Angels & Demons

[Venkman]

Wasn't as boring as I thought it would be, in comparison to other technical executions of books like the first two Harry Potters and The Da Vinci Code. With this one they took more liberties, but unlike in Da Vinci Code, these liberties actually made sense and in some ways improved the story.

I really expected them to tiptoe a bit around Christianity and the Papal ceremonial machinations, so I was surprised when they were very up front about it all. And some of the more wince-worthy events from the book were replicated very well on screen.

My only two complaints I have are:

1) Like other book adaptations, they really expected you to have read the book first, not just be tangentially aware of the major plot points.

2) The science-as-evil theme. The book did a much better job of balancing the motivations of the Church and of Science, giving both a somewhat equal voice. This was an important balance because of the character that discovered the technique which gave rise to the antimatter bomb (he was their star scientist as well as a devoit Catholic and was conflicted enough to seek audience with the Pope about it). Here, Cern merely gave rise to fear, and wasn't properly used as the offset against the "do you believe in God"/"what is your faith" dialog. So you lose some of the heat of the anti-science/anti-religion arguments, and totally lose the symbolic truce drawn at the end.

[HaemishM]

This was an important balance because of the character that discovered the technique which gave rise to the antimatter bomb (he was their star scientist as well as a devoit Catholic and was conflicted enough to seek audience with the Pope about it).

Yep, you just lost me. 

[NowhereMan]

All I remember from reading the book was that Dan Brown has taken a couple of general plot ideas and used them to write pretty much all his books. I honestly didn't think it was a very different book from the Da Vinci code, could be simply a consequence of the genre he writes in but I got a very similar feel from this one. I'm going to assume the film will be equally similar and thus I don't think I'd even bother to pirate this one, if I was inclined to do that.

[IainC]

I wrote this a while ago after reading three or four of his books on the bounce (I;m not proud of it but when faced with the least worst book in a foreign airport bookstore you do what you must)

Dan Brown
Having read a few of his books, I can't help noticing a certain similarity to them. It goes beyond purely his writing style so I thought I'd do a bit of work (or rather do this instead of work) and come up with this, the Auto-Dan-Brown-erator.

Part 1 - the Protagonists
Your hero is:
[]male
[]female

He/she is an overachieving:
[]Brilliant academic (specify field)
[]Independent career woman in a high-powered government agency

He/she is recovering from:
[]The sudden death of his/her partner
[]An unhappy childhood
[]A ruthless and overbearing father

They will come up against:
[]An ancient secret society
[]A powerful and secretive government organisation
[]Both of the above

Which is trying to:
[]Change the course of Christendom
[]Fulfill some complex government machinations

The bad guy is:
[]The hero's boss
[]The apparent victim

The text checklist - include all the following:
Include product specs for random items verbatim from brochures []
Description of childhood trauma experienced by hero leading to phobia in later life []
Establish hero as highly attractive yet vulnerable []
End each chapter with a portent of doom []

To show how easy it is, here's one I did earlier.

Mark Chambers poured himself another coffee. He'd never really liked coffee much as a child but the coffee maker was a present from his wife and he felt a connection to her every time he used it. He missed her, ever since the accident, he'd been a driven man, throwing himself into his study of medieval esotericism. The Nobel prizes, the chairs at Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard had barely registered. He wasn't doing it for the fame. He was doing it for her. Tanned and athletic with a face that had graced the covers of Tatler, Vogue and Time, there'd been no shortage of interested women however he wasn't ready to move on, the emotional scars from the accident were still too painful. Christine had died when the bus full of orphans she'd been escorting had collided with the toxic waste tanker. There had been nothing left for him to identify.
The coffee machine burbled. It was a Moulinex EsMaster 2500 with a maximum capacity of 2.5 litres. Capable of boiling a full pot of coffee in under a minute it was the Rolls-Royce of coffee machines. He absently flicked the orange status switch and picked up his pen again suppressing the involuntary shudder. He'd never been comfortable using a pen since nearly fatally choking on his father's classic Mont Blanc as a child. As he reached for another sheet of the 180gsm vellum paper the phone rang. It was the director of the CIA.

