If you had to choose, what's the one negative portrayal of a book you just can't stand? For me, it's the pulpy, campy and extremely inaccurate depiction of Frankenstein's monster. It's my favourite novel, so I would say this, but aesthetically and thematically almost all portrayals of the monster and even the creator are wrong or just plain abhorrent. Firstly, the look of the monster himself. Type in Frankenstein. Look what you get. It's just sad. Bolts and green skin. The only depiction of Frankenstein I respect is Rory Kinnear's excellent portrayal of the monster (called Caliban/John Clare) in Penny Dreadful. Secondly, the very character itself is made to be a dumb, idiotic freak. As many of you know, the real 'monster' was a highly sensitive and articulate creature. This is the thing that gets me the most. Not only have they made him campy and laughable in appearance, they've even taken his intelligence. This latter point is the whole damn point of the book in the first place! This is the exact reason why the monster is hateful of humanity. He can't find love or success because everyone views him as some monstrosity at first glance. And yet here in the real world we view him in the same way. It's deeply ironic and quite sad. Victor is also a joke in modern culture, watered down to a mad scientist without any subtlety. What Frankenstein is not: What Frankenstein is: I understand that this is nothing new, but I feel like Frankenstein's portrayal is one of the most egregious in all of literature.
You seem to be aiming way too high with such a start of this topic and now I can't really think of anything worthy to add to it . Recently it was a shame to ruin a great action character like Lee Child's Jack Reacher by taking away all his distinctive qualities and turning him into a cookie-cutter action chap. Not exactly "negative portrayal" but the movies completely obliterated the character. They killed him off and inserted an impostor into his plots . Such a wasted opportunity because distinctive characters are a rarity.
HBOs new Fahrenheit 451. I've complained about it in other places already, but it just sucks so much!
This (kind of) relates, but the portrayal of Enchantress in the Suicide Squad movie is grossly inaccurate. My main gripe is the fact that they made her way too underpowered. For example, in Justice League Dark 5, she fends off Superman, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg. At the same time. You're going to tell me that someone who can do this much is going to be beaten by a bunch of nobodies? The only one on the Suicide Squad team that could even pose a threat would have been El Diablo, but he's out of the fight before she even gets involved. They also reduce Dr. June Moone to a sniveling crybaby and, while she's not the bravest person in the comics, she's not that bad.
The Brad Pitt movie "Troy" was about as inauthentic as it gets, in terms of being true to Achilles' and Hector's motivations, or Achilles' relationship with Patroclus.
Are you familiar with this production? I saw it back in the 1970s, and was very impressed. It didn't make the 'monster' out to be some campy creature, but dealt directly with what it must have felt like, being not quite human, and how it interacted with its creator. The ending was quite unforgettable and moving. If you haven't seen it, I suggest you do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein:_The_True_Story
I was about to say Jack Reacher too. He's supposed to be like 2 meters tall and they cast Tom Cruise... because of course Cruise was one paying for the production. Narcissistic much!? I was a damn Reacher Creature DAMMIT!! From the time when I first discovered the Jack Reacher novels as a teenager, I've thought how awesome would it be if it were ever made into a movie. And then it was...
Get ready to get tilted. Casual fan: I only ever read Killing Floor And I thought Cruise was fine in both movies. "We're already dead." Classic. lol I did see a Lee Child interview where he started bitching about Tom Cruise being cast, and Stephen King calmed him down. "Well, to Tom Cruise's credit he is a wonderful and physical actor." or something like that.
Because Tom Cruise simply is not Jack Reacher. Tom Cruise is short and tiny. Reacher is muscular and huge. Cruise is seen as someone sexy (at least in the past, with Top Gun and Interview with the Vampire) whereas Reacher is not sexy, at all. Reacher is just solid and capable and kinda cold, pragmatic. I associate Cruise with unpredictability and being highly emotional - I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe because of the two films I've seen him in. And I saw him in Edge of Tomorrow - no issue there either even though the film was nothing like the original and Cruise looked nothing like the guy in the actual manga (though technically it was a novella first I guess). I have no issue with Tom Cruise as an actor. I enjoyed his Lestat in Vampure a lot. But he's not Jack Reacher. I think it's just a case of clashing with the reader's imagination. Of course you can't please everybody but Tom Cruise was on the opposite spectrum to looking like Reacher. Like, it's like they didn't even try! I've only watched I think it was One Shot? I've forgotten which book's been made into films. I was so bored, which didn't help. Cruise looked smug and cheeky the whole way and that's just not Reacher. Reacher is arrogant but not in a "Everything's so amusing" way, not in the "I'm Tom Cruise and I'm gonna grin at everything" way. Reacher is the quietly arrogant type, not "in your face" arrogant. And yeah I've read maybe 10 of his books. I stopped after I was 17 or 18 but I'd basically read everything he'd published at the time, up to around 2004 or 2005 maybe.
I agree that Cruise was a ridiculous choice as Reacher. Nothing to do with his acting abilities, he just doesn't come anywhere close to matching up with the character as set forth in the books.
The recent film Annihilation. vs ***MASSIVE BOOK SPOILERS FOLLOW*** I don't even know where to begin. Why did they squish three books into one movie?? Why? The things they got right: They kept the focus on the female characters in the books. I really wanted to see a film like this get led, as in the books, by the female characters as Vandermeer wrote them. Why? Because the books are deeply, deeply character driven, so if you've read the books, your investment in the people is very high. Special effects. I thought they did a great job of visually presenting Area X, which, if you saw the film, is never once called the shimmer in the books. Things they got criminally wrong: The film lobotomizes the books, and turns the story into a typical alien invasion story. The books are so much more. And I mean, A LOT more. If you saw the film, at the end when they go down that tunnel in the lighthouse, that tunnel is actually where the original story starts. The entire first book is about studying that tunnel. And it's not in the lighthouse; it's further down the coast at the other end of Area X. The all-female team that enters Area X to go study that tunnel has been placed under the influence of hypnotic suggestion, which the Psychologist is able to manipulate when she needs to through key words given to the rest of the team. The Biologist (played by Natalie Portman in the film) is only weakly under the control of this hypnosis and manages to break from it. When they get to the tunnel, all the rest of the team sees a man-made, cement structure with a set of spiral stairs going down into the ground. What the Biologist sees is an organic orifice like a cloaca opening in the ground, though for reasons she herself cannot explain, she constantly refers to it as a tower. In the film the Psychologist turns into that swirly mass at the end. In the books, that swirly mass is already at the bottom of the tunnel from the beginning and has nothing to do with the Psychologist. When they get to the bottom of the tunnel, that swirly mass of god-knows-what is writing on the walls of the tunnel, using living organisms as its ink. Words are growing on the walls and its clear the swirly mass is creating them. Remember when they find that dude from the last mission in the emptied out pool and he's turned into a fungal smear up one wall of the pool? That's the original fate of the Psychologist, but it doesn't happen in a pool, it happens on the beach in the last book. The words that the swirly thing is writing on the walls starts to invade their thoughts and dreams, even when they leave Area X. It even infects some of the scientists at the Southern Reach who have never been inside Area X. We start to understand that some kind of communication is taking place. We are being hailed, so to speak. --------------- The entire second book is missing so I can't comment on what's different because what's different is that it's simply not there. --------------- The third book starts the way the movie starts, with the Biologist being questioned by scientists at the Southern Reach. In the books, she's pretty much convinced that she's not the original her, she's a copy. She never goes back to destroy Area X. It can't be destroyed. It's growing and there's nothing we can do about it. She doesn't burn it. In the 3rd book we learn that the swirly mass was once a person, the man who ran the lighthouse. He's gay, btw, and there's a small love story that's told with great care and tenderness, but is cut short by the fact that the lighthouse keeper becomes the point of entry for this phenomenon. It doesn't start as a meteorite crash. Whatever this thing is enters through an intricate Fresnel lens: Spoiler: the lens The lens itself is another part of the running theme of communication and language, which Vandermeer writes with such passion that for a little linguist like me, it's cerebral porn of the highest order. In the end, nothing is resolved. We don't know what this thing is. We're not even sure if the border around Area X and the things taking place inside are the same phenomenon, or if its two different phenomena, one trying to contain the other. Vandermeer posses the question and conundrum of communication. Communication with the self, between selves, between different peoples, and between humans and whatever it is we may encounter Out There. We aren't being invaded; we're being spoken to. I wanted this film to capture all that, but sadly it only hinted at it, and instead gave us a "version" of the books that could be more easily consumed by the masses who are unaccustomed to engaging such esoteric concepts.
@Wreybies that sounds like a scary book. Which reminds me, I haven't seen The Secret of Marrowbone but I read the review and thought of you somehow. For some reason it read like something you might like.
It wasn't scary to me. If I felt any negative emotion it was frustration. As an interpreter, my job is to bridge that gap (sometimes a chasm) where two systems of communication don't possess any points of connection where information can pass. Some of the characters in the book, like the Biologist, and another person you never meet in the film, who's referred to only as Control (none of the main characters has names in these books) are trying to find that connection, to bridge it. Others are vehemently opposed to the idea of this connection.
