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up at 4am
I just finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo.
Odd.. the movie really totally deviated from the book. I mean, the spirit of it all, and the general storyline (guy gets wrongfully imprisoned, guy escapes eventually, guy seeks revenge, guy realizes that vengeance isn't everything, guy is redeemed) is the same. But what happens to everyone who is not the Count is utterly different. One of the best characters, Noirtier, for example, is killed early on in the movie (don't worry, he has another name in the movie altogether anyway, so it isn't a spoiler), but lives through the whole book and is very interesting - as a paraplegic, he has more power than many of the other characters, it's really funny. What happens to Mercedes, Albert, etc... totally different. The main romantic pair of the last third of the book, Maximillian and Valentine, don't even exist in the movie. There's this lovely intrigue and murder mystery that make it such a good story. Although it would have been nice to have slightly more of an ending. I guess in serials, you only really get the one last chapter to tie everything together... but still.
I wonder what past movies of this story have been like. I would wonder how much they had to change to make it coherent and 2 hours long as well.
Odd.. the movie really totally deviated from the book. I mean, the spirit of it all, and the general storyline (guy gets wrongfully imprisoned, guy escapes eventually, guy seeks revenge, guy realizes that vengeance isn't everything, guy is redeemed) is the same. But what happens to everyone who is not the Count is utterly different. One of the best characters, Noirtier, for example, is killed early on in the movie (don't worry, he has another name in the movie altogether anyway, so it isn't a spoiler), but lives through the whole book and is very interesting - as a paraplegic, he has more power than many of the other characters, it's really funny. What happens to Mercedes, Albert, etc... totally different. The main romantic pair of the last third of the book, Maximillian and Valentine, don't even exist in the movie. There's this lovely intrigue and murder mystery that make it such a good story. Although it would have been nice to have slightly more of an ending. I guess in serials, you only really get the one last chapter to tie everything together... but still.
I wonder what past movies of this story have been like. I would wonder how much they had to change to make it coherent and 2 hours long as well.
no subject
There was an older movie with Richard Chamberlain (?). The first part is right on with the book. But I remember the ending different greatly. Cut way too short to make it fit into the 2 hour movie slot.