Now, while I like mash-ups in general, reveling in the ridiculous conflagration of, say, The Watchmen and My Little Pony:
But one thing I’ve never been on-board with is messing with my faves, unless it’s sufficiently separate from the source (in other words, I liked Clueless).
So I’ve got trepidation about the upcoming Pride and Prejudice and Zombies movie, currently being cast. Emma Stone (who was in Easy A and Zombieland) is in talks to play Elizabeth Bennet, and James MacAvoy’s been mentioned as Darcy. Now I own the book, but haven’t read it; I’ve heard it’s delightful, but like I said, I’m nervous.
Not that authors, books and concepts should be sacrosanct, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this concept. Maybe because I find zombies so unpleasant in the first place?
Some of you have read it, while some of you feel as I do. What do you think?
I have not read P & P & Z, but I own a sample on my kindle. The thing that bothers me the most is how it says “with ultra-violent zombie action”. Well how is eating someone’s brains not ultra-violent? My friends who are all into zombies have explained that ultra-violent is more description in the violent parts, but do I really want to read that? No.
That book was unreadable dreck. If you’re going to do a mash up, you have to actually put some WORK into it, not just sprinkle zombies in amongst the original text.
I, of course, have not read this book, but I’d have a hard time convincing myself that it would be a good use of my reading time.
I have so many wonderful books TBR on my Kindle and countless more on my bookshelves.
IMHO mash-ups work when the creative artist has a genuine fondness for the elements he or she is mashing together and isn’t just doing it for shock value or hoping to profit by merging fan bases. I haven’t read it so I can’t say for sure, but P&P&Z seems to be in the latter category.
I haven’t read it and it sounds as if I haven’t missed a thing. I hate shock and kitsch for the sake of themselves. Strikes me as self-indulgence playing to the masses.
My impression of P&P&Z is that it would be funny for 30 pages and beyond that would be boring. However, since I’ve not read the book I might be missing something. It could be full of great characters, sparkling wit and social satire . . . oh wait, that’s the original.
I’ve read P&P&Z and for a one-joke book it’s not bad. But I wonder if that movie will ever get made? All those cast changes sound sorta ominous. All I can say is, they’d better get the clothes right.
I’m not really sure who the audience for the movie will be. Most of us who love Austen aren’t really into zombie movies. The usual zombie movie crowd wouldn’t generally be who you would expect to see watching Colin Firth i Pride And Prejudice.
If it were well done, a mash-up would be fun. The only way to find out is to read it.