conflicted side and will actually help the Doctor, albeit for his own purposes (a character arc that will eventually become complete with the Twelfth Doctor). It's a very lore-heavy episode and I really liked how much insight this episode gives to all the characters; the Doctor, the Master, and even Wilf gets an extra layer of depth into their characters. It's a really fitting finale for the Tenth Doctor and I think his regeneration scene & the Doctor saying goodbye to everyone was done really well (although I'm not a total fan of how they introduced Matt Smith as the Doctor).

So now that I've covered all parts of Tennant's run as the Doctor, it's time for my summative thoughts.

Overall Thoughts

Something that I find really interesting after writing all of this is the fact that a lot of Tennant's episodes contributes a bit by bit towards his overall character arc. Even seemingly small episodes like Fires of Pompeii help in building Tennant's whole story as being a survivor and leads up to the "Time Lord Victorious" story arc and his fear of regeneration. The overall story is really well crafted out and it's fascinating how showrunner Russell T. Davis is slowly building up the finale with his episodes.

Overall, Tennant is a great Doctor. He balances everything perfectly; he can be fun and goofy but also serious and really dark. He has great chemistry with all of his companions and any side characters and brings a lot of great stories and moments.

His status as one of the most beloved Doctors in Who history is so well-earned and it's impossible to find a flaw with his performance or even his run as the Doctor.

For my next review, I will be talking about one of my all time favourite books that I read every few months. It's a classic about the duality of man. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

SERIES REVIEW: The Dark Tower By Stephen King

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

Stephen King's The Dark Tower series is considered to be his magnum opus. It is an epic fantasy tale that stretches across the span of seven novels and tells the tale of Roland Deschain, the last of the gunslingers (an order of knights of sorts who also work as diplomats who utilize special Sandalwood Revolvers) and his journey to the Dark Tower, a massive spire that stands at the centre of all creation and supported by six beams; if the Tower collapses, so does the universe. The main concept is very fascinating and the world is extraordinarily well built; everything has a long and complicated history and king even invented his own language known as "High Speech", which is mainly English but there is an entire vocabulary of words and phrases to go along with it (it's nowhere near complex as Tolkien's Elvish, but still extremely impressive). 

Stephen King really created an entirely mythology of gods and monsters for his universe and even though they only feature prominently (as the main setting and background), it does seep into other universes and more or less every King novel seems to take place in the same universe or are very much interconnected; for example, Derry (the setting for IT) and Castle Rock (the setting for Needful Things) are in the same universe as Shawshank Prison. But there are alternate universes; for example, in one universe 11/22/63 happens while in another universe The Stand happens and Reagan and Bush Sr. are dead. And because Randall Flagg AKA the Dark Man AKA Walter o'Dim is in a lot of these books, he kind of connects them all in a weird way. There are also a ton of references to different books. For example, Father Callahan is a character from Salem's Lot, but Salem's Lot is also a book in another world (that world is meant to be "our" world). Pennywise isn't in the books but his arch nemesis the Turtle (AKA Maturin) is a pretty important figure, and we get a monster named Dandelo who is very similar to Pennywise in many ways.

One thing I really love about this book is that there really isn't a single genre attached to it. Yes, the main genre is epic high fantasy, but King will also tell you himself that it's a Western as well (well duh considering the main character is inspired by Clint Eastwood). But on top of that, it's definitely science fiction to some degree, it's definitely horror, mystery, action, adventure, cyberpunk (I'm not familiar with the actual genre at all but from my understanding it's basically futuristic machinery in a weird apocalyptic setting), definitely dystopian, and even romance. It's all fused together extremely well, so it was a lot of fun reading all the different genres. 

So now I've given you the basic point of The Dark Tower novels, here is how I would personally rank the Dark Tower books.

My Dark Tower Ranking:

1. The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
2. The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
3. The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
4. The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
5. The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
6. The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
7. The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass

While I understand why so many people love the Dark Tower series, I wasn't the biggest fan of it. It's still great since it's written by King, but towards the end I think things get too complex and intertwined that as a reader you begin to lose focus on the direction of the story. It's a very compelling story overall, but I personally found (like I do with many of Stephen King's books) that it does drag often in places. That being said, despite the drags, the well-written scenes are REALLY well-written in my opinion. So overall, it shares the same strengths and flaws of any king story; well-written characters and an interesting plot but the narrative tends to drag in places and can be overly descriptive, but the well-written scenes are brilliant and it's a masterful blend of multitudes of genres overall.

So now, I'm going to go over each of the books very briefly and just talk about the strong points and weak points of each entry and what I personally felt about it.

