Stuart Little as Richie Rich

I saw Stuart Little, the film on the weekend. It was more than a little disappointing. It seemed to me, as someone who read the original EB White book, that the only connection the movie has with the book is a couple of names. But then I recently read a article about how Disney remade Mary Popins in his own image. Literary properties are generally bought by the movie industry merely for the names of characters,sometime not even that.

There are a lot of niggling changes in the movie from the book. Stuart is adopted from a orphanage instead of being born a Little. George Little is the same age or younger Stuart Little instead of being a teenage. The "evil cat" is the same white fluffy persian we have seen in many crappy films. There is a lot cute goofy riffs on theme of talking animals. The normal problems with adaption is that it is done by of for people who have knowledge of the original source.

But number one annoyance of this film is extraordinary wealth of the Little Family. in the original book the Littles lived in an apartment building. In the movie the Littles have a nice 4 story house. An apartment the size of the house can cost millions. But the Littles have a house on 5th avenue accross from Central Park where 1 bedroom condos are $1m. The Littles have a house on a patch of ground worth tens of millions.