Cloud Atlas: In review.

So in case you didn't know, I have already reviewed this movie. In fact for some reason, my Cloud Atlas review is one of my highest viewed review on this blog for some reason. I'm not complaining, I just noticed that. Well, as I have a lot of time here in South Africa, and Netflix has not come to this part of the world, I have begun reading a lot of books lately. By total coincidence, a friend of mine had Cloud Atlas on her Kindle and I had a 16 hour bus ride.

Now the book is structured a little bit different than the movie (a little bit obviously) but I raced through that book. And of course, I wanted to watch the movie again. Upon reading and rewatching, I thought there's a review here. Maybe I'm just lazy but I feel like there's more I can add to this review than my last one. Now, this review is going to be a little bit more in depth and taking the assumption that ya'll have seen the movie or read the book. If you have done neither, I would suggest reading my original Cloud Atlas review.  Here is that review.

Like I said before, the book is structured a little bit differently than the movie. It starts with half of one story starting with the Pacific Journey of Adam Ewing and going in chronological order going all the way up to Sloosha's Crossin and Everything After.

So, in keeping with the theme of the book, I will go and talk about each story starting with the Pacific Journey, as a whole, and then I will compare the movie and the book and let you know which things were adapted well and which wasn't.

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing

Now if you've read the book,  you'll know that David Mitchell must have had a laspe in judgement, because starting with Adam Ewing was a bad idea.

The writing of the chapter is so proper and dry that its not exactly the most interesting of chapters to begin a book on. But for the movie of course, teenage girls who were fans of Across the Universe flocked to this movie because of this image because... you know... whats sexier than Jim Sturgess... Jim Strugess in Victorian clothing.

Honestly, looking at the story from both angles, they're both not exactly the most interesting of stories. A lawyer is taking a Pacific Journey back to the states to return the property of one of his clients (A concept I don't think I understood very well when I first saw the movie). He takes ill and is under the care of Dr. Henry Goose (played by Tom Hanks). Meanwhile, a slave he seems to have some sort of connection with stows away on in his cabin and in the end, this slave saves his life, changing the route of Adam Ewing's life. He believes that since he is indebted with his life to a slave, he must join the abolition movement.

The second half of the Pacific Journal is much more interesting because that's when you start to see the true nature of Henry Goose. Not only is he racist, as was very prevalent in the first half, but he's sneaky and eventually tries to murder Ewing to get ahold of the gold he has in his possession.

Now while Jim Sturgess does his dreamy lover boy routine that he does in every movie he's in. Tom Hanks is actually the best part about this in the movie. He plays the infamous Doctor the slimiest I've ever seen Tom Hanks play a role, and he rocks it out of the park.

I don't know if I've ever seen Tom Hanks as a bad guy but I can't say I hate it. In fact, I think its really good.

The unfortunate part that, while it probably couldn't be helped. There was no elaboration on the character of Auta, the runaway slave. His character in the book is just so much more flushed out. In the movie, he's just a runaway slave.

I'm reading over this and my Long Walk to Freedom review and I have to be a little less critical when a movie does not get all the details. However, I do feel there are details that flush out characters more and make them better, and make the product better.

Overall, The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing is still one of the more boring parts of the book/movie, but if I had to choose which version was better, I would say that the movie was better. While I just said it missed out on some details, there were a lot of details it left out that were okay to be left out. There's a lot of discussion on race and slavery in the book, and unless they were going to take the message of the movie in a different direction, they didn't need those scenes. Overall, the message in the book is better, but the story is more fun in the movie. I'll talk about the overall message of both the movie and book at the end, but for now, I suppose if I'm keeping score, the movie takes this round.

Letters From Zedelghem

Now the largest change between the book and the movie is that instead of taking place in Belgium, Letters From Zedelghem takes place in Edinburgh... why? I don't know.

Now in case you don't know, the connection between Robert Frobisher and Adam Ewing is that Frobisher finds Ewing's Journal and Frobisher finds the journal fascinating. For some reason though, Frobisher never finds the second half of the Journal. Which kind of makes the words, "An unfinished book is an unfinished love affair", which would have made more sense in the book version if he hadn't finished it but that's not important.