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger is an alright book. It serves mainly as an introduction to everything, so it's not the most exciting book and is more basic (the universe is not built up much and the characters still aren't fully developed). It's also one of the two shortest books in the series so there is a limited amount of time you can technically tell the story in. That being said, it does have a very good action in it where Roland kills an entire town of people and the Man in Black (Walter) just being delightfully malicious. This is also where we begin to see that Roland is not your usual hero; he's not a very nice person in general and he actually lets a child DIE because of how obsessed he is with finding the Tower. It's not badly written or anything but there's nothing too special about it.

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three is my second favourite book of the series. The book never drags and it's paced extremely well. We are introduced to the amazing character of Eddie Dean, who is definitely my favourite character in the Dark Tower series. King also has some really great tense, exciting action scenes throughout the book. Eddie also goes through this entire process of recovering from his cocaine addiction (something that King also dealt with) and the readers are treated to his agonizing fight against withdrawal and we eventually get the transformation of Eddie from this annoying jackass to this wise-cracking guy. There's also a really out-of-nowhere romance thrown in between Eddie and Odetta/Susannah (and they get married like right away) and I honestly didn't like it too much cause it felt a little out of nowhere. But overall, a great book with some great action and great characters.

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands is probably my favourite book out of them all. It has a lot of great character development and it provides a lot of great world-building. The villains in this book are so creatively done, there are some great action, and this is really the first time I really think the reader gets to see how big and complicated the universe King's built. Overall, I really have nothing bad to say about this book; the characters really begin to feel like real people by this point and the plot moves on at a pretty good pace. The world really feels real with his complex history, language and culture; it's nowhere near anything that Tolkien created of course, but it's still a really well-built world. Overall, just a great book in the series that did a lot of things well for me.

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass is the weakest book in the series in my opinion. I know a lot of people like it because of the well-written romance they say is in the book, but I honestly really hated the romance. I liked that it made connections to The Stand, but that's about it. The characters and the worldbuilding are still very good, but the plot I find to be really boring, ESPECIALLY the romance plot. A lot of people say this is their favourite, but I personally don't see it.

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla is another weak book for me. The action scenes during the battle are really great and the characters are also good, but the buildup to the battle does drag on for quite a while and gets boring fast. One great thing I will say are the wolf-faced Doctor Doom robots with lightsabers and Snitch grenades, which are a thing in this book, so that was pretty cool. But the buildup to the battle personally dragged on too much for me.

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah is fast-paced, has a lot of action, has a lot of plot revelations, and is just weird. I liked it. It's very short in comparison to the other books but starts right off with a great action scene. It also has a really interesting character that I won't mention right now but down in the character sections that make this book incredibly metafictional. But overall, really great book.

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower is not a bad book, but it's one of the weaker Dark Tower books. There are a lot of great moments, with my favourite being Dandelo and the crazy ending. But once again, the book does drag on in quite few places and King has jam packed so much stuff into his lore at this point that things get hard to keep track. This book also just has a lot of disappointing deaths with the villains; my favourite character Randall Flagg goes down with no fight, the ever-present threat Mordred dies of... food poisoning, and the Crimson King is well... I'll talk more about him later. That being said, I LOVED the ending. It's a frustrating ending that a lot of people won't like, but I personally really liked it.  

Now, I will be talking a bit about the main characters of the series and other characters that I really liked or found interesting.

Roland Deschain is a great character and a hero simply because he's not a hero. Sure, he's the protagonist and we're more or less always rooting for him to win and reach the Dark Tower, but he's not particularly a good person. He's not exactly the nicest even to his fellow travellers and he makes a lot of morally ambiguous and even downright evil decisions (like letting a young boy die to chase after Flagg). Roland isn't your traditional chivalric knight who does what's good and beats out the darkness within him; as a matter of fact, he does the opposite quite a lot. And that's the beauty of his character: he could easily have been an Aragorn, but he's more of a Boromir than anything; he still does good things, but he's deeply flawed and he lets his flaws take over him. It's a brilliant characterization of a protagonist on the part of King; his hunt for the Dark Tower is nothing but an addiction that he can't shake and he becomes destructive as a result. 

Eddie Dean is 100% my favourite character of the series. I always lot wise-cracking characters in books and movies, so it was a no-brainer I would like him. Eddie really has a lot going for him; he's an underdog who really beats his drug addiction to become a hero in his own right. He balances Roland out well as a character too; Roland is constantly serious and a bit grumpy, so Eddie's jokes and moments of levity not only balances out the scenes but even makes Roland a more social person as a result.

