# Movies: Novel Adaptations That Failed To Keep True To The Novel



## love.christine (Sep 12, 2008)

I just watched Jumper for the first time today and I must say I am sorely disappointed. I could not help but yell at the movie every time there was a piece of the novel that failed to adapt to movie. The problem is that the whole movie is that way. 

I swear I wanna deck the producer of this movie. Throw out the book?!  The book is cannon! It came *before* the movie. And whats this I hear about a trilogy. Good grief! I ain't touchin' those sequels even with a 10 foot pole. 

Le sigh. Now that I've gotten off my high horse, what other movies failed terribly as novel adaptations?


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## el-remmen (Sep 12, 2008)

V for Vendetta


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## Crothian (Sep 12, 2008)

Honestly, I think we'd have a smaller list of movies that succeeded.


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## love.christine (Sep 12, 2008)

Crothian said:


> Honestly, I think we'd have a smaller list of movies that succeeded.



Actually I'd like to know the reverse so that I can avoid dumping time better spent on other things than watching them.


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## RedShirtNo5 (Sep 12, 2008)

Crothian said:


> Honestly, I think we'd have a smaller list of movies that succeeded.



I wonder if there would be consensus on any movie having succeeded. Plenty of folks think LotR is a failure as an adaptation. 

But the two that come to my mind as particular bad _as adaptations_ are I Robot and Starship Troopers.


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## Crothian (Sep 12, 2008)

love.christine said:


> Actually I'd like to know the reverse so that I can avoid dumping time better spent on other things than watching them.




Be careful, just because it was not faithful to the book does not mean it was a bad movie

Spiderwick Chronicles, The
Beowulf
Bourne Ultimatum, The
Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, The
Casino Royale
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The
War of the Worlds (new versions)


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## Brown Jenkin (Sep 12, 2008)

The only books I have read that matchd a movie (or in this case movie length) are the novelezations of original Doctor Who episodes, and those come in at under 150 pages. Just about any book as considerably longer than that which necesitates cutting large chunks out of any adapted books. Once large chunks get cut out revisions have to be made to keep what is left cohearant. The real question becomes then whether it tries to keep consistant as best as possible or they end up using the book as more of an inspiration. There are no perfect adaptions no matter how close a few occasionaly get. 

For me _he Fellowship of the Ring_ came the closest I have seen (The others wen't nearly as close) but even it took some liberties to adapt the length. The worst is hard to choose because there are so many, but they often fall into the inspired by category that pretty much only have the name in common.


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## Umbran (Sep 12, 2008)

love.christine said:


> I swear I wanna deck the producer of this movie. Throw out the book?!  The book is cannon! It came *before* the movie.




Just to save you a small bit of ribbing in the future - the word you want is probably "canon". 

To me: Which came first is not important.  Canon is not important.  Being true to the original is not particularly important.  

Why?  Because if I wanted the same thing as the book, I could _reread the book_, and have it be exactly canon and true to the original work.  It'd save me the ticket money, and I can make cheaper and better popcorn at home.  Even today, Hollywood cannot match my own imagination in terms of special effects, acting, or casting.  The only reason I have to see a movie (or TV) adaptation of a book or comic is to see what is _different_ from the original, but still good.

The folks who do Shakespeare understand this - each retelling is a little bit different, and that's the point.  To find the things that you can change a little bit, to give a different spin or meaning to the work.  Small variations, or things you can do better than anyone else did before you.

This goes double when you change the medium in the retelling - what works well in a series of novels does not necessarily work in a novella, or a graphic novel, or a TV series, or a movie.  And times change, so that audiences change - what spoke to people in the 1980s does not necessarily speak the same way to people of the 2000s.

_V for Vendetta_ is a good example of this.  It differs from the original work, but is (imho) still an excellent movie.  Taken on it's own merits, without reading the original, I love it - I know this because I saw the movie before I read the comic.  In some ways, I think the movie is better  - Hugo Weaving's body language and ability to act _without seeing his face_ got some things across that weren't possible in the still frames of the comic.

Anyway, that's my own take on it.  Each of us goes to movies for different reasons, so YMMV.


