The Magic of the Book is Now Dead

Rating: 1/10 (15 August 2007)

Surprise, America! It was a book first! And while it goes without saying that most movies made from books are inferior to their paper predecessors, sometimes said movies capture the essence of the author's work, while only leaving out and changing minor things.
In Stardust's case, not only was the movie inaccurate, but what it left out and changed ruined everything that the book was good for.
For instance, in the book, there's this Market that occurs in the field on the other side of the Wall, where the people of Wall and the people of FAERIE (not Stormhold) trade. The little love circles that go on with Dunstan and his future wife are so endearing that the fact they left her out was very disappointing. Yes, in the book, Dunstan courts a girl named Daisy and is whisked away by Una for one night, afterward going back to Daisy for a happy marriage, raising the baby Tristran together in harmony.
Another point, Victoria didn't even give Tristran the decency of being awful to him, let alone being friendly.
UBERSPOILER!!!!! The slaying of the witches was a terrible inaccuracy. Gaiman wrote in the book this awesome little passage where the main evil witch (Pfeiffer's character) threatens Ditchwater Sal (a completely robbed character) by saying something along the lines of "the acorn that will grow into the tree that will be cut for the crib of the prince who will slay me has not yet fallen." Shortly after that passage, it narrates a squirrel picking up an acorn and then forgetting it in the ground. Instead, Tristran and Septimus (an unlikely alliance) have to kill ALL THREE of the witches.
And talk about a deus ex machina...with the whole Yvaine-shining-the-life-out-of-the-witch thing. Absolutely terrible.
The end was most disappointing. The point of their marriage was that Yvaine COULDN'T HAVE CHILDREN, and that once Tristran died, Yvaine became the immortal queen of Stormhold by herself, never returning to the sky.
Gaiman's writing of these things were magical, and now the movie has ruined all of it. So please, I implore you, if you want the real magic of this story, pick up the book. Even if you're not huge on reading, it's a quick read. Took me two days, and I'm not so speedy a reader myself.