Pride and Prejudice 1995 vs 2005. Discuss
Mar. 4th, 2008 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charliesmumI finally saw the Kiera Knightly version. It was okay, but it felt like a Cliff's Note version of the, what I feel is the definitive movie starring everyone's favorite Darcy, Colin Firth.
To be fair, I've watched the '95 version about 4 million times, so I may have a slight, er, prejudice against any pretender to that particular throne. Still I couldn't help but feel like it was a bunch of people running through the story in 2 hours for those people who don't have the patience to sit through 6.
I thought they did well in condensing the story, since they had too, but there was very little substance to it. Wickham had like one line in the entire movie, the sisters, with the exception of Jane, were imposible to distinguish and why did they pay Dame Judi Dench to play Lady Catherine when she had barely 10 minutes screen time?
I did not feel that Keira's Lizzie was playful or quickwitted or anything. Not Keira's fault; I felt like the screenwriter just figured we all already know her personality, and so didn't feel the need to show it to us. And the actor playing Darcy did a nice job of showing how he was really shy, I never believe he was falling in love with Lizzie. Again, there was no substance to it.
And I thought all the outdoor scenes were too contrived. Like they were saying, 'let's distinguish ourselves by NOT having them in drawing rooms and ball rooms. We'll stick her in the rain, instead!'
Have any of you seen it? What do you think? I sometimes wonder what Jane Austen would think of these movies. Personally I think she'd be quite pleased with Colin Firth's Darcy.
To be fair, I've watched the '95 version about 4 million times, so I may have a slight, er, prejudice against any pretender to that particular throne. Still I couldn't help but feel like it was a bunch of people running through the story in 2 hours for those people who don't have the patience to sit through 6.
I thought they did well in condensing the story, since they had too, but there was very little substance to it. Wickham had like one line in the entire movie, the sisters, with the exception of Jane, were imposible to distinguish and why did they pay Dame Judi Dench to play Lady Catherine when she had barely 10 minutes screen time?
I did not feel that Keira's Lizzie was playful or quickwitted or anything. Not Keira's fault; I felt like the screenwriter just figured we all already know her personality, and so didn't feel the need to show it to us. And the actor playing Darcy did a nice job of showing how he was really shy, I never believe he was falling in love with Lizzie. Again, there was no substance to it.
And I thought all the outdoor scenes were too contrived. Like they were saying, 'let's distinguish ourselves by NOT having them in drawing rooms and ball rooms. We'll stick her in the rain, instead!'
Have any of you seen it? What do you think? I sometimes wonder what Jane Austen would think of these movies. Personally I think she'd be quite pleased with Colin Firth's Darcy.