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## Krug (Sep 13, 2008)

I also thought *V for Vendetta* wasn't bad. It tried to be faithful, though the ending is quite different from the comic. 

Comic book to movie translations suffer the most.
*The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
From Hell
Wanted* (though the comic wasn't great either)


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## Deset Gled (Sep 13, 2008)

Crothian said:


> Be careful, just because it was not faithful to the book does not mean it was a bad movie




Amen.  Cases in point: The Shining, Hearts in Atlantis, or even Batman Begins.

Also, there are plenty of reasons that Jumper sucked besides it's faithfullness to a book.


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## Aries_Omega (Sep 13, 2008)

Two words....Starship Troopers. Book was WAAAY better. Makes me cringe at the idea of Stranger in a Strange Land being adapted to the big screen.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 13, 2008)

Aries_Omega said:


> Two words....Starship Troopers. Book was WAAAY better. Makes me cringe at the idea of Stranger in a Strange Land being adapted to the big screen.




I haven't read the book, but I really found that movie enjoyable. Sure, some scenes were cheessy, but the satirist tone in many scenes were nice. I am not sure I would have liked a movie where were each trooper was armed with a personal nuke or whatever the book had.

"The mobile infantry made me the man I am today" *rolls on a wheelchair and shows off his missing limbs*. 

Maybe I shouldn't judge movies on their "memorable quotability", but sometimes, that's what I do. It is basically the "long-term"-enjoyment these movies bring to me and my friends. Just like Punisher wasn't really good, it still fulfilled its memorable quote quota.  "Who brings a knive to a shoot-out" (paraphrasing, I only remember the German text  ).

Ultimately, the novel adaptations that I dislike most are those that do not only fail to be faithful to the original, but who are also bad in their own right. And then there are those that are faithful and suck nevertheless.
But I think slapping on a novel or comic book title and still fail to make a good movie is just an extra-insult (adding insult to injury?) - as if they tried to rescue their bad movie with a good title, or if they believed a good title didn't require them to give some effort.

I think that's why the LotR movies are so successful - you can see the love for the originals, even if some scenes are cut or changed, and the movie is just well-done (for the most part) and stands on its own.


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## love.christine (Sep 13, 2008)

Umbran said:


> Just to save you a small bit of ribbing in the future - the word you want is probably "canon".



Please forgive my spelling error.


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## love.christine (Sep 13, 2008)

Aries_Omega said:


> Two words....Starship Troopers. Book was WAAAY better. Makes me cringe at the idea of Stranger in a Strange Land being adapted to the big screen.



Actually, theres a book I have not yet read. I have seen the movie and definitely enjoyed it.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 13, 2008)

love.christine said:


> Please forgive my spelling error.




That's impossible. I am afraid you will have to regret this for the rest of your life. If Umbran doesn't ensure it, I certainly will.


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## Merkuri (Sep 13, 2008)

At the moment I cannot think of any movies that deviated from the book bad enough to make me upset, but I know I've experienced quite a few.  More recently, though, I've come to the realization that books and movies are entirely different mediums, and they both have their own flaws and strengths.  When you take a good book and make it into a movie you have to play to the strengths of the movie medium or you will have a poor movie.  If that means the story has to deviate from the story of the book, then so be it.

Coming at it from the other angle, The Green Mile was the closest movie adaptation I have ever seen.  Aside from the fact that the movie is told linearly and the book is not there's very little left out, and I don't think anything actually in the movie deviates from the book at all.

And coming at it from yet a different angle I actually liked Stardust the movie much better than the book.  I did see the movie first, which is unusual for me, but I loved the ending of the movie and was disappointed when the book didn't really make much of an attempt.  I mean, as soon as I heard that whoever possesses the heart of a star would live forever I just knew that 



Spoiler



when she fell in love with Tristan he would live forever because he "possessed" her heart.


  It seemed such an obvious and perfect end that I was really disappointed that the author hadn't thought of it.  Maybe he thought it was too corny, but I liked it.


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## Welverin (Sep 14, 2008)

Crothian said:


> Honestly, I think we'd have a smaller list of movies that succeeded.




