Does NO ONE read anymore?!

No...if LXG showed us anything, it's that people don't read anymore.

I had hoped that when people watched the film, they would then go and read the novels but it turns out people just don't read anymore. Well, the teen girls go and read Twilight but that's about it.

I wondered the same thing when watching this film. I do realize that creative license was taken to give this film more "oomph," but they drastically changed the characters from their original source materials.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, he only lives to be about 40, he's sure as hell not immortal (he just doesn't age), and he kills himself by stabbing the painting. He also looks at the painting many times and ultimately gets disgusted with it showing what he's become; the constant reminders it gives to his conscience are one of the reasons he decides to destroy it. Plus no one would be able to steal it because it's locked away in a room that no one goes into and the key is constantly in Dorian's possession.

In Dracula, Mina does not turn into a vampire because Dracula gets killed before she makes the complete transformation, hence the curse is lifted. Jonathan would not have been dead "for years," as this story asserts, because the book ends with talking about how Mina and Jonathan have a six or seven year old son and are living happily together. Jonathan was a solicitor, not a chemist, and Mina's talents were within skills related to law, not science. She was also not the beastly type, if you want to put it that way haha.

Tom Sawyer would have also been A LOT older than he is in this film.

I haven't read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so I can't comment on them, but there ya go.



Johnny Depp: Creating men's inferiority complexes since 1963

You know what my favorite game is? Try to explain the reason why they did something instead of just complaining about it.

So, typically, in comic book movies, they get a lot of stuff "wrong", and being a self-professed comic book nerd, it used to bug me to no end. So usually I just say, "This is a different universe" or a "What if" kind of story. That usually works to get my nerd rage gone.

Now this... "the No one reads anymore topic" got me thinkin'. "Why did they mess up these characters? Mina isn't a vampire! If you're going to write about something, get it right!" It started to get annoying. So I came up with this: "The original authors got the characters wrong." Eh? EH?! Oh, I see that eye-roll, anonymous-imdb-board-user. But let me take you through a little scenario *Wayne's World deedley-doo deedley-doo deedley-doo*:

You are a character in modern times doing amazing stuff (good for you!). But, it isn't always interesting. So your biographer decided to spice some stuff up. Now let's pretend, (pretending is fun!) you get assembled into some kind of super group with other supernatural beings such as yourself. You've read about them in papers and when you go to make conversation with some of the more brutish characters, they are downright offended. They have been misrepresented as much as you, if not worse. Now, they also think you are a amazing individual even though at times your life can be a little dull.

Boom, that's LXG. Dorian Grey (Gray, don't care how you spell it, it really doesn't matter, if it upsets you, cover it with your finger.) Wouldn't want people to know that if he just looks at his picture, it will kill him. So he told his biographer, you have to stab it. Maybe it doesn't work on him that way in LXG universe.

Next time you have a problem with a movie, use your imagination to correct it, and give yourself a piece of mind.

Jim Carwash is Number 1, all others are two, or lower.

"Boom. Yummy." - Holy Diver (aka Shoreleave)

Sadly most people don't take the time to read anymore. Television has helped in this literary decline.

The first instinct now for kids when they need to do a book report is to rent the movie version. I guess by now with the internet they just Google the title and cut & paste whatever Wikipedia has to say about it.

Hmmm let me think...

I saw the movie first, but when I was reading the book I was like, 'Guys...he's looking at the painting...and he's not dead...where did you come up with that?' Haha. But you're right. He dies when he tries to destroy the painting, not just from looking at it. But there's many other inconsistencies, too, of course. Gray was blonde, not brunette. The painting was of his entire figure, not just the upper portion. Never had a fling with Mina as far as the book let in on, but he was a rascal so I supposed there's room on that one. Oh, and the fact that he actually died differently? The really just took the idea of Dorian Gray and refitted it for the purpose of the comics/film, like with the other characters.

Seriously, even before the film came out these boards were filled with "Who are they" posts. C'mon? Tom Sawyer? Captain Nemo? Mr. Hyde?

I'm watching Michael Moore expose the Awful Truth/I'm listening to Public Enemy and Reagan Youth...

Of course people read, does that mean everyone is super familar with Dorian Grey? Probably not. But even though, the movie was an adaption, so it's choices are it's entitlement in being an adaption. Most of which was clearly done to write in the fight scene and make perfectly good sense for this incarnation. It might not be the story the original told exactly, but if you dislike a movie company from doing that, how can you like any movie studio at all?

And for that matter how is the comic any better? Opium addict old man Quatermain? Not taking advantage of giving Mina vampire powers? Getting rid of the Jekyll/Hyde device, the thing most interesting about the character? Rapist Invisible Man? Squid-like ship? Writing out bigger characters only for the sake of putting his own lame choices in the forefront? Hell let's not even get into some of the later ones.

If anything the referencing and trying to weed out some anachronisms are to be praised when compared to the film. But given this is all fantasy, who the hell really cares. As a certain character on the BBC would say, it's all "timey-wimey". You can't take all these works 100% and have them all function and flow, so you have to make choices and changes so they fit. Whether you want to bother trying to make times and dates match up, good for you. But if not, i really can't see how big a deal it is. It's not exactly improbable to suspect a fantasy world has some things different from the real world as far as history goes, since in truth it's possible all those characters being real might have very well altered history as we know it.

And as far as reading goes, while i'm sure the lackluster programs of modern schools may turn some people off from older works and the advertisers of the film industry probably put a hurting on the audience of an original book, this doesn't exactly put them out to pasture. In fact in a world with better distribution and kids growing up know of different versions of characters, it bodes well. The resurgence of older characters into television is a clear sign wanting to see older characters around is still very much in tact.