Apparently there is a new movie version of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" coming out. I have to admit a certain disappointment in what I've heard, for three reasons:

1. They set it in the present day. PRESENT DAY, people! They took what could have been a truly stylish and beautiful piece of steampunkery, and dressed the people acting in it in clothes from J. Crew or somewhere. To me, the reset is kind of like the people who "reset" Shakespeare's works, but instead of doing them interestingly and intelligently and in such a way that there's more depth and meaning to the play, they decide to do something like reset Romeo and Juliet in a circus setting, and the Montagues and Capulets are two competing families of clowns, or something dumb like that.

There is a character on the IMDB page for this movie known only as "gum-chewing girl." That in itself tells me I do not want to see this movie.

Also, the story of Journey... is so ridiculous, given what we know in this present-day about the actual center of the earth, that it really only works, IMHO, as a late-Victorian piece. You know, at a time when people DIDN'T know for sure that the center of the earth was a hot ball of melted iron.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just being overly petulant that what could have been a wonderfully stylish late-Victorian piece is actually going to be full of people going "Duuuuuude!"

I realize that Journey to the Center of the Earth isn't the be-all end-all masterpiece ever (actually I tried reading it again not very long ago and found I could no longer adequately suspend disbelief, though I may try yet again sometime soon). But I have a certain affection for the book, as it is what ended a long "dry spell" of reading for me at about 12 or 13...I felt I had "outgrown" the children's section of the library, and a disastrous first foray into the "grown-up" section (I picked out a book that was waaaaaay too old for me. And I don't mean that the words were difficult...it involved people doing what I knew people theoretically DID, but which I had only just learned about and still could only imagine doing if I was really desperate to have a baby [there being no other option that I could see for getting to the state where one could have a baby]. So reading a book where people did this thing promiscuously, and apparently for FUN, and in ways I couldn't even really understand or imagine....well, it kind of put me off reading for a while.

Until I found "old" books - like Verne or H.G. Wells. The ones where that particular activity was not only NOT described in detail, it was not even mentioned. And that saved me, that kept me out of the "YA doldrums" (there was a Young Adult section at my library but they were mostly "junior romance" novels which, though safe and "pure," bored me to tears). And I started reading again, and the first book I read was Journey to the Center of the Earth. So it's kind of an iconic book for me.)

2. They apparently changed the story somewhat. (It looks like there's a "love interest." Of course there would be.) And I don't remember any "discredited scientist searching for his missing brother" bit from the book (though it's been a good 20 years since I last read it). They also changed the names, though that's actually got a precedent - I knew "Axel" as "Henry/Harry" and "Professor Lindenbrock" as "Professor Hardwigg" because of the particular translation I read.

3. It has Brendan Fraser in it. You know, Encino Man? George of the Jungle? (Yes, I know he was in lots of other stuff but I tend to think of him as a wooden-skulled lunkhead. Who is also apparently the new King of the Remakes - his imdb page also indicates he was in a remake of "The Quiet American," (seriously: the heck?) And he was Dudley Do-Right, at least the movie version of him.)

Yeah, you're free to be a Fraser fan if you want. I'm just not a fan of his work and thinking of him starring in a bastardized version of a story I remember loving makes me a little nauseated.