War Horse - disappointed

[LauraWheeler]

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I did enjoy the film but I loved the book and thats saying something from me as I find reading hard (due to being dyslexic) so don't read many books. But war horse wow I struggled to put it down. The book also made me cry whereas the film didn't. I think it'd because the book was all about the horse and seeing things through the horses eyes. But in the film the horse was just the thread that held the story of the peoples lives together. If you get what I mean.
Also I spent most of the film leaning over to my OH and saying "thats not what happened" So many bits of it were changed. But that happens in most films I think sadly.
It's still a good film and I do recomend people go and see it but I just tell them if they've read the book to expect something diffrent.

I realy realy want to see the play though. I have heard nothing but good reports about that.

 

[ClobellsandBaubles]

Found it very disappointed I love the book and wasn't quite sure why they had to change it quite so much. It was very hollywood especially when the horse 'had' tetanus I also got quite distracted by the horse that kept changing I know this happens in movies but I found it really obvious.

I IMBD'd it later and there were 14 Joeys and a lot of the comments were complaining that the main character (the boy!) was not in the movie enough so clearly a lot of people missed the point that it is supposed to be about the horse. I think the general feel was out because the book it narrated by the horse whereas the film was not was black beauty not narrated by the horse? He seemed to get away with very few injuries what a lucky horse and the other equine characters were barely in it at all

 

[Potato!]

im another one who was expecting a more 'adult' type film - parts of it were so cheesy it was untrue! 'please joey we have got to plough the field, please you can do it!' haha....

However I have to say the scenes filmed in no mans land were absolutely stunning and very harrowing.....top marks for those bits!

Can i ask why you were expecting an 'adult' type film from a children's book?

 

[Sianage]

Also just going to add.... I think narration like in Black Beauty and in the War Horse book encourages anthropomorphism which in my opinion is not a good thing!!

However I am in no way implying that neither are any good! A fan of both

 

[FionaM12]

Also just going to add.... I think narration like in Black Beauty and in the War Horse book encourages anthropomorphism which in my opinion is not a good thing!!

However I am in no way implying that neither are any good! A fan of both

I agree. The book Black Beauty was the exception IMO, in its day it was a good device for Anna Sewell to use to get the point across that horses have feelings and their treatment should matter.

Generally speaking though, animal narration is best avoided.

 

[georgiegirl]

Can i ask why you were expecting an 'adult' type film from a children's book?

Just from the point of view I was expecting it to be grittier and not quite so cheesy!

 

[Faithkat]

Can i ask why you were expecting an 'adult' type film from a children's book?

^^^^^^ ditto especially as the film has a 12A rating which equals a children's film by my reckoning. Those people who are criticising the film story should remember that the book is very short and if Spielberg had stuck religiously to the book story then the film would have been barely an hour long; he had to pad it somehow! Some of the criticisms do make me smile though, for example: it's perfectly possible that Joey wasn't separated from his mother until he was 2. She obviously wasn't a farm horse so wouldn't have been put back to "work" when the foal was a few months old and he very possibly/probably was left with her.

 

[ClobellsandBaubles]

^^^^^^ ditto especially as the film has a 12A rating which equals a children's film by my reckoning. Those people who are criticising the film story should remember that the book is very short and if Spielberg had stuck religiously to the book story then the film would have been barely an hour long; he had to pad it somehow! Some of the criticisms do make me smile though, for example: it's perfectly possible that Joey wasn't separated from his mother until he was 2. She obviously wasn't a farm horse so wouldn't have been put back to "work" when the foal was a few months old and he very possibly/probably was left with her.

But he didn't exactly pad it out he removed large parts of the story and things that supposedly took days, months, years were barely mentioned.

 

[WeedySeaDragon]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who was a bit disappointed in it!!

I think for me what spoiled it was that so much of the horses' behaviour was completely un-horse-like. Things like the horse copying things it was shown, or the self-sacrifice on behalf of Joey where he went to pull the guns instead of Tothorn. A lot of it just felt a bit silly

I also found the human aspect of the Somme the most upsetting bit.

 

[Vixen Van Debz]

I was not disappointed, precisely because I expected a child-friendly war film based on the book War Horse, not an actual film of the book War Horse. Film length, artistic licence and audience appeal require most books to be shortened. If movies were films, then the art of screenplay adaptation would not exist; the books would merely be used as scripts.

I also knew that the perspective was from the people, not from Joey. I adore Black Beauty, but agree with FionaM12 that animal narration is usually best avoided. In fact, what I appreciated about the film was how moving the human stories were all on their own: I found them more moving than when I read the book, and I enjoyed that different take on things.

The awful orange filter on the ending, the animatronics and the horse switching were minor annoyances, but even great films aren't perfect. I'll certainly be buying it when it comes out on DVD and slotting it beside my Black Beauty DVD, that's for sure!

 

[DragonSlayer]

The only things I didn't like were:
Germans not speaking German...I'd rather read subtitles (After watching hundreds of Hong Kong movies, I rather enjoy it now)

Other than that, I loved it I can't wait to buy it on DVD!

They do in the stage show, have you seen it?

 

[Shantara]

They do in the stage show, have you seen it?

Oui ^^ I loved it! But in plays, you can't read subtitles

 

[starbar]

I'm going to see if I can train my horse to gallop over a tank........................................... * trots off to see where she can borrow a tank from*......

 

[GeeGeeboy]

I saw it last night and was dissapointed. Far too much cheese for my liking. Also, didn't really help that the guy sat next to me laughed and talked to his wife all the way through, even at the quite decent and sad war scenes. Really spoiled the film for me.

 

[kajabe]

I was dissapointed also, having read the book and also seen the play, I felt that the film would be a lot better than it actually was! There are numerous characters that were in the book that didnt appear in the film, and I also thought that the first bit of the film [up to when joey got taken into war] dragged on a lot, and then the war scenes went really fast...and I wasn't too keen on the ending either. It's like they got bored and so just quickly shot a couple of scenes and called it a day! All in all, very disappointed!