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I think it looks great.

I read the books years ago and enjoyed them but I don't remember the details of all the characters.

I don't think it matters for me or a general audience (who haven't read the books at all) if they've modified parts of the story, providing it hangs together well as a science fantasy action film.

Im probably going to get and read the books before I see any of these. It sounds like theyve butchered the characters.

Can see Jackson fething this right up. He had the guts to feth with Tolkiens books, so there's no chance he shows a tiny author's material any respect.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Voss wrote:

Those examples are notably all male. It's very much Holy Writ in Hollywoodland that ugly women aren't worth squat.
The Studios especially won't take that risk, and given the general shallowness of audiences... it's hard to particularly blame them for that.

That's true, which makes it even more disappointing that the film has not challenged it since that "beautification" of Hester for mass market appeal is even called out in the books themselves, through an in-universe novel series written about her and Tom which removes her ugliness.

Especially a film like this. It's silly enough on surface details, but with a very cliched plot (Hide the MacGuffin from Evil Father and his Monstrous Minion), so it seems unlikely that anyone is going to be willing to toss additional risks onto the pile.
Its bad enough that they're leaning heavily on Peter Jackson's name for so much of the marketing, when he seems to just be an 'and also contributing' for the screenplay.

Alternatively, adding the risk of a book-accurate Hester would separate the film from any other young adult film with attractive young lead. By removing one of the distinctive elements of the book, you in fact make it more cliched.

I guess? But 'not cliched' isn't important to the studio approving the casting/look of the cast. Going with cliches that sell is appealing to Hollywood execs- it reassures them, and to them makes a film less risky. The risky bit is selling giant Tonka Trucks Towns Pac-manning around the landscape. And somehow blending the steampunk(ish) driving towns with the very space opera looking flyers in trailer #2 (Daddy's in the opening looks like it came straight from the Star War prequels)

Is this still opening against Mary Poppins, Bumblebee and Aquaman?


It'll be a slaughter.

 Dropbear Victim wrote:
Im probably going to get and read the books before I see any of these. It sounds like theyve butchered the characters.

Can see Jackson fething this right up. He had the guts to feth with Tolkiens books, so there's no chance he shows a tiny author's material any respect.

If you expect the movie to feth it up don’t read the books first. If you’re going to take in two similar things you need to do the lesser first so it can be enjoyed on its level.

The medium of books and films are very different. I don't think it's 100% possible to translate directly from one to the other.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The medium of books and films are very different. I don't think it's 100% possible to translate directly from one to the other.

While that's true in general, I don't think it really applies to this specific scenario, given the particulars of the character they're changing, how those changes must necessarily affect the story, and what message they send. It's not like we're talking about cutting a few side-scenes for time or compressing a lot of dialogue and descriptive text down into a few establishing shots, by dialling back the severity of her disfigurement they have to also modify other aspects of her character and behaviour to avoid her coming off as unsympathetic(or they won't do that, and she'll come off as unsympathetic, either way it's a problem).

And my first suspicion about how certain folk will react to this was confirmed earlier - a friend of a friend who will tie themselves in knots of performative outrage about badwrong evil gatekeeping male nerds when the issue for discussion is making explicit changes to the source material for the sake of inclusiveness/diversity/representation and so on is fairly falling over backwards trying to justify this specific case of changing the source material in a way that harms inclusiveness/diversity/representation, because of course if the price of getting more female protagonists out there for young girls to look up to is stiffing people with disabilities, disorders, or disfigurements well too bad so sad.

The books are wonderful, so do give them a read first. Inventive and fantastical. Had dinner with Philip Reeve a couple of times and he’s a very lovely, pragmatic chap. He knows his books are his but adaptations aren’t. I suggested allowing other writers to play in his world and expand the universe, and also prequels, and he wasn’t keen. He’s now written prequels himself, and it seems is letting PJ play with his toys. I hope the end result is good, and not a Golden Compass-esque expensive let-down.

I think at the very least this is on track to be a good film. Whether or not it's an equally good adaptation remains to be seen, but in a vacuum everything we've seen thus far looks great from a visual standpoint and the core of the story is there to be enjoyed, even with the changes to Hester and Tom.

