Oh, don't give them ideas.Rob Houghton wrote:Wait until they remake the film of The Railway Children...including spies and hidden swag.
It does look like a very well-made film (S&A, I mean), but I always cringe to the guts when a film version of a classic book includes huge changes to the plot. Reasonably minor ones are understandable, if the point is to make the story a bit shorter or more suited to the medium. But when they go and rewrite the whole thing with an obvious attitude of "Gee, this story is just too slow and genteel and old-fashioned and boring for today's kids, so let's add some extra baddies and drama and danger and gripping plot twists" — talk about a kick in the teeth for the original author and what he/she intended! — it puts me right off. The Disney Narnia films are a case in point for me.
It's ages since I last saw the 1974 film, but it's a favourite in my family — as are the books, though I haven't read most of them — and I agree, it's an absolute classic and a great rendering of the original story. Nancy's line about the island, "It's been ours for yars and yars" (slightly overdone RP accent ), is a catchphrase in my family. As is the legendary opening telegram: BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WON'T DROWN. ("What are duffers if not duffers?")