Susannah Dean/Holmes was an interesting character too. I personally didn't get any of her split personality stuff and why she went from being Odetta to Susannah, but she has a very interesting character. She almost feels like a plot device to a degree to get Mordred become a non-threat in the final book, but I can't really remember anything particularly great about her. that stood out.

Jake Chambers was a great character. He's a child who has a lot of responsibility thrust on him at a young age, but he takes the responsibility well. One gripe I do have with him is that he just accepts that he's meant to be part of Roland's group a little TOO easily. He doesn't even care much that he's leaving home or that he might even die, and I kind of thought that was a little too unrealistic. 

Oy the Billy-Bumbler is literally a pet dog-racoon thing that follows Jake around but he becomes a memorable character in his own right. He doesn't really do much in terms of plot important but he's so well characterized that I really liked him.

Father Don Callahan is another interesting character who I don't remember much of. He has a great backstory, but I can't for the life of me remembering him that much very well. He's always very serious and takes his job seriously, but that's about it from what I can remember.

Walter o'Dim/Walter Padick/Randall Flagg is such a great character still. He is malicious, he's charismatic, and he's even likable to some degree. Interestingly enough, Flagg is set up as a big threat in the Dark Tower books in the first one, but he's not in it all that much. He still causes troubles for Roland and the group here and there, but his presence is weirdly restrained for a lot of it. As much as I didn't like the Dark Tower movie, the way they portrayed Flagg there as a constant threat in Roland's life I thought was better done. I was also very disappointed at the lack of a final showdown between him and Roland, but that's another way King subverts expectations; you're not going to get a proper "final confrontation" like you want. But still, Flagg dies so unceremoniously that it's just sad.

The Crimson King is a great example of the biggest weakness of King villains; they work the best when they're an unknown threat. The way his presence constantly looms over everyone really built his character up great as this Sauron-type Dark Lord (I mean his symbol is a giant red eye for crying out loud). But when he's revealed, he's this really underwhelming senile old man. I don't know if King writes his villains this way on purpose to show you that "true evil isn't real" or whatever, but the villains come out disappointing so much of the time. The Crimson King is built up so well as this feared figure, but when he's revealed, it's just really disappointing and ruined what could've been a really good "final battle". 

Stephen King (yes, THAT Stephen King) is an actual character in the book. Yep, King inserted himself into his own books where he apparently has to write the Dark Tower books for Roland to survive (don't ask, it's really weird). That being said, I really liked King in the book and his addition was really weird but kind of brilliant in a weird way. 

Mordred Deschain is an extremely pointless character. A good chunk of the final book is dedicated to Mordred killing Roland, but he just doesn't cut a very intimidating figure. He doesn't really have a great build-up and he doesn't do anything that significant; yes, he kills Flagg and a few other characters, but his overall role felt so pointless to the story and he was a pointless character.

Dandelo is only in the final book for a very short amount of time but I thought he was a great villain and he could've been the main villain of an entire King book. He's this Pennywise-like vampire that drains people's life away while he makes them laugh and the whole section of the book that he's in is absolutely terrifying and creepy. He's probably the best antagonist in the entire series and it's a shame he's only in the book for such a short amount of time. 

SUMMATIVE THOUGHTS:

Overall, I thought it was a very well-written series. It dragged on often in places and I didn't enjoy every book, but the ending (which I will NOT be touching in this review with a 10-foot-pole) was SO worth it even thought it still frustrates me to this day. King really shows his versatility as an author here; his worldbuilding is impeccably well done, his action scenes are fantastic, and every single character he writes are so full of depth and complex. That being said, it's not his strongest work. Maybe it's because I'm not the biggest fan of fantasy (and I especially don't like a series with long books) but I found that this was one of his weaker works; his villains are surprisingly lacklustre and it drags on in a lot of places. Like I always say in my King reviews; I think he's at his best when he writes short books, so my enjoyment of these books were... minimal. That being said, it's still Stephen King so it's full of really great moments and I did enjoy them for the most part. 

I doubt I'm going to revisit these books again for a while, but I'm sure I'll get to them again eventually. Overall, they're still pretty good books that I think a fantasy fan can enjoy and any Stephen King fan will definitely enjoy them. 

For my next review, I'm going back to Doctor Who with David Tennant and the Tenth Doctor. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

"ADAPATATION" REVIEW: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

"In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle."

