For a variety of reasons, we didn’t end up going to see (the highly touted and much enjoyed as a book by me) Stardust this weekend. One of the outstanding questions is whether we bring Katherine (age 7) along with us when we do so.
While the reviews I’ve seen have indicated that the sexy bits (the couple of which I ad hoc bowdlerized a bit as I read it aloud to Margie and Katherine in the car trip to/from SoCal over Christmas) are similarly off-screened in the film production, there seems to be some concern over the graphicness or general ickyness of the on-screen fantasy violence. Solonor, for example, pooh-poohs waiting until the kid’s 11, but avers a 6-year-old might have problems with it.
As a guideline, Katherine found Prisoner of Azkaban tolerably (but only just) scary (with its Dementors and so forth), but we’ve held off on the first Pirates of the Caribbean film because of various bits of on-screen violence.
So, for those who have seen it — thoughts?
The only really bad parts for little kids, I think, are the animal mutilations (even though they’re kinda off-screen) and when Michelle Pfeiffer gets down to being really scary looking. Definitely not as scary as dementors, though.
Not as worried about MP’s makeup (I’ve seen the pictures, and, yes, trivial compared to the whole Dementors thing). I’m more concerned with “animal mutilations,” though.
Which bizarrely calls to mind the “Iron Chef” episode we watched last night, which was “Battle Suckling Pig” — as in the platform came up with a big stack of gutted/cleaned but otherwise intact piglets, bouncing along in a rubbery fashion. It was one of those “I don’t know if I should laugh or gasp in a horrified fashion” moments, and was so for much of the ep.
I do recall thinking I was a bit glad Katherine wasn’t in the room.
The witches do — whatchamacallit, gutomancy — by pulling animals out of cages and chopping them just under the screen, then pulling innards out and looking them over. Two or three times. It’s sort of implied that maybe the animals used to be people.
Haruspicy.
I saw it tonight and will review it tomorrow when the SQL errors stop.
For the kidlets….
If it were a cartoon a la anything Disney, it would be a hard G since cartoon violence and such is somehow more exceptable than Live Action.
Nudity…
Legs and upper Chest (neckline, enough to show that she is nude. Prince in bath, chest. Really, less than anything you would see at the local swimming pool.
While I can see that a smaller child, especially one that is easily upset or scared, would not handle it that well, but if you had read the book to a child and they handled the mental visuallizations fine, then they would be able to handle the Live action well enough. But, I would think it would be beat to view it as a DVD so it can be stopped if it gets to intense for the little ones.
Having just read the book, and then having read several reviews, it sounds like they made several changes to the book to “spice” things up. Changing the name of the main witch, changing the name of DeNiro’s character (And what is this cross-dressing B.S. about? That was most definitely not in the book!), making the magic more SFX-friendly so there would be more visual “ahhh”.
It was a nice, low-key book with nice characters, a nice tribute to Victorian-era fairy tales and the works of Lord Dunsany. Doesn’t sound like the same thing on the screen!
Gaiman has spoken approvingly of the changes, which made it a bit more (from what it sounds) like a fantasy comic romp (with action-adventure thrown in). The significant expansion of the lightning hunters and DiNiro certainly seem to play into that.
Actually?
I would say that the Lightning Hunters added a nice Steampunk feel to it. To me the movie had a real Princess Bride feel to it.
Well, I’d like to recommend going out and seeing it in the theater. I saw it this weekend and really enjoyed it, and with the studio dropping the ball on advertising, the film desperately needs word of mouth.
But I really can’t speak for kid-appropriateness.
And Fred, if you just read it recently, you might want to wait a bit so you can enjoy it on its own merits. I know whenever I’ve just read a book and then see the film, I’m always comparing the details, which interferes with my enjoyment of the movie. I liked both the book and the movie, but it’s been about 2 years since I read the book, so I wasn’t constantly comparing them.