I’d all but forgotten about the 5 novels by Susan Cooper called the “Dark is Rising” series. Written in the 70s, they’re young-adult fantasy about a boy who discovers that he is the last of a race of mystical beings called the “Old Ones” and is thrust into the great battle between good and evil going on behind the scenes of the “ordinary” world. I read them when I was a kid. They probably went a long way to shape my taste in fantasy.

I recently discovered that a film version will be released in October.

Here’s the awful awful trailer:

They’ve taken a moody and eerie and deliberately-paced book turned it into, well, Harry Potter. At least HP has a soundtrack that isn’t generic pop-rock.

It could be have been a fantastic film, but instead it’ll probably a boy-wizard knock-off. The only potential upside I can think of is the casting of Christopher “Last of the Timelords” Eccleston as the mysterious agent of evil called “The Rider”.

I’ve seen enough movies that I think I’ve figured out how Hollywood works.

Nobody makes any fantasy films for a while. Then, a decent director decides to adapt a famous trilogy about hobbits and wizards, and makes it a real labour of love. It’s well received and makes a bajillion dollars. The bajillion dollars gets Hollywood’s attention.

Meanwhile, a series of books about a boy wizard with unkempt hair and a goofy scar makes a bajillion dollars (that’s a bajillion publishing dollars, which is a smaller amount than a bajillion movie dollars, but still significant), so Hollywood makes a movie adaptation. They do a decent job, but the source material is pretty “hollywood” to begin with so it’s hard to go too far wrong.

At this point, the flood-gates open. Unfortunately, instead of thinking “Hmm, a bunch of fantasy novels were well adapted to film and people liked them, lets find some more novels and make apt film versions”, they think “Fantasy is hot! Lets make 10 more movies exactly like the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter! Find some IP to license!”

And along comes Narnia (which I didn’t actually see, but still felt free to comment on), and now, along comes the Dark is Rising. The book is like Harry Potter in that it’s about a boy with magical powers, but the similarities end there. The movie version, however….

Just once I’d like to see a fantasy film that relies on atmosphere and mood instead of flashy visual effects. The Dark is Rising is the ideal basis for such a film. Bah, so much wasted potential.

Meanwhile, the success of “Transformers” (It’s been reported to me that there are people who think Transformers is the best movie they’ve ever seen…), is spawning some more “cartoon giant robot” movies.

That’s right, Voltron is coming to the big screen.

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