Why am I always attracted to depressing books and bad movie adaptations? The last two posts I did were of really bad adaptations and a lot of my other reviews are of Stephen King (whose books are very depressing in general). This book adaption is not particularly "bad" as it still does try to at least stay faithful to the book. It's also not THAT bad of a movie. It's enjoyable enough if you've never read the books, and the movie did get me to start reading the books, so it's not all that bad even for book readers (well it's not Percy Jackson near bad). Anyways, A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of gothic children's books published from 1999 to 2006, written by Daniel Handler, who goes by the penname Lemony Snicket (fun fact, in the book's universe, Snicket and Handler are two separate people and are active characters). The series revolves around Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, who have become orphans after their parents died in a fire. They are placed under the cares of numerous guardians, all the while trying to avoid Count Olaf, who wants their fortune. The Baudelaire orphans also in the process attempt to solve a mystery revolving around a secret organization called V.F.D. and their morals get very murky by the end of the book. The film was released in 2004 (before the final few books were released mind you) and was directed by Brad Silberling and is an adaptation of the first three books, The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window. The film actually won the Academic Award for Best Makeup, beating out The Passion of the Christ, presumably for the admittedly good makeup on Count Olaf. A series of sequels were originally planned, but was eventually cancelled for some reason (as it did generally well). 

In a much more successful effort, a Netflix series came out in 2017 with Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf (another weird but better casting choice), and I found that one to be more accurate, and actually much more fun to watch as a book reader. Perhaps I'll review the series on here someday as well.

This time, like the last two reviews, I won't be doing my usual structure for adaptation reviews, but I will just be talking about the book first, and then the movie, pointing out stuff they changed or added. At the end, I will still do my bit of talking about both of them, and the summative thoughts.

The Novel

I think I like the books because of how dark they are and how Snicket doesn't really skirt around dark topics with his child readers. He often talks about murder, kidnapping, loss, dealing with grief, and most of all, morality. Snicket is very upfront about the dark side of life and actually highlights it through his books. I also really liked that he likes to highlight the "greyness" of morality through his characters by making everyone be very morally dubious. Even the supposedly innocent Baudelaire children commit crimes and even the supposedly villainous Count Olaf does noble things. 

Snicket also emphasizes the "two sides to every story" idea a lot. There is a persistent theme of characters refusing to hear/acknowledge the full story because they're afraid of acknowledging the real truth. For example, the Baudelaires are given hints that their parents killed Count Olaf's parents, but they refuse to properly confront it, because they're hanging onto this belief that their parents could do no wrong. There are also a lot of instances where characters are told just one side of the story with the other side kept a secret by the adults. And Snicket uses this frustration of not knowing the whole story very well throughout the books similarly to the frustration of children never being believed by adults, another prevalent theme in the books. 

What I also found really interesting is that the most unlikable character throughout the entire books is the most "neutral" character. Arthur Poe is neither good or evil. He's just a family friend who manages the Baudelaire Orphans' affairs as the executor of their will. He never actively tries to harm them, and when push comes to shove, he at least tries to what's right. But despite all that, most readers end up hating him more than Count Olaf or any of the other villains in the story because of how "real" Poe is. As much as evil Olaf & co. are, most of them are charming in their love of villainy that you at least end up caring about what happens to them because you want to see these characters stick around. But with Mr. Poe, no matter how well-meaning he might be, he always sticks to the role of the stupid adult who can't ever see through Olaf's disguises (and remember that Olaf disguised himself as a woman at one point) and just becomes so insufferable that you kind of want him to die first since he's caused more trouble for the Baudelaires at one point or another. Even though he's not cruel or greedy, he's somehow a worse person than the actually criminal lunatics. Poe is obviously meant to represent how children are often frustrated that adults never take them seriously about anything, and Snicket really represented it well.

The book also really encourages reading and being well-read often helps the Baudelaires out of tricky situations, and is also an indicator of being a "noble person" in the books. Snicket makes a lot of literary allusions throughout the books. For example, the Baudelaires are named after the French poet Charles Baudelaire, Uncle Monty (who studies snakes) is probably a reference to the comedy troupe Monty Python, and there is a Nevermore Tree in a town full of crows, which is a clear reference to Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, where the raven says "Nevermore" a lot. It's actually really interesting doing research into all the literary and historical allusions that Snicket used in the books. 

Overall, it's just a great book series. Maybe it's because I like dark, not-positive stuff, but I honestly found the series a great read. It's "realistic" in a very dark and cynical way. If you haven't read the books yet, even as an adult, I think you would enjoy it (unless you don't like depressing books).