"Hi Mark old buddy!" came the usual effusive greeting. "Listen, we're really impressed about the work you did infiltrating that voodoo cult that was getting ready to overthrow civilisation as we know it, and we'd like you to take a look at a few things for us. No pressure, just a nice little all expenses paid visit to Hawaii to look over some shrines we just dug up. You'll be done in a day and we'll pay for a week. Whaddaya say?"
Mark thought about it and decided he could use a holiday. Little did he know that a terrifying future lay in store for him.

[Azuredream]

There are more cliches you could throw in that creator but that sums up any Dan Brown book pretty well.

[Ookii]

Fucking IanC nailed it.  I had a friend who liked Dan Brown so I read 3 of his books and they're all the fucking same.  It's really quite horrible.

That said Ron Howard did a great job with a shitty book.

[NowhereMan]

Remember to include something about the Catholic church being horrible, if that isn't a primary plot point.

[Rasix]

Yep.  It was actually a halfway decent movie.  It improved a lot on the short comings of Da Vinci Code, which was a boring disaster.  Also, Howard did a good job of working with two of Tom Hanks limitations as an actor: A) You can not make Tom Hanks sexually appealing.  No female lead would realistically want to sleep with him.  B) Tom Hanks is not athletic.  Do not have him do anything physically impressive.  He was also less fat and didn't have the dumb academia mullet.

They removed a lot of physical eye-roll situations from the book and didn't even touch upon any sort of physical attraction between the two leads.  This was a lot better than the awkward kiss on the forehead from the end of Da Vinci Code.  It was a lot better paced than Da Vinci code and actually managed to keep you interested in the plot.

But yes, Dan Brown is a hack.  My brother is not much of a reader and when he stumbled upon Dan Brown, he was hooked.  He tried to argue once that they weren't all the same book.  My brother doesn't concede any arguments, but he was eventually convinced that yes, despite his fondness for them, they were literary mad libs.  I read Da Vinci after Angels and Demons, and after that I don't feel the need to ever read one of his books ever again.

edit: The film portrayed the Catholic church in very sympathetic light, while also showing the ridiculous ceremonial aspects.

[Morfiend]

Yep.  It was actually a halfway decent movie.  It improved a lot on the short comings of Da Vinci Code, which was a boring disaster.  Also, Howard did a good job of working with two of Tom Hanks limitations as an actor: A) You can not make Tom Hanks sexually appealing.  No female lead would realistically want to sleep with him.  B) Tom Hanks is not athletic.  Do not have him do anything physically impressive.  He was also less fat and didn't have the dumb academia mullet.

They removed a lot of physical eye-roll situations from the book and didn't even touch upon any sort of physical attraction between the two leads.  This was a lot better than the awkward kiss on the forehead from the end of Da Vinci Code.  It was a lot better paced than Da Vinci code and actually managed to keep you interested in the plot.

But yes, Dan Brown is a hack.  My brother is not much of a reader and when he stumbled upon Dan Brown, he was hooked.  He tried to argue once that they weren't all the same book.  My brother doesn't concede any arguments, but he was eventually convinced that yes, despite his fondness for them, they were literary mad libs.  I read Da Vinci after Angels and Demons, and after that I don't feel the need to ever read one of his books ever again.

edit: The film portrayed the Catholic church in very sympathetic light, while also showing the ridiculous ceremonial aspects.

This sums up exactly how I feel about Brown and the movie.

I thought Ewan McGregor was fantastic. I would personally give the movie a 7.5/10 but Ewan a 9/10. He just felt so perfect to me. I also think they glosses over the assassin a bit. I remember reading the book and really disliking the character, but in the movie I didnt feel anything for him.

[Venkman]

Dan Brown is an pop culture writer in the same way summer blockbusters are summer blockbusters. You don't go into them seeking enlightenment, just a fast-paced enjoyment. Only two of his books fit that bill though, and are mostly successful for the controversy they resurrected from previously controversial books. The other two were just boring (fake meteor and broken code-breaker).

IainC nails it. But shit, you could apply a variant of that formula to everything Robert Ludlum ever wrote too (except maybe the Road to Gandalfo), and he's got a lot more books.

[rk47]

just want a clarification for the movie:

[NowhereMan]

That's pretty much how I remember it from the book.

[Venkman]

just want a clarification for the movie:

Correct.

[rk47]

Well thanks, I guess I can just purge it from my memory now that it all adds up. The plot didn't grab me much, and the twist ending wasn't really that much of a shocker, but the sights and scenes made up for it.