The Dragon's Cache: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Ninjas

Monday, November 10, 2014

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Ninjas

A gentleman's English country house.

Life is change, and those who excel in life are often those who adapt to change most successfully. Just as politicians learn to adapt their strongly held views to the currents flowing through our twenty-four hour news cycle, so publishers learn to adjust their offerings to meet readers' changing tastes. Film seems to lag behind however, as studio heads bend over their calculators, performing risk assessments before investing the $100 million or more deemed necessary to compel young viewers into the cinema.

Such has proven the case with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an enormously popular novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. Although he published the novel in 2009, and today's youth seem obsessed with zombies (and the people who hunt them), it was his next novel, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, that was first made into a movie in 2012. But fans of Jane Austin and Zombies don't have much longer to wait, as Entertainment Weekly reports that Writer-director Burr Steers has begun filming Grahame-Smith's first literary venture.

A stranger calls to tea.

As proof that Steers has zeroed in on what fans want in their next big screen Jane Austen adventure, consider this snippet from Lindsey Bahr's First Look article in the November 7, 2014 issue of Entertainment Weekly.

"In the original story, Elizabeth [Bennett] is a fighter and beyond her contemporaries in her ambitions and her ideas of women, "Steers says. "She's a badass warrior. She's a ninja."

Elizabeth Bennett,
Badass Ninja

Such a view may take a little getting used to for those of us old folks who grew up with Jane Austen's original story, and the more faithful adaptations of Jane Austen's works. But why shouldn't classic novels be updated for today's audiences? It's not as if Hollywood usually adapts books without making substantial changes to their big screen cousins, is it? So why can't Jane, Elizabeth, Lydia, Mary, and Kitty be sword- and knife-wielding martial artists? Now, if they can film the movie in the Japanese language, and add voice dubbing totally out of sync with the actors' lip movements, the new movie will sit comfortably alongside the martial arts movies I grew up watching on my 13" B&W tube TV.

And if all that's not enough, actor Matt Smith will play the role of Mr Collins, the clergyman who seeks Elizabeth's hand because his patroness, Lady Catherine De Bourgh, thinks he ought to get married. You all know Matt Smith, right? Our "Timey Wimey" incarnation of Doctor Who? Oh, so much to look forward to!

BTW, I've updated the page My Ten Most Popular Posts. If you haven't checked it out lately, you'll find some new titles on the list. While readers still read old posts like "Pocket Dalek Knitting Pattern," "The Famous Woodworker of Kilburn," and "Norman Clegg's TV House," you'll find some new titles there, including one on a manga adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Why should readers be so interested in a manga adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel, you ask? Well, Manga is the Japanese version of graphic novels, and Japan is not only one of the homes of sword- and knife-wielding martial artists. It's also where Ninjas come from.

"Could I beg another glass of your delicious sake, Miss Bennett?"

"Of course, Mr. Darcy. And may I offer you more fugu sashimi?"

"I would be delighted, Miss Bennett."