https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRsFc2gguEgGiven that the full trailer for
Mortal Engines has now been released, I figured it might be time to reminisce about my experience with the original books. Whilst I have no doubt that the movie will be spectacular (lets face it, its Peter Jackson's apprentice in the director's chair, and the man himself is in the producer's role), some of the things I've seen in the trailer, plus my recollection of the books have lead me to pause.
And don't worry, I won't spoil anything important.
The
Mortal Engines Quartet is a series of young adult books written by Phillip Reeve, and first published in 2001. I first found these books whilst roaming Wikipedia, and the concept behind them interested me enough that I bought them through ebay. The series is set in a post-apocalyptic world (after the "Sixty Minute War"), where most of the old cities have been mobilised, either through massive wheels or tank treads, and hunt each other for fuel and population growth - a system known as "Municipal Darwinisim."
Whilst the first book is actually a good adventure romp, and does a good set up of the world and characters, it loses some of it sheen early in the second book, and completely loses it by the fourth, although he doesn pick up towards the end, and the final climax of the series is kinda spectacular - I can't wait to see what WETA does with it. But the characters end up being somewhat one-dimensional, and some of the situations are a little contrived - Tom in particular doesn't seem to go through much of a character arc throughout all four books (and honestly, I can imagine him with the same dumbfounded look on his face all the way through), Hester seems to range between angry and sociopathic, and sometime seem to switch with no reason, and I honestly can't see how the heck the two would end up together apart from the fact that they've spent so much time together...in the six months between books one and two. And if their adventures in that time frame are anything like the adventures described in the books...yeaaaahhhh....
And, I'll be blunt, the books aren't for kids. There are some fairly heavy themes at work here - slavery, vivisection, reanimating corpses for millitary purposes, biological weaponry, genocide, suicide bombers, conscription, total war, child abuse. I actually felt sick part way through the third and fourth books...especially since one part of the fourth book was Hester just killing people, and I was thinking "...why is he describing this, and where is it going?"
Truth is, after I read the books once through, I gave them to a local bookstore to sell second-hand, as I had no interest in reading them again. I felt the exact same a few years later when I gave my collection of
A Song of Ice and Fire to the same shop, mostly for the same reasons. Whilst I can see why people would like these books and the setting, I can't see the movies past the first doing well, unless there's some rewrites going on. But hey, its Peter Jackson and co. again - you never know.
Call me somewhat intrigued, but I'll wait for the reviews.
