Movies from books

[SeanL]

With Lord of the Rings coming out this year, it'll be interesting to see how faithful to the book they were...and the next Michael Crichton novel, Timeline will be going into production soon, if not already.
Hollywood is notorious for screwing up a good book. These are some movies I have some knowledge of;
Good adaptations..
Hunt for Red October
Jaws
Apollo 13
Last of the Mohicans

ok adaptations..
Congo (too many details left out, not to mention the Gorillas looked all wrong)
Patriot Games(again details left out, and some plot changes)

Bad adaptations..
Jurassic Park (where do I begin)
Clear and Present Danger(left a ton of stuff out)
Raise the Titanic(Clive Cussler novel that was totally screwed up!)
Sleepy Hollow(whether Burton did it on purpose or not, major changes to Washington Irvings "Legend of Sleepy Hollow")
Perfect Storm(again..lots left out)

I don't know about the adaptations of these:
Payback(aka "The Hunter" by Richard Stark)
A Simple Plan (Scott B Smith)
Stir of Echoes(I think the author's lat name is Matheson?)
Generals Daughter(Nelson DeMille)

Now, this is not to say these movies are stinkers...in most cases I liked them all, they just varied in how good an adaptation they were.

Any other movie adaptation...good, bad, or other? Think Hollywood will ever get it right?



------------------
Sean

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

[Ambushbug]

Well I think "Jaws" had a much better story in the film than in the book.

*SPOILER FOLLOWS*
Spoiler for the book anyway

The character of Mat Hooper sleeps with Brody's wife and ends up getting eaten by the shark. All around the character was a real prick and the reader doesn't exactly weep at his bloody demise. But the film certainly didn't keep with *that* part of the book. Just nitpicking.

As has been pointed out by others (sorry I forget who) "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" had a massively different ending and tone compared to the book. Again, the movie was much much better.

AB

------------------
" 'It was the best of times. It was the *blurst* of times.' You stupid monkey!!!"

[1138]

Good: Fight Club

Bad: Dune (Though I don't know if you can do this book justice in a movie)

------------------
1138 - DVD File Forum Greeter
Women will sleep with you if you write a bad book.

[SeanL]

There are definitely some books that should never be made into movies....Battlefield Earth, for one.



------------------
Sean

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

[Chris in OC]

I suspect that Battlefield Earth shouldn't have even been made into a book, but that's another story.

But back to the subject at hand....

There are all sorts of reasons why stories change so much moving from the page to the screen, but the single biggest reason is that the average novel is way too long to fit into a 120-150 minute movie. Compression is a fact of life when making this transition, and it frequently requires major changes for the screen story to make sense. This is not to say that it's always done well, but there's no getting around it unless you're making a TV miniseries.

My vote for the most faithful adaptation, BTW, is Field of Dreams, based on W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe.

[This message has been edited by Chris in OC (edited 06-08-2001).]

[SeanL]

the single biggest reason is that the average novel is way too long to fit into a 120-150 minute movie.

You're absolutely right...
I'm thinking more along the lines of leaving important characters out, or changing the character completely, etc. Example; Jurassic Park...the old man, John Hammond? In the book he was quite literally the bad guy.

I know they can't adapt a book page for page, but it shouldn't be asking too much for them to stick close to the original story.



------------------
Sean

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

[Chris in OC]

Actually, sometimes characters are left out precisely because there's no time to deal with them. In those cases, stories are re-written to fill in the gaps.

Changes to the characters are another matter, though. Sometimes it's done to appease an actor they really want for the film (some people just don't like playing bad guys), but in the case of Jurassic Park, it may have been a deliberate attempt to emphasize the moral of the story, which is that you shouldn't screw with nature no matter how good your intentions are. The book also gets this across, but when you have an obvious bad guy at the center, it's easy to sit back and think that a higher-minded person could have made it work.

This is just my viewpoint -- your mileage may vary.

[SolidSnakeASS]

Fight Club and Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas are two great movies adapted from books. But its always interesting to read the book Fight Club, because it is even more screwed up.

------------------
My site - The Daily Bull
View my extremely humble DVD collection
I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell."

[hspace]

"Mansfield Park" is a good adaptation of the Jane Austen book (1814) of the same title. Worthy in any DVD collection.

[saraswati]

the problem with novels that are turned into film is that it is virtually impossible to turn a complex 200+ page novel into a 90-120 minute film. also, screenwriting is a very different process from literary writing. a screenplay is basically a blueprint for something larger, and regardless of what kind of a film it is, the director really doesn't have to be very true to that blueprint. this is another reason novels often don't work as films -- film is WAY too fluid a medium. especially if the director doesn't really have a feel for the book.

i feel like a lot of the time, the novels that work well as films are ones that were not very successful as novels. most of the time, the novel in question doesn't have a lot going on, subtextually. for instance Election. it's a great movie made from a mediocre novel. the same goes for The Godfather, as well as Jaws. Also Silence of the Lambs. the best novels to turn into films are the pulpy ones that don't have too much going on below the surface, because it's difficult to translate literary subtext to visual subtext.

the only movie i can think of that is a great adaptation of a really good novel is the 1996 Little Women. The film takes the basic theme and feel of the book, pairs it with a plot that is pretty much identical to the book's and characters that are true to their counterparts, and creates something that says the same thing in a different way.

i think that "translation" is the key, if you want to make a great film out of a great novel. and most directors don't really have that ability.

------------------
"Crap, lousy ceiling!"

[This message has been edited by saraswati (edited 06-11-2001).]