Another Moby Dick Movie

my friend JLT sent me the following info in an email entitled "another sign the apocalypse is nigh."

Variety reports that Universal Pictures has decided to produce a big budget reimagiging of Herman Melville's classic literary tale Moby Dick with Russian director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) to work from a screenplay being written by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage for "a high six figures."

The Variety story details some of the changes that are being planned for the new version of Melville's tale:

The writers revere Melville's original text, but their graphic novel-style version will change the structure. Gone is the first-person narration by the young seaman Ishmael, who observes how Ahab's obsession with killing the great white whale overwhelms his good judgment as captain.

This change will allow them to depict the whale's decimation of other ships prior to its encounter with Ahab's Pequod, and Ahab will be depicted more as a charismatic leader than a brooding obsessive.

"Our vision isn't your grandfather's 'Moby Dick,' " Cooper said. "This is an opportunity to take a timeless classic and capitalize on the advances in visual effects to tell what at its core is an action-adventure revenge story."

any thoughts?

Gregory Peck would not approve this scheme. It's hard to imagine the Moby Dick of Peck's characterization being eclipsed, especially if its just a cg upgrade. They will have to find real actors to pull this off...not action figures.

I agree. I've just started rereading the book, and, so far, the story is about a man with suicidal thoughts/tendencies going out to wrestle with his Being. I'm concerned that, by taking it out of the first person narrative, this entire theme, the backbone of thes story thus far, is lost.

Also, I understand that they want to depict the earlier terrors of the whale to show off the cgi. For my dollar, the unknown is always scarier than the known.

The upside, I guess, is that people may pick up the book again and experience it on their own. It will also make it easier for high school professors to distinguish those who read the book from those who watched the movie. . .an envisioning of the later:

"Ahab was pretty bad *** and he has alot of qualities that I admire but when he fell in love with the stowaway girl I was like "no don't do it"! And fish are cool and stuff."

I think Cooper, one of the new co-writers, said it best: "This is an opportunity to take a timeless classic and capitalize. . ."