And I thought the book was a bit disappointing compared to the hype! This movie has made my list of “worst movies I’ve ever seen” and wound up improving my opinion of the book.

I should say that the depth and detail of the history of Henry VIII, Catherine and Anne is so great that I don’t believe it can be sufficiently covered in the span of one movie so it was foolish of them to attempt it. It was rushed and seemed edited down to the point of making characters and events shallow and boring.

Not only was it very historically inaccurate but it didn’t even follow the book very well. The historical accuracy doesn’t have to be 100% for me to enjoy it but this movie just lacked any sort of build up to or depth of certain defining moments in history.

Though the movie was full of good actors, their delivery was let down by the nature of the movie being rushed and shallow. If you want to watch a Tudor story that lives up to it’s potential, watch Showtime’s “The Tudors” instead.

SPOILER:

I was speechless – and not in a good way – during the scene where Henry just flat out rapes Anne. I’m still speechless as I write this, I can’t even begin to describe how absurd it is. Henry was an arrogant, selfish womanizer but he was NOT a rapist. Whoever wrote that scene is a disgrace.

It’s enjoyable as fiction but it’s not very historically accurate. I prefer historical fictions that are more historical than fictional – this one seemed to be more ficton than history.

I thought this was going to be a cute romantic comedy but it seemed like more of a drama than anything. It’s true, I didn’t finish watching it and I’ve heard there are some really funny moments in it, later on. But I wasn’t prepared to have a sob-fest to get to them. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t really like movies that make me cry more than once anymore. So I cried when he first died, I cried when she called his cell phone just to hear his voice on the recorded message and then I turned it off before I could cry about the cake and recorded song he had prebooked before he died to be sent on her birthday.

On another note, Gerard Butler’s Irish accent was horrible! Maybe the producers wrongly assumed that because he was Scottish, he could do an Irish accent without training so they skipped on the voice coach. I actually really like Gerard Butler, he’s one of the reasons I wanted to see this movie but even I have to admit his accent was a joke!

A lot of it just seemed forced for the sake of the lyrics, like the “Prudence” character – she was completely unnecessary to the main plot and only thrown in so they could add a few songs. Or the fact that there happened to be a band in the story so whenever they wanted to use a song that didn’t fit the main plot (and they couldn’t make up another unnecessary character for it), they could just have the band play it.

I know it must have been difficult to come up with a story that would involve only Beatles songs but I think my point is, they shouldn’t have attempted it in the first place. Anytime you try to create a story out of pre-existing songs – songs which are unrelated to each other and therefore trying to make them related to the same story is going to seem forced and unrealistic.

Plus, the psychedelic scenes… I understand they were just trying to portray the times but enough already, it’s difficult to appreciate scenes like that unless you ARE high (as proven by another member’s review who recommends that everyone watch it while high).

I really loved Sebold’s other books but after only a few pages of this I have to give up. Maybe it’s more about it just not being the right book at this time in my life. For starters, I recently finished “Mercy” which is a book about a man who kills his wife to spare her the pain of dying of cancer. Sebold’s book starts off with the sentence “When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily”. I’m really just not in the mood for this type of thing so soon after reading “Mercy”.

Still, I tried to read on, giving it a chance to grab my interest – but it goes on to describe the character’s mother’s physical and mental deterioration. This is also something I’m not in the mood for because currently, my husband’s parents are nearing the end of their lives and becoming more and more physically and mentally incapable. I guess I want to read something different to what is actually going on in my life right now. Maybe someday in the future I will pick this up again but right now, I’m not in the mood for it.

I did like this series and I plan on watching the second season. It’s good entertainment but some parts a very historical inaccurate.

And I don’t just mean the minor things like Henry not matching his physical description. There are other major deviations from fact. The biggest one that I discovered (after watching it I wanted to find out how accurate it was so I looked it up) is the issue of Henry’s sister. In Showtime’s version, Henry had a sister named Margaret – which is true, he did have a sister named Margaret. Unfortunately for Showtime, Margaret was never married to the King of Portugal OR Charles Brandon. Henry’s other sister, Mary – whose name was never mentioned in “The Tudors” WAS married to Charles Brandon, however she was previously married to Louis VII of France, not the King of Portugal. Nor did she murder her first husband. And although he did die within 3 months of their marriage, “The Tudors” certainly exaggerated their short marriage by making it last only a few days. Plus in the show she seemingly had no children but in fact, she had a few.

My only thought as to the logic behind the name swap is possibly that they worried people would confuse Henry’s sister Mary with Henry’s daughter Mary. While this could be a major insult to viewers, I can see how when character’s speak of “Mary” it may not be clear which Mary they are speaking of and therefore they attempted to avoid any confusion and call her Margaret instead.

