Ferngully

So I’m not sure why–maybe it’s a response to all the short story collections I read last year–but I bought a bunch of old movie novelizations from movies in my childhood–The Dark Crystal, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, etc. I think I may have been inspired by BF: The Novelization of the Feature Film by Ryan North to find out how whack-a-doo these adaptations turned out to be.

You’ll be seeing more of them in the future. This one I got after I rewatched Ferngully for a live Free With Ads event (a podcast) and remembered it was book-based. I thought there must have been something missed that might cohesify this bare plot. Like, who is this Pips character (Christian Slater)? Is he supposed to be a romantic rival? A brother? Was he for show more merchandising? Where did Hexxus come from? What are the rules of magic here? If this takes place in Australia, where is everyone’s accent? How does that Big-Lipped Alligator Moment with the Tone Loc goanna translate into text?

It follows the movie pretty closely. Even Batty retains his frenetic and scatterbrained dialogue. But the plot is no less disjointed than the movie. There’s more world-building in the beginning, but also no conflict. New characters that don’t matter. Krysta has no clear goal or difficulties. It’s just twee fairies being twee and loving the forest and naming trees.

The movie has more emotional impact, maybe because the visuals and music help pump up what’s otherwise a lackluster plot. Unless you really really really like the movie, there’s no reason to read this. It feels like it was written because of the movie, not to inspire it. show less

I remember seeing the movie as a kid, and then I read this book later on. I don't remember where I came across this book, maybe one of my cousins had it. Basically it's a tie-in to the movie and if you've seen the movie the ending is pretty predictable but that doesn't mean it was bad - it was pretty standard for a book that was written as a tie-in to a children's movie (or vide0 game or show) and I know I read a few of those. I came across this movie recently on Netflix and oh the nostalgia.

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