Non-Comic: Why Cooper and not Stasheff?

Okay, I saw the trailer for The Seeker: Dark is Rising as well. And it looks indeed dreadful. And I say that as someone who is NOT a fan of the original books.

But it got me thinking.

They stripped all the Arthurian and pagan elements out of DiR, which is pretty stupid as that's the core of the books, to make it some Christian allegory.

What puzzles me is that there are good fantasy books out there with light to heavy Christian overtones that they could have used to make a perfectly serviceable movie.

Narnia isn't the be-all and end-all of religious fantasy, you know.

I just don't get it. Why pick an author whose work you have to gut to suit your ideals? Why Susan Cooper and not say Christopher Stasheff?

I mean, okay, the Warlock of Grammarye might be a bit too high concept for a movie (but come on! High tech agent crashes on world founded by crazy space-fairing SCA types. Robot horses! Pro-totalitarian time travelers out to sabotage the seeds of democracy! Really poor knowledge of genetics! It'd make an awesome movie! It's practically a comic book already!). But what about a Wizard in Rhyme? That'd work pretty well, and it's more overtly religious.

If you don't know the plot, basically this college student, Matt, who's a bit directionless ends up finding this mysterious parchment and ends up spending all his time translating it instead of doing his thesis project. He ends up falling into a fantasy world based largely on medieval Europe where God and Satan are very real and VERY active and folks can cast magic via poetic verse.

It'd probably work pretty well as a niche-fantasy movie. It's somewhat Christian, but not extreme about it. God and Satan quite obviously exist and act on the medieval world, but never on Earth. It doesn't get preachy either. It doesn't really have to since good and evil behavior have very vivid and instantaneous consequences in that world. (Since the story essentially uses religion as "rules of the fantasy world", skeptics and non-Christians may also be able to enjoy the story as well, without feeling like they're being preached at or talked down to.) He's of course got a love interest in the Princess of the Kingdom and ends up joining in the quest to see her crowned. There're swords and knights and all that stuff. The main characters are appealing and there are enough visual effects with fantasy creatures and magic and the like to let the creative teams play with special effects.

As an added bonus, the lead is actually Hispanic. (Both parents are Spanish speaking immigrants from...I forget where actually.) So there can be a nice touch of diversity there too, should they choose to embrace it.

I won't say it's an absolutely legendarily awesome story/series. (Warlock is much better, in my opinion. Less repetitive too) but it's decent, serviceable and could make for a good uplifting mass-market Christian-fantasy movie.

It's not like Stasheff's any more obscure than Cooper and his stories wouldn't require nearly as much gutting to make suit their needs. And it's not like Stasheff's the only good Christian-themed fantasy writer out there either. There's LOTS of material available. Look here or here Or maybe here. Or here. Wikipedia's even got a stub of a page up here.

There's a fair bit of good stuff out there that would be perfect for what these folks want! Why gut something that isn't?