I'd be interested to k ow why they made Hester the apparent protagonist, given that putting Tom in that role might have let them represent Hester a little more accurately. Do they see Tom as too boring to be front and centre, or are they just wanting Hester to be Steampunk Katniss?

There's a post up on io9 on the first 25 minutes (they had a presentation at the NYCC).

Sounds pretty meh because of the characters, but the visuals are supposed to be very nice.

I wouldn't expect much from this, but hope to be pleasantly surprised.

Anyone saw it?
I saw it yesterday, had not read the book, and thought it was extremely Hollywood and extremely Young Adult (which isn't a good thing, especially with the Hollywood part), but the Shrike character seemed pretty cool. He felt almost like some kind of 2000 AD character lol.
The setting was too ridiculous and it was too rubbed in our face how ridiculous it was to take it seriously either. Like, who the feth turned those cities into big vehicles, and why didn't they use the MASSIVE engineering that it required to make something more worthwhile? Why keep the old stuff when it would have been so much easier to start from scratch

Yodhrin, to answer your question, I am unhappy but not surprised that they decided to beautify Hester. It's a fething Hollywood blockbuster. Sometime something good comes out of it, but it's more the exception.

Movie was ok, bad cast though and over stereotypes. The main hero guy dude is forgettable, always gotta chase that pussycat, wish he actually died when he got pushed. It’s ridiculous how he somehow survived, the girl too. The people in the wall are totally without backbone, bomb our wall, destroy our fleet, no problem, let me shelter your survivors and feed you. Typical western POV, we said sorry, it was my dad who wrecked your town...

my god how boring was this movie??? it looked pretty but god damn it was dull

 Big Mac wrote:
The people in the wall are totally without backbone, bomb our wall, destroy our fleet, no problem, let me shelter your survivors and feed you.

You mean, basically what the Allied did with Germany after WW2?
Sure works better than how Germany was treated after WW1 if you ask me .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Like, who the feth turned those cities into big vehicles, and why didn't they use the MASSIVE engineering that it required to make something more worthwhile? Why keep the old stuff when it would have been so much easier to start from scratch

Rule of cool, and rule of plot.

Rule of cool is satisfied by big tank-cities "eating" smaller tank-cities. Rule of plot requires that the big tank-cities be utterly (comically) massive in the way Imperial capital ships are, it establishes them as an unassailable enemy.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Yodhrin, to answer your question, I am unhappy but not surprised that they decided to beautify Hester. It's a fething Hollywood blockbuster. Sometime something good comes out of it, but it's more the exception.

It also spares the actress grueling makeup sessions every time her face is shown on screen. Then there's the rating issue, her scar as depicted in the books would likely have netted the movie an R rating.

 dogma wrote:
It also spares the actress grueling makeup sessions every time her face is shown on screen.

I'd say it's the opposite, likely. I mean, this isn't Fury Road, those cities ain't actually built for the movie, just CGI everywhere. Doubt Shrike's actor had to go through a grueling makeup session .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

I'd say it's the opposite, likely. I mean, this isn't Fury Road, those cities ain't actually built for the movie, just CGI everywhere. Doubt Shrike's actor had to go through a grueling makeup session .

Using CG to create an, ostensibly emotionless, cyber zombie is very different from using CG to create a human protagonist in a movie that isn't fully done with CG.

Imagine a Tarkin movie featuring CG Peter Cushing.

Looks like this is a certified bomb.

Via Vulture.com :

If you see London sadly chugging its way into the sunset, give it some space. It must be devastated after hearing how Peter Jackson’s Mortal Engines bottomed out during its opening weekend, bringing in approximately $7.5 million domestic and $42.3 million worldwide. The film’s budget was over $100 million, potentially setting it up for a nearly $100 million loss, depending on its continued performance.

Directed by Christian Rivers, and produced and co-written by Jackson, Mortal Engines follows the steam punk fantasy journey of humans living in a future dominated by Traction Cities, cities-on-wheels designed to travel the earth and cannibalize smaller towns for resources. Based on the Philip Reeve book series of the same name, Mortal Engines is, unfortunately, a lesser-known big-budget property up against December’s many, many cinematic offerings. Oh, if only the big swings could drive around, gobbling up all the smaller swings.

