Sizing up 'Gulliver's Travels' with Jack Black

Fox recently released its trailer for "Gulliver's Travels," starring Jack Black, Jason Segel and Emily Blunt. It probably won't be the most faithful adaptation of the Jonathan Swift classic, though it is probably the first in which Gulliver introduces the Lilliputians to KISS.

It's tough to count how many times this book has been adapted to film, television, stage, radio, even the symphony. Fleischer Studios produced a 1939 animated version; a 1960 live-action film featured the stop-motion effects of Ray Harryhausen; Hanna-Barbera created a television cartoon series, giving Gulliver a father to search for in each episode.

Swift, a black-humored misanthrope who died in 1745, probably wouldn't have liked any of them. "Gulliver's Travels" not only satirized the travel memoir (a popular genre even then), it skewered religion, government and humanity. Yet we now regard it as a lighthearted children's fantasy, perhaps because most adaptations focus on the whimsical Lilliputian chapters and ignore the final, darker episodes. The book begins with Lemuel Gulliver lambasting his publisher for editing and softening his manuscript, almost as if Swift were railing at movie producers from the grave.

In Swift's version, Gulliver returns from his travels a madman. He pledges allegiance to his horse, refers to humans as ignorant Yahoos and withdraws from society - not exactly crowd-pleasing stuff. We'll have to wait until Dec. 22 before "Gulliver's Travels" is released, but it's a safe bet the ending will again be upbeat.