#morrell

Idek why i even do this to myself anymore, why do i even try to watch any movie adaptations of books with complex female characters. I finished the 2002 the count of monte cristo film and in short it was absolutely horrible. I hated how much the story changed/removed so many detrimental things to the plot. Aswell as the characters, the thing i hated most was how horrible they portrayed mercedes. Ofc I didnt like how they portrayed any of the characters truly, but what made me the most upset was how mercedes was done. Im beginning to see a pattern among female "love interests" in these types of adaptations. They are always watered down to being helplessly reliant on men around them. rather than being able to be their own person all they become is the shadow of the men around them. A big thing about all of this is the fact that its a movie. A story this complex and this long should in no way be turned into just a movie. Anyways, mercedes never loved fernand and was taken advantage of by him when she was at her lowest, and moved on from edmond a long time ago. By the end the only person that was on her mind was her son. She was at peace with edmond after she got everything off her chest and was ready to let him go. So in no way should she be reliant only on one man when she is fully capable of having her own articulate thoughts and is completely fine on her own. And about fernands character, which i do not support what he did, just from picking up the book i know that he would never say anything along the lines of "whore" about her. They made his whole character revolve around his love for mercedes rather than showing the true evil side of him, such as his past with haydee (who wasnt even in the movie) and how he was overly obbsesed with his honor. He even shot himself in the end over losing it. The way he was characterized in this movie just sucked really. Another thing i absolutely hated the was the watered down revenge plan. In the original novel edmonds plans for revenge were complex and lasted years to complete, but in this movie, which again should not have been a movie in the first place, took his revenge plan and threw it out the window. As said in the movie itself "death is too good for them" but then he turns his back on that and just kills his enemies rather than giving them the long agonizing suffering just as he had to go through. He becomes too lively, rather than the revenge filled spirit of a man he is supposed to be. Also, by the end of it, edmond wanted to let go of his past life, along with mercedes. He no longer had any desire to live a life with her after feeling so betrayed, even after he figured out her side of the story. He just wanted to let it all go and this adaptation took that away from him. The lack of such important characters in the story such as the entire morrell family plus a few of the villeforts really put the nail in the coffin of his final grasps of humanity. Without these people edmond would be as good as a walking corpse. He wouldnt have any belief in love if it wasn't for julie and emmanuel. He wouldn't have any desire to protect anyone if it wasnt for Maximilian and valentine. He wouldn't have felt any remorse or have fallen from his trance of revenge if it wasn't for edwards death. He would have lost all hope in humanity if it wasnt for morrell being the only one who hadn't betrayed him after so long. These people are all detrimental to edmonds character development and they were either removed completely or given a different role in the story. All of this shows the person who made this adaptation didn't care to even open the book and read a few sentences, all they thought was "ooo cool revenge guy who had his girl stolen....this will make for a good movie!" This is the worst thing someone could do to such a masterpiece and i think if we cant learn to interpret books how they are meant to be interpreted then we have no business trying to turn them into any type of movie/film adaptation

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