The Lorax and Intellectual Property

Perhaps you have seen the trailers for the new cinematic adaptation of The Lorax that are making the rounds.  Here's one:

 

This marks yet another chapter is ongoing descecration of Dr. Seuss's work through licensed adaptations.  Not one of the posthumous films based on his work does honor to his source material.  From pro-revenge agit-prop of Jim Carey's Grinch to this oddly redempting The Lorax, Hollywood seems determined to destroy the books I and almost everyone I know grew up on.  What's next, a Butter Battle Book where they fight with butter in some delightful way and then have a truce at the end?

I can't help but feel that this is yet another great example of why copyright over a work should perish with its author. The stewards of Dr. Seuss's work-- the people respnsible for licensing this crap-- are not moving forward with the work's best intentions at heart. Dr. Seuss's work would be better served by being in the public domain, where many adaptations could bloom, none of them "official," allowing the source text to continue to be the one real version of the story.

Comments

[John-Paul]

Either that or Seuss needs his own version of the Beckett Police.

[Isaac]

The Beckett police do equal injustice to beckett's work, methinks

[Sam]

Wow, don't you hate the fake comments? I have to agree with you about Dr. Seuss - he's got such a wealth of material to draw on, and every indication is that anything made from it will be absolute garbage. The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, perhaps? With a large-scale Lord of the Rings inspired epic battle thrown in at the end, or helicopters, or i can't even think of a good way to make it awful, but I know they can.