While stumbling around on the internet as I often do, I was led to this gem: The 1999 film The Iron Giant, one of my favourite movies from when I was a kid, was based on a novel by Ted Hughes. What a CRAZILY SMALL, INTRICATELY-PLACED WORLD that we live in.
I didn't read the novel, but I read through the summary on Wikipedia and the original was quite a bit different than the film. And much more Hughesian, in that 'mythological influence' sort of way.
The Iron Man, as it's called in his novel, crashes into a small town in England and, after a while, becomes friends with the community. Later, another being crashes into Australia and is much less friendly; The Iron Man goes to the "Space Bat Angel Dragon" and challenges him to a Test Of Strength: The Iron Man wings, and the Dragon is so badly charred from his flight to the sun that he no longer appears frightening (Crow?). Then the Dragon reveals that he's the singer of the music of the spheres. The Iron Man orders the Dragon to fly behind the sunset, singing to the earth, and this celestial song "distracts the population from its egocentrism and tendency to fight, causing the first worldwide lasting peace" (Wikipedia).
None of this really happens in the film, which is much more based on the Cold War and the young boy that finds the Iron Man than the original seems to, but Hughes still gave approval for the script.
Getting past the initial shock of oh wow these two things are related, It's pretty cool that Hughes wrote the book that turned into one of the greatest films of all time, in twelve year old Hannah's opinion. I do find it interesting how natural-focusing, animal-personifying Hughes decided to write about an Iron Machine from Space.
After I first registered for this class I googled Ted Hughes because I had never heard of the guy. When I discovered that the was connected to the movie I was excited because I loved that movie as a kid. Throughout the semester I forgot but now that you reminded me I love Hughes just a little bit more.
ReplyDeleteYo The Iron Giant is one of those movies that you see on the cable listing and no matter how far into the movie it is, you don't bother looking for anything else. It's such a great movie that is different from anything else in our childhood it seems, so the realization that it was based off something Hughes wrote was mind blowing for me as well. For me, this was one of those moments where I just celebrated higher education. Simply because without higher education, would we have ever known that it was based off of something Hughes created? Or that Rafiki is speaking an actual African language in The Lion King? HOW FUN is reevaluating things you loved in childhood?!
ReplyDeleteTed Hughes wrote tons of children's literature--next time, I'd like to include a bit more of that.
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