Books V.S. Movies

[Adamski]

Yeah, Soul Music was a horrible adaptation. It didn't transfer well to cartoon

[Privateer Puddin']

Charlie and the chocolate factory (original) is the best book to movie conversion, ever.

[Bombadil]

Concerning Bombadil, I think it's not one of the crucial chapters in the story, but there you learn a lot of things [some important, some not]. By the way, I prefer him not to be included in the film...

I like the movies, but just like movies. I think it's a horrible "conversion" to a movie. Call me purist, but I think a movie of LotR should have never been done.
Apart from that there are a lot of points in the movies that I hate. Take for examples:
- Where's Glorfindel?
- Gimli, the clown.
- Aragorn & Eowyn?
If you've seen the 3rd movie:

Spoiler

- In the Haven's scene, the hobbits entering the ship, they look clearly like kids! All that money inverted in that movie and they cannot get that better?

[close]

- ...

Just to add another Crichton movie: Timeline. I found it horrible! I enjoyed the book a lot and they made that "adaptation"...

Time to go... I'll post something more tomorrow...

[DragonRose]

Captain Custard: Um... you're joking right? Oompa Loompas are supposed to be pygmies, the geese should be squirels, and the whole Everlasting gobstopper subplot? What was that and where did it come from? It's a good movie in it's own right, but it's only very loosely related to the book.

On a similar note, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is nothing like L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. Where's Dainty China Country? Or the Green Goggles? Or the Queen of the Mice? Or the charm in the golden cap?  These are some of my favourite parts of the book, but they're nowhere to be seen in the movie. I recall being very put out when I realized they were different.

[Redwall]

Come on, people. If you're going to mention terrible movies made from Crichton's books, at least mention Congo or The 13th Warrior!

[BerserkerTails]

My favorite book to movie conversion:

"The Princess Bride" by S. Morge- Errr, William Goldman. Seriously, I love the movie just as much as I love the book. Hmmm, could it be because the book and the screenplay were written by the same person?

...Probably.

[Blackthorne]

The Godfather the novel and it's screen counterpart are both excellent.

In fact, the screenplay for The Godfather is a great example of an adaptation.


As for LotR.... the movies rock.  The books rock.  If I want to watch the film, I'll watch it.  If I want to read the books, I'll read them.  No one says I have to pick one.

As for Timeline: great book.  Movie, horrible film.  Even if it wasn't based off of a book, it still would have sucked octopus cock.

Bt

[DragonRose]

Question: Have there been any GOOD adaptations of Michael Crichton books? Some of his original screen and television stuff has been okay, such as Twister and ER (neither is OMGWTFBBQ great, but they're okay). But every adaptation of his books I've seen has been somewhere between blah and yuck.

Discuss.

Oh yeah- and Princess Bride is my favourite movie of all time, and one of my many favourite books. I was quite surprised when I found out there was no S. Morgenstern, though.

[Las Naranjas]

I like looking at Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Bladerunner.

The film takes many many liberties, but you can see it as simply a different take on a concept. They're very thematically different, but I like both of them. Unlike most films based on Dick, which take the concept and end up becoming sub par action films.

I wouldn't expect a film based on a Dick book to ever be thematically faithful, I dont think his writing would work very well in the film medium.

[DGMacphee]

The film takes many many liberties, but you can see it as simply a different take on a concept. They're very thematically different, but I like both of them. Unlike most films based on Dick, which take the concept and end up becoming sub par action films.

As was the case with Asimov this year.
I can still hear his corpse going, "Stop raping me! Stop raping me!"

It's strange but I see a lot of debate on book-to-film adaptations, but how come I haven't read much on film-to-book adaptations? And also books based on films and TV shows but with new plots? For example, have a look at how many Star Trek and Star Wars novels there are. Sure, I haven't read any, but there's sqillions of them.