The Film

One of the biggest flaws of this movie is Jim Carrey as Count Olaf. It's not that I don't like Jim Carrey; the problem is exactly that I love him as an actor. Count Olaf is many things in the book; but one thing he isn't is charismatic. With an actor like Jim Carrey who exudes charisma and likability, you're not going to get a very good villain, especially a villain you're supposed to loathe (even though I actually really liked Olaf cause he could be such a sarcastic bastard a lot of the times). Carrey is too likable and over-the-top in his acting to portray the sinister Count Olaf, whose soft-spoken nature is what makes him so terrifying. It's like casting Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor; both Eisenberg and Carrey are great actors, but neither are well-suited for the type of soft-spoken sinister villains their characters are supposed to be. Now that being said, Jim Carrey does actually manage to be intimidating in some scenes, but those are so overshadowed by him being as goofy as possible that you aren't scared by Count Olaf anymore. Now the series also softened Olaf down in the last book and made him slightly more likable, but they certainly didn't do it by making him a goofy idiot. If you've never read the book, Carrey works well in this weird universe as this over-the-top Riddler-esque villain but as an adaptation, Carrey is a horrible Olaf.

Apart from Jim Carrey, the rest of the cast performed reasonably well. Jude Law was fine as Snicket, and the actors they got for the Baudelaires were reasonably good, and Timothy Spall did a good job as the insufferable Mr. Poe. I can't help but feel that they misused Catherine O'Hara completely as Justice Strauss. Justice Strauss is a very important character in the first book who is meant to be the only positive figure in the children's' lives, and she was supposed to represent the frustration that the Baudelaires could have been saved from Olaf by Strauss right away but wasn't. But the movie had O'Hara appearance once at the start and disappear until the finale, where she does nothing but cry and run off the stage like a useless plot device. If they have Catherine O'Hara for her whole, is there a reason why they couldn't have had her actually do something?

The best actors in the movie were Billy Connelly as Uncle Monty and Meryl Streep as Aunt Josephine. Billy Connelly was the best choice for the jovial Uncle Monty, and even though Aasif Mandvi was good in the Netflix adaptation, he pales in comparison to Billy Connelly. Connelly really just brings a lot of joy and good cheer in the little screen time he has, and he makes a great Uncle Monty. With Aunt Josephine, again, Alfre Woodard was good in the Netflix version, but when you're up against Meryl Streep, it's hard to be better. Streep just takes the constantly scared Aunt Josephine and brings her to life on the big screen perfectly. I honestly can't think of a better casting choice then Connelly and Streep.

They really messed around with the story chronology. They took the ending of the first book and made it the ending of the whole movie (which means it comes after the events of The Wide Window). It was a weird choice and I wasn't a big fan of it. To make a reason for why the Baudelaires were taken out of Olaf's care in the first place, they had Olaf try to kill the orphans by parking his car on a train track; the Baudelaires survive this, and contact Mr. Poe, who actually recognizes the danger of the situation for once and removes them from Olaf's care. After offing Monty and Josephine, Olaf miraculously manages to get the orphans back and THEN does the whole marrying Violet thing (which is immensely creepy since Olaf keeps talking about wanting to spend their wedding night together - YIKES) and gets arrested. I get why they did this because obviously just ending the movie at the third book with no confirmed sequel would be stupid, and I can understand why they did this, and apart from that, the plot is actually super accurate, even though it's all pretty rushed. 

So... those spyglasses and the big glass eye. They weren't a thing in the books. Not sure why the writers thought spyglasses had to be a V.F.D. thing (but it carried into the Netflix version) since the tattoos were enough of an indicator that one was a volunteer. The spyglasses don't even serve a significant purpose apart from the orphans figuring out that their guardians were related to V.F.D., which never happens in the books until much later.

Also, the eye. Count Olaf's tattoo (oh yeah, Olaf has a tattoo of an eye on his left ankle) design actually changes. Originally, before V.F.D. was a thing, Olaf's eye tattoo looked like a regular eye:

But after Snicket came up with V.F.D., he changed the design quite drastically so that the eye is elaborately made up of the letters V.F.D.:

The books actually have both versions of the eye throughout the books, and decides to ignore the continuity error, and even in the later books, they use both designs of the eye to represent Olaf. The movie, despite having the secret organization plot, decides to go with the regular eye design and it's a BAD drawing of an eye at that:

See, this makes no sense to me; if you're going to make V.F.D. a central plot point, why make the eye design different? Granted, they never mention V.F.D. by name, but you would think the writers would at the very least do the better job of designing the eye.

