Avalon High

I love Meg Cabot's Avalon High.  Just watched the Disney movie adaptation of the book and for the most part enjoyed it, but they . . . um . . . changed a few things.  And made those things not make sense anymore.

Severe spoilers after the break.

I thought the original story by Meg Cabot was creative and surprising.  The main character (Ellie) is a girl who runs into Will (Arthur) and they click.  Mordred's reincarnation, Marko, identifies Ellie as The Lady of Shalott, a very minor character in the legend who had a thing for Lancelot which ended in her wasting away with unrequited love, except Ellie obviously fell for the wrong guy by falling for Will/Arthur.  Twist ending, Ellie is actually The Lady of the Lake (major powerhouse), and the enemy totally underestimated her and her power to strengthen Arthur and to help him through Guinevere (Jennifer)'s and Lancelot (Lance)'s betrayal.

The movie . . .

Well, I'm all for girl power.  But setting everything up to go down like the book and then adding a twist ending that evil Marko is actually a knight pretending to be evil so that he can protect Arthur from their evil teacher was a touch hard to swallow.  I could swing with it only by stretching my credulity and forcibly settling back into the story.

Then King Arthur turned out to be (ohmygod) Ellie.

Evil Teacher: "King Arthur can't be a girl!"

Ellie: "And yet here we are."

Erm . . .

I'm not opposed to Arthur reincarnating as a woman.  Not at all.  Unorthodox, but it could be done and done well.  Problem is, it's not.  It's not done well at all.  There are far too many unanswered questions:  Why does Will have the Guinevere and Lancelot plotline if he's not Arthur?  Which knight is Will if he's Arthur's right hand?  Why is teacher-Mordred not even remotely related to the real Arthur?  Why does the "real" Arthur not have any markers of being Arthur and Will have all of them?

The movie ends on a note of "Surprise, we tricked you!" except it's not a very good trick.  The only reason the viewer doesn't see it coming is because it has no foreshadowing, no reason, no explanation, and does not lend itself to credulity.

Had they given Ellie subtle markers of her Arthur-dom that made the revelation resonate (a la "The Sixth Sense") then I'd go with it.  It would be a good twist.

Instead, they sat us down at a nice dinner, snuck up behind us, and dumped a bucket of ice water over our heads.  Then grinned and asked if we were surprised.

All in all, they would have done better to stick to the original plot.  It's more subtle but still a strong story with a strong female lead.  But to be honest, anything would be more subtle than "BAM, a girl Arthur!"

In summation, go watch Merlin instead.  It's amazing.