Diana Wynne Jones Fans discussion

I just heard about a production of Howl's Moving Castle on livejournal: http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/the-v...

And I thought it would be nice to have a thread on adaptations of her work (though she is not nearly so popular for adaptations as one would think!). Obviously there's the Miyazaki Howl's Moving Castle film, and the Archer's Goon show (which I saw earlier this year, it's very low-budget but also really true to the book and entertaining).

What do you think of these adaptations? What would like you like to see adapted and how?

Studio Ghibli have just released a film based on The Borrowers called Arietty which I'm looking forward to seeing.

I really enjoyed Arrietty, which I saw in the subtitled version. It was definitely true to the spirit of the story (although perhaps not as clever.)

I had the good fortune to be able to see Howl's Moving Castle at the cinema twice - once in the original subtitled version (at my local arthouse) and once in the English dubbed version (at my local multiplex.) I am hoping to get to the Southwark production (one of the advantages of living in London!)

Someone on livejournal gave me the head's up:
A BBC Radio adaptation of Witch Week! I'm listening to it now.

Yippee! Thanks for this!

Oooh. WW is one of my favorites (also the first one of DWJ I read). Pretty good, well done, but why did it only have to be an hour? /whining.

I listened to it yesterday and loved it! Now I want to listen to more BBC Radio.

Chrestomanci was not half as droll as I wanted, but overall I did appreciate it.* Witch Week is one of my favorites too, Beth, though I'm sure everyone in the group knows this by now, I champion it constantly.

**spoilers**
I did find the ending rather odd, that it didn't complete Charles arc by him ultimately reluctantly joining in his magic with his classmates' to power the Simon Says spell/merge the parallel worlds. Some of my favorite scenes were cut out, but overall I did find the cuts judicious in covering all the bases in only an hour of airtime.

Positive things: The teachers, the teachers. Charles was pretty much exactly as I imagined him, all sour and determinedly so. Diana Wynne Jones! Any adaptation is welcome. I wonder if they will do anymore?

Kaion wrote: "Chrestomanci was not half as droll as I wanted, but overall I did appreciate it.* Witch Week is one of my favorites too, Beth, though I'm sure everyone in the group knows this by now, I champion it..."

I didn't like Chrestomanci's voice either, he didn't sound at all like I imagine him. And yeah, while they kept the plot more or less intact, character development kind of fell to the wayside which is unfortunate because Witch Week is a very character-driven book!

Yeah, it didn't quite work for me for exactly that reason - there isn't really a plot, which is how they got it down to an hour.
But by doing that, the slow character development is lost, and that's the core of the book.
Still, any DWJ is a good thing...

Scurra wrote: "Yeah, it didn't quite work for me for exactly that reason - there isn't really a plot, which is how they got it down to an hour.
But by doing that, the slow character development is lost, and tha..."

I thought it was well acted, though I must admit to fastforwarding it due to limited time.

That's always the problem with adaptations, isn't it, the loss of key elements that appeal to individual readers, especially when truncating something like this down to one hour, but I felt that (a) if the adaptation reflects some of the original's magic and (b) if it introduces the work to new audiences then that can't be a bad thing.

Yeah, the acting was great (though I'm not sure I pictured Brian Wentworth quite like that); the main problem was that in order to fit in the timeslot, they cut out a lot of the elements of being an outsider that attracted me so much to the book in the first place.
It did not make me go "what is this thing"? Unlike the Howl's movie. (I need to reread the book then make myself watch the movie so I can rant appropriately. :)

Beth wrote: "Yeah, the acting was great (though I'm not sure I pictured Brian Wentworth quite like that); the main problem was that in order to fit in the timeslot, they cut out a lot of the elements of being a..."

Brian Wentworth seemed way too nice to me! One of my favourite elements of the book is that he turns out to be so obnoxious.

Nice! He still framed his classmates for witchcraft. I wouldn't call Brian obnoxious... more like haplessly selfish?

I knew about the ghibli movie, which I must say I absolutely love, after I made my peace with the differences between the book and the movie. I also knew about the play, but I live in the ´states, so was unable to attend. =( the cruel joke is that I was in London two weeks ago, but the production had alreadý ended... I would love to listen to the adaptation of Witch Week, does anyone know where I might be able to hear it?

Emma wrote: "I knew about the ghibli movie, which I must say I absolutely love, after I made my peace with the differences between the book and the movie. I also knew about the play, but I live in the ´states, ..."

Someone on tumblr has a link to an mp3 download but idk if I should post it here since it's not terribly legal. Might be able to link you to the blog it's on and you can go from there, though?

IPlayer had it available in the States as of the start of last week, it might be down now, though. :(

Penny-anna wrote: "Emma wrote: "I knew about the ghibli movie, which I must say I absolutely love, after I made my peace with the differences between the book and the movie. I also knew about the play, but I live in ..."

If you could, that would be great...thanks! And I promise not to alert the police ;)

Emma wrote: "Penny-anna wrote: "Emma wrote: "I knew about the ghibli movie, which I must say I absolutely love, after I made my peace with the differences between the book and the movie. I also knew about the p..."

Lulz, I don't think you'd alert the police - I'm just not sure what sort of policy goodreads has about this kind of thing. The person who posted it did give permission to share the link but possibly not publically. But anyway.

Go here and scroll down:

miabuterflie.tumblr.com slash tagged slash diana-wynne-jones

(Replace 'slash' with actual slashes, obvs.)

Penny-anna wrote: "Emma wrote: "Penny-anna wrote: "Emma wrote: "I knew about the ghibli movie, which I must say I absolutely love, after I made my peace with the differences between the book and the movie. I also kne..."

Thanks a bunch!