On top of that, they claim that Count Olaf burnt down the Baudelaire Mansion using a big glass eye that works as a magnifying glass. The book certainly puts forth the POSSIBILITY that Olaf burnt down the mansion, but it was never 100% confirmed. Olaf even says the Baudelaires "don't know anything", implying that Olaf might not have done it. We as leader are LED to believe that conclusion only because the Baudelaires believe it (after all, he's been hounding after their fortunes since day one). But the whole point of the fire was the moral ambiguity of it all; just as Count Olaf could do noble things, the Baudelaire parents could also have done wicked things (in fact it's heavily implies they killed Olaf's parents) and so it's left to ambiguity who even burnt down the mansion. The book leaves many things open-ended and ambiguous and I'm not a fan of the fact 

I really wasn't a fan of the ending. IT'S TOO POSITIVE. I understand that they were trying to end on a bit of a happy note with the orphans realizing that they were fortunate to have each other, but the books portray that well-enough without making it all happy. The first few lines of the first book is literally "In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle." It's called a series of UNFORTUNATE events for a reason; it's not meant to have much  positive moments and the letter at the end with the orphans feeling fortunate for having each other feels like a copout. Even at the end of the VERY LAST BOOK, it still doesn't have a very positive ending; it's all ambiguous. The ending just irks me with how out of tone it is with the rest of the movie.

Personal Opinions

The Novel:

The books are great. They're dark, but can be really funny with some of the dark comedy. And they aren't afraid to get grey when it comes to morality; no one is ever truly good or evil (save for a few characters), and even the orphans end up becoming horrible people who commit crimes. I also love the fact that the orphans always just rely on their own knowledge, inventiveness, and in Sunny's case her extremely sharp teeth to get out of dangerous situations. Each character is so resourceful in their own ways, and it's always a lot of fun to read about intelligent child protagonists. I would highly recommend the books and no matter how old you are, I think you will LOVE them.

The Film: 

Overall, it's not the WORST film. It was good enough that it got me interested in the books, so it's not all bad. But the movie really suffers from Jim Carrey's weird casting as Count Olaf. Don't get me wrong, I think Jim Carrey's a great actor, but I just think he was a horrible choice for Count Olaf; it's hard to see a character as a villain when that villain is basically being over-the-top Jim Carrey. Apart from that, the plot is surprisingly well kept to, but they got the tone all wrong. The ending is too "positive" and the serious scenes are just undercut by how goofy Olaf acts. The movie could've been a great adaptation if they had casted anyone BUT Carrey, but his style as Olaf just ruins the movie.

Overall Assessment

It was just so disappointing. The accuracy of the plot in general at the very least shows that the writers understood the material and tried to adapt it faithfully while putting their own spin on it. But I think that the writers took too MUCH liberty with the book. Apart from the general plot and character designs, it doesn't feel like a Snicket book at all. There are too much comedic moments happening whenever Olaf's on screen to give it the "doom and gloom" feel of the books at all. I honestly think the movie overall was fine, and even though I love Jim Carrey, I honestly think he ruined the movie. By having him as Olaf, the writing team probably had to write a bunch of goofy jokes in and they apparently let Carrey improvise a lot of his scenes, which 100% ruined it. It's really hard for me to say that Carrey ruined the movie, but he really did. It's still a fun movie; it's just not great compared to the book and that's why I don' watch it.

For my next review, I think I'm going to do a big review of an epic fantasy series written by Stephen King, The Dark Tower Series. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

"ADAPATATION" REVIEW: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)

"Deadlines just aren't real to me until I'm staring one in the face."

You know, I really wanted to avoid going back to this poor excuse for an adaptation. As a massive fan of the books, the movies are just frustrating and painful for me to watch. The Percy Jackson & the Olympians book series is a series of five books written by Rick Riordan focused on Greek myths, who would go on to write its sequel series The Heroes of Olympus which combine Roman myths with Greek myths. Riordan has also written the Egyptian-centered The Kane Chronicles, the Norse-centered Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, and a spin-off series called The Trials of Apollo, focusing on Apollo and some Roman emperors. The books were extremely popular and widely praised, so a film adaptation seemed inevitable. In 2010, 5 years after the book's release in 2005 and 1 year after the final book in the series The Last Olympian was released, an adaptation in the name of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief came out with Chris Columbus of the first two Harry Potter fame and the sequel Sea of Monsters was released in 2013. Both films are generally pretty poorly received, which is why no more sequels were made. This is unsurprising considering Rick Riordan seems to have had very little input in the final script (and Riordan reported didn't even bother watching the movies), and it makes me happy to see that there will be a Percy Jackson TV series coming to Disney+ and Rick will be heavily involved in it (likely as a Producer).

This time, like with Alice in Wonderland, I won't be doing my usual structure for adaptation reviews, but I will just be talking about the book first, and then the movie, pointing out stuff they changed or added. At the end, I will still do my bit of talking about both of them, and the summative thoughts.

