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I wanted to watch The Men Who Stare at Goats for one main reason. And if you guess because Ewan McGreggor is in it, you’re right. Kind of.
Mr. McGreggor certainly isn’t ugly, but his main attraction for me was that he played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. And The Men Who Stare at Goats is basically a two hour Star Wars joke.
And I’m okay with that, because I’m the kind of Star Wars fangirl who gets X-wings tattoos, dresses up like Mara Jade at Star Wars cons and covers her office in wall-to-wall posters (my favorites being a Celebration IV exclusive print of Vader killing the Emperor, a Japanese poster of R2-D2 jetpacking over a derivative of Hokusai’s famous “Great Wave off Kanagawa” painting and a map of the galaxy that came in one issue of Star Wars Insider many many moons ago).
After the movie (Men Who Stare at Goats, not Star Wars) ended, I had a feeling that it wasn’t really a very good movie, but I thought it was awesome anyway. The main problem I had with Goats is not that it’s one giant Star Wars joke (that part was awesome), but that the story never quite got off the ground.
I’m going to blame the complex narration and use of extensive flashbacks for that. Ewan McGreggor narrates the story from the present. He tells us how his wife left him and he went off to Iraq and met George Clooney’s character.
And then, throughout their journey, we get flashbacks to the 1980s when the army was playing around with making these psychic super warriors. Sometimes we get flashbacks within flashbacks. Eventually everything gets wrapped up, but the problem is that we’re following two, and sometimes three story lines, as the flashbacks comprise at least half of the movie.
McGreggor and Clooney do a lot of sitting around, which is when Clooney tells McGreggor his story. Even though we don’t see them sitting around a lot because of the flashbacks, it’s kind of tiring to have them sitting in the desert alone for so long. That being said, the flashbacks are done extremely well and are easy to follow.
In one sense too much is going on, and in another sense nothing is going on, and it creates frustration for the viewer. I do admire director Grant Heslov’s ability to navigate these multiple layers of narration, but I don’t think they quite work here.
Another problem is that this movie is based on a documentary (you can read about it on Wikipedia here, and I highly suggest checking out the links at the bottom), so it’s trying to impose a narrative structure on a story that doesn’t necessarily have any.
Again, the plot does accomplish what it sets out to do in satirizing the ridiculousness of the military and war in Iraq, but it still falls flat, perhaps because it’s trying to do too much. Or perhaps because it’s a comedy, so you can never be sure what’s included solely for comedic effect, or how much of the movie is based on the “truth.”
In the end, I think it’s worth watching for the acting (which is excellent), the Star Wars jokes and the layered narrative, but considering the title is The Men Who Stare at Goats, there were not enough goats!
About a month ago, after I finally got around to seeing the latest Harry Potter movie, I decided to re-read the books. I hadn’t read most of them since high school, and the last one since early in my college career, and none of them right after the other.
I also convinced my husband to watch all the movies, through the sixth, with me. Watching the movies again after so recently reading the books (I finished Goblet of Fire yesterday) brought some interesting tidbits to light.
The fourth Harry Potter movie is really the first one where major subplots have to be cut out because of the book’s length, but even in the first three the directors made some interesting choices in presenting the story. Aside from paring down the details to the absolutely essential, though, the thing that stood out to me the most is that in almost every action scene, the movies one-up the books.
Having dropped a screen writing class halfway through the first day during my senior year in college (they really expected me to sit through a four-hour class for a measly three credits?!), I’m no expert on screen writing or movies. But I have to ask one question: Why? What is the benefit of ramping up the tension in a movie, especially when other details or scenes are cut to make room for the additional action?
I’m guessing those who wrote the scripts will say it makes the movies more exciting. In any movie adaptation, things must be cut from the book. Regardless of how faithful an adaptation is (and I would say the first three Harry Potter movies are quite faithful as far as adaptations go), it will never be an exact visual replica of the book, because there simply isn’t the space or time to allow it. That being said, why cut more than is necessary to make room for more action, especially in books that are not inherently action-adventure?
If you haven’t seen the movies or read the books, you may wind up a bit confused as I’m leaving out most of the plots, sorry!
