You may recall that, three months ago, I was rather critical of the trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of Bridge to Terabithia. Turns out I wasn’t alone — but it also turns out the movie might be better than the trailer leads us to expect. A few days ago I interviewed Katherine Paterson, author of the Newbery-winning book on which the film is based, and we had this brief exchange:
PTC: One of the first things I heard about the Terabithia movie, about a year ago, was that it was going to be a “sprawling fantasy adventure”, and they had hired a big special effects team for it, and my initial reaction was to sort of recoil at this–
KP: Your initial reaction? (laughs) What do you think mine was?
PTC: I don’t know, you tell me!
KP: Well that was the thing I was most afraid of, that they would– And if you’ve seen the trailer, my word. I’m just telling everybody I know, “Don’t see the trailer, don’t see the trailer.” Because it’s exactly what the trailer ends up making you think, is that it’s this glorified fantasy adventure with nothing but special effects, and that’s not what we ended up with in this movie.
There’s more to this interview, and it will be published online at some point before the movie’s February 16 release date — but since I made such a fuss over the trailer here, I figured I should do my part now to discourage people from watching it. I’m still a bit apprehensive about this movie, but less than I was before.
FEB 12 UPDATE: The interview is now up at CT Movies.
FEB 16 UPDATE: And here is the shorter version for the magazine.
FEB 20 UPDATE: This part of the interview was cited in a story on the film’s marketing campaign in yesterday’s New York Times.
FEB 23 UPDATE: An excellent article on the theme of mortality in this story cited this interview, too, at Slate.com yesterday.
MAR 11 UPDATE: The Revealer also cites this interview.
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