Home Page › Forums › Fiction Writing › General Writing Discussions › Writers' Corner #17
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May 29, 2018 at 11:40 pm #73398
@seekjustice ooh hot chocolate? yummy. of course you’re listening to les mis 😉
sorry I can’t write right now. You two have fun. Don’t keep Rochellaine up too late, Seekjustice 😛
I'm a Kapeefer 'TIL WE'RE OLD AND GREY!
www.jennaterese.comMay 29, 2018 at 11:43 pm #73399Of course, do you seriously expect me to listen to anything else?
Me?? Keep her up too late. *snorts*. I feel like her mother sometimes, always telling her to go to bed 😛
(please @rochellaine don’t take me too seriously! I would be very sad if you started going to bed earlier!)
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
May 30, 2018 at 12:16 am #73401@seekjustice That reminds me of a line from Stargate SG-1 where they’re talking about making a sci-fi tv show, but the whole episode is a joke and parody of all sci-fi tv shows, and while they’re reading the script the stoic alien guy, Teal’c, says “I do not understand why everything in this script must inevitably explode.” 😛 (The guy writing the script responded that explosions make good trailers.)
Yup, so would I. The pilot is wonderful, and I love it, and I also like the first two seasons pretty well. After that it turns completely historically inaccurate and is basically a show about 80s people who happen to wear 1800s clothing and ride horses, but other than that talk and act like modern, horrible people. I could give you a very long list of a lot of historical inaccuracies, but I’ll spare you. I rant about it all the time at home. 😀 Historical accuracy is extremely important to me, but I can deal with a bit of it if it’s innocent mistakes. LHOTP, though, is too far gone to be explained away.
@jenwriter17 Stay up late? Who, me? 😛Don’t worry, SeekJustice, I would be very sad if I started going to bed earlier, too. 😉 However, I did promise to do something with my sister tonight, so I think I’ll be leaving soon.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
May 30, 2018 at 12:21 am #73403Haha, that’s basically the premise every sci-fi/action movie is based on, isn’t it? “And then…this innocent thing here explodes!” “Haha! Great plot twist…..why?” “Because, everything must explode. this is an action movie and we need material for the three hundred trailers we’ll put up on YouTube”.
I think I’ve seen the first season…maybe? But it was a long time ago. What are a few of the historical inaccuracies?
Okay, 😀
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
May 30, 2018 at 2:02 am #73409@seekjustice Hey, I’m back for just a short bit. I might actually disappear after this post. But how could I resist returning when you gave me permission to go on a semi-rant on one of my favorite ranting subjects? 😛
So, a few of the historical inaccuracies. To start with, I’ll just say that after the first two seasons they basically made no attempt whatsoever to make the show anything near like the true stories. (which I assume you’ve read?) They kept some of the same names, like Reverend Alden and Almanzo, and Mary got blind, yes, but she also got married. The Almanzo and Laura storyline is the worst of the true story mix-ups for me. In real life Almanzo was from upstate New York and had hair so dark that Laura thought it was black until she sat next to him in his buggy, when she realized it was really brown. In the show Almanzo has a completely and horribly faked southern drawl (hint: New Yorkers do not speak like that) and long, shaggy, ugly blond hair. In real life Almanzo chased Laura around for nearly four years before she gave in and agreed to marry him. In the show Laura is made ridiculous by chasing after Almanzo who is obviously way too old for her and shows no interest in her whatsoever except as a little girl. I think the reason they switched it around was because by the 80s it would be considered creepy for Almanzo, who would have been 25 to Laura’s 15, to be interested in her, though at the time it actually happened Laura was considered an adult and her father was perfectly fine with and even happy that Almanzo wanted to marry her. So for the 80s they changed it up so she chased him, but to me it became even more cringy because she acted completely unladylike even going so far as to have a mud fight with Nellie Oleson over Almanzo, when the real Laura was a tomboy at heart, but also very proper and sweet to everyone around her by the time she was that old. So, there are a whole bunch more inaccuracies between the true story and the portrayal, but I’m going to drop that and go to the actual historical inaccuracies.
Even if we could forget that the show is supposed to be about Laura Ingalls Wilder, and just pretend it’s a completely separate show that’s simply set in the 1880s, the historical inaccuracies are still abundant. One, Mrs. Oleson sells ready-made dresses in her mercantile. Ready-made clothing had started to be sold around that time, yes, and especially in the west, where they were supposed to live on the show. But, those included mostly menswear and shirtwaists or skirts for women. Full womens suits and dresses would have been thought ridiculous to be ready-made. It would be a waste of material, since every woman could sew and would measure her garments to fit her correctly, or would take them to a seamstress. She might by separates to wear for everyday or working clothes, but a full, nice dress would be certainly sewn at home. In the show they just walk into the mercantile and they happen to have dresses that fit perfectly the moment whatever character wants them tries them on. That’s convenient for the episodes where they suddenly decide to go on a trip, but terribly unrealistic. Another really annoying thing is that they use very modern (80s, modern, at least) slang. I can’t think of any examples right now, but it is certainly hard to see that coming out of the mouth of a girl dressed in a pioneer outfit. 😛
…and I’m too tired to think of any more right now. Maybe next time I can tell you of a couple more historical inaccuracies, but I think I’ll sign out. 😉 Goodnight! And thanks for listening to my rant… 😛
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
May 30, 2018 at 2:10 am #73410I shamefully admit that I’ve spent the last half hour reading the summaries on Wikipedia. It’s rather….dramatic. Oh yes, of course I’ve read the books. I love (most) of the books!