I can think of two The Princess Bride and Fight Club. Of course that's probably it.

The LotR movies fall in the bad adaptation category (yet are good movies in spite of it).


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## Crothian (Sep 14, 2008)

Welverin said:


> I can think of two The Princess Bride and Fight Club. Of course that's probably it.




The Princess Bride wasn't like the book that much.  It skipped large backstory sections and descriptions of the countries.  It was a father reading to his son and there was a lot more of that in the book as well.

It was a great movie, but it didn't really follow the book.


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## Ranger REG (Sep 14, 2008)

The *Bourne Trilogy* based on Robert Ludlum's novels, or so they say.

Still, I like the movie version.


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## Umbran (Sep 14, 2008)

Krug said:


> Comic book to movie translations suffer the most.




I submit that the _Witchblade_ TV series (well, the first season, anyway) was superior to the comic in most ways one would care to mention.


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## Crothian (Sep 14, 2008)

Ranger REG said:


> The *Bourne Trilogy* based on Robert Ludlum's novels, or so they say.
> 
> Still, I like the movie version.




It was based on the first book really.  The first book and movie are alike.  But the second and third book has time pass that the other movie obviously do not.


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## Merkuri (Sep 14, 2008)

Crothian said:


> The Princess Bride wasn't like the book that much.  It skipped large backstory sections and descriptions of the countries.




I think Welverin was giving examples of movies that didn't follow the book, but were great movies anyway.  I read Fight Club a while ago, and there's a lot different in that book, too (although the author actually said he liked the movie better than his book  ).  I liked the movie Fight Club better than the book.


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## el-remmen (Sep 15, 2008)

Merkuri said:


> (although the author actually said he liked the movie better than his book  ).




He was right. It is better.

It is on a very short list of movies that are better than the books they were based on.


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## Storm Raven (Sep 15, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I haven't read the book, but I really found that movie enjoyable. Sure, some scenes were cheessy, but the satirist tone in many scenes were nice. I am not sure I would have liked a movie where were each trooper was armed with a personal nuke or whatever the book had.




The movie was horrendous, even if you ignore the book entirely. A _current_ modern armed service wouldn't send its troops into combat without armor, artillery and air support, and yet we are expected to believe that the best we can do in the future is a couple thousand idiots running around at night with rifles and body armor with no protective capabilities whatsoever. The movie is moronic on so many levels that if you think about it for even one second it falls apart entirely.

This is just compounded if you have read the book, since the military organization in the book actually made sense.

The movie, on the other hand, looks like it was made by retarded monkeys who had lobotomies.



> _"The mobile infantry made me the man I am today" *rolls on a wheelchair and shows off his missing limbs*._




This scene is in the book, and much better done. The movie's take on it was inane, to say the least.


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## Ranger REG (Sep 15, 2008)

Crothian said:


> It was based on the first book really.  The first book and movie are alike.  But the second and third book has time pass that the other movie obviously do not.



Loosely based.

1. Marie in the novel was an economist that worked for the Canadian government.

2. The novel is based in a period close to the end of the Viet Nam War where Jason Bourne is created. The movie is more close to our modern period.

3. Marie in the movie was shot in the second film that bores the same title as the second book. The second book, Marie is still pretty much alive, despite having been kidnapped.

4. No mention of Jason Bourne's novel arch-nemesis Carlos the Jackal, in the movie.


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## Dioltach (Sep 15, 2008)

I have a couple of pet peeves when it comes to movie adaptations of novels, particularly novels I read and loved as a child: the Earthsea miniseries, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, and The Black Cauldron.

In each of those adaptations, the makers seem to have taken a couple of elements and decided that they could do better with the rest themselves. And, in my opinion, they failed miserably.

The changes aren't just updating the storyline or elements to suit a new audience or a new medium: they change the entire story. For example, in The Dark Is Rising, the nature of the Six Signs (or five in the movie, I believe) is changed completely. to the extent that the makers probably knew they'd never be doing the sequels because they wouldn't work with what they did with the Signs.


