What can I even say about Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole? It was based on some great books, but sadly Zack Snyder directed it. All Snyder’s films are bad—only one even approaches being watchable—and this children’s film continues the trend.
In my last review I praised Kathryn Lasky’s Guardians of Ga’Hoole series, a dark fantasy story set in a world where humans have become extinct and owls have developed complex civilizations.
Unfortunately this series got a CGI movie adaptation in 2010, and CGI films aren’t known for being faithful adaptations of their source material. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is no exception.
When I first watched this movie, I thought there was no way the books could be good. Hearing moviegoers attack Avatar: The Last Airbender after its disastrous movie adaptation made me realize my own hypocrisy, however, and I finally bit the bullet and read the books. It turns out that everything wrong with Legend of the Guardians is unique to it.
Just so you know, I will be discussing major plot points from the books, particularly the first six in the series, so you might want to read them before you continue.
Based on the Books
Let’s just dive in; the sooner we start the sooner I can leave this movie in the past where it belongs. The film describes itself by saying:
“Based on the beloved books by Kathryn Lasky.”
“Based on” is a bit of a strong phrase for this, isn’t it? I’d say this film is more inspired by the books than based on them, but again this isn’t uncommon for CGI adaptations. What is unusual is just how badly this film screws up in spite of all the good things about it. In fact when I first saw the trailer, I really expected this to be one of the best CGI films ever.
It looked like a breath of fresh air amidst the barrage of middling CGI films that had begun coming out around that time. Now that I’ve read the books, I’m even more confused as to how it managed to be this bad. This film has so much going for it: great cast, great animation, good score, great source material… and yet it’s a train-wreck!
Many of the worst adaptations try to squeeze three books into one short movie. This adaptation, on the other hand, tries to squeeze the first six books of the series into a single hour-and-a-half movie.
The Capture
We begin with some great shots of Soren’s father Noctus flying through various production logos; the animation in this movie is fantastic and the music is quite gripping. The score throughout the film is pretty good, but unfortunately there are pop-songs peppered here and there.
Noctus is played by Hugo Weaving, and he’s not the only great Australian actor in this film. In fact the movie’s full of them. Every single actor in this movie is really good, which is part of what makes this such a disappointing film; it had the potential to be great.
Soren’s Family Life
The film proper kicks off with Soren and Eglantine play-acting as a hero they shouldn’t have heard of and a villain that shouldn’t exist yet, respectively. We’re off to a great start!
Soren states that Lyze of Kiel founded the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, which makes no sense to anyone who’s read the books, as the knightly order was in fact founded by King Hoole.
Their brother Kludd voices his dislike of stories, but one starts to get the feeling that this movie’s trying to make us connect with him.
Brotherly Love
After the three owlets are sent to bed, Soren tells Eglantine a story about The Battle of the Ice Claws, wherein… Lyze of Kiel fights Metal Beak? Is Metal Beak supposed to be Ifghar? Because Lyze’s traitorous brother seems to be the closest thing the book has to the movie’s version of Metal Beak.
In the books, Lyze of Kiel wasn’t a warrior of Ga’hoole. He only became a teacher there after he hung up his battle claws and renamed himself “Ezyl.”
We see Kludd showing concern for Eglantine, worrying that Soren’s stories will give her daymares. This is quite a change from the psychopath of the books; this will become a problem when they try to turn him into the psychopath of the books out of nowhere.
Kludd is portrayed here as an angry older brother, and his relationship with Soren is portrayed as a more-or-less normal sibling relationship. He shows no signs of being evil. Contrast this with the book, where he’s a psychopath.
The Snatching of Soren… and Kludd?
Kludd and Soren decide to go out and practice flying, and the film does a great job of making their relationship seem brotherly. Unfortunately, this will cause Kludd’s progression (which made perfect sense in the books) to make very little sense in Legend of the Guardians.
In the books, Kludd pushed Soren out of the nest as part of his initiation into a cult.
In the movie, Soren’s being annoying and Kludd gives him a brotherly shove, which accidentally causes them both to fall. Soren and Kludd both get attacked by a Tasmanian devil and then kidnapped by some mysterious owls. In the books, Kludd was still in the nest at the time and was quite busy being evil.