I can understand that it is considerably creepy/weird for Almanzo to be that much older than Laura. Couldn’t they have just made him younger than he was in real life? A mud fight….? Gracious goodness, Miss Ingalls!
I guess I never noticed that when I was little, but I can see that it would be really annoying now!
Goodnight!
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
May 30, 2018 at 9:40 am #73412@rochellaine @seekjustice I have only seen season one of Little House on the Prairie (which they don’t actually set on the prairie) and I agree it is awful. The other seasons sound even worse! Mud fight? Ugly blond hair? Yikes! In the books (which are awesome,and nothing like the movies) its not creepy or weird when she marries Almanzo. But she sure wasn’t chasing him all over like that! And what “tomboy” meant to her era means something far more ladylike than when we say it today!
"In a mask, was he?"
May 30, 2018 at 10:18 am #73413@ariel-ashira I actually don’t mind season one or two as much. In those seasons they don’t really follow the books except for a couple of episodes, but at least they still have reasonable time period stuff, like they don’t use modern slang and the other things are pretty good for historical accuracy. However, as the show progresses it gets worse and worse. 🙁
Have you seen the pilot episode/tv movie? That one is extremely historically accurate and follows the books almost exactly. It’s really good!
Yup, Almanzo’s portrayal is pretty awful. Another huge thing that they changed about that storyline were Ma and Pa’s roles. Remember in The Long Winter when Almanzo first walked Laura home and her parents were startled? And when Laura arrived at home she heard Ma saying, “She’s only fifteen!” and Pa responded, “I’d trust Wilder anywhere with her,” or something like that. In real life Pa and Almanzo were really good friends and Pa was extremely happy for Almanzo to take Laura out, and it was Ma that was not quite so happy about it. On the shows they completely switched that around, and Pa goes into overprotective father mode and freaks out about Laura and Almanzo’s potential relationship and Ma has to calm him down several times. I really hated that because Laura was always arguing with and disobeying her father while in real life she would never be disrespectful to him!
Actually Laura and Almanzo are one of my favorite book couples, so I was pretty annoyed that their story was so badly portrayed on the show.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
May 30, 2018 at 10:23 am #73414@rochellaine I have not seen pilot episode, or whatever you called it. 😀 How terrible! Why oh why can’t they make it true to the books?! Your rant was pretty awesome.
BTW, I have not seen a lot of the things you all talk about, like Les Mis.
"In a mask, was he?"
May 30, 2018 at 10:35 am #73415@ariel-ashira I can only assume they were looking for more modern and exciting plots, but even that doesn’t make sense because they invented so many exciting stories for different episodes but there was plenty of material in the books to make for excitement. There’s the scene where Almanzo and Cap go for the wheat, which is really cool, and there’s the scene where Laura stays at the Brewsters’ house and sees Mrs. Brewster try to kill Mr. Brewster with a butcher knife! I mean, that would be plenty exciting, and if they wanted to change it a bit I wouldn’t have even minded if she had told Almanzo on the show about that and had him worry about her or something, since that would be a reasonable romantic moment, right? 😛 And they could have just taken it from the book/true story! Okay, yes, I am totally ranting. But thank you! 😀 😛
Don’t worry, I actually haven’t seen a lot of them either. (I haven’t seen Les Mis.) I read the synopses on Wikipedia and sometimes also watch YouTube clips so then I have an idea of what the movie/show is about and can talk about it.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
May 30, 2018 at 10:42 am #73416@rochellaine Keep ranting, I like it. Yeah, even if they played up parts like that, or added more scenes to the same plotline, it would have been a lot more realistic and interesting. I mean, she almost died several times!
Its kind of like the new Ben-Hur movie that came out recently. Its nothing like the book, and its so unrealistic I could scream!
- This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Ariel Ashira.
"In a mask, was he?"
May 30, 2018 at 5:57 pm #73438I’m working on some stuff with my parents books. Is anyone on? @seekjustice @ariel-ashira @alia @jenwriter17
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
May 30, 2018 at 6:16 pm #73439@rochellaine I am on! Are you still?
"In a mask, was he?"
May 30, 2018 at 6:25 pm #73440@ariel-ashira I’m still here. What are you working on?
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
May 30, 2018 at 6:28 pm #73441@rochellaine I am researching amnesia and level three burns. Sometimes when I think about what I have to do to my characters, I wonder how much I really want to be a writer.
"In a mask, was he?"
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