Bringing childhood book heroes to screen ... aka remaking of my "heroes"

Caught the trailer for the new Nancy Drew movie slated for release in June 2007 (USA).

Seeing Emma Roberts portrayal of my childhood book character provoked some unexpected emotions within me.

My first reaction was ... "Is that how teenagers look like nowadays?  Like adults?".  Or is it just my age ...?

But Emma Roberts was born in Feb 10, 1991, and is indeed only 16 this year, which is the age designated to the original Nancy Drew in her first book Secret of the Old Clock in 1930.

The purist in me had been shaking my head at the ever increasing age-gaps between <Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint> and their screen characters <Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley> in the sequels of the Harry Potter films.  These kids started as 11/12-year olds portraying 11-year olds.  But film-making is a lengthy process, and with each sequel (always set 1 year after the previous movie), the disparity became more and more obvious.

In a way, in retrospect now, it might have been lucky that I did not get to watch the late 1970s television series The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, and knew them only from their storybooks.  Thus, it was all up to my imagination from reading the text and viewing the internal illustrations to visualise them.

By the time I started reading them in the 1980s, I count myself fortunate now that some the original versions of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew stories were still available in Singapore alongside the revised versions updated to "keep up with contemporary times".

I have to confess though my habit of reading English storybooks were initially spurred by the broadcasting of Enid Blyton's Famous Five series, having known nothing of them until they appeared on TV when I was in Primary 2.  It was not too long after I arrived in Singapore without knowing any English, and picking up the language was a great challenge.  The timing could not have been better ... at least for me who needed a boost to in my English ... and something to talk about with my Singaporean classmates the next day in school.

I had not appreciated it then, but I realised now by the time I was first exposed to Enid Blyton, via a TV serial adaptation of her stories, there must have been several generation of Enid Blyton purists who'd shake their heads at how the screen scripts deviated from the original stories and their settings (The first original Famous Five story was published in 1942, the last in 1963, and the first TV serial in 1978).  For me though, the most significant mystery was when I puzzled over *one* recurring detail in the stories ... how could a girl's swimsuit be so similar to that of a boy's that Georgina Quentin managed to pass herself off as one?

Eventually, I start to out-grow many the childhood books in my teens ... and discover new authors.  But certain series somehow never lose its appeal for re-readings ... such as Three Investigators and Biggles.  As students, we had to borrow most of the books we read, mostly from the libraries.  The bulk of my pocket money went into second-hand book rentals.  It was only after I started working that I rediscovered these series, and my hankering for certain selected series indicated these stories stood the test of time.

I was also overjoyed when I discovered other similar fans through the internet.  We ended up talking about how we loved the series, our progress in collecting the series, and whether we'd like to see the stories come to live on screen.  But aware of how vast the screen versions of adaptations of other series had been, most of us are leery of it actually being done.

Several years ago, I learned that the popularity of Three Investigators has not only continued in Germany, but sustained through continual publication of stories licensed (presumably) and written only in German, while the English series languished and eventually discontinued through what I term as practically-criminal-mismanagement of Random House publication.  And in 2003, a movie is announced, to be produced by Studio Hamburg, slated for release in end 2007.

The age of the 3 Investigators were never definitively stated in the stories, though it was implied they were too young to drive, though a fellow classmate had a license because he was a legal resident of another state.  That would put them around the age of 14 years old ... though somehow, I just couldn't help but feel these actors still look a tat too young ...

Still ... I am hoping to be able to watch the movie.  The 3I might look a bit older in my mind, but what matters more is whether the movie remain true to the spirit of the series.

Peter Jackson didn't do too bad a job with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, so when there's life ... there's hope.