Frobisher's story starts as he makes his way to Edinburgh/ Belgium to be the musical assistant (there's a fancier word for it in the book/movie but I don't have the patience or care to figure it out) of a famous composer, Vivian Ayers (played by Jim Broadbent).

In both stories, Frobisher has a hard time working with Vivian Ayers but eventually gets in a pattern and begins working on the Cloud Atlas Sextet.

He also begins an affairs with Ayer's wife. This affairs plays a larger role in the book rather than the movie and its also where things start to divert.

In the book, Frobisher falls in love with Ayer's daughter and leaves Ayers in shame. There's more of a cause that Ayers is stealing his ideas that brings him to leave, as opposed to Ayers trying to steal the Sextet. In the book, Frobisher is betrayed by everyone, Ayer's wife, his daughter, and eventually has nothing left that leads him to suicide.

In the movie, Ayers tries to steal the Sextet. Again, streamlined. I'm going to stop saying that movie streamline things because its too common of a "complaint".

But, the movie makes it a little more "Hollywood" and has Ayers try to steal the Sextet, and has Frobisher actually shoot Ayers, and has Sixsmith find Frobisher right after he kills himself... and it works.

The movie is actually a really great streamlined adaptation of the book.

There's a little bit of the story that is glanced over in the movie, like Frobisher's discussion of war and the foreshadow of World War 2.But for the most part the movie does a very good job at adapting this story.

Now I was a little confused upon watching the movie after reading the book on why Frobisher tries to hit on Ayers... but this of course goes onto the Wachowski's obsession with changing the message of the story... but I'll get to that in a little bit.

Overall, the movie's version is very good, its a great adaptation. I've decided I'm not going to try and make a score of which was better, the movie or the book because I'm pretty sure the book wins. However, I will state if the movie adapted it well and in the case of Letters to Zedelghem, the movie delivers.

Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery

The thing about Luisa Rey's story that was so interesting in the book was that you weren't quite sure if it was a true story or not. In the Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, her story is a novel being reviewed by Cavendish. Now there's a chance that the book was written by Luisa Rey under a pseudonym, but that's a part of the mystery of this book/movie because there are so many questions about it that aren't totally answered. And that's the point.

Now I've already talked about how all the stories have been streamlined and cut out a lot of parts. Luisa Rey's story seems to be the one that cut out a lot of complexities. Maybe it was a good thing because there are a lot of names in this story and a lot of corporate warfare that would have been interesting to see on screen but was a little too complex, especially since its one of 6 stories in one movie. And that's what makes this movie such a complex movie for me. I want to like it, I want to love it in fact, but reading the book I just see all the things missing, all the things they add, and the messages the Wachowskis are trying to force feed me and its hard to absolutely love this movie. But again, I'll have my long rant on that in the end.

In fact, I'll talk more about this story later because it ties in with my long rant I'm expecting at the end.

I think the thing that was missing most of this story was the look into Bill Smoke but Hugo Weaving rocks my world anyway.

In short, its not a bad adaptation, I just think its got the Wachowski stink on it and I need to talk about it more near the end.

I feel like the Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish will be similar.

Before I go on, the connection between this and Letters from Zedelghem is that Luisa finds the letters Frobisher sent to Sixsmith. But I'll have my thoughts on this story again, in a little bit.

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish

After reading this story, its slowly becoming one of my favorite of the 6 stories. Its just so British and witty and just so funny.

Jim Broadbent rocks it in the movie. And this is the main story that I feel the movie streamlined too much. There's a lot of funny circumstances and planning that goes into Cavendish in this old folks home and I feel its just set aside.

Honestly, because I saw the movie first, I wasn't looking forward to reading this story. But its just so much fun that I was looking forward to it so much during the viewing that when it was cut down because its not as "interesting" or something than the other stories, I got really bummed out.

The two things that bothered me about the adaptation was, first, they didn't kill off his brother.

Maybe they wanted to give Hugh Grant some more screen time but what the hell was the whole getting revenge for Cavendish sleeping with his wife? It was more funny when it wife was just losing her mind and when his brother dies she's just crazy and aloof. That was hilarious... and they didn't do that in the movie.

