was just wondering if it is a general rule that a movie has to always fall well short of it's book version. I just watched 'Last King of Scotland' and found that it was so far of the mark to be IMO completely worthless. Couldn't finish watching it. A large number of important characters and events either don't occur, or are completely changed, and even the timeline is messed around with. Also 'a scanner darkly', where the book manages to convey the sheer paranoia and confused state of it's protagonists, the film never quite manages to either explain what is happening or why. I could carry on listing examples for ever, but these are just the most recent I can think of. Anyone else have any examples, good or bad?

Good question. I think one of the main problems with adapting a book for the big screen is that you almost always have to cut stuff out in order to make it a 2 hour movie. Occasionally, I've seen film adaptations of books I enjoyed only to find major sections of the story missing. That pisses me off.

Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Club Dumas was adapted into Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate and they couldn't have done a worse job with it, imho. They cut out the entire storyline dealing with Alexadre Dumas, which was pretty central to the novel, and turned it from a very enjoyable mystery to a sub-par horror movie.

One film I've always said was really faithful to the book was Fight Club. Very few minor details are changed, but otherwise it's extremely faithful.

Yep, totally agree with 'The club dumas' which is a great book, followed by an awful film. 'Requiem for a dream' was turned into a good film, and also I remember with 'the Shining', both being quite good.

I think Stanley Kubrick did a very nice job with both Lolita and Clockwork Orange. Neither lives up to the book entirely, but both translate the tone very well, imo.

I know this is sacrilege, but I think LOTR was a better film than book. I found the book(s) overlong and bloated. I think Peter Jackson did a great job of streamlining the story, while keeping the Middle Earth "mythos" intact.

Since there's some love for "The Club Dumas," have either of you read any of the other Perez-Reverte books? He is truly one of my favorite contemporary authors.

quote:

Originally posted by kendocubano:
Since there's some love for "The Club Dumas," have either of you read any of the other Perez-Reverte books? He is truly one of my favorite contemporary authors.

Yeah. I'm a sucker for a good mystery (especially historical mysteries), and Perez Reverte writes some good ones. I've also read "The Seville Communion" and "The Flanders Panel".

Probably my favorite APR books have been "The Queen of the South," which is a riff on "The Count of Monte Cristo," and "La Carta Esferica." Maybe called "The Spherical Chart" in translation? The latter is a noirish contemporary treasure hunt novel. The former places a woman in the Edmond Dantes role, and updates it to drug running in the contemporary Mediterranean. If you know "The Count of Monte Cristo," the book is great fun.

To me, though, Reverte's masterwork is the Captain Alatriste series. The guy clearly loves Dumas, and the Alatriste books are his answer to the "Three Musketeers." They all take place in the waning days of the Empire, and revolve around the titular character, a swordsman, soldier and assassin. I can't speak to the translations, since I've read them all in Spanish, but I know that the first two books of the series are out in English. If you swashbuckle at all, I recommend them highly.

There are sooo many adapted screenplays that I don't think I could even begin to list them. But now that I'm thinking about it I could go on and on!

I'll only throw out one. I always have liked the film The Secret of NIMH slightly better than Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Probably because the I watched the movie before I read the book. Hm...

I think a cool discussion would be which movies inspired you to read the book, and which did you enjoy more? I have a feeling most of us having read the book first, would almost always(I'm looking at you, Kendo) defer to the book. But what about the other way around?

quote:

Originally posted by PRG:
I think a cool discussion would be which movies inspired you to read the book, and which did you enjoy more? I have a feeling most of us having read the book first, would almost always(I'm looking at you, Kendo) defer to the book. But what about the other way around?

In almost all circumstances, I go out of my way to read the book before seeing the movie. What's more, I'll let my kids read books of movies that I don't want them to watch. I have a (probably) naive belief that books can't hurt you, whereas certain movies can.

i think fight club was great as a book and a movie. i cant say which is better, ecuase they were both fantastic.