As for why they had her marry the King of Portugal instead of Louis VII of France, it probably has to do with the timeline in the TV show not lining up with the historical timeline. In the TV show’s timeline, it probably wasn’t an ideal time for Mary/”Margaret” to marry the King of France so they chose a different country. Of course, had they followed the accurate timeline, they wouldn’t have needed to.

And the last thing I will say about the Mary/”Margaret” topic is that she was 18 when she married Louis VII and there is NO way Gabrielle Anwar could pass for that young. Maybe she wasn’t supposed for pass for 18 (it’s clear they had no regard for accuracy when it came to her character anyway) but given that even in the TV show, the King of Portugal was supposedly her first marriage, I found it hard to believe in that era a princess would go unmarried into her late 30s! Before I even looked up all of these inaccuracies it just didn’t seem right to me. A clear miscasting in my opinion.

And as far as miscasting goes, I also think either the actress who played Catherine of Aragon is too old or Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Henry) is too young. In history, Catherine is older than Henry but it’s only by 6 years – while the difference between the actors looks much, much greater.

Apparently Cardinal Wosley did not commit suicide and did not die in prison.

And I too thought the scene of Henry masturbating while one of his servants held a towel in front of him was unnecessary.

Don’t get me wrong, I can still enjoy the TV show as part fact, part fiction, part filling in the gaps with guesses. A lot of the casting I didn’t mention was very well done and the episodes certainly held my interest. I just hate to see so many people thinking it’s historically accurate when a lot of it is not so that’s the only reason I mention all of this. It’s certainly enjoyable but everyone should remember to take it with a grain of salt and if you want full historical accuracy, this isn’t it.

This is possibly my favorite book ever. A story about womanhood and sisterly bonds but also about ancient mesopotamian culture and mythology. Heaven. It’s so well written that it feels real, despite the unusual culture of ancient times.

SPOILERS WARNING

Well, over all I was really pleased. I had some disappointments but one of my biggest fears was the acting of Dakota Blue Richards – I feared with another “unknown” we’d have a repeat of Daniel Radcliffe – but I thought she did really well, especially considering her age and lack of experience. I still don’t like Nicole Kidman though, I don’t know why but it’s like I can just tell she’s acting.

I saw the movie with 3 people who haven’t read the books and they all really enjoyed it too. My husband says he liked it more than any of the Harry Potter movies and now wants to read the books. He says it was more sophisticated than Harry Potter but doesn’t understand where all the controversey is coming from (I then explained the controversial parts are mainly in the last book). The only thing he felt they didn’t explain very well was why/how Lyra was living at the college.

One of the annoyances is that I could tell the only reason it’s rated PG-13 in the States is because of the ONE line where Serafina refers to her “former lover”. I know young kids won’t understand the depth of the story but I think it could still be enjoyable to them as a fantasy adventure – but they had to alienate that age group to put in ONE line.

My other disappointments:

1. The amount of scenes in the trailer that were cut from the movie. I understand cutting scenes is a normal process but don’t put scenes in the trailer if you think they might be cut! They manage it with other movies, why not this one? I hate seeing trailers and looking forward to seeing more of certain scenes and then realizing the scene has been cut. I was especially looking forward to the scene where Lyra screams “I’m not yours! I’ll never be yours!” which looks like it should have been the ending scene where the she’s about to go into the next world. Even though cutting the end off early took me by surprise and I was disappointed because I really wanted to see that scene, I understood why they did it. My husband felt the movie ended at just the right place and if they don’t edit it to please the viewers who haven’t read the book, they’ll just get criticized for that. It’s a damned if they do, damned if they don’t situation. So I was disappointed but I do understand their reasoning. I just hope that scene is in the beginning of the next movie!

2. I felt like they kind of brushed over the horror of losing one’s Daemon. I remember in the books, seeing the boy without a Daemon is so horrific, it’s almost sickening. But I don’t think they portrayed the strength of the horror in the movie. It was so fast paced that they rushed over it. And when Ma Costa says “we’ll get your daemon back” – I thought that really misrepresented the concept of daemons to the non-book readers.

But everything else about it was great – the CGI was amazing and just the imagary in general too was really beautiful. Overall I thought they did a fantastic job bringing the book to life. They must face all sorts of criticizism whenever they make a movie from a book but I really enjoyed it.

It’s a bit like a modern PacMan in that the goal is merely to eat as much “stuff” as possible without running into/getting eaten by other “things”. It’s a game with organisms floating and swimming in water and each time your own organism eats something, it evolves (gets larger and more complex). There are other organisms which can harm you or seemingly eat parts of your organism and therefore de-evolve you. You conquer them by eating them before they can get to you – after a few bites in the right places, they break apart into simple and harmless organisms which you can then chomp up to evolve further. As you evolve, the water/background changes color/gets darker and the organisms become more complex. The imagery is beautiful and the tilt control works really well to make it easier to move around. It’s not fast action or hugely challenging but strangely addictive!

I’ve seen him live twice now and he’s really good. Anyone who has the chance to see his stand up, I highly recommend it.