Re-Write: GIve me a happy

There are many books (and movies) that need rewrites (my opinion - feel free to disagree).  I will add to this list as time permits.


Les Miserables (Movie AND book)

It means the miserable and it is miserable.  The title was spot on.   If you like being slapped by the horrors of reality in that day and age, this book/movie is for you.  It was hard to read, worse to watch. If the title isn't a turn off, or you are really into movie-hype (critics seemed to love it) then you evidently aren't repelled by watching misery heaped on more misery that bleeds misery, cuddles up to misery, and is consumed by misery.  If you like being slapped by the horrors of reality in that day and age, this book/movie is for you.

Everyone acclaims how wonderful it is that the character Jean Valjean ends up a good boy when he'd been so bad - his redemption being the highlight of the movie.

For me, it wasn't enough.  For me, his change of heart doesn't save the book OR the movie (and I like actors Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway) If there had been a balance in the story - more light moments, more HOPE and happiness, I might have been able to  stomach it, but it didn't.  The story leaves me feeling empty, depressed, and worse off than before I went.


Pirates of the Caribbean Series

The first one was good.
The second one was bizarre, but oddly acceptable.
The third was good until the ending - Will dies?  Really?  He gets to be eternal and she gets to get old?  HATED it!  Why couldn't she go with him?  Leave their son to be raised by his grandfather and meet them the next time - with a bride of his own and then he can take over the ship.
Fourth - a waste of time
A fifth one is underway - Johnny Depp is supposed to be in on the production of it, so maybe it will be worth it.  He said it will end on a high note.  We'll see.


Mocking Jay (3rd book of Hunger Games)

I read the series and saw the movies.

First was good, but very violent - the heroes are unwilling victims that survive.
Second was equally violent, but setting up the inevitable outcome of such a hideous social 'entertainment' and that is what the third book is about:  Revolution.
Third:  I hated the ending of it.  It was such a downer.  I didn't see the first movie of the last book because I'm waiting to see if the movie stays true to the book - I hope not.  If so, I junk the first two movies and never read the author's work again.  I hate getting robbed and that's what it felt like!

If you haven't read it, here is your one and only *spoiler* alert:  The current government is thrown out and Katniss and Peta return home.  Peta is a hollow shell and she isn't much better.  They survive and not much  more.  So, after all they went through, they get to be empty shells at the end of the 'game' and never find happiness or joy.

What is wrong with people!  

Even those who served in the REAL wars in REAL life got a chance at a happy life (even with PTSD's).  C'mon, this series was about choices - let the heroes REALLY win - to me, the stupid government won in the end because the heroes are nothing but spent shells.


Z for Zachariah

Heaven help us, they are making a movie of this horrible book.  

I read it when my oldest daughter was still in public school because it was required reading and the class was supposed to rewrite the ending.  Evidently, the author died before he finished his work and his wife and daughter finished it. 

While being well written there is an incredibly hideous turn in the book.  There is a teenage girl trapped on an oasis that survives nuclear holocaust and when a guy wearing a radiation proof suit arrives (he is old enough to be her father) and though she had childish dreams of perhaps marrying him and having kids, he becomes a controlling monster and wants to play Adam and Eve with her! 

In the book, after he's shot her, she steals his radiation suit and walks away from him - into the dead lands, hoping to find someone/something rather than stay with him.  He calls after her he saw birds circling to the west.

Talk about a horrible ending!  She may or may not find the place - but I hope they show her finding it and end the movie with hope and happiness - escaping the murderer-stalker-controlling freak.