This was an interesting feature at the AV Club. Still, I think it opens a few questions. How "good" were some of these books, anyway? The Scarlet Letter, or Portnoy's Complaint I, of course, have no problem with. But Bicentennial Man? Or even the Bonfire of the Vanities, which time has shown, imo, to belong to Wolfe's later work (= crappy) rather than his earlier works like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test or The Right Stuff.

Secondly, are there any examples of the contrary phenomenon? Mediocre books that made truly great movies? I'd start that list with The Godfather. An entertaining, but value-less, airport read, turned into a work of art by Francis Ford.

quote:

Originally posted by kendocubano:
Secondly, are there any examples of the contrary phenomenon? Mediocre books that made truly great movies? I'd start that list with The Godfather. An entertaining, but value-less, airport read, turned into a work of art by Francis Ford.

In the comments on that feature, they hinted at the fact they were going to be doing a "Bad Books Made into Good Movies" feature tomorrow or Wednesday.

Can't we beat them to the punch?

What about Get Shorty? I'm not a big fan of Elmore Leonard as a writer, but I think the film was pretty good. Not "classic cinema" good, but OK. Also "Out of Sight," and "Jackie Brown," using the same criteria. In fact, maybe all of the Elmore Leonard based films.

A much better film than book, imo, was "MASH." The book was funny enough, but Altman's treatment was genius. The TV show was so soft and defanged, it's easy to forget how good the source film was, despite its "big game" third act.

I enjoyed the film version of Peter Hoag's "Smilla's Sense of Snow", one of my favorite mystery novels. I was expecting a butchered version but was surprised the film turned out so well.

quote:

Originally posted by kendocubano:
What about Get Shorty? I'm not a big fan of Elmore Leonard as a writer, but I think the film was pretty good. Not "classic cinema" good, but OK. Also "Out of Sight," and "Jackie Brown," using the same criteria. In fact, maybe all of the Elmore Leonard based films.

Speaking of Leonard, 3:10 to Yuma was based on a short story of his.

I've not read it, but I've heard Jaws is a pretty terrible book.

Another book I haven't read, but get the idea the movie was much more interesting than the source material is The Orchid Thief, which became Adaptation.

quote:

Another book I haven't read, but get the idea the movie was much more interesting than the source material is The Orchid Thief, which became Adaptation.

i really loved The Orchid Theif. more than I enjoyed the film.

I'd have to agree with the Elmore Leonard stuff and The Godfather. I'm having trouble thinking of other ones. Maybe it's because I only read good books!

But seriously, I'll keep thinking.

Great examples.

Jaws was a beastly book. Just utter crap. The film certainly worked as an old fashioned Universal Pictures monster movie.

I loved the book "Smilla's Sense of Snow," but liked the film somewhat less.

I liked both film and book versions of "The Orchid Thief," but think they were very different animals.

What about the Tristram Shandy film? Did anyone see it? That's like the "Orchid Thief," in being relatively unfilmable, at least as straightforward narrative.

quote:

Originally posted by kendocubano:
Secondly, are there any examples of the contrary phenomenon? Mediocre books that made truly great movies? I'd start that list with The Godfather. An entertaining, but value-less, airport read, turned into a work of art by Francis Ford.

I think one glaring choice is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I think that the book is very mediocre and I think that the film is leaps and bounds better than the book. I also consider Nest to be my favorite and best film of all time, so maybe I am a bit slanted.

Either way, I found the book to be clunky, tedious and in some parts, flat out boring. I was constantly enamored and enveloped in the film and I am like this every single time I see it. It’s like watching it all over again, I still laugh as hard and almost cry in the right spots. All of it is entertaining and amazing, whereas the book isn’t at all.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by kendocubano:
Secondly, are there any examples of the contrary phenomenon? Mediocre books that made truly great movies? I'd start that list with The Godfather. An entertaining, but value-less, airp