Two Cults for the Price of One
The film tries to make Jatt and Jutt comedic. We meet Grimble, followed closely by the elf owl Gylfie, and then the owls fly to Saint Aegolius’ Canyon.
Strangely most of the cultist owls in the film paint their feathers like the northern pirates (called “kralls”) do in the books. Grimble makes a speech that will confuse anyone who’s read the books.
First he welcomes the many kidnapped owlets to Saint Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls, which is all well and good, but then he says that they will all serve the High Tyto and the Pure Ones.
So let me get this straight: these owls are the Saint Aegolius cult, but they’re also the Tytonic Union of Pure Ones, and they paint themselves like the Kralls?
Yes; the three main evil groups from the first six books have been merged into one in the movie. This is unsurprising, given how short the movie is, but it really makes the film’s world seem less alive than the world of the books.
Nyra
Grimble’s speech is met with protests from the kidnapped owlets, but then Nyra swoops in and introduces herself.
“I am Nyra, Ablah General of Saint Aegolius and mate to the Lord High Tyto!”
Er… I think you mean “I am Nyra, Adjunct General of the Tytonic Union of Pure Ones and mate to the Lord High Tyto!” The Ablah general of Saint Aggie’s was a female great horned owl named Skench.
On the bright side, Nyra is voiced by Helen Mirren, and her performance is great. One thing I find odd, however, is the red paint on Nyra’s face.
I understand that they were trying to make Nyra’s appearance more distinctive (the scar she had in the books worked better), but having her paint her feathers red makes her look more like a pirate owl than the Adjunct General of the Tytonic Union of Pure Ones.
Sympathy for the High Tyto
Because Soren defends Gylfie, Nyra selects them both to be “pickers,” which means they must sift through pellets in order to find “flecks.” She asks Kludd whether he’d like to join his brother as a picker or embrace his Tytonic superiority as a soldier; he chooses the latter.
Even now, Kludd is still a sympathetic character in this movie, which is going to become a big problem later. In the book, this problem was averted because by the time the story started, Kludd had already become smitten with Nyra and joined the Pure Ones—without any threats, I might add.
I get where they were coming from with Kludd’s character, but the movie’s too short to show a gradual transformation, and in the end the psychopathic Kludd of the books ends up being a lot more believable. A psychopath is a way more believable character than someone who just loses all redeeming qualities at the drop of a hat—and without so much as a head injury to explain it.
Moon Blinking
The Pure Ones take Soren and Gylfie to where they moon blink owlets, which is one of several forms of brainwashing from the book (along with stone stunning, and shattering, to name a few). It’s sort of like the old superstition that if you sleep under a full moon you go mental; if an owl sleeps under the full moon in this story, they lose their free will and become mindless slaves.
Now, in the book, the owlets were forced to march under the full moon while chanting their own names over and over again, which would cause them to forget their names so they’d remember only the numbers Saint Aggie’s had given them. Soren and Gylfie are able to come up with a clever way to resist the moon blinking in the book. Here they’re just told to sleep under the full moon, so all they have to do is stay awake—not too hard.
In the morning, Soren and Gylfie pretend to be moon blinked, but Grimble notices something’s amiss. Then we see Nyra reciting a speech to her new soldiers-in-training, including Kludd. They begin their training.
Now, if you’ve only seen Legend of the Guardians I’m sure this will be a bit of a shock, but all these scenes of Kludd’s training had already happened off-page by the time the book started. Kludd’s attempt to kill Soren by pushing him from the nest was part of his final initiation.
Magic and Magnetism
Soren is forced to carry one of the magnetic flecks to the pile, and he feels the effects of the magnetism, but the filmmakers decided to make the flecks glow blue.
In the books, the flecks are just little bits of magnetized iron. Last time I checked, iron doesn’t normally glow blue!
Yes, the flecks in the books have many near-magical properties that iron doesn’t have in real life (such as giving certain owls superpowers), but the flecks here work less like fantasy magnetism and more like straight-up magic.
