Mortal Engines is a film adaptation of the book of the same name, which happens to be one of my favorite books of all time and the first book of my favorite book series. So keep in mind that this article is from the perspective of a huge fan of the source material, which is excellent and which you should read!
The trailer shows us several of the major plot points of the first book, and despite the fact that they spoil things like crazy it’s actually fairly heartening that they haven’t changed it too much. I’ve read the first book at least six times, and it’s sort of odd to see perfectly recreated scenes with the dialogue just slightly off what it is in the books. It’s pretty clear that the editing that’s been done to the dialogue is just to make the plot move along faster, but it is a little sad that they cut past so much of the mystery that drove the book forward. That said, the plot doesn’t look completely butchered! So there is still a solid chance that the movie will have a good story, which is something a lot of folks were worried about (including myself). I won’t cover the plot here, since it’s mostly in the trailer and entirely in the books, but it’s good. In the books, at any rate.
Visually speaking, it’s perfect. Utterly and completely perfect. The cities are grand and ramshackle and beautiful and broken and strong and aging. The character designs and costumes are the perfect kind of semi-futuristic. The Jenny Haniver, the airship that will nearly become a character of its own over the course of the series, is absolutely gorgeous. This is the world I imagined when I was reading it. Zero complaints of any kind. Except for one thing. One tiny detail that has a disturbingly high chance of completely wrecking one of the main characters. In the trailer, the female lead Hester Shaw (played by Hera Hilmar) is revealed to have a scar. The fact that she has a scar is fine. In fact, she’s supposed to have a scar. The problem I’m having is with the extent of the scar. In the book, she is described as having “a mashed stump of a nose,” one of her eyes is blinded, and her mouth is “twisted into a permanent sneer.” In short, she is ugly. Really, REALLY ugly. And that ugliness is a huge part of the character and her arc! She is not a kind person, or a warm person. She is hard and mean and cruel to the entire world except for the one person she grows to care about, the co-lead Tom Natsworthy, and (spoiler alert) they do in fact fall in love by the end of the book. And the love is all the more wonderful for the fact that Tom doesn’t even need to look past the scar – he just loves and cares for her as she is. So why?? Hollywood, why did you do this to one of the best female characters I’ve ever read? She was supposed to be visually challenging!
Here’s a little piece of trivia that should explain exactly how ridiculous this choice is: In the third book, a side character has written a novel romanticizing the events of the second book. Hester is the author’s love interest in the novel, and a painting advertising the book shows Hester as having just a small scar on her cheek. Hester stares at it for a while, shocked that they would make a version of her that was so… pretty. And I imagine she would feel the same way if she got the chance to see the trailer. Hester is pretty. She is supposed to be completely and objectively awful to look at for everyone except Tom, and the fact that Hollywood shied away from that disappoints me greatly. Does it surprise me? No, of course not. They’re spineless weaklings who’d rather sell tickets on sex appeal than make an interesting character arc centered around the true physical unattractiveness of a female lead. Perhaps her character won’t change too much. I hope she’ll still be the unbelievable badass that she is in the books. But it disappoints me nonetheless.
Quibbles and worries aside, I’m looking forward to the film’s release this December! I’ve waited for this movie for about a decade and I’m seeing it whether it’s good or bad. I hope that you’ll join me in watching the movie, or at least reading the books if the film turns out to be a flop. I wish us all the best of luck – this is one book series that deserves a good adaptation.
