So. Looks like Paul WS Anderson made a movie with Milla jumping off Versailles in baroque and is calling it a steampunk take on The Three Musketeers.
Well, there’s certainly more to it than that. If Anderson wanted to break out of the Resident Evil franchise, I have to say this is a pretty flashy way to do it. A couple of things in this trailer that stood out for me:
One: Orlando Bloom’s a baddie! Interesting choice. Besides, him as D’Artagnan would just smack of Will Turner Redux.
Two: Okay, the CGI-work is pretty typical of the Resident Evil stuff, but it’s still pretty. The dragon-head, flame-throwing cannons there are pretty sweet (though logically, never put something that sparks on an airship…)
Three: The famous swashbucking trio are being played by a Norse God, a Greek God and the Sheriff of Nottingham. Who all happen to be British. I like this line-up. And their shiny swords and grapple guns.
Thoughts?
Ay-leen the Peacemaker runs Tor.com Steampunk on Facebook and Twitter as well as the multicultural steampunk blog Beyond Victoriana. She wishes she could look that badass everyday as Milla does.
My thoughts? “Yes.” Paul WS Anderson is underrated and that trailer is tight.
On one hand, it looks better than anything else Paul WS Anderson has done (which isn’t saying much).
On the other hand, adding airships and making Milady some kind of ninja assassin makes me rage in odd ways. Dumas’ book is already a fantastic adventure story. Why add all the pablum around exploding airships to it?
Most of the “reimaginings” in the trailer reminded me of The League of Extradinary Gentleman movie, where we got Tom Sawyer as some kind of American proto-superspy and a milquetoast Quartermain and almost none of the original comic.
Anderson’s “interpretation” looks similar, in that we’ll get shades of the original characters and none of the story.
I originally thought Logan Lerman was an insipid casting choice for D’Artagnan. The trailer hasn’t convinced me otherwise. This is going to make me look back fondly on Chris O’Donnell’s turn as the fourth musketeer, and I never thought that would happen.
Otherwise… sure. It can’t be more of a mess than Transformers, right?
Hmm. I don’t know why, but ever since I took physics, unrealistic depictions of the buoyancy of hydrogen and/or hot air have always annoyed me. Still, the phrase “Buckingham Rules the Skies”…
Just because Dumas has been dead for a while, doesn’t mean his work needs to be disfigured by cinematic fanfics. Man, but this looks terrible.
I’m okay with Buckingham being a baddie, but the entire point of the book is that he and the Cardinal are not in any way on the same side. I don’t understand how that even works.
*Sigh* I’d have lept at the chance to go to see a well done steampunk swashbuckeling epic but now I’m just going to be annoyed that as fun as it looks it really isn’t The Three Musketeers. Surely if you’re taking such liberties with the plot you might as well admit that you’re creating an original property.
There was a time when I would have raged against the fates, the sky and the dumbing down of public tastes and expectations at the trailer to this film. The Musketeers are my favorite series of novels and I reread them every few years. I guess I’ve given up on a faithful adaptation of Dumas’ original works short of something done by British television as a multi-part series then shown in a censored version here on PBS.
But I’m excited to see it! No, it’s not the book, not even a close approximation, but it sure looks like fun!
I second the notion that it’s PROBABLY going to be a League of Extraordinary Gentlement kind of mess.
OTOH, Ray Stevenson as Porthos works for me. :)
I’m just delighted to see a big-budget film taking on Steampunk. No, this isn’t really going to be the Three Musketeers…but when has any film adaptation every been remotely true to Dumas’ original? I’m excited for this one; here’s hoping for a rollicking adventure movie that gets good box office and broadens the Steampunk audience.
Story-wise, it looks to be a predictable and dull run-of-the-mill action movie.
I am being seduced by that flying ship fight, however.
I find it funny that the only movie to actually cast a teenager as the teenaged D’Artagnan is otherwise so joyfully flouting the original text. Looks like a fun film, though.
Paul McCall @@@@@#8: Have you seen the French miniseries version, perchance? It’s available on Netflix, and I’d say it’s about as close as one can reasonably get (for a filmic value of “reasonable”). “D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers” stars Emanuelle Beart as Milady and Tcheky Karyo as the Cardinal, and it’s dubbed in English.
NERD RAGE! NERD RAGE!
Relogical: Yours, or someone else’s?
honestly? i think it looks like a lot of fun. just like a lot of other film adaptations of books, i’m going to love the books as the books, and take the movies as a sort of “creative re-imagining” and not worry too much about all the places where they “got stuff wrong.” it’s a lot easier on your heart, both figuratively and literally…
I’m with Cherie and Paul – it won’t be a faithful adaptation but it looks like fun to watch!
Oh crud. I lost a post. Do all links get flagged as spam?
Sihaya @@@@@ #12. – Thank you, I was unaware of that one. The latest version I’ve found was the 1966 British series starring a very young Jeremy Brett as D’Artagnan. I’ll try to find the French version although I’m not part of Netflix.
Archergal @@@@@ #9 – Of all the Porthos actors I’ve seen (not all but quite a few) Stevenson at least looks physically the part. Better than Frank Finley, Gerard Depardieu & Oliver Platt. (I just checked IMDB for “Porthos” and there are 84 listings! So I have a way to go before I’ve seen MOST of them, much less ALL!))
When I first heard they were redoing The Three Musketeers my reaction was “Meh.” Now I’ve seen the airships. Since I still haven’t actually read The Three Musketeers (in my defense, I have read all of Dumas’ other signifcant/famous works) I think I can handle the ridiculousness of the adaptation and just enjoy the steampunkiness. Of course, this also means I can’t read the copy of the book my new roommate has until after I watch the movie to cut down on my rage at the adaptation choices, but considering the size of my reading list this isn’t too big a sacrifce.
Agreed with other posters that I can love the book, and I can also love a movie that is a re-imagining of that book. I think this looks fantastic, and I’m a really picky movie-goer. It looks gorgeous, the fighting/action sequences look interesting and well done, and HELL YES I want to see Milla fighting in those crazy dresses.
There have been many versions of The Three Musketeers, and no movie is ever accurate to the book, so why do people think there is no room for a movie that is going far out of the box?
Wendy @@@@@ 10 – surely you remeber the last three times Hollywood’s done big budget Steampunk? Wild, Wild West, Van Helsing and League of Extraordinary Gentelmen? I would not raise my hopes for a decent film coming out of this effort.
In some ways the Three Musketeers have broken loose from their original story just as Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood and King Arthur have all drifted far from their’s. New variants and re-tellings will continue and best of luck to them, the original well is still there to be drawn from.
Fwiw, my personal favourite version is the 1970s George MacDonald Fraser scripted and Richard Lester directed two films with Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay and Richard Chamberlain.
Michael_GR @@@@@ 22
The last one I remember was Sherlock Holmes and it was awsome.
Wonder how they are going to explain the airships.Maybe Rene Descartes or Blaise Pascal had something to do with them? I`ll go see this movie just for that. The flying galleons DO look spectacular, but in reality they would never get airborne due to their weight. Also, a flame thrower on hydrogen filled airships? Remember the Hindenburg?