so in an endeavor, which i'm still not sure will be worth it, i decided to read the novelization of man of steel to see if i would like the story even a little bit. i haven't seen the movie, and, quite frankly, i'd rather spend six dollars on an ebook i'll never read again than twenty making a bet on a movie i'm already feeling iffy about. i also decided to take a peek at the novelization of the dark knight rises too, because it's by the same author, and why the heck not. that's the one i read first, so that's the one i'm talking about (as the title says)
so i downloaded the sample to my kindle last night, which includes the prologue and a chapter and a half? i think. it said i was 70% of the way through it on the first page of chapter two so i'm gonna pretend that's absolutely correct. while i do this, i'm gonna try to avoid mentioning my fic of the same story, mostly because this is a review, not a comparison, though i should mention that was sort of the other reason i wanted to read this book anyway. so, ONWARDS!
the prologue in this book is the scene where jim gordon is talking at harvey dent's funeral, nicely getting the time setting out of the way without having to mention it in the text, though they're probably going to mention it in the text. in the movie this is more like an epigraph more than anything, though it's hard to apply terms like that to a movie because it's not a book, you know? but here it's used as the prologue.
the narrator (this is written in 3rd person omniscient) kindly reminds us that harvey dent wasn't actually killed in the line of duty in the third sentence, which would be okay, maybe, but it's written in clumsily. that could have been it's own sentence, honestly. also, this author has a problem with using paragraph breaks properly. like, it's kind of a rule to break for every line of dialogue by a new speaker, but he breaks the last line of gordon's speech from the dialogue tag before it for no reason. that's one of my top pet peeves about writing, and while reading this it drove me crazy.
i'll be honest, i'm not a fan of this author at all. this stuff is readable, but he's just kind of amateur?? i feel like i'm being narcissistic when i say this because i'm really only comparing to myself, but i write better than this guy! that's not cool! i've only been doing this for ten months! not cool.
anyway, back to the prologue. it ends with gordon rushing out the words "i believed in harvey dent" and getting the heck out of dodge because he can't stand to praise the man who tried to kill his son anymore. completely understandable. what's funny, though, is that he's written as thinking this:
With any luck, people would think that he was simply overcome with emotion. God forbid they should guess what he was really feeling.and like??? who's sitting at harvey dent's funeral service wondering if he really got killed by the batman except maybe the odd investigative reporter? i just find it funny that that's what gordon's thinking about at the moment. there's also an odd part where the narration refers to batman as 'gotham's true dark knight', which is strange, seeing as harvey was gotham's white knight. there is no other dark knight.
is this nitpicking? maybe, but nitpicking gives me life, so this'll have to do. ONWARDS!
so, chapter one!!! in this book is what was the prologue to the movie. writing hack: if you have a random scene that takes place six months prior to the timeline, presented chronologically instead of as a flashback, it should be a prologue, friend. it doesn't matter if it's long enough to qualify as a chapter - read game of thrones if you're worried about something like that. not a fan of the presentation, but okay whatever let's get to the goods.
one of the thing i realized while reading this is that it's written word for word from the screenplay (which i know because i own the complete screenplays for the dark knight trilogy. i really do like this batman stuff, i promise you). if this were any other screenwriter it wouldn't be a problem, but i can tell you from experience that writing a chris nolan scene without some rearrangements is bullshit. he writes his fast cuts right into the script, and if you don't make up for it it makes the writing choppy and hard to follow sometimes. i kind of don't want to fault the author for this, but i feel like i have to because it's his job to accommodate the change in medium, you know?
so, in this chapter we're introduced to dr. leonid pavel, the man with two first names, or so everyone tells me. they're a-speeding through the country side of Unnamed Eastern European Country #12 towards an airstrip outside of a city that's the front for some war that's going on, the likes of which we aren't privy to because it doesn't matter to us - which is fair enough. we learn a lot about dr. pavel, such as the fact that he's unsure of what he's doing, that he doesn't look like the actor that played him in the movie, and that he's apparently racist. there are other people in the car, but they don't matter, save for the three dudes in the back seat with bags over their heads - it wouldn't be a tdk trilogy movie without at least one person with a bag over their head. these paragraphs are pretty alright, except for a sentence that literally says 'other sounds began to be heard' as they near the war zone that's bugging the heck out of me because really?? really????