A bat carries the flecks to an even larger pile, as bats are unaffected by the magnetism (even though if the electromagnetism is such that it glows blue, they’d probably be burnt to a crisp after a few seconds). At the mention of bats, fans of the book may be expecting an especially disturbing scene from the books where the bats suck the blood from owlets’ wings to cripple them.
Well, there’ll be neither that nor the disturbing scene where the owls of Saint Aegolius rip out Soren’s feathers. You see, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is rated PG despite the books being renowned for their violence and gore.
Metal Beak
We cut to some time later when Kludd has become the dreaded Metal Beak. Several scenes later we see Kludd, still an adolescent and still with his beak intact. O, wait! I forgot, didn’t I? In this version Metal Beak isn’t Kludd; he’s some other owl no one gives a crap about!
Surtr the Sooty
In this version, the High Tyto Metal Beak is an owl called Surtr, and for some reason I cannot bloody fathom, they made him a sooty owl.
For those who haven’t read the books, the Pure Ones—being a cult of barn owl Nazis—have a strict hierarchy, and the High Tyto is always of the Tyto alba species—always! The Pure Ones consider sooty owls to be the lowest form of Tyto. Why the hell is their leader a sooty?
Granted, in the later books some of their leaders are revealed to be reincarnated hagsfiends, but at this point they’re all about barn owl supremacy! Even in Legend of the Guardians they’re like this, so why is Surtr not a Tyto alba? That’s like making a movie where Hitler’s black!
And while we’re on the subject, why is Nyra the mate of Surt? Nyra hates sooty owls! In the books she installs a sooty owl as the best friend of her son so she can test him by ordering him to murder the sooty, because sooty owls are expendable!
Even in the movie she believes Tyto alba to be the purest species! So why in Glaux’s name does Nyra mate with “the lowest form of Tyto” in Legend of the Guardians? It makes no sense.
Escape From Saint Aggie’s
Grimble takes Soren and Gylfie to where no one will see or hear them, and he declares he will teach them to fly. We see a flashback to Grimble’s backstory, and it made a lot more sense in the books. In the books, Saint Aggie’s tried to kidnap Grimble’s daughter, and Grimble understandably killed their commander.
Impressed by his skill in combat, Skench and Spoorn (the leaders of Saint Aggie’s in the book) promised to leave his nest alone in exchange for his service. He partly resisted their attempts to moon blink him, but in the end he became partly moon blinked as well. Eventually his family disappeared, presumed dead.
In the movie, the Pure Ones invaded his home kingdom (this will become an issue later on). Grimble was apparently one of the few who fought back, so they kidnapped his family for leverage. This will become a bit of an issue later, because if the Pure Ones have already invaded entire kingdoms, how is it the Guardians of Ga’Hoole have no idea they exist?
Grimble, like Noctus, is portrayed by Hugo Weaving. As always, the animation and performances are great. The only problem is that almost every change from the book is nonsensical even in the movie’s own context.
Kludd and the Bluebird
We cut back to Nyra training Kludd and the other recruits, and it’s here that we get first taste of another problem with this film: its overuse of slow motion. We see that Kludd is becoming a skilled and merciless fighter.
In the book this had already happened by the time the story began. After catching a bluebird as part of his training, Kludd lets it go, showing that he still has redeeming qualities, apparently. This will have no payoff whatsoever.
What’s the point of making this character (an utter psycho in the books) sympathetic when it’s going to have no effect on anything later on? Anyone unfamiliar with the books is going to be confused when he becomes pure evil later in the movie, and anyone who’s read the books will be annoyed that he’s not the psychopath they remember.
I’d also like to point out how stupid it is to show a predator letting its hard-caught prey go when he could have eaten it. This is a major problem that a lot of children’s films have when they work with personified animals.
Nyra asks Kludd whether his brother is as good a flyer as he, and Kludd lies, saying that Soren’s lame. Nyra admonishes Kludd for lying to her, and they go and ask Soren if he wants to be a soldier.
Kludd’s Betrayal
Meanwhile, Soren and Gylfie learn from Grimble how to fly. Grimble tells them how to get to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree in the Sea of Hoolemere. Then Grimble says that he still holds out hope of freeing his family, and it’s then that Nyra and Kludd enter the room.
