I also love the movie, but I love the book as well. It's for a different mood, each of them. I think one should really get into that book and trully enjoy it. Trying to turn those long pages will not allow you to appreciate it. Of course in the end it's a matter of taste. As far as the movie is concerned it focused on the crime-aspects of the novel. Eco hilmself couldn't really describe his book as one genre, but many, and was pleased with the film.
i probably mentioned this somewhere on wf before, but i have a t-shirt that reads: "don't judge a book by its movie" i hate it when hollywood reinforces historical myths and pretends they're facts... or when they get something blatantly wrong (on purpose, because it makes a 'better film experience'). i'm not a history buff, but i can see how easily annoying it can be.
For this fact alone, Gladiator makes we want to throw my TV out the window. But as soon as I think of it as just a fictional movie, I feel much better and enjoy it again.
The Golden Compass. Even if the entire order of the second half hadn't been changed at the insistence of meddling Hollywood execs (if you believe any of the post interviews by the director) this would still wouldn't be a very good movie. Basically it felt a lot like the old animated version of the Lord of the Ring's made with affection to the source material but still an absolute cock up. The recent Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Two words Johnny Depp. Everything else in this movie is perfect except his performance as Wonka, which was only slightly less unnerving than the psychedelic tunnel sequence (My god the chickens is being decapitated and that poem! shudders) in the 1971 version. I think it says something very sad about our society when such a character is interpreted as a lonely, socially award individual with deep set childhood issues who needs to be cured.
The entire His Dark Materials trilogy was great. I saw The Golden Compass movie years ago, before I read the book, but I don't remember how accurate it was.
Inkheart was absolutely torn to shreds, burned, stomped on and spit on. HORRIBLE movie. God awful. Didn't do justice to such a great book. However, my book/movie experiences have been very positive with that one exception. Hollywood has done the Harry Potters incredibly well, and I loved the Half-Blood Prince (I only objected to the missing funeral scene for Dumbledore, but his death and fall off the tower was a masterpiece; thank god these movies are totally faithful!!!); I also loved the Narnias, which they did incredibly well and (in Prince Caspian's case) even better than the book IMO! Hell, even New Moon was excellently accurate. Twilight was utter crap. And this is coming from someone who does NOT particularly like the Twilight series. AT ALL. But New Moon was incredibly faithful to the book, so it earns my praise for that (as well as improved acting and better location and special effects).
Personally I'm a huge movie vs. book critic, however I find that if you take the movie and book as different from the start you can still love both, even if it gets changed For me the Harry Potter movies started incredibly faithful but deterioated by the Order of the Phoenix which I hate. However standing by itself as a movie it isn't toooo terrible but it's definately not as good as the book. The half-blood prince however was fairly decent. As for the twilight movies, those are great! Personally I think Twilight follows the book almost perfectly, the reason twilight fans don't like it is because it is soooooo cheesy, and while some of that isn't as obvious in book form, you can't hide it in the movie haha. I love it jsut because it's so cheesy and stupid and bad that it's absolutely hilarious. as for Inkheart, that is one of my favorite books and the movie is quite different but I love it! I thought it was different enough, but still kept the essential elements that it worked for me and I love them both seperately, though of course the book is better. Same with The Lightning Theif. I love them both they're just different.
Here's another one I liked as a movie: The Count of Monte Cristo. I didn't like the book as much as the movie, but that may be due to the fact that I saw the movie before I read the book... Actually that goes for most of them. If I saw the movie first I usually liked it, if I read the book first, the movie usually fell terribly and tragically short.
I just saw The Lightning Thief this weekend and absolutely hated it. I almost got up and left the theater a couple of times. The characters were the wrong age going on the wrong quest, and the key plot point behind the revelation of who the lightning thief is was completely left out. All in all, a horrible movie; it just destroyed an otherwise excellent children's book.
I've learned that, if you go to the cinema thinking that the movie will be like the book, you'll be thoroughly disappointed. In order to like the movie, one should probably (It isn't always the case) see it as a different interpretation of the book. Both are different ways of telling stories, and no matter what, both will be different, as faithful as a movie can be to the book. So, I try to see the movie and the book as two different things. It's not always easy, and sometimes I feel like getting a rocket launcher and blowing the f***ing screen, but in the end it's way better: Instead of one disappointment, I get to enjoy two things.
Taken out of context, but this is generally the feeling I get from book movies. I guess I just can't help it.
My favourite movie, The Godfather, is actually an adaptation from a book. I've never met anyone that actually thinks the book is better than this movie, and if I did I'd probably think they're insane.
I'd say so, because usually at best an adaptation is going to be different. Which of course means fans of the book will be disappointed, especially if their favourite character or scene doesn't make it.
I thought the movie of Fight Club was much better than the book. Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the novel, agrees. The movie of The Piano Teacher was amazing, and the book was equally amazing but in a totally different way. That, I think, is a great example of how to make an adaptation. But in general, movies of books I like are meh. The adaptations of Bret Easton Ellis novels are mostly good, borderline great (American Psycho, Rules of Attraction), but others....meh. I tend not to expect a lot from adaptations, and that way, when they're good I get excited. Things like Harry Potter and Narnia are entertaining, but they're not especially memorable.
That is the only book that I read that I believe the movie is better than. I know there are others, but this is the only one I've read that's this way.
Usually this isn't too much of an issue for me, because the books I read aren't usually turned into movies. I will say that I liked LotR much better as a movie because the books bored me, but I am dreading the Hobbit because the book is so fantastic. Harry Potter was ok, I guess, but the charm of those books is in the subplots and minor characters, and those get totally lost in the translation to screen. I really like Stand By Me, the Shawshank Redemption, Misery, and Needful Things; all Stephen King stories that were made into incredible movies. I can't really think of a book that has been totally ruined by a movie. I usually try to just think of them as different entities and not to judge them on the same qualities.
Yes!!! If Stand By Me is not an invitation to writing, I don't know what is. Loved both films, they stand on their own!
They've done an OK job on Harry Potter; the acting is often, at best, stiff; although Rupert Grint was the best choice for Ron, they make his character out to be a goof. Unless they are really going to play up his fight with Harry and Hermione in the seventh one, I'm not sure I like it. Not to mention, the constant changes in directors means that the scenery and style of the movie is always changing. I can deal with that, too, though. What bothers me the most is when they insert scenes into the movie that weren't in the book-- I thought the reason they had to cut our favorite scenes was because they didn't have enough time? The burning of the Burrow, in Half-Blood Prince, bothered me so much simply because it was inserting into a movie that they had to cut out so much from. If they didn't have enough time for Dumbledore's funeral, or more of the scenes from Voldemort's past, they certainly didn't help things by inserting that scene. I also dislike it when they change scenes for no reason. That obnoxious talking head on the Knight Bus for example. Gah. BTW: Not really sure what happened with my last post. As you can see, I have strong feelings about Harry Potter.
As I watched HP6 in the cinema, I couldn't help anticipating the scene were the Order fights against the Snake-Eaters. I was so excited when the scene was supposed to appear, and suddenly, they had already skipped it. They took out the best scene in the whole book!