anyway, this is the part where they get out of the car and meet the cia agent played by the dude who plays petyr baelish on game of thrones. the book doesn't make moves to distinguish the driver from any of the other peripheral characters in the car, but i assume it's because that character is only named in the credits of the movie and we don't really have a reason to know that the driver of the car is important, because he kind of isn't. seriously, dude has approx three lines in the movie, but he seems important because he shows up everywhere bane is. that's another reflection of the script, but not one i'm faulting the author for.
the cia agent takes the doctor on the plane, as well as the three bag heads because driver told him that they worked for bane and cia dude is like 'yo that's what's up'. pavel is upset about it but he doesn't say anything because they're saving him and it's not ike his opinion matters anyway. i love the way the author goes out of his way to remind us that cia man is plain. like, nondescript and unmemorable are used in the same sentence to describe this dude. this is a personal thing, but when characters are plain i don't think you should spend even that much energy picking out synonyms to use. but that just might be me, so moving on, there's a thing i like!!! wow!! i like that bane is described as a mystery with a body count, it's actually a pretty succinct description of the char in general, which is nice to see in this.
also, adding to the plain, cia dude's name is Bill Wilson. like.. that sounds like an old man that lives next door to you, or your grandpa. i love it. agent wilson and co. board the plane and begin their flight over some mountains as wilson thinks about how he's gonna get a promotion if he can get the scoop on bane, since dude has eluded the cia pretty well. we also get that great scene where agent dude interrogates the guys by hanging them out the door and pretending to shoot them. fun stuff.
bane gets his first lines in the next paragraph, and, quite frankly, i'm mad the author didn't take the opportunity to describe the way his voice sounds. i guess it wasn't as important in the script or s/t. however, in this version bane is wearing a leather jacket, and that's cool as hell. bane, who is still one of the mystery bag heads at this point, hints that he's bane, and wilson flips out internally. i gotta say, agent wilson has got to be the dumbest dude i've ever seen. do you know how many times bane is equated with blood and death and destruction in this chapter alone? according to pavel, dude is nearing voldemort levels of name-being-synonymous-with-terror-ability in that part of the word, but agent wilson is hella excited! he ain't scared of no bane!
so the bag comes off and tada! he's here!! and i hate the way his mask is described!!! it's not scary at all, or even a little intimidating because it's too excessive. the description in the script mentioned that it gripped his head like a vice, and that's about it. that's intimidating. this long ass paragraph isn't. if he'd pared it down and kept the part where he mentions that it made his face look like a skull it would have been fine. also, using cranium as a synonym for head is generally a dumb move unless you're talking science.
in the conversation that ensues after the de-bagging, wilson actually gets scared of bane, but only after he threatens to kill him, which i can't help but find a little unreasonable, seeing as this is bane. then again, maybe i'm just projecting myself into the situation, because bane is truiggery as hell for me and even reading some of this is hard. either way, now wilson is starting to get nervous about the sitch at hand, though he's trying not to show it.
now, this is the part where following the script exactly gets iffy, because this is when the bigger plane shows up. as cool and complicated as the plan is, i think it would have been better to keep the perspective in the plane for this part, just to make it easier to follow. hopping in and out of the plane is a bit disorienting. also one of the random soldiers gets name dropped here and i don't know why, seeing as he isn't mentioned again after this. can we talk about how wilson's last thoughts are "this can't be happening! i'm in charge here!" really dude?
the narrator switches between telling us what's happening inside the plane and outside as everything goes to shit. pavel has tons of thoughts that make bane seem like satan, or death in the final destination franchise. i'd mock him for being so down during this but a plane is falling apart around him so i can't fault homie for that. they do the thing where they give him a corpse a blood transfusion with his blood and that's not as gross as it could have been but that's really nitpicky i think. however, i love the part where the one dude gets left on the plane in this one! it's so much more involved in this version, and you really see how much these dudes care about this stuff, especially bane. like, it actually looks like he cared about the guy that got left behind! whoa!
of course, the chapter ends with the plane being dropped onto the mountains and pavel and bane carried off. pavel screams bloody murder in this version, which is only funny because the narrator mentions before that he's a distinguished scientist and engineer before hand.
so... this was okay. like i said, it was readable, but i don't like the author's style. the prose is also really formal, which is hilarious considering who the movie is by. i am curious to see the rest of this though, and how he handles man of steel, which i also have a sample of on my kindle. maybe i'll do chapter by chapter reviews if i'm able to purchase the whole book. idk. but, for now, all i'll say is that the author would benefit from a creative writing class. it worked for me.
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