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## BryonD (Sep 15, 2008)

Crothian said:


> Casino Royale



Are you talking about the most recent one?
Because aside from updating to some modern elements and laying in some added activity to strech out the story, the movie was quite remarkable in how true to the book it was.


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## BryonD (Sep 15, 2008)

Deset Gled said:


> Amen.  Cases in point: The Shining, Hearts in Atlantis, or even Batman Begins.



LA Confidential.  
One of my favorite movies and the book was crap (IMO).

Godfather is an interesting example also.  Godfather was a good book.  But the movie removes a bunch of crap and reorganizes things into, obviously, a masterpiece.


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## Silver Moon (Sep 15, 2008)

*First Blood* - I thankfully read David Morrell's excellent cat-and-mouse thriller prior to the Stallone movie, so had no preconceptions about John Rambo.  In the book he is an average looking guy in his early twenties, which is not how it appeared in the film.  The movie also changes the setting to the Pacific northwest in the late seventies rather than the deep south in the early seventies while the Vietnam war is still going on.   

*Clear and Present Danger *- I knew they would be taking major liberties with this one, as the Jack Ryan character doesn't appear until half-way through the book, and I was certain that they weren't going to be paying Harrison Ford $ 10 M to not be in half the movie.   What also changed the feel were the ages of the two main actors, you had a guy in his 50's playing someone who was supposed to be in his 30's and a guy in his 30's playing someone who was supposed to be in his 50's.

On the subject of Tom Clancy novels, I'll add that *Hunt for Red October *is probably the single best film adapatation of a novel that I have ever seen.   True in every way to the original.


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## Mallus (Sep 15, 2008)

Storm Raven said:


> A _current_ modern armed service wouldn't send its troops into combat without armor, artillery and air support, and yet we are expected to believe that the best we can do in the future is a couple thousand idiots running around at night with rifles and body armor with no protective capabilities whatsoever. The movie is moronic on so many levels that if you think about it for even one second it falls apart entirely.



Do you think the makers of the film were even remotely interested in portraying a believable, well-run future military? The film was, after all a satire of war-movies-as-propaganda.

I realize it's no reason to like Starship Troopers any better, but criticizing on the grounds of accuracy is like complaining that the Airplane movies don't offer a realistic view of the airline industry and air-traffic control... 



> The movie, on the other hand, looks like it was made by retarded monkeys who had lobotomies.



As has been noted before, the books and the have different goals. 

P.S. I like them both, obviously for different reasons.


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## Whitemouse (Sep 15, 2008)

Silver Moon said:


> On the subject of Tom Clancy novels, I'll add that *Hunt for Red October *is probably the single best film adapatation of a novel that I have ever seen.   True in every way to the original.



I have to agree. In my opinion this is the best novel to silver screen adaptation I have ever seen.


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## Rackhir (Sep 15, 2008)

Mallus said:


> Do you think the makers of the film were even remotely interested in portraying a believable, well-run future military? The film was, after all a satire of war-movies-as-propaganda.
> 
> I realize it's no reason to like Starship Troopers any better, but criticizing on the grounds of accuracy is like complaining that the Airplane movies don't offer a realistic view of the airline industry and air-traffic control...




No. While STtM had satirical elements most of the movie was really played pretty straight. Verhoeven is many things as a director, but subtle is not one of them and there's nothing satirical about most of the film.

Airplane was an outright parody, but actually even in that film most of the plot and dialog was taken straight from an earlier film drama called "Zero Hour" (they actually bought the rights to the film so they could steal so much from it).

To me at least the obnoxious thing about the stupidity of the Military forces in STtM was how lazy it was on the part of the film makers. They just didn't bother to put any thought into it.

And what can you say about the movie adaptation of a book that pretty much created the concept of Powered Armor, where no powered armor shows up? I mean if you're going to CGI all the bugs, how much more difficult could it have been to CGI the armor?


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## Storm Raven (Sep 15, 2008)

Rackhir said:


> No. While STtM had satirical elements most of the movie was really played pretty straight. Verhoeven is many things as a director, but subtle is not one of them and there's nothing satirical about most of the film.