Soren begs Kludd to come with them, but Kludd refuses, and a fight ensues. I’d just like to say that this scene is one of many in which the actors do a fantastic job with the script they’re given.
I can only imagine how great Legend of the Guardians would have been had it actually stayed true to the books. Even with this movie’s terrible script it’s hard not to be sucked in by the acting and animation alone. While Grimble and Nyra fight, Grimble shouts to Kludd that this is his chance to go home, but Kludd replies,
“I am home.”
After a brief fight scene, Nyra kills Grimble and, along with two soldiers, flies after Soren and Gylfie. The action scene here is pretty well done apart from some pointless slow motion; it’s just a shame there isn’t a book you can read instead where the character development actually makes sense—o, wait! There is! Just read the books instead, people! That’s what you should take away from this review.
Soren and Gylfie, having escaped the Pure Ones, take a few moments to realize how fun it is to finally be able to fly. Nothing much wrong with this scene; moving on.
“I Have a Sister…”
We return to Nyra and Kludd. Nyra is impressed by Kludd’s loyalty to her, and Kludd’s clearly attracted to Nyra.
Too bad this romance isn’t going anywhere—if it were, then we might actually have something closer to the books, wouldn’t we? And we can’t have that!
Nyra asks Kludd what he can offer her, and without hesitation he offers up his sister Eglantine as a sacrifice. Now, here’s the problem with this; the Kludd of Legend of the Guardians has been shown to have redeeming qualities.
Granted, the Kludd of the books offered up both his siblings without a moment’s hesitation and even murdered his own parents for good measure, but the movie has gone out of its way to make this Kludd seem conflicted. It’s like Legend of the Guardians wants to switch back and forth between the book’s version of Kludd and its own, and it just doesn’t work.
The Journey to the Great Tree
Soren and Gylfie, while trying to catch a moth, meet Digger, a burrowing owl. Digger is voiced by David Wenham, who played Faramir in The Lord of the Rings; obviously he does a great job.
Whereas the Digger of the books was philosophical and a deep thinker, this Digger is on the wackier side. It’s not his wackiness that bothers me; what bothers me is that everything to do with his backstory has been omitted.
Why? Because Legend of the Guardians is rated PG, and we can’t have a PG movie where one of the main characters is forced to watch as two cultists eat his brother! This is just another example of this film being neutered in an attempt to be worthy of a PG rating.
Digger mentions a number of species of non-owl birds, but strangely enough there aren’t any wet poop jokes. Digger introduces Soren and Gylfie to Twilight, whom the two met first in the book. Twilight has caught Soren’s old nest-maid snake, Mrs. Plithiver, but Soren convinces him she’s not dinner. She tells Soren,
“We need to get you home; your parents are so worried!”
Er… No, they’re not. They’re bloody dead! Kludd killed them! What? Not in this version? Once again, I implore you, read the books instead!
Not Twilight
For some reason Twilight—a young great grey owl around the same age as Soren, Gylfie, and Digger—is voiced by a man in his fifties and sounds every bit as old as the actor.
Perhaps I shouldn’t even call him Twilight; perhaps I should call him “the Exact Opposite of Twilight,” because apart from liking music the two versions of him have nothing in common.
In the books, Twilight takes great pleasure in the thrill of battle and constantly sings songs of his own prowess even as he slays his enemies. In Legend of the Guardians he’s almost a pacifist! Alright, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but he’s a pacifist compared to the real Twilight. And for some reason he carries a lute instead of just compulsively breaking into song.
The Echidna Sage
Nyra takes Kludd and the other soldiers to meet Metal Beak. I can’t believe I just wrote that nonsensical sentence. Eglantine’s also there and she’s understandably terrified.
We get a pointless comic relief scene where Twilight sings a song about falling asleep, thereby keeping the Band awake. Moving on.
The Band get attacked by crows, and there’s not going to be a single joke about wet poopers in this whole movie, is there? Thought not! The crows steal Twilight’s lute and lead the Band to a character that wasn’t in the books and is completely pointless in Legend of the Guardians. The Echidna seems thrown in just to fill time… in a movie that’s only an hour and a half!
