Yes, every version of "A Christmas Carol" takes liberties with the source material. Even the much-beloved 1951 Alistair Sim version creates a whole new subplot with the amoral Mr. Jorkin out of whole cloth. But this mess seems like Steven Knight took a third-grader's 100-word book report on Dickens' classic and made a whole new movie out of it.
Scrooge and Marley were now not merchant and/or small-loan bankers; they were vulture capitalists who bought bankrupt businesses, stripped them of their assets, and by penny-pinching ran them in to the ground, killing dozens along the way. Scrooge, who has acquired both obsessive-compulsive disorder and a photographic memory in this version, starts his travel with a shapeshifting Ghost of Christmas Past by watching his newly-bankrupt father decapitate his pet rat, then sell him to a pederast schoolmaster (implied, free tuition for free buggery). Fan - here called Lottie - holds off the schoolmaster with a gun to "rescue" Scrooge. Fezziwig? Doesn't exist here. Belle - here called Elizabeth - gets less than a minute's mention. To get the money for surgery for Tiny Tim, Mary Cratchit submits herself to a "Fifty Shades of Grey" domination-submission session with Scrooge (so anyone who wondered what Bob Cratchit's wife's bare bottom looks like can be satisfied). The main highlights of the session with the Ghost of Christmas Present (who this time out looks like Lottie) are Mary lying about the session with Scrooge and Bob Cratchit (who gives so much lip to Scrooge that a real 19th-century employer would have sacked him inside a minute) planning to quit his job with Scrooge for a two-shilling raise with another employer. (Fred, Lottie's son and Scrooge's nephew, shows up at the beginning to say that he won't be extending an invitation to Christmas dinner ever again - against the way Fred is presented in practically every other adaptation - and then disappears.) The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come - who is made to be the big bad guy, with the power to decide what happens to a man's soul - is completely forgettable, as is his segment of the show. Scrooge refuses to repent or to change his ways; instead, we are to believe that his desire for Tim not to die after falling through the ice while skating (?!?) was enough for the Ghost to let him go. The show wraps up with Scrooge letting Cratchit resign and then closing down his company, followed by a suggestion that Mary Cratchit started the proceedings with some type of voodoo "because I'm a woman and can do these things" (so Mary Cratchit's a witch?). By the way, Marley procuring the chance of redemption for Scrooge doesn't exist here - Marley only came back to life when a miner whose family was killed at a Scrooge and Marley coal mine urinated on his grave.
I'd sat down with a group - men and women both - to watch this new interpretation. By the time Mary Cratchit's bare bottom hit the screen, I was the only one left. This is a travesty that ignores the source material for the writer's own dark interests - and in the process creates a dark, dank, and ultimately forgettable slog.
To borrow from Frank Cross: "Oh, my gosh... Does THAT suck! Now I have to kill all of you!"
(Resubmitted in case IMDb requires a star rating - mind you, I'd give this zero stars if I could.)
Scrooge and Marley were now not merchant and/or small-loan bankers; they were vulture capitalists who bought bankrupt businesses, stripped them of their assets, and by penny-pinching ran them in to the ground, killing dozens along the way. Scrooge, who has acquired both obsessive-compulsive disorder and a photographic memory in this version, starts his travel with a shapeshifting Ghost of Christmas Past by watching his newly-bankrupt father decapitate his pet rat, then sell him to a pederast schoolmaster (implied, free tuition for free buggery). Fan - here called Lottie - holds off the schoolmaster with a gun to "rescue" Scrooge. Fezziwig? Doesn't exist here. Belle - here called Elizabeth - gets less than a minute's mention. To get the money for surgery for Tiny Tim, Mary Cratchit submits herself to a "Fifty Shades of Grey" domination-submission session with Scrooge (so anyone who wondered what Bob Cratchit's wife's bare bottom looks like can be satisfied). The main highlights of the session with the Ghost of Christmas Present (who this time out looks like Lottie) are Mary lying about the session with Scrooge and Bob Cratchit (who gives so much lip to Scrooge that a real 19th-century employer would have sacked him inside a minute) planning to quit his job with Scrooge for a two-shilling raise with another employer. (Fred, Lottie's son and Scrooge's nephew, shows up at the beginning to say that he won't be extending an invitation to Christmas dinner ever again - against the way Fred is presented in practically every other adaptation - and then disappears.) The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come - who is made to be the big bad guy, with the power to decide what happens to a man's soul - is completely forgettable, as is his segment of the show. Scrooge refuses to repent or to change his ways; instead, we are to believe that his desire for Tim not to die after falling through the ice while skating (?!?) was enough for the Ghost to let him go. The show wraps up with Scrooge letting Cratchit resign and then closing down his company, followed by a suggestion that Mary Cratchit started the proceedings with some type of voodoo "because I'm a woman and can do these things" (so Mary Cratchit's a witch?). By the way, Marley procuring the chance of redemption for Scrooge doesn't exist here - Marley only came back to life when a miner whose family was killed at a Scrooge and Marley coal mine urinated on his grave.
I'd sat down with a group - men and women both - to watch this new interpretation. By the time Mary Cratchit's bare bottom hit the screen, I was the only one left. This is a travesty that ignores the source material for the writer's own dark interests - and in the process creates a dark, dank, and ultimately forgettable slog.
To borrow from Frank Cross: "Oh, my gosh... Does THAT suck! Now I have to kill all of you!"
(Resubmitted in case IMDb requires a star rating - mind you, I'd give this zero stars if I could.)