Has anyone seen "Where the Wild Things Are?"

>>S P O I L E R S<<

I saw it. It was so much more depressing than I remembered the book being.
Some of the main differences that struck me were that in the book, the wild things were just like wild children, while in the movie, they were emo, late-teens, and so related less to Max. They each had their own emotional issues, and looked to Max for guidance, instead of just providing him with the escape pictured in the book. I also found it weird that the movie put a sentimental spin on Max’s behavior, when I remember not feeling sorry for him in the book. Originally, he just seemed like a spoiled child.

I saw it! It was good but all messed up. A 9 sentence story that required you to draw a lot from the illustrations became a pretty, dialog-heavy movie about a kid realizing that even his dream-creatures have inherent drama and strife, and that nothing is perfect.

The wild things seemed a lot more mopey than they did in the book, but just as lovable/menacing.

Children will love it. It will terrify them, and they love that.

I think it’s a bit of a nostalgia-ruiner. Not inappropriate for kids, really, but it’s going to convey a different message than the book. Count on Dave Eggers to produce something melodramatic. He also wrote a novelization, based more on the movie than on the original. WTF?

But you gotta do what you gotta do to make dat money.

I thought it was awesome. They portrayed emotions all of us deal with maybe on our daily life. Happiness, sadness, bipolar. It’s amazing how in the movie they symbolically use monsters for our feelings.

I didn’t particularly care for it. I was kind of disturbed by the wild things and their attitudes and violence for the sake of violence. Like what happened to the bird-like one. It seemed more like a sociological study than a movie for entertainment. I was looking forward to watching this movie and was definitely disappointed in it.

Max is a brat in the book, but he redeems himself in the end.

Before the movie came out, I was kind of worried that it would be sentimental and the dialogue would be awkward. I thought the best part was the beginning. Max in the everyday world as a kid with a ton of energy and a really active imagination was really believable, a lot more than the rest of the movie. The part with the worst teacher ever and the dying sun was pretty funny. The wild things were a weird mix of adults and children, which kind of creeped me out. Their childishness was realistic. I like the part where they’re like, “let’s all hit each other with dirt!” and one of them storms off at the end. This seems to always happen when kids are playing.

I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s one of my favorite books and my Children and Adolescent Lit class had a big discussion about it tonight. The basic thought was that although the director was very creative and clearly had a vision, it didn’t remain as true to the book, which really only has about 300 words and is fairly soft and cuddly, as many people would have liked. I still want to see it but I’m prepared to be disappointed.

I agree with the emo teen statement, the movie went through dramatic mood swings, happy to sad to happy to angry to depressing to excited to happy to sad over and over again. Two days after I saw the movie I was diagnosed with the swine flu, that’s how bad it was!

Is there a new movie out or are we talking about the DVD that was recently released? I got the DVD for my grand kids and almost had a cow. My kids went through a very “Emo” stage as teenagers and when I watched the extra clip I think it was about a boy named Pierre, with Carole King singing, “I don’t care,” I just about went ballistic! I remember laughing when my kids watched it when they were little, then, seeing it again, I wondered if they got the idea that it was OK to mope around and say, “I don’t care,” directly from watching that as kids.

@Judi Its the one recently released into theaters.