The Novel

I always LOVED Greek Mythology, so loving the books wasn't obviously much of a surprise. One of the reasons I liked Percy Jackson is because of the ingenious world building; gods and monsters moving around to a different center of civilization every now and then, coexisting among us, was such a cool idea. On top of that, Rick is just amazing at writing characters. Every character has their strengths and flaws and they all make mistakes; and the main character Percy acts a lot like a regular teenager and makes a lot of dumb mistakes by not thinking things through properly.

Another cool thing was how well they integrated classic myths into modern society. For example, having Medusa being in charge of making garden statues was a clever way to incorporate her into the modern world; it makes sense that if Medusa wanted to blend in, a garden statue emporium would make perfect sense since it allows her to "make a living" with her powers. Another cool one was the Lotus Eaters in Vegas; the Lotus Eaters are meant to trap you with a great hedonistic lifestyle, and it makes sense for them to be based in Las Vegas (although interestingly these Lotus Eaters don't eat lotuses for some reason).

Another part I liked was how Rick treated the gods. In most modern depiction of Greek myths, Hades (my favourite Greek god) is always treated as the villain or like the Devil in Christianity (because he . If you really look at Greek mythology, Hades is probably the least problematic of the gods. Apart from him kidnapping Persephone (which in some versions is depicted as being consensual on Persephone's part), Hades mostly minds his own business in the Underworld and causes less trouble in comparison to Zeus or Aphrodite. How the film handled him was something I'll address later.

Rick also did a great job incorporating the smaller mythologies and gods as well. He cleverly pointed out how ignored the minor gods were and how tyrannical the gods were my making some of the neglected demigods and minor gods a major threat along with the Titans. In the process, he brought more attention to gods like Hypnos or Janus, who are super cool gods that are almost unfairly ignored by the major gods. 

An interesting point I'd like to make about Kronos is how he's referred to as the Titan of Time and it's implied that time "chrono" comes from "Kronos/Chronos". But as a matter of fact, there are multiple sources that place Chronos (who is the personification of Time) and Cronus/Kronos (the Titan of the Harvest and the father to Zeus) as two completely different figures. The similarity between the two names often led to the combination of two being one and the same, which is why Father Time as a figure is often depicted with a harvesting scythe (the symbol of Cronus) and likely why Rick has Kronos as the Titan of Time. I personally like that Rick made Kronos also the Titan of Time because it makes Kronos a bigger threat; let's face it, being able to control time is more dangerous in comparison to harvest. 

Overall, Percy Jackson is a book series that can do no wrong for me and Rick Riordan in my opinion has never written a bad book (some of his books are lesser in quality perhaps, but still very good).

Now let's see how Chris Columbus managed to mess this up.

The Film

It just baffled me that the movie was such a horrible adaptation of the book. Chris Columbus is responsible for the first two Home Alone movies, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the first two Harry Potter movies. Not to mention his was producer and/or writer for The Goonies, Night at the Museum, The Help, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban! You would think since he did such a good job at adapting the Harry Potter books (although admittedly the first two Potter books are some of the weaker books in the franchise), he would be able to do just as well with Percy Jackson! But even though the movie he made was halfway decent, as an adaptation it was an absolute train wreck.

First off is the casting. I get that finding good child actors are hard but the characters are meant to be TWELVE. Aging them up for 16 is fine I guess, but then they went and casted a 22 year old to play Annabeth. Logan Lerman does work decently for Percy, and the other actors are reasonably good.

I was also very disappointed at how they made the gods look. In the book, the gods all wear modern clothing to show they've changed with the times. For example, Poseidon wears Hawaiian Shirts and pants and Zeus wears a pinstripe suit. The movie just has them wearing full armour, which is pretty disappointing since the way the gods and monsters shifted with the times was a major draw factor of the books for me.  

Another disappointing exclusion was Dionysus, AKA Mr. D. Dionysus is the director of Camp Half-Blood who's been cursed by Zeus to never be able to drink. He was a funny character in the book and they have him played by Stanley Tucci in the sequel movie Sea of Monsters, so no reason for him to NOT be in the movie. 

Clarisse the daughter of Ares is also gone. She's actually a super cool character who plays the main "bully role" but truly shows her worth and heroism in the last few books as a powerful ally. Again, she's in the sequel movie, so WHY ISN'T SHE IN THIS ONE???

They made the entire journey a treasure hunt to find these pearls (which you can use to escape the underworld) and each pearl has a "monster guardian" that you have to defeat. Now while this can be a cool premise for some films, by doing this, they're completely misunderstanding the whole point of Greek Mythology. The items you pick up and the monsters you fight are almost never intentional and Rick understood that. All the enemies they fight are ones they happen to come across by accident and having this type of "treasure hunt" style quest where they seek out monsters on purpose doesn't feel like Greek Mythology at all. And I don't even understand why they had to make it like this since the original book had a perfectly good reason for the gang to get the pearls. 