The problem with the argument that the ST movie was a satire concerning the nature of war propaganda films is that the "satire" is so poorly done, because the military organization depicted is so ludicrously inept. It is tantamount to saying that the Keystone Cops are a satire of police work. They aren't, they are just slapstick. The ST movie _wishes_ it could be as insightful as a slapstick routine.

To be a satire, there has to be believeability built into the basics of the story. Otherwise, there isn't satire, just stupidity. By making the mobile infantry incompetently stupid in training, organization, tactics, and leadership, the movie simply made itself stupid. Like I said, a group of retarded monkeys with lobotomies could have come up with a better movie - and they might have successfully made it a satire.


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## Rackhir (Sep 15, 2008)

Storm Raven said:


> The problem with the argument that the ST movie was a satire concerning the nature of war propaganda films is that the "satire" is so poorly done, because the military organization depicted is so ludicrously inept. It is tantamount to saying that the Keystone Cops are a satire of police work. They aren't, they are just slapstick. The ST movie _wishes_ it could be as insightful as a slapstick routine.
> 
> To be a satire, there has to be believeability built into the basics of the story. Otherwise, there isn't satire, just stupidity. By making the mobile infantry incompetently stupid in training, organization, tactics, and leadership, the movie simply made itself stupid. Like I said, a group of retarded monkeys with lobotomies could have come up with a better movie - and they might have successfully made it a satire.




I don't think Mallus's argument is that the movie is a satire because of the incompetence of the military in the film. Nor does a satire have to be believable. The point of a satire is to make fun of the stupidities and excess of something, typically by taking the characteristic elements of what ever it is to some extreme.

Like I said I chalk up the stupidities of the military to simple lazyness on the film makers part. I mean how often have you seen some piece of military hardware mislabeled, incorrectly described or just gotten completely wrong in some way that would have taken 30 seconds and a reference book to get it right?


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## Mallus (Sep 15, 2008)

Rackhir said:


> While STtM had satirical elements most of the movie was really played pretty straight.



I'd argue that was part of the joke. You can play a satire or parody _very_ straight, in a highly ironic mode. 



> Verhoeven is many things as a director, but subtle is not one of them and there's nothing satirical about most of the film.



I agree with the first part of that sentence and completely disagree with the second.



> To me at least the obnoxious thing about the stupidity of the Military forces in STtM was how lazy it was on the part of the film makers. They just didn't bother to put any thought into it.



They didn't care. They were out to make the _use_ of war movies look inane, not say anything meaningful about the conduct of war itself. Of course, that's no reason not to find the film obnoxious. 



> And what can you say about the movie adaptation of a book that pretty much created the concept of Powered Armor, where no powered armor shows up?



I feel for you on this one. I was really disappointed by the lack of powered armor. I think I read something at the time about how they just couldn't get the CGI right... but who knows if that was true.


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## Mallus (Sep 15, 2008)

Storm Raven said:


> It is tantamount to saying that the Keystone Cops are a satire of police work.



No it isn't. To use your example, just because I believe it's possible to construct a satire of police work as silly as the Keystone Cops doesn't mean I think of the Keystone Cops themselves are a satire of police work. 



> To be a satire, there has to be believeability built into the basics of the story.



Such as the call to eat Irish babies?


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## amethal (Sep 15, 2008)

The movies _I am Legend_ and _I, Robot_ were pretty much about the opposite of what the books were about.

I wonder if its Will Smith's fault 

I quite like the book _LA Confidential_ but I love the movie; I'm glad the filmmakers departed from the book in a big way.

I also like the _Starship Troopers_ movie as I find it entertaining, but I'd have liked a proper movie of the book much more - even if they still decided to depart from the black and white nature of much of the book.


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## Rackhir (Sep 15, 2008)

Mallus said:


> I'd argue that was part of the joke. You can play a satire or parody _very_ straight, in a highly ironic mode.




While this is true, I just simply don't see it in most of the movie. All complaints aside, large chunks of the movie are taken pretty straight from the book. If there's some satire or parody in those parts it has completely escaped me.

I don't see the satirical aspects of things like the attacking ships being so close they are colliding in space. Or the troopers having essentially no heavy weapons or any kind of support (arty, air, orbital artillery, etc...).


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## The Grumpy Celt (Sep 15, 2008)

I liked the movie "From Hell," though I never read the book. I also liked "V" but I thought "LXG" was dreadful cubed. 

"Silence of the Lambs" was better than the book, owing to Hopkins performance. 

When watching the cable remake of "'Salem's Lot" a couple of years ago I kept wondering... what were they thinking?


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## dragonier (Sep 15, 2008)

*Disney's The Black Cauldron*

I loved the Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander as a kid.  Still do in fact.  I was still a kid when the Disney movie came out and I was really excited.

Then I saw it.  Wow, was it an awful movie.  And a horrible adaptation of the book to top it off.

For years Disney would hardly acknowledge that they even made it.  A good friend of mine studied classical animation at one of the premier animation schools in the world.  They studied The Black Cauldron as an example of what not to do.  The school used its connections with the studios to get a copy of the movie for instructional use long before it was released to video.

The sad thing is that apparently it could have been much better.  My friend tells me that the editing was awful.  A lot of the best material ended up cut.

It was my first experience with exactly how badly a book could be brought to film.  Still makes me sad to think about it.


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## Mallus (Sep 15, 2008)

Rackhir said:


> While this is true, I just simply don't see it in most of the movie.



That's fair. 



> I don't see the satirical aspects of things like the attacking ships being so close they are colliding in space. Or the troopers having essentially no heavy weapons or any kind of support (arty, air, orbital artillery, etc...).



I think the film's equally a satire of big, dumb, Hollywood scifi films, despite being precisely that. It's mocking itself --most of the time with a completely straight face.

However, I do think it's a little unfair to criticize the lack of (any sort) of military realism in the film. Most military scifi fails in that regard.


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## Rackhir (Sep 15, 2008)

Mallus said:


> However, I do think it's a little unfair to criticize the lack of (any sort) of military realism in the film. Most military scifi fails in that regard.




Hollywood generally fails any sort of military realism period and almost never bothers to do even basic homework when it comes to either the hardware or tactics. 

The recent Death Race remake describes the vulcan's on the lead's car as 20mm, when they are probably no bigger than 7.62, especially given the fact that the A-10's 30mm cannon is about the size of his entire car. Top Gun described the obvious Russian stand-ins as having "Exocets", which is a French missile. A clear and present danger had a US battle group somehow being taken completely by surprise by the russian attack, despite the Aegis Cruisers and Hawkeye AWACs. Etc... It just goes on and on.

Basically what the filmmaker considers dramatic or "cool" always trumps any sort of realism.


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## Storm Raven (Sep 15, 2008)

Rackhir said:


> While this is true, I just simply don't see it in most of the movie. All complaints aside, large chunks of the movie are taken pretty straight from the book. If there's some satire or parody in those parts it has completely escaped me.
> 
> I don't see the satirical aspects of things like the attacking ships being so close they are colliding in space. Or the troopers having essentially no heavy weapons or any kind of support (arty, air, orbital artillery, etc...).




Here's the thing about the ST movie - it is so ham-handed that any attempt at satire is simply lost. _Kelly's Heroes_ works as satire. _MASH_ works as satire. The ST movie just doesn't. Why? Because in the movies that work as satire they simply heightened the oddness of military organizations until it was clear how warped they become. The characters act in ways that are, individually, somewhat sensible twhen seen through the lens of the organization they are parts of. The "satire" in ST mostly consisted of making the military organization look stupid by having them act stupid. On their own terms, all of the military characters were simply idiots. As a result, the alleged satire simply falls flat.

And it really hurts the "satire" when one realizes that had the MI had, say, WWII era tanks, the bugs would have stood no chance at all.

One last thing - Mallus is on my IL, so I only see his gems of wisdom when others quote him.


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## Mallus (Sep 15, 2008)

Storm Raven said:


> The ST movie just doesn't. Why? Because in the movies that work as satire they simply heightened the oddness of military organizations until it was clear how warped they become.



Again, Starship Troopers is a satire of war _movies_, particularly those intended as propaganda, not war departments/military organizations.