The Great Ga’Hoole Tree
After the Echidna tells them how to get to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, the Band wind up flying through a blizzard. Digger begins to feel the effects and falls towards the ocean, but he’s rescued by Queen Barran of Hoole.
Soren and the Band follow the snowy owls to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. The shots of the Great Tree are beautiful. They really belong with a better script—one that actually follows the books.
The Band tell Parliament of the Pure Ones, but an owl called Allomere doesn’t seem to believe them, insisting that Metal Beak is a myth. Allomere wasn’t in the book, and I think he’s supposed to be like the character Dewlap. However, in the book, Dewlap had a much more sympathetic motivation for betraying the Guardians than Allomere does in the movie.
Only the old whiskered screech owl Ezylryb jumps to the defence of the Band, and he even says that he’ll fight in the war himself, utterly contradicting his vow of nonviolence from the book. He even says he’ll fight Allomere on the spot.
In Legend of the Guardians, although he doesn’t enjoy fighting, we do see him actively participate in the battle. Yet another character to add to the list of owls this film’s ruined! Let me guess… He’s not going to give any of his great battle speeches from the books either, is he?
“The Pure Ones Exist!”
King Boran orders Allomere to take his best owls and uncover the truth regarding the existence of the Pure Ones. In the book, not even Soren and his companions knew of the Pure Ones at this point.
Instead the books gave us only hints at the existence of a power more terrible than Saint Aegolius until Twilight and Digger discovered Eglantine and dozens of other brainwashed owlets lying on the ground. It was only after Soren discovered how to cure his sister’s brainwashing that she told him that the owls who’d brainwashed her were a group called the Pure Ones.
Rushed Pacing
In the books, Soren and Gylfie were kidnapped as owlets, but by the time they escaped they were considerably older. Then the journey to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree took around half a book, during which they had to fight crows and a bobcat, take shelter with a family of masked owls and one of puffins, resist the temptations of the Mirror Lakes, hear the chilling last words of a dying blacksmith, and get knocked far off course before finally arriving at the Great Tree.
In the movie it seems to take around two days to go from being kidnapped to arriving at the Great Tree. Where screen time is concerned, that’s five-to-ten minutes as slaves, two with the crows and Echidna, and one in the blizzard before they arrive at the Great Tree. Well, that’s what you get when you adapt six books into a movie that’s only an hour and thirty minutes.
Otulissa
Soren and Gylfie meet Otulissa, a spotted owl in the books. Here she’s a short-eared owl for some reason I can’t begin to discern.
Here’s the problem with this: in a story where the villains are decidedly racist, you cannot go around changing the characters’ races.
Furthermore, in the books Otulissa is somewhat snobbish but good-hearted, very proud of her ancestry but appalled by racism and the Pure ones, and highly intelligent. In Legend of the Guardians she’s a generic love interest.
Gonna Need a Montage!
Then we get a training montage, complete with a pop song. Yes, a modern pop song in this clearly medieval-esque fantasy movie set in a world with ghosts and magic where humans have gone extinct and owls have developed a medieval society after a war with demon creatures called hagsfiends! A pop song! You know, I think most fantasy anime theme songs fit their settings better than this.
Meanwhile, Metal Beak gives a battle speech about how he’s not a myth (even though in the books he’s just Kludd with a mask to cover his disfigurements). All the Pure Ones’ soldiers, including Kludd, start chanting “Metal Beak! Metal Beak!” Eglantine begs Kludd to take her home, but Kludd insists that this is their home, and then he moon blinks her (she was stone stunned in the books).
Lyze of Kiel
Ezylryb takes Soren and the rest of his students out to teach them how to fly in a storm. Unlike in the books, we get no wet poop jokes from the old screech. Allomere’s scouting party finds the Pure Ones, but it’s a trap.
Back at the tree, Soren talks with Ezylryb after having flown in the storm, and he realizes the old owl is actually Lyze of Kiel. His backstory is utterly different from the books, but that’s nothing new for this movie.
