Wow, there's some opinions on LOTR around here. Rofl. I'll stay out of that. When I've read a book and I'm going to see the movie, typically what I find interesting is how they structure the film to try and convey the same story. I find I tend to be less disappointed by the movies that way. After reading Hunger Games for example, I was struck by how brilliant a movie they could have made from it. Now that the film is about to come out, I'm going to go see it. I'm not a hardcore Hunger Games fan, so I doubt I'll be particularly offended by how badly they do it. One of the key things I'm interested in, is how they adapt an interesting book, into an interesting movie. I expect there's going to have to be a lot more action to get the same tone as the book. And I doubt they can do it properly without re-writing sections of the book. In situations where the book has been re-written in order to make a better movie, and it doesn't lose the tone of the book, I fully support it. For example, removing Tom Bombadil from the LOTR movies. Where the change is insignificant, such as swapping a male elf for a femail elf (LOTR again) I tend not to support it, but I don't get my knickers in a twist. What buggs me, is when they make a major change to a character or story. For example in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The reveal that Wormtail (His real name escapes me right now) exists and is the source of the problems happens at the end of the book, in the movie, it happens in the middle. This eliminated the twist I felt. Similarly, at the end of Deathly Hallows, when (In the book) Harry tells Neville to kill the snake no matter what, but in the film, he doesn't, and Neville kills it just to help out Hermione and Ron. I felt that detracted from the characters and didn't provide a particularly strong scene in the film. I think I'm off track of the original question. I don't mind watching films of books. Many of them I quite like.
Actually, Wormtail is revealed to be alive in the Shrieking Shack scene in both the book AND the movie. The Shrieking Shack scene is the climax scene of the story, and happens toward the end of both works. So that particular aspect wasn't different. I do agree with you that I find it interesting HOW they adapt it to film. It's a hard thing taking 100k+ words and condensing it to 2 hours of visual representation. As a story teller, I'm always interested in how they do it. When it comes to directors leaving book details out of the movie adaptations, I'm not at all bothered if they take out larger chunks of the story as long as the final product makes sense and captures the main feel of the story. Tom Bombadil is an excellent example. I LOVED him in the books, but he really didn't serve much purpose to further the plot, so I'm perfectly fine they left him out of the movies. But at the end of HP7: Spoiler After he kills Voldemort and takes the Elder Wand, in the books he uses the Elder Wand to fix his wand and then places it into Dumbledore's Tomb. In the movies, he DOESN'T fix his wand, and then breaks the Elder Wand in half and throws it over a bridge. Showing him putting it in Dumbledore's tomb would not have taken much time, and then we are also left with the fact that Harry Potter doesn't have his wand. His wand breaking was a big part of the story, so I felt it was left unresolved. Overall, though, I think the Harry Potter movies were decent adaptations for the books. Like I said, they capture the feel of the books, which is most important to me.
I've been thinking about this a while, and here's my list of films that I actually think were at least as good, if not better than the books: 1) The Godfather- the book has a lot going for it, but the movie just couldn't have been any better. The actors were right, the suspense built perfectly, and while the film cut quite a bit, it kept pretty much everything that was important. 2) The Prestige- a lot of people don't even realize that this is a book, but it is. The book version is very different from Nolan's adaptation, but in a way that makes the story quite a bit more appealing. In the book, the feud between the two main characters is there, but the stakes aren't as high or as interesting. The movie added twists that just make the story work a lot better and really flesh out the themes of the original book. 3) Dr. Zhivago- no doubt some people would disagree with this one, but I just couldn't get through the book. Maybe I had a bad translation, but I couldn't tell who anyone was. There were too many characters and they all kind of ran together. But I understood and ended up really enjoying the film. It's nice and well-shot. The story is a bit romantic for my taste, but it's worth seeing, definitely. 4) Silence of the Lambs- The book version of this was just so-so. Surprisingly, it's more interesting to watch each character on screen than it is to get inside their heads, especially Buffalo Bill's character. In the movie, we're shown these really bizarre, disturbing images of what the guy does. In the book, though, we see it through his eyes which just makes it a lot less mysterious. Plus, the prose is only so-so. It's clear, but nothing special. I didn't feel like I was really there. The movie has great actors and visuals that for whatever reason work better than the prose. 5) Thank You for Smoking- Now, I absolutely love both the book and the movie in this case and I wouldn't venture to say that one is better than the other. They're actually very different stories. The book is a lot darker than the movie, but it's still very funny. The movie, though, uses the main character's son a lot more than the book, and he made a very enjoyable addition, I thought. The film is a little more lighthearted, though still dark, and the style it uses is very clever. While both versions are different, the brilliantly funny premise is there, and the message is the same. Otherwise, I think most film adaptations are just OK. In general, I'd rather read the book, but if done very artfully, some books translate very well to the screen. Others, like Great Gatsby, just don't translate well at all because the point is the prose rather than the visuals or the action.
I mostly refuse to watch a film after reading the book. It completely destroys everything that I pictured in my mind throughout reading that book. Sometimes I read the book after watching the film thoguh, like The Godfather and Goodfellas, it helps me understand the story better, by reading it from the book I can get far more in-depth then the movie.
To me it's the opposite: I hate books that are written after it has already been filmed and successful as a movie/tv-series/whatever. you can tell from the quality of the writing which came first. The books I've read made from films are always of poor quality. I think a lot of books make successful films on the other hand, but usually If i've already read the book i don't feel the need to see the movie unless it's exceptional.
If I've read any book I enjoy and see that they made a movie for it, I can not watch it. It'll ruin the book for me. I read Eragon and it was good, but as soon as i saw the movie I couldn't even look at the book anymore.
I'd much rather read the book first and see the movie second. Seeing the plot unfold in film spoils the surprise in the book. About a month ago, I read A Clockwork Orange, but I had seen the movie years earlier, and while it was still a good book, I may have ranked it a great book, if I hadn't known what was coming. I wish I could erase Fight Club and American Psycho from my memory, so I could read the books fresh.
I agree with the people who've cited LotR and HP as good movie adaptations of books - although to be honest my opinion about LotR is a little uninformed as I never actually got through reading the books. I loved the films and wanted to read the books after, but couldn't get past about page 11. After the films I just thought the writing style was dull, long winded and dry. And I usually can't stand fantasy novels that contain excessive amounts of world building, exposition and info dumps, which I get the impression applies to LotR. HP on the other hand I have read right through. I got annoyed by a couple of ommisions in the films (the marauders backstory was a glaring ommission from Prisoner of Azkaban, and really left a hole in the animagus/patronus sub plot) but in general I thought they captured the characters and story very well, and preserved the feel of the world Rowling created. When it comes to book adaptations I'm never sure whether it's better to read the book or see the film first, because both have their draw backs. If you read the book first you'll be forever finding fault with the film, but if you see the film first you can't escape the visual interpretation of the film when you read it, and this I think hampers your imagination. But there are a couple of films I thought were outstanding adaptations of books. Shawshank Redemption is one. In fact |I might as well stop there because I don't think I can top that
It depends on the novels. I find the real problem comes into play with how long the novel is you are trying to make into a move. When it's a huge novel, you really have to cut and trim and make it work with only a handful of elements. I find the best novel to movie adaptations are shorter books or novella to movies. The best example I can give is Fight Club (the movie only has a few elements not included from the book) and with all the visual elements introduced into the movie, it almost makes it a better ride.
It depends, really. I will watch any movie based on a book that I have read because it could be good. The best I can think of is the Lord of the Rings movie series, which are still amazing even if you don't watch the extended versions. I have two DVD sets of that series, and the books. I liked Inkheart too, but I'm pretty sure a majority hated it. I also liked The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but again, I hear a lot of people hating on it. TI enjoyed The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Lovely Bones, Where the Wild Things, Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, Sherlock Holmes, James and the Giant Peach, I Am Legend, War of the Worlds, The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, My Sister's Keeper (< which I thought was absolutely amazing and sad) and many more titles that have been made, but it all depends on the individual. For example, Eragon (the first book) was a great read, but Eragon the movie did not do the book justice at all, but I still enjoy the first fifteen-twenty minutes of it.
I have a bit of a problem when it comes to film adaptions - they never include everything! It makes me sad. Like in Harry Potter, they forget to mention Bill Weasly is going to marry Fleur, and that he is also a werewolf now. I hate how they just miss stuff out. I wish that people would read more too because books are great. One of my old friends thought that all movies come out before the book versons do, which was kinda annoying.
The Deathly Hallows pt. 1 movie starts with Bill and Fleur's wedding, and it is interrupted by death eaters just like in the books. Also, he doesn't get turned into a werewolf. Instead, he has a permanent wound and some wolfish tendencies such as a fancy for raw steak. The wound is seen in the movie (and possibly talked about). I believe the wolfish tendencies are rather trivial and simply not important enough for the plot to be included in the movie. If he were actually a werewolf, that would probably be significant enough to be worthy of inclusion, but that isn't the case. I think we should appreciate that a movie adaptation is just another way to enjoy the story that you love. Just as it's fun that books can go into so much detail, it's fun that we get to see and hear the action and the characters on screen. I argue that, while neither one is ideal, we get a richer experience with both.
My main problem with movie adaptations of books I've read, is the obvious lack of suspense. Not knowing what's going to happen next is a hugely underated feature of any movie and if you know exactly how the plot unfolds then a large part of the film's impact is lost. I think it's why I fondly remember my first childhood viewing of the fellowship of the ring as possibly the best cinematic experience I ever and may ever have. I never read the book. I was blown away. Naturally I went out and bought the books the next day. And as brilliantly as Peter Jackson brought the other books to life, in my mind the experience could never match watching that first film.
In the end, movies and books are both simply artistic expression. Or at least, they should be. A movie "based" on a book is someone's artistic interpretation of someone else's artistic impression on some original concept. That's a lot of impressions to fully convey in just a few hours. It's a bit like dumping a translator inside a translator inside a translator.
I had the same thoughts in regards to Harry Potter (and I'm sure this is true to a lot of the big movie/book franchises at the moment). Studios are in such a rush to cash in on the popular books du jour that they're willing to rush through production without worrying about the integrity of the stories themselves. It's not surprising, but it's sad. The ratio of good books to movies isn't the best, though sometimes there's a great surprise floating around. As mentioned above, I guess it's about separating the book from the movie and appreciating them for their own merits and flaws.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head when you said "rush to cash"...happens between all sorts of genres. For example, superhero video games use to be horrible because they wanted to cash in on the new Fantastic 4 movie or Spiderman movie or whatever. But they eventually got it right, like with Batman. Believe me, if they new Harry Potter was going to be as big as it is today, they would of put some serious money into a quality production from the get go.
I usually prefer the books to the movies, but I try to judge both independantly. Most of the time popular book to movie series are over rated. For example I was more annoyed with The Hunger Games movie than anything. I haven't read the book mind you. I just thought someone who was that skilled with bow hunting in the forest ought have spent more time hunting down the assholes than hiding considering it took place in HER environment.
I agree with the above poster. Books first. Infact, I'd say I base my judgements of the movies based on the books. To me, the books are so much more complete, if you get what I'm saying.
Consider that each medium has its strengths and its limitations. A book is linear, single stream, and relies heavily on the imagination of the reader. At the same time, reading on a regular basis fosters imagination far more than a visual medium like cinema. In contrast, cinema is multistream. It combines two or three senses (if you consider the tactile component from the subwoofers), and both the visual and audio streams can carry more than one stream of activity: music, sound effexts and dialogue on the audio side, multiple simultaneous action in the visual channel. However, it is limited to approximately two to three hours in a sitting. More than that is not only difficult from a production standpoint, but also due to viewer fatigue. Cinema is not as well suited to taking breaks, and returning to where you left off. The result is that books can deliver much more plot depth and development, but cinema provides more of a sensory immersion experience. Television is less limited than cinema in terms of time to develop story and characters, but is more limited in having to slice the story into equal-sized segments of a fixed duration, and in a lower budget that can be applied to the same amount of time as cinema. Where the book comes first, much of the story MUST be condensed or trimmed out for a cinema interpretation, and that will always be a disappointment. On the other hand, the impact of even fast paced scenes can be enhanced greatly by a cinematic interpretation. As an example, I offer Stephen King's The Shining. I'm not a huge fan of King's writing. He tends to write in a thousand words what could be better written in a hundred. Stanley Kubrick's interpretation of the movie was, in my opinion, much better than the book, even though King hated it. But most movies have to interpret a book that contains too much story to fit into a two or three hour presentation. Even the Extended Director's Cut of The Lord of the Rings, about twelve hours worth, is far too little to capture the depth and detail of the novels. The James Bond franchise has taken a different tack. To begin with, the novels were pretty short by today's standard. But from the start, the movies have interpreted the books very liberally, soon abandoning the novels' storylines almost completely.
Yes. I call it a curse. Because the books whose movie adaptations I'd watch are ones that I love and have read over and over and over until I practically know them by heart, and it is so annoying to me when they leave out a scene, or mix up a character or two, or dispense with some of the funniest lines. I'm waiting to see what they do with Ender's Game and I'm also dreading it. It's pretty much impossible to find a decent production of S&S (although there's a great P&P miniseries out there), and they should never have excised portions of To Kill a Mockingbird. I could go on. The only 100% faithful productions of anything that you'll find are Shakespeare, I think, and I get more out of reading it.
I only have a problem when I've read the book before hand. When I've read the book beforehand I always feel that the movie is fast or is rushing the story, which comes back to the fact that they have to squeeze a whole book into a limited amount of time. I get angry sometimes at what gets cut, especially if what I see as important characters get cut or important scenes. I understand that somethings have to be changed and sometimes important scenes would be boring in movie form but it irks me. Also if the Climax is moved or changed tends to get on my nerves. Two of the biggest book-turned-movies, that angered me, were Eragon and Blood and Chocolate. In Eragon an entire race of people were left out which probably ruined the chances of the sequel being made, other things were changed but that is what stood out to me. In Blood and Chocolate the entire story was changed, the ages of the characters, the location, the rules, the climax and the resolution were changed. There are some that I read the book afterward and got angry at the movie so most of the time I prefer the book and how I visioned it in my head.
I saw the trailer for How To Train Your Dragon, and it looks like they completly changed the plot. It's a shame, because the books are great
It's hard for me too to watch a movie after I read the book because my imagination usually differs a lot from what I get to see in the movie. Most of the time I get disappointed cause my world (the world i created while reading the book) is so much more fantastic and amazing than any movie could ever show me. But it's also very hard for me to read a book after I've seen the movie. Basically because of a similar problem. I have all those images of the movie in my head and whenever I try to create my own world (based on the book of course) I get drawn back to the pictures and scenes I saw in the movie thus unable to imagine as I want it to be and quickly bored by the people, the story and the book in general. I don't know how you feel about that.
