Let's ignore for a moment the absolutely terrible CGI animation (the age of the movie is no excuse, as it came out after such CGI masterpieces as Shrek, Toy Story and even Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), and the truly laughable voice acting (Isolde switches between an American, Irish and even Swedish accent with every other sentence). Let's also ignore the "plucky" animal sprite that can see the future and spouts words like "nuclear" and "supersonic" and uses phrases like "law of gravity" and "law of physics" while simultaneously ruining the main hero's chances of handling ANYTHING on his own.
Let's instead focus on the fact that Thierry Schiel and Mike Carey completely butchered anything relating to the actual "love story" of Tristan and Isolde. In this story, Tristan volunteers to save his uncle's kingdom from Isolde's "evil" father, not realizing that the man was his uncle at the time. This, of course, ruins the actual bad guy's plan of killing the king and taking over the kingdom. Not only does Tristan prevent the kingdom from going to war, he also presents the threat of being the one to take over the kingdom should the king die (ridiculous, since Tristan's father is alive and well...interesting that NO ONE in the kingdom seemed to know this...and Tristan's father is some sort of lord or king (it's not explained too well) not too far away).
Tristan fights and defeats the champion of the opposing nation, only to get himself poisoned. The animal sprite is quick to send him on his way to Irlandis, to Isolde, even after telling him to avoid doing this exact thing. Tristan fakes a name when he finds out that Isolde is the niece (a far cry from the fiance in the original story) of the man he defeated. Of course, this happens as he's LAYING NAKED in Isolde's bed, a fact that she mentions laughing and he confirms by pulling up the sheets and looking disgustedly at his naked form (...this is a children's movie?). His visit ends with him being healed and breaking into a completely random romantic song with Isolde in her garden, before being banished...because the animal sprite, in an effort to "save Tristan from himself," forces her to realize Tristan is the man who defeated her uncle. As a lover of musicals and Disney movies, I was surprised by the song simply because it is the ONLY song in the entire movie. There isn't even real battle music during the fight scenes! This scene also killed me as Tristan called her "Is-old" several times, when she is referred to as "Is-old-ah" for every other scene.
Tristan returns home to a parade, and to find that the king has been convinced by his evil adviser to marry Isolde himself. He's sent back to Irlandis to obtain Isolde and a peace treaty, even though he has a bounty on his head. Apparently Tristan is too much of a chicken to talk to his uncle at all about the fact that he's in love with Isolde AND he's going to be killed if he returns to Irlandis. Of course, fate steps in and instead he restores Isolde's father to king-status by killing a dragon and stealing back the crown of the former king. A completely irrelevant plot point with the exception of the fact that it gets him in good with the man who had banished him.
Here we're introduced to the only female character besides Isolde and her maid. What I can only guess is her mother, as she's wearing a crown and is referred to as Queen by the maid she is conspiring with, interferes with everything by handing over a love potion intended to clearly muck up the works even more, making Isolde fall in love with Tristan's uncle. Then she disappears...and Isolde's entire kingdom becomes an afterthought to everyone BUT the evil bad guy. And of course, Tristan and Isolde end up drinking the love potion...causing them to fall in love even more? Or something? What was a valid plot device in the original story (Isolde and Tristan hated each other after all) becomes useless and unnecessary. I honestly don't know why they even kept it in the story after all the OTHER changes they made.
From here, the story reaches its expected end, with the great battle between Tristan and the actual bad guy (let's see, the champion, Isolde's dad, the dragon and now this guy, he sure is accomplishing a lot in a short period of time), the uncle coming to his senses and Tristan and Isolde living happily ever after. Not that I expected them to keep the original ending (very Romeo and Juliet with everyone dying), but this sugar-coated nonsense was a little ridiculous. If the king hadn't come to his senses, and actually confronted Tristan about his feelings, the poor would-be-hero would still be floundering about trying to talk about anything other than becoming a knight.
I'm not sure why the French decided to make this animated monstrosity, but I can see why it wasn't released into the US until 8 years later, straight onto DVD. American audiences would've laughed this out of the theater and I'd be surprised if it sold more than a handful of copies here at all. It almost hurt to watch, and I'm sure I could've produced something better for half the cost.
Until next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment