Meyer's The Host... by the writer and director of Gattaca?!

[Myasishchev]

Someone explain this shit to me immediately. One of my favorite directors, and possibly my favorite screenwriter, Andrew Niccol--best known for Gattaca and The Truman Show, but currently in the midst of getting In Time to your local theatres (don't miss it!)--is adapting Stephanie Meyers' (...you know who she is) The Host.

...That's insane. That's like if Richard Linklater had directed Twilight, or David Cronenberg was directing Breaking Dawn. Which, okay, I admit, would be fucking great, but stop confusing the issue.

Is this book, I dunno, good or something? I was under the impression it was supposed to be as bad or worse than her previous work.

 

[Kegg]

Saorise Ronan's starring, I see. Every other year she gets a profile in the Times as a rising Irish teenage star, but I never really checked if that's getting anywhere. This could be quite good for her, or maybe in a year or two I'll read another article about how she's going to be big.

Scanning wikipedia, the basic concept seems to be something about alien minds living in human brains and the emotional impact that has on a veteran planet-hopping alien intelligence, who's in some kind of human rebel brain and then there's some romance. Does seem to be a concept Niccol could run with.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

I've heard The Host is better than the Twilight books. And Saorise Ronan's career seems to be progressing very nicely to me. She was great in Hanna and landing the lead in The Host was a major coup for her. There was a lot of competition for the part among young actresses.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The Host is going to be a big hit. He's doing it for the money. Shocking!

 

[Myasishchev]

Yeah, well, couldn't he have done Green Lantern 2 or something for the money?

On the other hand, hell, the basic premise doesn't sound too bad, and like Kegg said, does sound like something Niccol could go nuts with.

At the same time, I'm watching the Twilight Rifftrax again, and I'm struck by how the concept there isn't really that bad. Good vampires, evil vampires, and werewolves. That's not an automatic disaster, is it?

No, it's the focus on the incredibly dull logistical arguments about when/in exactly what manner Bella's gonna get changed, and the awful head games that drive the boring, unrelateable central concept. Seriously, I've never seen a film franchise so fundamentally rooted in cockteasery before.

Just an idea, maybe you shouldn't introduce a force of unspeakable evil like the Volturi and then shrug it off like it doesn't matter. "Our heroes, ladies and gentlemen, doing nothing as dozens of people are lead to their agonizing deaths!"

So that's why I'm skeptical that anything but a profound rework of her new novel can be good. On the other hand, my ex said the Twilight books are better than the movies, in that the characters aren't as flat, and the actions make somewhat more sense. That's like 1600 pages there, guys, I'm not up for that much outside reading.

P.S. I dunno who this Ronan the Accuser lady is, but good God she's surely a better actress than Kristen Stewart. I dunno if it's her, or if her direction in the first was that bad (it is bad, but it's a question of percentages), and they had to roll with that blinky, blanky shit, or what... but she's awful. Just awful. It's funny how Robert Pattinson sabotages his own scenes and looks like he wants to kill himself, though.

P.P.S.: Ashley Green is one of the most beautiful women in the world, and is a lively and energetic presence in a film franchise almost entirely bereft of life or energy, and makes any scene she's in 100% better. If she'd been cast as Bella one could almost have bought this stupid lovesick stuff.

P.P.P.S: I'M HARPO.

 

[Kegg]

P.S. I dunno who this Ronan the Accuser lady is, but good God she's surely a better actress than Kristen Stewart.

She's a talented young Irish actress. She was in Atonement a few years back if you say that, and also in Lovely Bones (the latter causing the first of the two Irish Times profiles I've read about her). I'm unfamiliar with Kirsten Stewart, but Saoirse (that's pronounced seer-sha, kids) is very good.