They also really play fast and loose with the Mist. In the book, the Mist is just a magical "thing" that changes monstrous things in the eyes of mortals to make it all seem normal. There are some mortals like Percy's mom Sally who can see through the mist, but most mortals can't. The movie doesn't explain the Mist or even mention it, so we're supposed to believe that mortals can just see everything as it is. This brings up the question: How were they supposed to hide the Hydra in the museum? How were they supposed to cover up the lightning fight that damaged a few buildings? How are they supposed to explain away giant Poseidon at the start? This doesn't make any sense! They even make the Mist a thing in the sequel, SO WHY NOT INCLUDE IT IN THIS ONE?

And remember how I praised Rick for not making Kronos essentially the Devil? Well the movie makes Hades appear like the traditional "demon" and makes Underworld = Hell jokes ALL THE TIME (in the book and Greek mythology, the worst parts of Underworld are the Fields of Punishment and Tartarus; the rest are divided up into limbo and the place where heroes go). I also don't understand why Hades was made an antagonist. In the book, Hades is a neutral player who's been tricked into thinking Percy stole his Helm of Darkness and that's all he wants; and once Percy finds the Helm, Hades returns Percy's mother (who was a bargaining chip) graciously as he's an honourable god who keeps his word. Hades had no interest in the lightening bolt and his worst sin is holding Percy's mother hostage (who he promptly releases after he gets the Helm back).

The final fight was also extremely stupid. Luke and Percy fights on top of the Empire State Building and Luke tries to kill Percy with the light bolt. The book has the bolt so powerful that no one dared to take it out of its sheath considering it had the capability of a nuke. The movie has you believe that one whiny son of Hermes can control it enough to battle Percy, which is COMPLETELY IDIOTIC.

And I'm not even done with the final fight. That final fight wasn't in the book at all; in fact, Luke doesn't even get revealed as the villain until Percy returns to Camp. ARES (who's not even in the movie apart from the scene with all the gods) is the "main" antagonist of the first book. Ares was being influenced by Kronos, who convinced him to send Percy to the Underworld with the lightening bolt; if Percy died, Poseidon to wage war on Hades and Zeus would wage war on Hades for the bolt, Ares' reasoning being that war between family was the best kind. The book's big final fight is Percy fighting Ares and winning by using the ocean to his advantage. I was really disappointed that they left Ares out because he was such an interesting character and he was a really cool antagonist. But speaking of antagonists, Ares doesn't even compare to the REAL antagonist...

WHERE WAS KRONOS??? The movie would have you believe that Luke masterminded the whole plan to make gods go to war because he was angry at his father (the reason for his anger at Hermes isn't even in the movie). Kronos is there as a presence from book one. He's plotting from Tartarus and HE'S the one who masterminded the whole plan. The SEQUEL even has Kronos as a villain so I have no idea why he wasn't even mentioned. It makes NO SENSE not to include the big bad of the series in the first movie in any significant way! AT LEAST MENTION HIM IN A THROWAWAY LINE!

I could go on and on about how bad the movie is, but I've already taken too much space to rant about it. So now I'm gonna give my brief personal thoughts about the book and movie separately, and then do a summary thought.

Personal Opinions

The Novel:

The book series is one of my all-time favourites. I love mythologies in general and Rick does a brilliant job of taking the myths, combining them with modern-day, and creating a whole knew story using pre-existing myths as inspirations. All of Rick's books are 100% worth reading over and over again and I would recommend everyone to read it if you have a passing interest in mythology. I love these books, and I love mythology!

The Film: 

WHY IS IT SO BAD??? I had such high hopes for Chris Columbus, but then he just ruined it all for me. He took the general outline and crammed it with stuff that doesn't fit Greek mythology or the spirit of the books at all. I will never watch these again and I probably won't even be bothering with the sequel Sea of Monsters. They're decent movies on their own, but they don't work at all as an adaptation of the books or even as one relating to Greek-myths. Please stay away from these as much as you can. 

Overall Assessment

All I have to say is thank the GODS that Rick is writing the TV show. They took away creative control from Rick, and they messed up BIG TIME. If you want to watch it, I guess you can, but why do that when you can read the book? If you've read the book and haven't seen it yet, don't bother. It will ruin your childhood. There is a very good reason why no one in the fandom acknowledges the movies. They are THAT BAD.

For my next review, I will be reviewing another "adaptation" based on a childhood book series. And like the series title suggests, the movie's very UNFORTUNATE as in that it's A SERIES of random EVENTS that makes a weak effort to stay faithful to the book. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur