Sherlock Holmes, reimagined

The New York Times has a story about the new Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr. Apparently, Holmes is going to be more of a “man of action” in the film than the tweedy intellect he’s usually depicted as. No problem. But I couldn’t help but laugh at the following bit:

But Conan Doyle appears to have conceived his detectives as action characters, too, alluding to Watson’s military service, to boxing matches and gunfights, and to Holmes’s use of the martial art baritsu (he most likely meant bartitsu).

“So many of the ideas that Conan Doyle had took place offstage in his books,” Ms. Downey said. “We have the technology, the budget and the means to carry them out.”

Well, uh, so did Arthur Conan Doyle. All he had to do is write it down. If Conan Doyle kept certain aspects of his characters’ lives offstage, that’s probably because that’s how he wanted to write the story. He didn’t need a CGI department or a million bucks to do it.