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Thousands of years after civilization was destroyed by a cataclysmic event, humankind has adapted and a new way of living has evolved. Gigantic moving cities now roam the Earth, ruthlessly preying upon smaller traction towns. Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan)—who hails from a Lower Tier of the great traction city of London—finds himself fighting for his own survival after he encounters the dangerous fugitive Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar). Two opposites, whose paths should never have crossed, forge an unlikely alliance that is destined to change the course of the future.
Mortal Engines is the startling, new epic adventure directed by Oscar®-winning visual-effects artist Christian Rivers (King Kong). Joining Rivers are The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies three-time Academy Award®-winning filmmakers Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, who have penned the screenplay. The Universal and MRC adaptation is from the award-winning book series by Philip Reeve, published in 2001 by Scholastic.
On board as producers are Zane Weiner (The Hobbit trilogy), Amanda Walker (The Hobbit trilogy) and Deborah Forte (Goosebumps), as well as Walsh and Jackson. Ken Kamins (The Hobbit trilogy) joins Boyens as executive producer. Universal will distribute the film worldwide. www.mortalengines.com
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
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Looking good to me, though I hope that is Hester's appearance before her injuries. If she is just your typical hollywood stunner (with a token scar on the lower of her face) then it will detract from her character and the story of her and Tom.
Her injury is a huge part of her character and removing/lessening it does nothing but weaken the story for no gain other than having a "pretty" female lead.
For people who haven't read the books, this is her description:
Her mouth was wrenched sideways in a permanent sneer, her nose was a smashed stump and her single eye stared at him out of the wreckage, as grey and chill as a winter sea.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/12/24 15:30:11
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
That was my main reservation from the trailer - that scarring is central to her character, and really should still be visible even with the scarf covering up the worst of it. As is, she looks like a pretty girl in a scarf, which is most definitely not Hester.
I wonder what Shrike will end up looking like? I hope he's properly creepy looking.
My hope is that they've kept her face above the mask quite 'normal' so that the reveal is more grotesque. I believe there's even a remark in one of the books about Pennyroyal's telling of their adventures re-imagining Hester as a conventionally pretty girl with a single, cool scar and how much that offended her and Tom. If they do that same thing here then they've missed the point, but at the moment I think it's just an attempt to hide the reveal for those not in the know. Similarly, the landscape we see there is a lot less barren than the rest of the world was always depicted as.
But I think her face being cleaved in half serves as an excellent visual metaphor for the dual sides of her personality. The blind scarred side representing her anger amd desire for revenge, the other representing the compassionate, caring part of her that is hidden deep inside.
A better way of hiding her reveal would be to not have her in a teaser trailer/have her entire face covered (hood plus scarf maybe)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/24 23:54:53
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
This trailer is the first I've ever heard of the Mortal Engines stories, and I have to say it looks pretty awesome! I might have to check out the books sometime if I can find them (should be easier with the movie coming out).
My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/1/23, including modeled wargear options):
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Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2023: 40 | Total models painted in 2024: 12 | Current main painting project: Dark Angels
Mr_Rose wrote: Who doesn’t love crazy mutant squawk-puppies? Eh? Nobody, that’s who.
ZergSmasher wrote: This trailer is the first I've ever heard of the Mortal Engines stories, and I have to say it looks pretty awesome! I might have to check out the books sometime if I can find them (should be easier with the movie coming out).
You definitely should. They are written for young adults but certainly don't pull punches when it comes to the themes examined within them and the writing is excellent.
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
A Town Called Malus wrote:But I think her face being cleaved in half serves as an excellent visual metaphor for the dual sides of her personality. The blind scarred side representing her anger amd desire for revenge, the other representing the compassionate, caring part of her that is hidden deep inside.
A better way of hiding her reveal would be to not have her in a teaser trailer/have her entire face covered (hood plus scarf maybe)
Very true. However, I still have faith they'll handle it well. To be honest, if they're mo-capping rather than using practical effects they could easily change her appearance significantly between the trailers and the release to preserve the shock. Cruel to Hester as it is to say it, opening with a mangled teenager doesn't make a great first impression for your mass-market movie!
A Town Called Malus wrote:
ZergSmasher wrote: This trailer is the first I've ever heard of the Mortal Engines stories, and I have to say it looks pretty awesome! I might have to check out the books sometime if I can find them (should be easier with the movie coming out).
You definitely should. They are written for young adults but certainly don't pull punches when it comes to the themes examined within them and the writing is excellent.
Seconded, thirded and fourthed. Some of the best books ever written really, both the first set of 4 and the prequel trilogy (which should definitely be read after the original series for maximum effect). Beautifully written, some exceptional character work (Hester Shaw and Stalker Shrike stand up as some of my favourite characters in fiction) and by the fourth one, taking place on a truly epic stage while still maintaining a deeply personal story. I'd thoroughly recommend them to basically everyone with eyes and the capacity to read words.
Scale as in 'sense of' rather than 'in scale'. In other words, elements of this adaptation (such as an entire city driving around the place) needed to look impressively and impossibly immense and so far, they seem to have done that. The large tree not even reaching the top of the town's wheels, and London itself towering over the whole landscape while still moving at a fair old pace, and none of it looking unnatural or out of place (at least any more than intended), that sort of thing.