Ezylryb says that all the owls in the tree know who he is, which is certainly not true in the books; most of the younger owls there have never even heard of Lyze of Kiel.
This creates another plot hole unique to the film. If everyone knows that Ezylryb is Lyze of Kiel and also who Lyze of Kiel is (which they don’t in the books) and Lyze of Kiel fought Metal Beak (which he never did in the books), then how is it that the Guardians have such a hard time believing that Metal Beak isn’t a myth?
Just to give credit where credit is due, Ezylryb makes quite a good remark about war:
“Well, what did you expect? Some Tyto alba with gleaming armour and battle claws, moon rising behind him? Well, this is what it looks like when you actually fought in battle. It’s not glorious; it’s not beautiful; it’s not even heroic! It’s merely doing what’s right, and doing it again and again, even if someday you look like this.”
Allomere returns with two owlets, including Eglantine, who’s been moon blinked. Otulissa says that at first she hadn’t believed Soren about the Pure Ones, even though in the books she volunteers to go on a secret quest with the Band because she’s horrified that the Pure Ones believe one species of owl is superior to another.
Allomere tells King Boran and Queen Barran of what the Pure Ones are doing, and King Boran tells Bubo to sharpen the battle claws. Then he says:
“To arms…”
Alas! This will be the closest thing we get to one of Ezylryb’s Churchill-inspired battle speeches from the books. Here’s another problem with this film’s traitor character: it’s entirely obvious that Allomere is a turnfeather. Dewlap was so much better.
The Guardians prepare for war. Soren demands to come along, but Ezylryb says that Soren might last a minute in a real battle and tells him to tend to Eglantine. At this point in the books, Soren, the Band, and the rest of their group known as the Chaw of Chaws were sent on a mission to the Northern Kingdoms to find allies and weapons.
The Burning
Soren talks to the moon blinked Eglantine, telling her of how the stories are all true, and then she just wakes up. In the books, she was roused by music and (ironically) moonlight reflected off a piece of mica.
In Legend of the Guardians, she tells Soren that Kludd’s one of the Pure Ones and that she wasn’t rescued, as Kludd gave her to Allomere. This makes Soren realize what everyone in the audience has known from the beginning: Allomere is a traitor.
It’s a Trap!
Meanwhile, a fight scene ensues. There’s too much slow motion and not enough blood. Obviously it turns out to be a trap set by Allomere and the Pure Ones. Soren and his friends fly to Saint Aegolius Canyon and Digger starts to see signs of battle.
They then see that the Guardians have been caught in the magnetic field of the flecks. Soren thinks of an idea to destroy the magnetic field using fire from the burning forest nearby, but Gylfie protests that Soren can’t fly into fire.
In the books, Soren had by this point been trained to fly into forest fires. In any case, the others hold off the Pure Ones’ bat army while Soren sets fire to an oil lamp. As always the animation is great. Soren flies into the magnetic field and sets fire to the machine holding the flecks, destroying the magnetic field and freeing the owls from its power.
Soren vs. Kludd
Soren is left to guard the rescued owlets, and nearby a battle ensues. Again there’s too much slow motion and not enough blood—no blood at all, as a matter of fact. Soren, seeing Kludd in the battle, leaves his post to go and save his brother. Kludd throws Soren into the forest fire and says:
“Hello, brother…”
I think this is a reference to the part in the books where Soren knocks off Metal Beak’s mask, revealing Metal Beak to be none other than Kludd, who shouts:
“Surprise, little brother!”
The movie’s version doesn’t have the same impact.
“You Don’t Know Me At All!”
Ezylryb flies into the keep and begins his battle with the movie’s version of Metal Beak, and they start circling each other… on the ground! Yes; in a movie about owl knights, the final fight takes place mostly on the ground.
As the trash-talking commences between Ezylryb and Surtr (the film’s Metal Beak), so too do Soren and Kludd begin their fight/ideological debate. Kludd comes across less as the evil bastard he should be and more as a brainwashed kid in the Hitler Youth.
After hearing Kludd proclaim that honour is just another word for weakness, Soren says something so stupid it’s stuck with me all these years:
“No, Kludd! I know you don’t really think that!”