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## Rackhir (Sep 15, 2008)

Storm Raven said:


> Here's the thing about the ST movie - it is so ham-handed that any attempt at satire is simply lost. _Kelly's Heroes_ works as satire. _MASH_ works as satire. The ST movie just doesn't. Why? Because in the movies that work as satire they simply heightened the oddness of military organizations until it was clear how warped they become. The characters act in ways that are, individually, somewhat sensible twhen seen through the lens of the organization they are parts of. The "satire" in ST mostly consisted of making the military organization look stupid by having them act stupid. On their own terms, all of the military characters were simply idiots. As a result, the alleged satire simply falls flat.
> 
> And it really hurts the "satire" when one realizes that had the MI had, say, WWII era tanks, the bugs would have stood no chance at all.
> 
> One last thing - Mallus is on my IL, so I only see his gems of wisdom when others quote him.




I am unconvinced that most of the movie is intended as satire, nor that the incompetence of the military is part of the satire. The "Do you want to Know more?" bits, yes definitely. Probably most of the scenes with Neil Patrick Harris. But that's about it for the satire.

BTW SR, the mods frown upon mentioning people being on ignore lists or that you are going to put them on one. That kind of thing can get you a warning or the thread locked.


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## el-remmen (Sep 15, 2008)

"To Kill A Mockingbird" is the best book to film adaptation I have ever seen.


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## TwinBahamut (Sep 16, 2008)

From what I have seen of it, _The Wizard of Oz_ is pretty blatantly an inaccurate depiction of the novel in pretty much every single way. Countless widely known and popularized elements of that movie are severe deviations from the novel, even down to little details like the fact that in the novel, Dorothy's special shoes are silver, not red.

I think that is a good measuring stick to use to determine whether you think deviation from the novel is inherently bad for a movie. I tend to prefer the original version of a story, but I don't think something is inherently bad because it differs from its original source material. In the case of the _Wizard of Oz_, though, I will say that I liked the book better, since the lion and the wizard himself are so much more interesting in that one.


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## Silver Moon (Sep 16, 2008)

TwinBahamut said:


> From what I have seen of it, _The Wizard of Oz_ is pretty blatantly an inaccurate depiction of the novel in pretty much every single way......I will say that I liked the book better, since the lion and the wizard himself are so much more interesting in that one.



Much of L. Frank Baum's Oz novels (we have all of them)are rather dark.   My family watched the movie just two nights ago, and it still holds up very well.    

1985's "Return to Oz" is much more true to the tone of the novels, but it is really not a fun or pleasant movie to watch.   I'll keep the 1939 classic.


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## apoptosis (Sep 16, 2008)

TwinBahamut said:


> From what I have seen of it, _The Wizard of Oz_ is pretty blatantly an inaccurate depiction of the novel in pretty much every single way. Countless widely known and popularized elements of that movie are severe deviations from the novel, even down to little details like the fact that in the novel, Dorothy's special shoes are silver, not red.




They wanted to make them silver but because of technicolor issues they couldnt.


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## Whitemouse (Sep 16, 2008)

Silver Moon said:


> Much of L. Frank Baum's Oz novels (we have all of them)are rather dark.   My family watched the movie just two nights ago, and it still holds up very well.
> 
> 1985's "Return to Oz" is much more true to the tone of the novels, but it is really not a fun or pleasant movie to watch.   I'll keep the 1939 classic.



Not sure if people know but there are two Oz movies coming out in 2010 (or close to); Oz (2010) and Dark Oz (2010).


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## Desdichado (Sep 16, 2008)

Crothian said:


> Be careful, just because it was not faithful to the book does not mean it was a bad movie



This.  Most novels would make terrible movies if adapted as written, honestly.  The mediums are too different for a "faithful" adaptation to be anything other than tedious in most cases.  The rare exceptions are the novelists who kinda write like screenwriters, visualizing a movie going on in their head as they write.  

Also, a nitpickity personal pet peeve of mine... it's *canon*.  Not cannon.  You do not shoot the novel _Jumper_ at the approaching pirate ship, you stick to it as if it were revealed gospel.  The first is a cannon.  The second is canon.