That sounds pretty interesting. It's just your swirly mass using living organisms as ink and some guy being turned into a smear of fungi up a wall? Sounds like Fallout... filmed.
Yes, I do. The storyline of the books is so very different from the film that you're engaging a different story altogether. There will be moments when you think "oh, yes, I saw that in the film", but the books are a deep dive into rich waters where the film was driving down the highway near the dive site.
I saw the film only last week and liked it. Apart from a few logical nitpicks that come from the story being told in movie length, I thought it was very well executed. Interesting and original. One scene near the end had me roll my eyes but other than that, great imaging. Really creeped me out in places. I wasn't aware it's based on books though, definitely going to look into them.
I enjoyed it as well, for what it was, and frankly because the rendition of the swirly thingy was very close to what I imagined from the book description, but it's missing a lot of the original story to give things context. That, I feel, is one of the greatest ways in which films fail their books. Something pops up, and if you don't know the book story, the one little mention in the film feels really random. Have you ever seen The Mysteries of Pittsburg? Towards the end of the film there's suddenly a gay love scene between the characters of Art Bechstein and Cleveland Arning. It really does come out of nowhere, though you know from the outset that Cleveland isn't averse to getting man-blowies at the local club they visit. If you never read the book, then you don't know that Cleveland Arning should be a near-ancillary character, not a central character, and that there is a central character who is completely deleted from the film version, save for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance at the beginning. The deleted character is named Arthur (yes, Art and Arthur) and Art has a romantic relationship with Arthur through the entire book, as well as a relationship with a woman in the book. Why this change? IDK. Maybe the directer didn't want to make an LGBT movie. Who can say. Regardless, the rando gay sex scene towards the end becomes rando because the context for why it would even happen is completely missing.
Yeah, I see what you mean. There are a lot of books lying around here that probably wouldn't do half as well as movies. It's mostly the small things, the nuances that tie the story together beyond the major plot points, that's what makes these books good but they wouldn't be translated into film. There's not enough time to spare for sub-plots, because time is money. Or, as with your example, maybe directors fear an accurate representation wouldn't sell as well. Dunno. I wish it was a more common practice for authors to co-work on the screenwriting and have a say-so in the making of the movies. It's their story after all. But that's just wishful thinking I guess. Regarding Annihilation, as enjoyable as it was as a whole, there were a few times where I threw my hands up going "what the fuck?" at the screen. Maybe they'd been better off to make it into a short series or the like. Though that's no guarantee for good execution that lives up to the original... (looking at you, GOT)
@Jenissej - I dunno, J.K. Rowling did. I heard the producers originally wanted to set the whole thing in New York or some place famous in America and Rowling vetoed it. Maybe just not enough authors have the guts to say no to their book being made into film, or other times they were desperate for money, as was the cash for the author of Mary Poppins apparently. Maybe a lot of us authors just sell ourselves short. Also, filming is a whole other art form. I think to tell the same story, there would need to be different scenes and different events. You must visualise everything in film. To tell the same story, I think perhaps the author and screenwriter would need to work together to craft basically an entirely different script. Or that's my theory based on zero experience anyway
@Mckk, forgot the tag Yep, that's what I meant. Of course, just because someone can write fiction doesn't mean they can screen write. But it would be nice if authors had more influence on the screen writing. Many don't, though, because once they sell their story to a film-agency or whatever it's called, it is not theirs any more. At least, to my subpar understanding of the business.
But I guess that's the thing - don't sell your rights without getting it in writing that you have a say in production. But, like the aforementioned Lee Child, the money's sometimes just too good For someone like Lee Child, I can't imagine he couldn't have retained some say in how things were made considering he was already hugely successful by the time the film was produced - but if you aren't smart or just didn't believe in your book enough that the buyers would accept your condition - much like getting underpaid for a job because you were too afraid to negotiate for a better salary at the interview - then well... Really reminds me of this story - apparently it's a true story too. Some homeless starving guy went into a music shop and sold the only thing he had of any value - a tiny violin. He got $5 for it and went away happy. Later the music shop owner looked inside the violin and found a famous violinist's signature inside (I've unfortunately forgotten the name) and knew at once it was THE violin that's been lost for over a century. He tried to find the homeless guy to give him more money but never found him again. In the same way, I think we often sell ourselves short, when what we have is of far greater value than we could have imagined. Our books included.