Also, they missed out on the planning. There's a sort of British Prison Break in this story and it gets really glanced over.

Finally, WHY THE HELL DID THEY HAVE MEEKS TALK BEFORE THE BAR SCENE!

Maybe its not that big of a deal. But I think theres so much more power in him saying his first words at the bar, getting the Scottish people to fight Nurse Noakes and all of them. That was great! That was hilarious!

It was good that they made him a bigger part in the movie because its hilarious and adorable and just an uplifting part of the movie.

On a second watch, I felt like that was kind of a loss of a climactic point. It wasn't that great.

There was a lot more development and friendship the movie glanced over in The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish. For some reason they instead decided to make a bigger deal of his relationship with Ursula. Now I'm not saying him ending up with Ursula was a bad thing, I just thought it sacrificed a lot of good things that were most important in the book.

Oh Well... I guess this was cute?

An Orison of Sonmi~451

By god. If there was ever a story that was so glossed over and so under developed, its the Orison of Sonmi. There is an entire world of Neo Seoul that was just missed out on in the movie. And they did what they could, but it was just so great in the book, it had so much commentary on capitalism and corporatism, and by god they just glossed over the God damn Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish and made it just more of a cute thing her boyfriend did for her, and freaking A!

If you can't tell, I really really really liked Sonmi's story in the book. This is probably the most diverted from story because there's so much more in the story in the book and they had to streamline it, I get it, because there's so much in that story and they can't put it all in the movie, but instead of at least trying to show this amazing world, they do this stale broad swipe of the story where honestly, not much happens. 

Honestly besides Sonmi on a bridge, and Asian Jim Sturgess showing her the treatment of the Sonmi's and other clones (which it wasn't even clear that they were clones), nothing happens in the Sonmi story!

In the book, Sonmi becomes the figurehead of a revolution. Her explanation of this revolution is just brilliant and its a conversation between the Archivist and Sonmi and she just speaks so brilliantly... and its just not the same in the movie. 

I could go on a rant about Jim Sturgess as Korean... but I think I already did that. 

In short, I just don't think the Wachowskis got the point of Sonmi's story. They missed so much... but again, I'll get to that in a second. 

Sloosha's Crossin an' Ev'rythin After

This story was also one that diverted from the original. Not as much as Sonmi so I'm not angry about it, but Sloosha's Crossin, is just a strange diversion from the original.

In the book, Zachary was suppose to be much younger. He's not suppose to fall in love with Halle Berry's character. 

And it didn't necessarily divert, there was mention of the prophecy, the three things Zachary believes Sonmi is telling him. However, this is glanced over so quickly in the movie that I didn't realize there was a prophecy in the movie until I read the book and was looking for it in my second viewing. 

I don't know if I can say whether or not the movie was a good adaptation of the book and of course its going to fall into the Wachowski's... bullshit.

You know what, I'm going to do a separate post about the Wachowskis because they kind of piss me off now that I think about it with this movie. I know I've been referring to my thoughts on the Wachowskis and that I'll get to that, but that will be in a part two. So I'm going to finish this up quick. 

In short, I liked this adaptation for the most part. I think, with a second viewing, that the representation of Ol Georgie was a little strange. But its kind of fun seeing Hugo Weaving in that outfit. Its a cool interpretation of the text and I'm not complaining about it, I actually like it.

In the book, Ol Georgie came to tempt Zachary as a rabbit, or in different forms. I think he maybe shows up as "Ol Georgie" in the beginning when his father is killed by the Kona and his brother is captured into slavery...

Then again, this story takes the book full circle and talks about the Kona and how they are barbaric and the difference between barbarism and rationality... and its another thing the Wachowskis totally glanced over...

Freaking A!

I'm done. In short, I love the movie, I think its a good adaptation, except for the Wachowski bullshit in it which I will get to in the next post. What do you think? Do you think it was a good adaptation? Do you like the book more than the movie... you should...

Since I want to get to the next post as soon as I can, I'm not going to look for a video. So maybe I'll give you two in the next post... maybe not. Stay Tuned!