This story about the upcoming movie The Rats of NIMH is an interesting one, because of this: “According to Variety, the new film will be an adaptation of Robert C. O’Brien’s 1971 novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and not a direct recreation of the original Don Bluth film.” It’s interesting because I happened to read the book before I saw the movie – we didn’t really watch much Disney in the house, growing up – and when I did see it I was startled a bit to see how the conversion from book to movie also somehow required flipping the genre from science fiction to fantasy. The contrast was a little jarring, if I recall correctly.
Mind you, I’m not saying that The Secret of NIMH was a bad kid’s film, or that Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH was hard science fiction. And I’m not even saying that the director shouldn’t have flipped genres like that. I’m merely saying that it would be interesting to see a film version that’s more faithful to the source material. Although I blanch at the thought of another live action/CGI movie…