So Stardust, the film directed by Matthew Vaughm, is one of my all-time favorite movies. I loved the romance and adventure and it is truly hilarious. It feels like a mix of a Shakespearean comedy, a beautiful romance, and a buddy road trip film. However, until recently I had never read the book by Neil Gaiman that it is based off of. It’s tagline is a new classic adult fairy tale, which yes sounds up my alley but does not sound anything like how I think of the movie.
I loved the story but I was actually shocked at how faithful and adaption it actually was. There were a few story difference but a lot of tonal differences. The book focused less on the verbs and action sequences they were mentioned in passing. More time was spent on the nouns (people, places, and things). Where as sequences that took up a half a page were long action sequences in the book.
Things I liked better in the movie: the comedic chorus of dead princes (in the book they don’t say too much and disappear too early); the magic (I am a very visual person); that Tristan and Victoria were truly friends and his love how her wasn’t delusional or creepy
Things I liked better in the book: There were SEVEN main female characters that were important and different and even more that were named in the movie there were 4 and they were a villain, a mom, and two love interests; that Duncan and Una were a one-night stand and not a one-night stand secret soulmates; the ending
Both are excellent and I liked both a lot but for very different reasons. It was a nice experience with a book-to-movie adaptation cause normally at least one is trash.
Happy reading and watching!
Pretend adult here 