Anyone else watching this series on HBO? First episode was last week, and it made me dig out my copy of 'Dead Until Dark', the first Sookie Stackhouse
book. I finished it tonight--and I've watched the first episode numerous times, HBO must show it ten times a day or something!--and it brings up to me some
of the concerns I have about a Carpathian movie.
Now I realize liberties are going to be taken. Characters combined or left out, scenes altered or omitted. Heck Gone With the Wind left out two of Scarlett's children! But I do find it disturbing that the series adds a character, Tara, that I didn't see anywhere in the book. AND makes her Sookie's lifelong friend--and she is black. Now I am not saying this to be racist, but the likelihood of Sookie--with her gran in a group called 'Descendents of the Glorious Dead' being allowed to have a black friend as a child in Louisiana--this is north LA, not New Orleans, now--is HIGHLY unreal. The Deep South states--Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana--still have serious barriers up despite all the advances and integration of the last 30 years. So her entire character seems to be off, and she wasn't in the book.
Can you imagine, with the scores of characters Christine has created for the Carpathians, what mess could be made combining, changing, and even omitting some of them could do? Some directors and writers don't even stay true to FACTS--like in 'The Tudors', they have Charles brandon married to King Henry's sister Margaret and there is NO mention of his sister Mary, who Charles was REALLY married to. This is a major problem if they want to continue into Elizabeth's reign, because Margaret was the grandmother of Mary Queen of Scots, and the entire reason why Mary had claim to the throne of England. So what if someone like that got their hands on the Dark books?
Although, I will say the casting in this series is excellent. I'm not sure that the guy playing Bill, Stepehn Moyer, might not just have the chops--or at least the stare--to be my Mikhail. I'll have to think about it.
Now I realize liberties are going to be taken. Characters combined or left out, scenes altered or omitted. Heck Gone With the Wind left out two of Scarlett's children! But I do find it disturbing that the series adds a character, Tara, that I didn't see anywhere in the book. AND makes her Sookie's lifelong friend--and she is black. Now I am not saying this to be racist, but the likelihood of Sookie--with her gran in a group called 'Descendents of the Glorious Dead' being allowed to have a black friend as a child in Louisiana--this is north LA, not New Orleans, now--is HIGHLY unreal. The Deep South states--Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana--still have serious barriers up despite all the advances and integration of the last 30 years. So her entire character seems to be off, and she wasn't in the book.
Can you imagine, with the scores of characters Christine has created for the Carpathians, what mess could be made combining, changing, and even omitting some of them could do? Some directors and writers don't even stay true to FACTS--like in 'The Tudors', they have Charles brandon married to King Henry's sister Margaret and there is NO mention of his sister Mary, who Charles was REALLY married to. This is a major problem if they want to continue into Elizabeth's reign, because Margaret was the grandmother of Mary Queen of Scots, and the entire reason why Mary had claim to the throne of England. So what if someone like that got their hands on the Dark books?
Although, I will say the casting in this series is excellent. I'm not sure that the guy playing Bill, Stepehn Moyer, might not just have the chops--or at least the stare--to be my Mikhail. I'll have to think about it.