The only film-to-book adaptations I've read are Super Mario Brothers and Beethoven's 2nd. I didn't think much of the Super Mario Bros film, so I didn't have much hope for the book. I did think the Beethoven's 2nd book was better than the movie because it was able to tell you what all the dogs were thinking. It's hard to convey what people (and in this case, animals) are thinking in a film, which is why you have to manifest the subtext symbolically into a physical object. With books, you can just state what the characters are thinking. And this actually improved my understanding of Beethoven. On screen, he was just a big, slobbery St Bernard -- they didn't even bother to capture his thoughts. In the book, I felt he was a lonely soul searching for a mate. And that why I think the book captured his portrait better than the film did.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Bad Stephen King adaptations:

Dreamcatcher
Hearts in Atlantis
The Tommyknockers

Good Stephen King adaptations:

Dolores Claiborne
Misery
Christine
Carrie
Secret Window
The Langoliers
The Green Mile
The Shawshank Redemption
Thinner
Apt Pupil
The Shining (not Kubrick's)
The Dark Half
The Stand

Films I've yet to see so as to speak of them:

Kubrick's Shining
Salem's Lot
Needful Things
Firestarter
The Dead Zone
It
Silver Bullet
Stand by Me
Children of the Corn

DO I have a point? Not really... just enumerating, 's all.

[c.leksutin]

I, Robot took little more from the book then the name, and the 3 laws.

While it was a mildly entertaing action movie with some really nifty camera moves, it 's a bummer to think that a real movie based on the Robot books wont ever be made now.


I've read several books recently that would make AWSOME movies provided they had a budget or roughly 1 billion dollars and people would sit through a movie that was 12+ hours long.

what books you ask?

The Revelation Space Triology By Alastair Reynolds... go read them now.


C.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I add The Dark Tower to The Revelation Space Trilogy. MANY hours... VERY awsome!

[Privateer Puddin']

DragonRose: Sarcasm.

[Las Naranjas]

Custard : Sarcasm : Imperial : Dogma

[Nacho]

Foundation Saga, by the old Isaac!

[Ali]

I agree that book to film adaptations often fail, but I'm glad that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy has proven that books aren't necessarily better than films.

I believe trilogy is an excellent series of films, but I find Tolkien's writing is impenetrably dull.

I thought the Lemony Snicket film was quite effective as well.

[Babar]

What a weird topic....
There are a lot of films that have done well, considering or not considering the books they were based off. There are also a lot of films that have done badly, considering or not considering the books they were based off.
These movies range from those that just took inspiration from the book, to those that followed the book to the letter. The amount of "sticking to the story" does not automatically qualify the movie to be good or bad.
There are waaaay too many factors to make a generalisation on whether book to movie conversions are good or bad, compared or not compared to the books they were based off.

[Fuzzpilz]

I agree that book to film adaptations often fail, but I'm glad that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy has proven that books aren't necessarily better than films.

I believe trilogy is an excellent series of films, but I find Tolkien's writing is impenetrably dull.

All that proves is that you have no taste.

But seriously, no, books aren't necessarily better than films, but in my view this is because there is no reasonable general definition of "better". When is a work of narrative art better than another? Is it if a greater portion of the people acquainted with it enjoy it? If it more clearly conveys the creator's ideas? If the Pope prefers it?

I must add, though, that so far whenever I saw a movie based on a book and knew the book, whether I read it before or after watching the movie, I found the book superior (subjectively, of course).

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Well, let's put it like this: books turned into films generate hype, and it so often turns out that the readers who liked the book DIDN't like the film that films have this stigmata attached.

But what about FILMS turned into BOOKS? There aren't many, but there are a few. I never heard anyone say anything about that.

I guess it's all a matter of hype. Readers of the books quickly comdemn the movies, and have been doing it for so long that any film based on a book is quickly eyed with a lot of suspicion before anything else. After all, the books of the films usually aren't that great. For instance, the X-Files book, which I read, sure paled in comparison to the Fight the Truth movie (not considering the actual quality of said movie, which I don't want to discuss).