You know he doesn’t really think that? To anyone who’s read the book this is nonsensical; I’ll explain why in a bit. Anyway, Kludd chuckles and replies:
“Then you don’t know me at all.”
Well, that’s right! I can’t argue with that! Soren doesn’t know Kludd at all because, at least as far as the books are concerned, Kludd pushed Soren out of the nest as an owlet and they’ve each grown up not knowing anything about each other—in Kludd’s case, not even knowing that Soren’s still alive.
In the books, there was no “this isn’t you!” crap because Soren understands that his brother is Metal Beak, the owl that shoved both him and his sister into a world of trauma, killed their parents, and led a campaign against all that is good. In the book, Soren’s conflict here is about not wanting to live with having killed his own brother, no matter how evil.
The Fall of Kludd
Kludd acts like a bloody moron and through his own stupidity falls into the forest fire, presumably to his death—yet another way in which Legend of the Guardians avoids the books’ trademark gore. Seeing his brother’s fate, the grief-stricken Soren resolves to kill Surtr so he can’t destroy any more lives.
The Death of Metal Beak
We see as the movie’s version of Ezylryb now fights both Nyra and Surtr. Soren swoops in, a burning branch in his talons, and attacks Surtr.
After a brief fight, Nyra watches as Soren impales Surtr on the burning branch, killing him. That’s right; we never see Metal Beak’s disfigured face, a scene that should have revealed him to be Kludd.
Needless to say, Legend of the Guardians does everything in such a way that there’s no blood.
A Happy Ending That Doesn’t Belong
The Guardians return to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, and narration from Soren asserts that all is well. Soren’s parents are there, and they’re very much alive; Kludd’s fate is never addressed.
It was addressed in the book, where the ghosts of Soren’s parents appear to him, their business in the world of the living complete.
Here they don’t seem to give a puffin’s arse about it. Legend of the Guardians ends with narration about how Soren and his friends are knighted as Guardians of Ga’Hoole, sworn to vanquish the evil, and then we get this gem:
“… for as you know, Nyra escaped, and Kludd… Well, Kludd was never found…”
What? Never found? This cliffhanger is nowhere near as good as the cliffhanger at the end of the sixth book, where Nyra not only escapes, but escapes with her and Kludd’s egg. The cliffhanger is when the egg hatches under a celestial event that will give the hatchling great power, and Kludd’s heir Nyroc comes into the owl world.
As for Kludd, the next book begins with Nyra having Kludd’s body cremated, so yes; his body was found. And in case it wasn’t obvious, his death was a lot gorier in the book than either his or Surtr’s is in Legend of the Guardians.
Sprink on This Movie!
So that’s Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, and it’s a mess.
As the acting, visuals, and source material are all superb, I think most of the movie’s problems come from two decisions: the decision to make this film only an hour and thirty minutes long and the decision to try for a PG rating.
I’m not sure one could make a better adaptation of these books without at least rectifying these two issues. The film’s short length forces it to be horribly rushed, as well as requiring that everything be made as simplistic as possible, made worse by the decision to add new characters into an already tight squeeze of a film.
The books were a gore-fest filled with dark themes and violence quite uncharacteristic of a children’s story, so making this film PG robs the story of the darkness that made it so unusual. Legend of the Guardians shies away from everything that made the books so good in the first place.
Nonsensical Characters
Even if those problems were righted, the script would need to have been a good deal better. As it is, the script is confusing and filled with things that don’t make sense. The worst part is the character development, which ranges from non-existent to nonsensical.
Kludd is probably the worst offender, as he flip-flops between two completely different personalities. The sick sexual relationship between Kludd and Nyra is gone, likely because the producers thought it would be too disturbing, and Surtr is a poor substitute as Metal Beak. The other characters don’t fare much better.
A Polished Turd
I’ve heard some people say that Legend of the Guardians stays true to the spirit of the books, but I just can’t see it. All the production values are fantastic, from the animation to the score to the voice-acting. Unfortunately this movie serves as proof that without a good script, a polished owl pellet is still a turd.