Say it ain't so Sherlock

[Supe]

I have often said that one of the good things about growing ever-older is that I might well die before the barbarians breach the gates. If the following link is accurate it may be too late.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/19/pride-and-prejudice-sherlock-holmes-will-be-re-released-with-added-sex-scenes/

Don.

[lynn cates]

Rathbone and Bruce

Hello Don. Thanks for posting this. Hmm, so Basil and Nigel . . . oh, never mind.

Cheers.
LC

[Archaic]

Hi Supe.

I just looked at the link, and I'm appalled. The barbarians are at the gate, all right, and they're trying to squeeze themselves under the door.

I'd like to punch whoever came up with this idea. All three of the titles mentioned are wonderful literary works, but Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' is perfection.
What's next, a porno flick version??

I'm hoping fellow Janeites and lovers of great literature will riot.

Hey, maybe we can improve on some of the great oil paintings of the world...why not spice up the works of Monet? He's so tame, so 19th Century.
Maybe paint in a few hot skinny-dippers among the water-lilies? Or naked vampires? Yeah, naked vampires!!

Sigh...
Archaic

[Rubyretro]

I'm hoping fellow Janeites and lovers of great literature will riot.

Shoulder to shoulder at the barricades !

Imagination reigns !

(I always had a secret crush on Sgt Troy, in "Far From The Madding Crowd"
personally...I certainly don't want my dreams to be ruined by a lot of bad 21st century writing ).

[Ally]

Oh. My. God. Never mind that the brain trusts at these idiotic publishing houses think that everything needs to be explicit to be sexy (and no offense but my imagination is better than anything most of these hack writers can put into a scene) but the idea that they can 'improve' on someone's work or change it just for pure rank titillation factor.

KNEECAP THE BASTARDS! Break their fingers before they start to type!

[Supe]

Ally,

KNEECAP THE BASTARDS! Break their fingers before they start to type!

But just to start with -- then we get serious!

Don.

[lynn cates]

Hardy imagination

Hello Ruby.

"I always had a secret crush on Sgt Troy, in "Far From The Madding Crowd""

That ne'er do well? Perhaps you, like Bathsheba, admire his sword work?

Just imagine Gabriel and Bathsheba after THESE chaps get hold of them!

Cheers.
LC

[Robert]

Holmes would not have liked the 21

[Steven Russell]

I doubt anyone will read 'em anyway. And anyone who does will probably get what they deserve. I wonder which Holmes story they mean. Threre are sixty in the canon and none is called "Sherlock Holmes".

Best wishes,
Steve.

[jason_c]

[Jonathan H]

Speaking as a socialist this is depressing and repugnant but not at all surprising -- even inevitable.

The right-wing corporatization of Western society, which accelerated with the end of the Cold War, just keeps going on and on -- reaching into and corrupting every sphere (I said right-wing, as it is certainly not 'conservative').

If it makes money to add sex scenes to literary classics then it happens.

To be simplistic, the middle-class persistently elect politicians who will prevent gay marriage, or whatever is the latest wedge issue. The same cheap, telegenic demagogues subsequently cut the taxes of the wealthy and thus leave not enough federal-state revenue to pay for cops, veteran's health, fire-fighters, decent roads, border protection, and so on. The jungle will reclaim society long before the 'barabarians' get a chance.

I had an adult friend call me a few years ago to furiously lament that 'they have screwed-up "The Golden Compass" movie adaptation'. I did not know what he was talking about? I was halted in my tracks when I discovered it was a children's book.

Well, if kids liked the movie then that's all that matters, surely?

But such a thing as a movie strictly for kids or strictly for adults -- excepting the X-rating -- is long gone when the budget is a 200 million dollar behemoth.

Imagine an adult ringing another adult in 1971 to say: My God they've phucked up 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks'!?

Or, imagine 10 year olds at a test screening of 'Chinatown' and writing on their test cards: not enough action! Jack Nicholson does not even carry a gun! What's with the bummer ending? How come there are no J J Gittis action figures or lunch boxes with Faye Dunaway -- though she is a bit old, and the smoking will have to go. Maybe Gittis could have a loveable child sidekick ...?

Everybody has to see every big budget movie to maximise profits. So, I go see 'The Amazing Spider-Man' (I liked it) and there is a mother a few seats away from me and my friend, who has brought little children who are then exposed to scenes of ultra-violence and horror.

The raunchy best-seller 'Fifty Shades of Grey' cannot be just a modern gothic, bodice-ripping romance, it has to be S-M erotic too. You can't make a movie about young Abe Lincoln without him also fighting vampires (in fairness Spielberg is making a straight movie about the older Lincoln, but who else but the aged Wunderkind could get that off the ground in today's comic/remake-driven Hollywood?)

Across the ideological spectrum, politicians get themselves elected on ever-shrinking electorates, in terms of their class, credal, and ethnic diversity, while culture has become ecumenical coalitions of cradle-to-grave vulgarity: everybody must see everything whether you enjoy it or not.

[Archaic]

The raunchy best-seller 'Fifty Shades of Grey' cannot be just a modern gothic, bodice-ripping romance, it has to be S-M erotic too. You can't make a movie about young Abe Lincoln without him also fighting vampires (in fairness Spielberg is making a straight movie about the older Lincoln, but who else but the aged Wunderkind could get that off the ground in today's comic/remake-driven Hollywood?)

Hi Jonathan. Actually they tried to spice up 'Honest Abe' a few years back. Some author decided that because Lincoln had shared a bed in a cabin with another man (even though it was in a frontier cabin, where there was only one bed, & sharing was normal) it made him Homosexual. Yep, he said the great Rail-splitter was a very Gay Blade.

I guess if a new book about Lincoln comes out his 19th C. living arrangements will have to be spiced up even more.

Who ever would have thought that 'Jersey Shore' would become the new Normal?? Vulgarity rules.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Rubyretro]

Hello Ruby.

"I always had a secret crush on Sgt Troy, in "Far From The Madding Crowd""

That ne'er do well? Perhaps you, like Bathsheba, admire his sword work?

Just imagine Gabriel and Bathsheba after THESE chaps get hold of them!

Cheers.
LC

Sadly, I didn't get the marks in my English Lit. O'level that were predicted because I refused to take the line which we were taught, and instead wrote a spirited defence of Sgt Troy, and pointed out Bathsheba only ended up with
Gabriel Oak because there was no one else left -and she would have been bored to death for the rest of her life with Oak.

Goodness knows what 'THOSE' chaps would do to Gabriel and Bathsheba -I think that he'd never be in bed, he'd always be up birthing lambs and tying down hay bales, and stuff, and whittling bits of wood by the fire probably....still, I suppose that she wouldn't have to worry about the milk maids being interested in him (but if they weren't, she wouldn't be either, for long).

[Barnaby]

Let me play devil's advocate. The Sherlock Holmes character is one of the most popular in film and fiction. Doyle's character has been used by many to make a buck for a long time. Why the outrage now? If you don't want to read the book, don't purchase it. Nobody in their right mind is going to confuse these works with the originals; Doyle's legacy is safe.

Why not pursue a Holmes/Irene Adler sex angle? Oh wait, that's been done, multiple times, in recent Ripper fiction no less. Yet no outrage. Hmm...

[Robert]

Hi Barnaby

There have been Holmes parodies - some good, some bad - ever since the character's first appearance. What we seem to have here, though, is tampering with the stories themselves.