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| Credit: Pixabay.com |
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Christmas is this upcoming week and a week after that will already be the end of another year. For a while it had seemed like it was the end of the world. With Covid-19 plaguing the planet, it seemed like we would not make it to the end of 2020. Perhaps a lot of you will be glad when 2020 ends and that’s perfectly understandable considering the circumstances. However, even a bad year has something good in it. And, believe it or not, that includes this year.
So, what good things have we had in 2020? One is that we and the world are still here. Another is that genius doctors and scientists have developed a vaccine that is ready for use although it will make its way slowly through the populations, for plenty of good reason I’m sure. And yet another is that here at the li’l ol Far Out Fantastic Site there have been four of the best Book-To-Movie reviews and yours truly has one last one for you as well (one last one for the year, that is). It’s a little one since the movie is a little movie. The “book”, or short story to be exact, is Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Tree” and the movie adaptation is the half-hour Rankin/Bass animated feature. But first, the best of the year’s Book-To-Movies . . .
The Four Best Book-To-Movie Reviews of 2020
How I determined these four reviews as the best ones of 2020 was by considering two things: the number of views each got within so much time and the number of positive responses. They got more views than responses and, I admit, those views that came without responses could have had bad impressions of my reviews or good ones for all I know. The important thing I’m considering is that some people took the time to at least glance through a few words and so, like the year, those eyes that saw the reviews must had seen something good in them. Or at least something good enough to check them out for at least a couple of seconds.
So you can kind of have an idea about how I determined each review to be the best, I’m listing for each the date, number of views and number of responses (if any). The number of views and responses are as of December 18th, when I compiled the list. Instead of ranking the reviews from best to worst or vice versa, I’ve listed them in chronological order in kind of a year in review (of reviews) style. So, the four best Book-To-Movie reviews of 2020 are:
“Jules Verne’s ‘Master of the World’”; January 19; 94 views; 2 responses: We opened the then new year with the review of this book and its movie adaptation. Only about a month later it seemed like the master of the world wasn’t the mad Robur of the novel and movie but the “mad” Covid of our world. (Or was it the mad Trump? Both?)
“Asimov’s ‘The Bicentennial Man’”; July 26; 30 views: By this time, I had been delayed by a week in posting our Book-To-Movie of the month. I had ended up moving it from every third weekend to every fourth weekend because the relatively sudden threat of Covid-19 had put many of us behind in our daily lives. This was one of the best reviews but, as I indicate in it, the movie was not one of the best. In fact, I was pretty disappointed with it. I liked the book much more. Asimov’s stories can almost never go wrong!
“’The Masque of the Red Death’”; October 25; 48 views: When I wrote this Book-To-Movie around Halloween, I mentioned that it would be a Halloween that many of us would be required to wear masks and that, like the characters in the story and movie, we needed to keep the plague out. And we still need to.
“’The Andromeda Strain’”; November 11; 22 views: This was another book and movie that I reviewed that relates to our situation with Covid-19.
Last Book-To-Movie of 2020: Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Tree’
This may be the last Book-To-Movie of the year, but by no means is it the last ever. Although I don’t review fairy tales and animation too much here at the Fantastic Site this is one that I thought I should end the year with since it has a message of hope and what better way to end the year than with a review of a Christmas story and its movie adaptation! Charles Dickens’ name is nearly synonymous with Christmas, particularly with his book “A Christmas Carol” which has gotten into the popular imagination over the centuries. But that was by no means his only Christmas story. He had a number of others, including ones that featured ghosts and terror like his “Christmas Carol”. However, this short story/semi-autobiography/memoir of his, “A Christmas Tree”, does not emphasise ghosts or terror. But it is just as fantastical.
In “A Christmas Tree”, the author admires a Christmas tree on a table which leads him to reflect on the one of his own childhood. The way he describes that tree is as if it held a world within it, or more precisely several worlds within it. He talks about his childhood fantasies that the tree’s ornaments inspired, as if those ornaments came to life along with the very stories they were based on. These stories ranged from fairy tales such as “Little Red Riding Hood” to adventure tales such as “The Arabian Nights”.
This story touched me a lot since I remember the stories I would make up in my head as a kid whenever I’d look at the beautiful ornaments on my family’s Christmas tree each year. I would fantasise about myself climbing the tree and meeting and going on adventures with the characters those ornaments depicted just like Dickens did. And this is way before I even knew who Dickens was. Dickens originally published “A Christmas Tree” in his literary magazine, “Household Words”, in 1850.
Jump ahead a century and 23 years to Rankin/Bass’s 1973 animated adaptation of “A Christmas Tree”. Rankin/Bass, was the studio of the 1960s through ‘80s that made stop-and-go animation such as “Mad Monster Party”, and holiday ones like “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”. “A Christmas Tree” is only hand-drown animation but this approximately 25-minute made-for-TV feature gets even more fantastical than the short story. In it, Charles Dickens begins talking about his own childhood Christmases to two children. Soon the children are called by Peter Piper to climb their family’s Christmas tree, that turns into a beanstalk, to get the essence of Christmas back from Horatio the Giant who has stolen it. Not only do the children face a giant but they also face other menacing villains depicted by some of the tree’s ornaments such as a frost dragon and an evil sorcerer. They barely escape these perils but in the end they bring the essence of Christmas back to the real world.
I can’t say that the animated movie adaptation is better than the short story because no one can duplicate Dickens’ own magical style of storytelling that was a product of its own time and his own experiences within it. But this is one of those holiday animated short films that are great for introducing children to a classic author of Christmas storytelling.
Where one thing ends, another begins. And beginnings are always good because they mean new opportunities and hope. So even though this year of 2020 has not been the best, let’s try to remember the best within it. One of the best things that I’ve done this 2020 is start a Patreon page after considering starting one for the last year or two. If you have not checked it out yet, please do so. There are memberships there that you can join and support my work through, memberships that will give you benefits that range from super discounts on books to works of fiction in progress. So check it out!
I wish you all Happy Hallowdays and good health!
Until next year (or week) . . .
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| Credit: Pixabay.com |
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