The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007)

I've bought the dark is rising sequence on Amazon (thought I'd see what the fuss was about).

So I've just started Over Sea Under Stone. Reminds me a lot of the famous five (I'm waiting for someone to have a "gay time" although there was a "gosh", "jolly clever" and an "isn't it fabulous!" all on one page). Are the books actually linked (please don't go into detail)?
 
Over Sea, Under Stone was written for younger children and is less closely linked to the others than the rest are to each other.

The story doesn't really begin to gather any mythic power until The Dark is Rising.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
Over Sea, Under Stone was written for younger children and is less closely linked to the others than the rest are to each other.

The story doesn't really begin to gather any mythic power until The Dark is Rising.
Click to expand...

Just started that now

The merriman character just seems to be a different person with coincidentally the same name though.
 
purple_kathryn said:
I've bought the dark is rising sequence on Amazon (thought I'd see what the fuss was about).

So I've just started Over Sea Under Stone. Reminds me a lot of the famous five (I'm waiting for someone to have a "gay time" although there was a "gosh", "jolly clever" and an "isn't it fabulous!" all on one page). Are the books actually linked (please don't go into detail)?
Click to expand...

That was really my only problem with the series. I loved the plots and ideas, but the kids didn't sound like kids to me. They all sounded like they'd completed a degree in chirpy optimism from Oxford. But then I never got on with Enid Blyton either.
 
I recommend reading The Dark is Rising first and then going back to Over Sea, Under Stone. I know The Dark is Rising was written later, but it seems a much better opening to the sequence to me - sort of like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe compared with The Magician's Nephew (although written in a different order, obviously). Over Sea, Under Stone is still a great book - it just doesn't have that epic quality that the others have.
 
Hmmm yeah it might make a bit more sense if I'd done that but I'm a terribly "in order" kind of person.

It does really read like a famous five book - which isn't an insult because I adored the famous five.

As far into Dark as I am and what I remember of the trailer- they don't seem terribly alike so far.

Fortunately for me I'm not too hard on book -> movies.
 
Beyond imagining??




I've just (yesterday!) finished my umpteenth reading of the complete sequence, and my daughter came back from the cinema and said she had seen a showcard for the film sort of tucked away in a corner of the cinema. At least they aren't promoting it!

I've been saying, ever since FOTR, that at last a film could be made (technically) to do justice to these great books.

But it looks like the chance has been blown away beyond redemption.

These lyrical, magical and at times terrifying books have been among my fantasy favourites for nearly thirty years, and it would be a hard job to satisfy me completely, but this is appalling!

To take out the Celtic/Arthurian myth background, and make Will's family a lot of dysfunctional and uncaring Americans...and that is just the start.

It could (just!) have been worse, if Will Smith was playing Merryman : (I'm also terrified of the mess they'll make of "I am Legend"!)

I'm used to terrible films being made from great books, and sometimes, the other way round, but this one is too close to home.

Incidentally, the only, small, sick, slightly redeeming feature is changing Chris Eccleston's Rider's earthly alias into a Doctor. (see what they did there?)

As the true ghastliness of this hatchet job unfolds, please keep us informed : rage is good for something or other...
 
Wait for The Grey King - I bet they'll change the location to Ireland. Because for Hollywood's lowest common denominator (which this bunch of monkeys most certainly are) 'Celtic' means Oirish. Riverdance, diddley-diddley fiddle music, black beer and leprechauns.

Wales - forget it. To this mob, Wales is the part of England where they mine coal and sing a lot and Scotland is the place where they wear kilts and paint themselves blue while drinking whisky, fishing for salmon and watching out for the Loch Ness monster (Oh god, I've just realised - the afanc! They'll turn it into Nessie!). As for Cornwall - "where dat?"

Nope, it'll be some horrible Hollywood version of Ireland, The Grey King will become Brian Boru and the Mari Llwydd will be the ghost of a black and tan. Oh, and there'll be a reference to what bastards the English were during the potato famine and how "dey drowned me grandaddy in de Titanic".

Retch!
 
Okay finally finished the sequence and then rewatched the trailer

It really doesn't seem to bear much resemblence to the books at all (other than having the same characters). It might be a good idea to view it not as a film adaption but as a movie with coincidentally the same names as a book you like :p

I can understand them changing the age of the character though - Harry Potter was supposed to be 11 and I think they'd just seem too young.

I'm also not sure how the heck they're going to adapt any of the following books. They're all very "British".
 
The Ace said:
Ummm PC ? The actors in the first "Harry Potter," film were 11.
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Yeah I knew that :p

I meant that the actors in the film seemed too young - one of the big problems that people had with the early HP films was that the acting wasn't any great shakes (which is fair enough they were only 10/ 11).

In The Dark is Rising Will is supposed to (by in large) act far beyond his years and I don't think an 11 year old could carry that off.
 
I saw Simpsons The Movie tonight and saw the trailer for this movie. I thought the hole idea was interesting, The signs,the light and dark thing.

Dont get me wrong i have no interest in seeing the movie nun at all, i knew the name of the series cause i saw this thread and the talk of the books here. When i saw the trailer i thought now i wanna read the books.

Not cause the movie looked good but i thought the book series they are prolly destroying are pretty interesting to sound like this even as a hollywood movie ;)

Im gonna order Over Sea and Under Stone cause i wanna read more good YA Fantasy. Im not reading the books cause of the movie but cause of you guys talking so highly of the series and me remembering it cause of the trailer.
 
I have the first book. Reading NL by Philip Pullman first then its this series.
 
Those fools up north (LA/Hollywood) ruin book series as if it was a mission from God. Remember the Chronicles of Prydain (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, etc.)? Wish you couldn't remember Disney's The Black Cauldron?
By the way, I read The Grey King as a youngin after someone gave me a copy. I read read the rest because at the time I couldn't locate any. What order is recommended if I read them now? Is it the order they were written, or is it different (Lewis asked his publisher to change the order of the Narnia books)?
 
I was very lucky as a child in the 1990's to be given the set of books by one of my teacher aunties. I thought they were fantastic and I agree that the movie looks rubbish and completely untrue to the series. I won't be seeing it.
 
Wiglaf: in order of writing and chronological order within the books the order would be Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, Silver on the Tree. You could read them in that order but I think you could also read the final four in order and then Over Sea, Under Stone whenever. It was originally written as a standalone.
 
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