I'm just not sure about this. There's so much that looks absolutely bang on, but thus far we've seen basically nothing of Tom and Hester seems to be way off, there's none of the spite or hate in her and they're not even bothering with the mask/disfigurement now. She should be TDK Two-Face levels of gruesome and instead she's just got a Dramatic Hero Scar...
On the other hand, Shrike... That voice is chilling and the brief glimpse of the design looks excellent...
Yeah, that is not Hester. She's been turned into your standard young adult super special female protagonist, which is a huge disservice to her character.
Among the scars which will never heal are my mental scars from having to field 1,000,000 angry comments about Hester’s shortage of physical ones. Actually, I think her scar is surprisingly impressive (it’s been beefed up considerably since I met Hera Hilmar on set last year).
If I’d been in charge of the movie I would have wanted to extend the scar up across her forehead, and maybe given her an eyepatch – but that’s why I’m never going to be put in charge of a movie. Beautiful faces are Hollywood’s most precious natural resource, and the studios are very reluctant to let filmmakers muck about with them: they may be in the business of turning money into light, but they want to maximise their chances of eventually turning that light back into money again. So movie-Hester isn’t ugly, but she’s disfigured enough to believe she’s ugly, and I think Hera’s angry, intense performance will do the rest.
I think having her scar be smaller really runs the risk of potentially alienating audiences if she is acting like it has completely ruined her face. The audience might end up thinking she's overreacting etc. which could make them like her and empathise with her less than if she were more disfigured as it might come across more shallow and petulant.
And Tom being basically absent is also worrying. The story is as much his as it is Hester's. That trailer is suggesting he's been shunted into a supporting role with all the voice over going on about how Hester is so special etc. Tom is the POV character in the first book. We learn about the world through his eyes. We learn about Hester through his eyes.
Shrike is about the only character they seem to have come close to getting right. And, as awesome as he is, that will not be enough.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also found this article with some comments by Peter Jackson and the director. They do not leave me particularly hopeful.
PJ wrote:“There are always going to be fans of the books who are not always going to be in agreement with the decisions we’ve made. The mechanics of the story that we’re telling is that this young woman is scarred and when you first see her, all you’re going to see it the scar,” he said.
"In order to work as a love story, which the film is ultimately about, the storytellers want you to notice the scar less and less by the time the film is over. "The make up artists, therefore, had to create a “delicate balance” as to what is most visually pleasing, while keeping the true essence of the film.
“You are empathising with Hester the character and the scar almost becomes invisible to your eyes. You want that journey for the audience, and if it was too strong, they won’t get to that point at the end”
CR wrote:“Even though there’s been some criticism for what we’ve done, we know that if she was really hideous and ugly to look at, then a great deal of people who would go to see the film wouldn’t sympathise with her.”
If they can't make us empathise with or feel sympathy for a girl whose mother was murdered and who had her face carved in two because she is now ugly, then I don't think much of their filmmaking aptitude. Audiences empathised with the Elephant Man. They empathised with Frankenstein's monster. They empathised with Quasimodo. She might not be immediately empathetic for audiences but why does she need to be? She wasn't initially someone you empathised with in the books, after all. We only began to empathise with her truly after we began to learn more about her. We naturally grew to know her as Tom did and that slow reveal allowed us to see how each trauma in her past had built her into who she was at that moment we first saw her and how she was slowly healing with Tom.
This message was edited 10 times. Last update was at 2018/10/06 00:51:56
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Well there's a bit of a test for the Usual Suspects - is turning a character who could have been on-screen representation for many people that society has branded "disfigured" into a pretty girl with a wee scar for the sake of making the "normal" male character's eventual love for her seem more "reasonable" to normie audiences sufficient to bring the usual levels of fury when one group or another is perceived to have been slighted by an adaptation, or will they swing four-square behind the filmmakers since they're still getting a Strong Female Protagonist.
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
If they can't make us empathise with or feel sympathy for a girl whose mother was murdered and who had her face carved in two because she is now ugly, then I don't think much of their filmmaking aptitude. Audiences empathised with the Elephant Man. They empathised with Frankenstein's monster. They empathised with Quasimodo. She might not be immediately empathetic for audiences but why does she need to be?
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.
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.
Yodhrin wrote: Well there's a bit of a test for the Usual Suspects - is turning a character who could have been on-screen representation for many people that society has branded "disfigured" into a pretty girl with a wee scar for the sake of making the "normal" male character's eventual love for her seem more "reasonable" to normie audiences sufficient to bring the usual levels of fury when one group or another is perceived to have been slighted by an adaptation, or will they swing four-square behind the filmmakers since they're still getting a Strong Female Protagonist.
thatsbait.jpg
"The 75mm gun is firing. The 37mm gun is firing, but is traversed round the wrong way. The Browning is jammed. I am saying "Driver, advance." and the driver, who can't hear me, is reversing. And as I look over the top of the turret and see twelve enemy tanks fifty yards away, someone hands me a cheese sandwich."
Not bait, I'm genuinely interested to see how some columnists and commentators who've expressed certain views in the past will reconcile this. Given the usual unspoken hierarchy of worthiness I have my suspicions how that will go.
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
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.
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
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~15000 Astra Militarum: 
~1200 | Adeptus Custodes: 
~1900 | Imperial Knights: 
~2000 | Sisters of Battle: 
~3500 | Leagues of Votann: 
~2600 | Stormcast Eternals: 
