Bride of Stardust

Stories spring from a common well of tradition, reaching back to the storyteller carrying down fables and legends from their youth long before the literary could live on the page. Everything is connected, everything inspiring offspring, everything a subconscious creature of its past, both personal and ancestral. Nothing is wholly original, and originality does not make a quality story. What does is the telling, the belief of the teller in his characters, her imagination, and their ability to captivate.

And yet, when a film bares a striking resemblance to another, the natural tendency is to compare and contrast, often unfavorably. A modern story, seeking at least acceptance, is forced to live against expectations built by a well-loved predecessor; if the newcomer fails to surpass, then it is branded a failure.

Stardust has been discovering this conundrum for about a month now. A fairy tale adventure with a healthy sense of whimsical wit? The Princess Bride staked that territory years ago and registered it at the Cinema Classics Department. And to be honest, the two films do share several traits: based on books by well-known authors (Neil Gaiman and William Goldman), an adventure rooted in the emotion of love, an adaptation with a major tonal change from the original work, pirates and evil princes, unexpected modern humor enlightening the faerie tropes, and, unfortunately, a less-than successful theatrical run despite generally favorable reviews.

But that’s only the surface scan. A fundamental difference exists between the two features: One is a story about a fairy tale, while the other is the fairy tale. The Princess Bride’s well-known twist is that the narrator tells the “good-parts” version, leaving out all the overly mushy and (in the book, at least) the more dreary traits. Stardust, however, has no such censor, and the whimsy plays hand-in-hand with a twisted darkness borne from the Brothers Grimm. Unlike Westley and Buttercup’s light-hearted adventure, real danger awaits in Stardust’s more macabre world.

The two films, despite their easy kinship, are two completely different experiences.

That’s the significance of the telling. One change in perspective, and the entire narrative atmosphere shifts, touching characters, schemes, motivations, and setting. Those expecting a spiritual rewind of The Princess Bride will be disappointed, a fault not of Stardust’s making but one for which the film is marked. Both films may succeed in their own way, but because one came before, the other is the lesser copy that didn’t quite get it right.

Expectations can ruin a good movie, as can history buttressed by an easily accessible archive. Since the 1980s, home video in its various forms has allowed moviegoers to watch films endlessly rather than wait for the next theatrical showing. Favorite movies are learned by rote, favorite lines repeated to friends and fellow fans as cultural code words, and all the while little forgotten failures become reborn as cult treasures. Why chance another story when a well-loved familiar is in hand? Maybe that’s the hurtful concession—while cinema now has a second chance for stranger tales, the attention of the audience is mostly elsewhere.

And thus, a tale well told is left unreeling in vacant theaters, undone by both similarity and difference.