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
The first two-thirds of this movie follow the book closely. Things diverge slightly when Harry, Ron and Hermione chase Quirrel into the guarded chamber that hides the sorcerer’s stone. The movie takes a few of the enchantments that guard the stone and makes them more exciting, while it cuts out others completely.
- The first enchantment, the Devil’s Snare, has Ron screaming, panicking and almost dying in the movie (after Hermione tells Harry and Ron they need to relax in order to get past it). In the book Hermione saves them all by exposing the plant to light.
- The second enchantment, the room with the keys, has Harry chasing a winged key while the rest of the keys attack him. In the book, there is no attack. The challenge is to find the right key amid thousands of them, which the kids do by using logic, not speed or strength.
- The fourth enchantment, in which Hermione has to solve a riddle concerning vials of potion that will either kill them, do nothing, send them back to the Chess chamber or send them forward into the chamber containing the sorcerer’s stone. This enchantment was cut entirely from the movie, probably because it’s all intellectual, without any action.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Two scenes stick out to me in this movie, though there were others that has more tension than their printed equivalents.
- When Harry and Ron follow the spiders into the Forbidden Forest, Mr. Weasley’s old Ford Anglia saves them from being eaten by Aragog’s children. In the movie, this scene is longer and involves a spider clinging on to the car, among other chase antics, that were not present in the book.
- Harry’s final fight against the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets was much longer and more drawn out than in the book.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
This is the book/movie in which the omissions made in favor of more action do the most harm, in my opinion. A large chunk of the back story about Sirius, Lupin, Peter and Snape is completely left out in favor of more fighting and action sequences. The back story becomes important later on, especially in the development of Snape’s character. And you can’t really argue that Snape is unimportant. (Full disclosure: Snape is my favorite character!) So rather than allow time for Sirius and Lupin to elaborate on the back story, the following scenes were infused with more action:
- Harry riding Buckbeak the Hippogriff. In the book his flight is quite short and uncomfortable. In the movie it is long and glorious.
- The bogart scene with Professor Lupin. In the book, Lupin does not allow Harry a chance at the bogart because he fears Lord Voldemort would appear. In the movie Harry does face the bogart, and a dementor appears, and Lupin must save Harry.
- The entire sequence in the Shrieking Shack with Snape interrupting and Peter trying to get away. The movie elongated those action sequences, which in the book were quite straightforward.
- The scene where Lupin turns into a werewolf. In the book he simple runs into the forest, allowing Peter to escape. In the movie he and Sirius engage in battle and then, of course, he goes after Hermione and Harry.
Why these small details matter
While re-reading the books, I was struck with how tightly and beautifully plotted they are. J.K. Rowling’s prose may not hold up to the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien, but her plots are among the best. Perhaps they are cliche to a certain degree, but you can’t exactly say Lord of the Rings uses a new concept, either. The movies, of course, rely on the books’ plots to stand up. But in chopping away small (and large) details in the name of greater action, I think some of the beauty of the books is lost.
Harry Potter, in my opinion, is not an action-adventure story. The books are more about solving puzzles and mysteries than fighting evil. Even in later books, the object is to figure out Voldemort’s secrets, then find the Horcruxes. Ultimately the goal is to defeat him, and that of course involves a fight. But what goes into the fight is a long process of figuring out how to defeat him. In the books, each scene advances the plot or helps us better understand a character better.
But in the movies, the added action is gratuitous. It does not advance the plot or tell us more about the characters and therefore, in my opinion, detracts from the story.
For example, the reveal that Sirius is on Harry’s side and Ron’s pet rat was the one who betrayed the Potters is far more rewarding in the book version of Prisoner of Azkaban because as we read, we try to solve the puzzle. First, why is Sirius after Harry? Second, how could Peter Pettigrew be in the castle when he’s dead? The pieces don’t add up until the reveal at the end, and we are rewarded with the full back story and are able to appreciate the characters all the more.
By turning the movies into more action-oriented stories, I feel we lose a large part of what makes these books great, and what makes the characters truly compelling.
During the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s 2011 Winter Read-a-Thon, Jan. 8 – Feb. 19, I will be blogging about the books I read. For more information or to see a list of books I’m reading, go here. Although Harry Potter is not on that reading list, I am not yet far enough into any of those books to write about them.
- Hours read as of 1/9: 2.5
- Funds raised as of 1/9: $20.50
