Journey to the Center of the Earth: Why Are We Scared of the Classics?

I took my children to watch the movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth" with the hope that they could enjoy Verne's universe as much as I did when I was a kid. When I was around ten years old, I loved to read Jules Verne's books in the Classics Illustrated editions. Children from my generation were familiar with the Emilio Salgari's books, with the wonderful adventures created by Jack London, and the mystery of Rudyard Kipling' exotic novels.

Watching "Journey to the Center of the Earth", I found myself painfully divided between two feelings: In one hand, irritates me deeply that the movie doesn't follow the original novel. Verne's book has enough adventure and action to make a movie attractive to any public. Maybe would be necessary to refresh the characters, and make them more modern. But what is about the horror we feel about movies or books that are dated in past centuries? Don't we have anymore enough imagination to can understand other times? Seem as we only enjoy the immediate, familiar plots that don't need to make our brains work too much.

In the other hand, as a desperate measure, maybe bring the classics to us is the only realistic way our children would approach them. It is sad, but apparently true. The bookstores are selling Verne's book as they didn't in a long time, and I can imagine new editions with adaptations will come out soon.

The movie "Journey to the center of the Earth" is entertaining, that is a fact. And the characters are fun. We watched it at the IMAX Theatre in 3D, and the special effects are pretty impressive. I always like Brendan Fraser, the actor and main character, and I consider him the perfect next action and adventure actor, a close relative of Harrison Ford and "Indiana Jones". He is really funny in the "Mummy" series, and I hope he will make more movies like these ones.