This instalment of the Dalek Game is for Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
As you may have worked out, I love reworkings, reimaginings, reinterpretations and covers. I adore She Will Have Her Way, and was thrilled when I worked out Clueless was a rewrite of Emma (to be fair, I saw it in German first so I was just trying to keep up with the conversations). I love – as I did last recently – watching the Half Hour Hamlet and the Express Macbeth in a park performance and then seeing a community theatre production of Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters which reworks both plays again. I liked Bridget Jones, who has already featured in the Dalek Game: Bridget Jones’s Dalek.
And yes, I have read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and liked very much the following things:
- That Seth Grahame-Smith had the idea at all.
- That he actually ran with it and put something out there in the world.
- That it got published.
- That he obviously read the whole of the original novel.
And I remain disappointed that it never (for me) quite lifted above a gimmick, because there were these odd moments in the book when it hinted at something more than “Pride and Prejudice… with zombies! (and lots of vomiting)” and started to become a story on its own terms. So I’m disappointed for the story that it wasn’t, which I suppose isn’t fair – it was a wildly successful gimmick.
August 13, 2011 at 9:42 am
Yaaay! More Daleks!
(I would make a somewhat confused Doctor’s Companion.)
August 15, 2011 at 10:27 pm
Heheh. You probably wouldn’t survive the Christmas special.
August 13, 2011 at 10:16 am
I think that you make a valid point. I think that the main disappointment with these mash-ups is that they don’t actually realise the full potential of the genre. I’d like to see it moving past the gimmick stage and into a proper genre. As for the illustration … delightful!
August 15, 2011 at 10:28 pm
I suppose when they move past it they – well, move past it. Take, for example, Pirates of the Caribbean – I keep pointing out that whatever you may say about it (and let’s face it, who doesn’t) it is far better than we had any right to expect for a movie based on a theme park ride. Most people have forgotten that.
August 17, 2011 at 9:31 am
[...] Pride and Prejudice and Daleks [...]
October 22, 2011 at 6:32 am
From the somewhat baffled despondency of the Dalek and the fleeing girls, I take it this Dalek has taken the place of Mr Collins?
These are all brilliant, by the way!
October 22, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Ah yes, it is the manner of fashionable females to flee from some creatures :)