They must have spent a ton on advertising, too. For a couple of weeks, every YouTube video I watched started with an obnoxious and unskippable Mortal Engine trailer.


Also, it's not like entertainment journalists hadn't warned them to move the movie's release date to a less crowded weekend. There's no shame in bowing out of a game of chicken against the Disney juggernaut.

A $100M budget is Deadpool 2 money; however, DP2 finished $740M globally.

It's no accident that Battle Angel Alita moved to 2019, to get out of the line of fire!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

The setting was too ridiculous and it was too rubbed in our face how ridiculous it was to take it seriously either. Like, who the feth turned those cities into big vehicles, and why didn't they use the MASSIVE engineering that it required to make something more worthwhile? Why keep the old stuff when it would have been so much easier to start from scratch

If you're actually interested in this, the premise of the setting is very well fleshed out in the books, hinted at throughout the main series and dealt with directly (and well) in the equally good prequel trilogy. It's dumb at a glance and I can't speak for how well the film handles it, but in the original material it is all explained (and the books are just worth reading generally on account of being excellent.).

Shame to hear the film isn't doing well, but I can't say I'm overly surprised. Leaving aside that it opened against Aquaman and Bumblebee, I think certain choices discussed in this thread (particularly regarding Hester's look, role and general characterisation) put off a lot of the book audience and as you note it's a hard sell for someone who hasn't read them, seeming completely bonkers. A lot of the marketing makes the setting look very generic-YA-dystopia-goes-steampunk rather than the highly original world it was in the books, and there's no sign that the very strong and unique characters have really carried over either.

It's sad as I've been waiting to see it adapted for years, and Peter Jackson being involved seemed perfect when it was announced, but I kind of get the feeling now that this will end up alongside things like Eragon and The Golden Compass on the pile of adaptations that should have been great but just really didn't work. I guess I can hope it's at least a good film even if it's not a good translation of the book, but from what I've read it's not even that.

I saw it last Monday while I was in London, in 4DX...I can’t help but feel that if my chair had stayed rooted to the floor, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it at all.

Saw it. Thought it was ok. Not amazing. Not bad.

I've read a couple of reviews which didn't give it high marks.

I's a bit sad as I loved the books and have been looking forwards to Pete Jackson's brilliance being applied to realise them on the big screen.

However, I will hope to enjoy it better for myself. I'm not fussed about Hester having been "prettified". The idea of tanks the size of cities roaring around and attacking each other is so awesome that I've got to see it.

There’s only one “city fight” near the beginning really, and it’s more just a chase scene that we already know the outcome of because it was in the trailers. London is actually boring. It’s so massive it just rolls along like nothing. Thinking back to it, I can’t even really remember them showing it’s tracks much at all? Just kind of the city on top. Parts at a time, not the whole of it. The smaller cities are far more interesting because they are agile and turn more and you can get a sense of weight and mass as they drive about.

 Paradigm wrote:
It's dumb at a glance and I can't speak for how well the film handles it, but in the original material it is all explained (and the books are just worth reading generally on account of being excellent.).

In the movie there isn't any explication really, it's just the visuals and it looks obvious that they put actual pre-cataclysm ancient buildings at the very top of the last story of a dozen stories but on top of some huge tracks, so how and why did they do that?
I'll give the books a read on the occasion.

 AduroT wrote:
Thinking back to it, I can’t even really remember them showing it’s tracks much at all?

We do see them several time, they even do some big overkill near the end if you remember it . Also the big ravines left by the tracks are featured a lot too.

Haven't read the books (not translated here yet). I don't mind silly setting, it's steampunk, all of it is silly with airship cities and robot dinosaurs and whatnot. Tracked cities hardly stand out there. But the trailer gave impression of the movie being very generic and bland so little wonder if it's not a big hit.

Ever notice how steampunk blockbusters don’t tend to do very well at the box office?

Yes. 'Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow' bombed though it was in fact quite good and had good cast.
Well it was more like 'dieselpunk' but still.

Sturgeon's Law suggests that 90% of everything will do poorly at the box office, steampunk, dieselpunk or neo-punk.