Films adapted from books

[jackie jones]

I was inspired to begin this thread after watching the film adaptation of George Orwell's 1984. The film is surprisingly good (holding a candle to the book, yet still very nice).

You can check it out here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdyKJ1xXph8&feature=related

....

What are your favorites which you have also read the book?

Also, often times the film does the the book no justice. If so, why?

 

[L2R]

1984 has a special place for me. it's the first time i recall seeing brief full frontal nudity whilst being old enough to understand what i was seeing.

 

[AmorRoark]

Not to be a hater but can we list the worst too?

Favorites (I've read the book of all these, I think it's hard to judge this without having read the book):
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?/Bladerunner
- The Godfather
- Atonement
- No Country for Old Men
- Adaptation
- Wonder Boys

Worst
- The Handmaid's Tale
- Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (the new one)
- James & the Giant Peach
- A.I.

 

[jackie jones]

^Why not?

 

[alasdairm]

related reading: the book is always better than the movie...

alasdair

 

[jackie jones]

One flew over the cuckoo's nest

Girl, interrupted

 

[hunuh]

fear and loathing in las vegas

american psycho, though the film wasn't that good.. it lacks many of the very descriptive aspects it has in the book(referring to the goreish moments, not that interested in what they're wearing or whitney houston) and they manage to make the interesting parts boring in the movie

 

[belarki]

^ I agree that the book of American Psycho was much better.

A good recent adaption was "The Road".

 

[jackie jones]

James & the Giant Peach [worst]

Yes. Another wonderful book they tried to ruin was 'Matilda', which I recall enjoying immensely as a younger child, years before the film adaptation.

 

[L2R]

fear and loathing in las vegas

i've said this many times, and usually to great controversay, but i am adamant that this is one rare example that is better than the book.

 

[silverwheel]

Better Than The Book:
Jaws (not even close - the book is total trash)
Apocalypse Now (overall, a better work of art than Heart of Darkness)
The Shawshank Redemption

Roughly Equivalent To The Book:
the Lord of the Rings trilogy
2001: A Space Odyssey (this is kind of a cheat: Kubrick's film is not "based on" Clarke's novel. They began their projects simultaneously, with one making the film and one writing the book. Both are classics, though. The Clarke short story "The Sentinel," which 2001 took as its starting point, is also a classic)
Jurassic Park
Black Hawk Down

Worse Than The Book:
Starship Troopers
Sphere
The Lost World (again kind of a cheat - Crichton got cut out of the loop on the second movie, so he went ahead and wrote a novel that had hardly anything to do with it. The book is nothing special, and deathly dull for the first half, but it's way better than the movie)
Live And Let Die (man, there could be a whole subcategory for Bond novels. Die is a pretty good one, if you can get past the nauseating racism. Plus, the book doesn't have Roger Moore)
Moonraker (yikes - the book is merely dull and forgettable, while the movie is laughable. Lack of Roger Moore gives the book the edge)

 

[FDRinTRINIDAD]

Although the book is very different from film I think Trainspotting is pretty good adaptation.

The Bourne movies are pretty solid too.

Raging Bull a great fucken movie based on Jake LaMotta's autobiography.

Also i actually enjoyed James and the Giant Peach but I was in 2nd or 3rd grade when it came out so I don't know if I would still enjoy it now.

 

[alasdairm]

Roughly Equivalent To The Book:
the Lord of the Rings trilogy

i am intrigued by this analysis. care to expand?

i feel that the movie trilogy is a cinematic masterpiece and the sheer scale of the project puts it into a category of its own but, even still, it can't hold a candle to the quantity and quality of the content of the book(s).

alasdair

 

[Wyld 4 X]

Roughly Equivalent To The Book:

Black Hawk Down

Hmmm......Black Hawk Down was based on actual events.

 

[L2R]

^the actual events were based on a book


oh wait.... i think that's backwards or soemthing. ... between the actual and movie, i think there's a book

 

[silverwheel]

Granted, the book was technically nonfiction, but the movie was definitely an adaptation of it.

 

[queenbee1127]

Movies never do the book justice.

But, I am excited to see the adaptation of Twelve by Nick McDonnell. It's slated to premiere at the end of the month in the states and I'll definitely be seeing it. I read this book in 8th grade about 7 years ago and was enthralled with White Mike's lifestyle, I hope the movie does him justice!!

 

[captainbackfire]

stephen king's films almost always blow..probably because his writing style cannot be replicated or acted out and keep all the nuances of them..which affects how people do or do not infer the feelings he wanted to convey and shit.

lovely bones sucked also.

john grishams all kick ass though.

 

[EA-1475]

Better Than The Book:
Apocalypse Now (overall, a better work of art than Heart of Darkness)

+1 on Heart of Darkness being incredibly dull. (you can get it on MP3 for free at Gutenburg Project). Takes forever for the plot to get going.

Movies based on Nick Hornby's book (About A Boy, High Fidelity) tend to be very faithfully executed. I tried reading High Fidelity after seeing the movie and quit 1/4 of the way through. I found it so close to the movie that there really wasn't much point in continuing.

 

[Feste]

Movies never do the book justice.

Oh come on, never? 8) Anytime someone says this there's such an air of superiority about it.

Movies better than the book (or at least equal):

Schindler’s List.
No Country for Old Men.
Atonement.
Mary Poppins.
Apocalypse Now.
Dr. Strangelove.
Trainspotting.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Death Wish.
Jurassic Park.
Rambo.
Silence of The Lambs.
The Thing (John Carpenter version).
Tell No One.
Bladerunner.
The Children of Men.
A Clockwork Orange.
The Exorcist.
Psycho.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (referring to the 1974 original film, not the recent remake).
Girl, Interrupted.
The Godfather.
2001: A Space Odyssey.
Diehard.
Fantastic Mr. Fox.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
American Psycho.
The Prestige.
Zodiac.
The Shining.
A History of Violence.
High Fidelity.
The Shawshank Redemption.
Requiem for a Dream.
Fight Club.
Scarface.
Forrest Gump.
Ben Hur.
The Wizard Of Oz (the classic 1939 version of the film, of course).
Shrek.
Jaws.
Road to Perdition.
The Graduate.
Planet of the Apes.


& a whole bunch of Disney movies.

Many of those are classic films from sub-par books.

Obviously they often change things going from the book to the film, but that's because films fundamentally work very differently than books in the way they tell their stories. A straight adaption from book to movie would often not work too well (most likely at least end up with terrible pacing). That doesn't somehow make them worse.

I think often times the problem is when people read a book they have certain ideas about the character -the way they speak, or their mannerisms, their appearance. Often many who read the book get very different views of the same character, so when the movie adaptation happens it's version of the character is bound to be very different to what many imagined, so many agree they got the character wrong, but can't agree on what would be correct.

Beyond that I think many just like the 'I read the book before the movie came out' smugness of claiming movies are always inferior to films. Movies are just as legitimate forms of artwork & story telling as books. Some books are better than some movies & vice versa.