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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to suspect that the Fantastic Mr Fox film has been ruined by Americans?

33 replies

CornishKK · 13/10/2009 08:54

Loved the book as a child, loved it, I've been hoping for thirty years that it would be made into a good film.

Mr Fox with an American accent, talking about real estate and using a credit card???

Baseball references?

FFS.

OP posts:
StrictlyAvadaKedavraarrrrghhhh · 13/10/2009 08:56

The whole movie is American, and from what's just been said on Breakfast, the main characters are all American and the baddies are English.

CornishKK · 13/10/2009 08:59

An American Mr Badger? Ridiculous.

OP posts:
DorotheaPlentighoul · 13/10/2009 09:00

I know, it makes my heart sink. YANBU.

rosieposey · 13/10/2009 09:01

OMG cornish i am so there with you! I watched the trailer on youtube and was sooo disapointed - they have totally ruined it. I remember my dad reading that to me and it being one of my favourite stories (im 37) and i still love it and have read it to all of my children now.

Cant believe they have bastardised it so badly - i wont be going to see it as i dont want the lovely pictures that i have built up in my head relating to the story (beautiful rolling english countryside, proper foxes dens ect ect)

CornishKK · 13/10/2009 09:02

James & The Giant Peach was bad enough but this, this is an outrage.

I will watch it though. But just so that I can get cross.

OP posts:
quidnunc · 13/10/2009 09:03

I share your misery. DS has been hopping about the place for weeks, ever since he found out FMr.F is to be made into a film. He will be upset about any change from the book. So annoying. They've done the same (i.e. ruined, dumbed-down and trashed) with Winnie the Pooh, Rupert, et al.

(On the filp side the Pixar movies are outstanding. Shrek etc., all are v. good)

So, YA-definitely-NBU.

CornishKK · 13/10/2009 09:08

Hoorah, my first AIBU and I'm not.

I could be classed as slightly tragic, my PFB is only 12 weeks so not really that bothered by animation yet. Although he already has a book case full of my childhood favourites that I want to share with him....

Don't get me started on the Winne The Pooh debate.

Quid - your poor DS!

OP posts:
rosieposey · 13/10/2009 09:09

Mr Fox is going to sound like Mr Coyote ( i made him up ) and i do agree that the Pixar films are amazing, but thats their genre - Roald Dahl's books were never meant to be set anywhere else but here, the characters were always just so 'English' and its a shame they had to deviate from that. JK Rowling doesn't seem to be having the same problem?

CornishKK · 13/10/2009 09:16

It's the Englishness of FMrFox that makes me love it.

There have been some good book adaptations recently - Harry Potter is a great example. Damn those Americans. They seem to have introduced a random selection of woodland creatures never seen before. Mr Possum and Mr Fecking Racoon.

Mr Fox is English, there's nothing more English than Mr Badger.

And as for the Charlie & The Chocolate Factory re-make, what on earth was all the nonsense about Willy Wonka's dad being a dentist?!

I love a rant in the morning.

(I do like the look of the animation though.)

OP posts:
roulade · 13/10/2009 09:24

Oh poo, i was looking forward to this too

deepdarkwood · 13/10/2009 09:30

ds adores Mr Fox - listens to it everynight at bedtime. We saw the trailer and he wailed 'That's NOT fantastic Mr Fox".
Good lad.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 13/10/2009 10:02

YANBU - I thought the same. I just love the line 'she won't feel so rotten, as soon as she's gotten, some cider inside'er inside!' Can you imagine that working with an american accent? I imagine it west country...

sarah293 · 13/10/2009 10:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

HowlingAtTheMoon · 13/10/2009 10:10

OH NO!!! My DS is desperate to see this but if its not been done properly then I think I won't take him. Oh I'm really upset now.

crazylizzy · 13/10/2009 10:12

YANBU, it's very sad. I hate it when they kill classic literature Roald Dahl would turn in his grave if he saw that monstrosity.

LittleWhiteWolf · 13/10/2009 10:13

Sigh, why do we keep selling the film rights to the Americans who ruin our childhood books??? Its not as if we dont have a successful film industry in the UK. Well it would be more successful if we kept gems like these and made them ourselves.

I've read before that this often happens because people from the UK find it easier to 'get' American references, but the Americans find it very hard to 'get' ours. I find that sad given that the US is meant to be this big old melting pot of different cultures...

waits to be flamed by passing yanks, oh well, I'm going out soon anyway

HowlingAtTheMoon · 13/10/2009 10:15

And they always do that thing of making english accents the baddies and americans the goodies. (and yes I know they are all english in the book before anyone says!)

WhereYouLeftIt · 13/10/2009 10:27

I saw the trailer for this - George Clooney is Mr Fox? Someone in Hollywood though 'The Fantastic Mr Fox' could be grafted onto 'Ocean's 11' to make a children's film, didn't they?

MillyR · 13/10/2009 10:31

Oh no! This has made me very sad. We have always disputed Mr Fox's accent. DH thought foxes were cockneys, and I thought Cornish.

I have already promised DD that we will go and see it, but WHY American accents?

alana39 · 13/10/2009 10:38

Oh no YANBU, I have been looking forward to this and so have DCs but it will just be wrong. Do Americans drink cider?

And I have only just got over reading what they did to the ending of Life on Mars in the US version too

WhereYouLeftIt · 13/10/2009 10:39

MillyR, I don't have the book but a CD, I believe Dahl himself voiced Mr Fox. (I prefer books, but this was bought for long car journeys.) It is nice to hear the voice in your head for yourself though, let's you put your own slant on the character, doesn't it? Rather than just presented with it. And he most certainly is not American!

Ledodgy · 13/10/2009 10:40

I still haven't got over the disneyfication of Winnie The Poo.

Ledodgy · 13/10/2009 10:40

*pooh

StripeyKnickersSpottySocks · 13/10/2009 10:42

I always thought they were Cockneys. Will be awful with American accents. YANBU.

Boco · 13/10/2009 10:50

YANBU.

Mr Fox is supposed to sound like David Niven, NOT George Clooney.

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