I disagree that novels are canon when it comes to movie adaptations, though.  Generally a bad idea.


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## Desdichado (Sep 16, 2008)

el-remmen said:


> It is on a very short list of movies that are better than the books they were based on.



_Where Eagles Dare_ is on that list too. 

Which is funny, because Alistair MacLean (the author of the book) also has the screenwriter credit.


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## Desdichado (Sep 16, 2008)

Storm Raven said:


> This scene is in the book, and much better done. The movie's take on it was inane, to say the least.



I didn't mind the cheesy (and somewhat brainless) military tactics and equipment, or the 90210 in space vibe.  In fact, I kinda expected that.

Where the movie fails is that it tries to be tongue in cheek and mock the book, by having lines like that juxtaposed with scenes like that, and by throwing everyone into Nazi uniforms.  It doesn't work when they quote Heinlein's philosophies straight out of the book and it actually sounds reasonable.  The not so subtle mocking then comes across as just bizarre and petty.


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## Desdichado (Sep 16, 2008)

Rackhir said:


> While this is true, I just simply don't see it in most of the movie. All complaints aside, large chunks of the movie are taken pretty straight from the book. If there's some satire or parody in those parts it has completely escaped me.



Holy cow.  Seriously?  The entire movie was rife with ham-handed satire.  Like I just said, it didn't work because it was quoting so much directly from the book, and the book largely resonates with the philosophy that permeates it.  Just because you suddenly put your monologuers in Nazi uniforms doesn't mean that you've made your point that the philosophy their espousing in any way resembles the Nazis.  But Voerhoven (or however you spell it) isn't nearly subtle enough to actually pull that off.


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## Nifft (Sep 17, 2008)

Umbran said:


> The folks who do Shakespeare understand this - each retelling is a little bit different, and that's the point.  To find the things that you can change a little bit, to give a different spin or meaning to the work.  Small variations, or things you can do better than anyone else did before you.



 Apropos of nothing, one of my favorite ways to enjoy a Shakespeare adaptation is to read the play beforehand, out loud, with the same friend(s) with whom I'm going to see the movie or play.

I find it helps me to appreciate the performance's "spin" best when the play itself is freshest in my mind.

Cheers, -- N

PS: I sure hope Starship Troopers contained large elements of satire. Otherwise... it becomes unintentionally hilarious.


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## evileeyore (Sep 17, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> "The mobile infantry made me the man I am today" *rolls on a wheelchair and shows off his missing limbs*.
> 
> Maybe I shouldn't judge movies on their "memorable quotability", but sometimes, that's what I do. *It is basically the "long-term"-enjoyment these movies bring to me and my friends*.



I agree.


Also that line gets a lot of play time in my group, all of whom except me, have had 4+ years of military service.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Sep 17, 2008)

_Children of Men_ did utter violence to the novel.

That doesn't mean that it was a bad movie however. It complete inverted so much of the story that anyone reading the novel after seeing the movie would have their head spinning. I'd put it in the realm of _Starship Troopers_ level of inversion of the author's intent. Again, in _Children of Men_'s defense, it was still a reall a darn good movie!

So with the question of movies that failed to keep true to the novel, CoM totally makes the top ten.


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## Whitemouse (Sep 17, 2008)

Eric Anondson said:


> _Children of Men_ did utter violence to the novel.



I never read the novel. Though it is on my list of 'to-reads.'



Eric Anondson said:


> That doesn't mean that it was a bad movie however. It complete inverted so much of the story that anyone reading the novel after seeing the movie would have their head spinning. I'd put it in the realm of _Starship Troopers_ level of inversion of the author's intent. Again, in _Children of Men_'s defense, it was still a reall a darn good movie!



I thought the movie sucked something fierce. I wish I could get a refund for time spent watching it.


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## Mallus (Sep 17, 2008)

Whitemouse said:


> I thought the movie sucked something fierce. I wish I could get a refund for time spent watching it.



But... but... on the strength of those two tracking shots alone it's a good film -- if not a great one (can you tell I liked it?).

_Children of Men_ is an interesting example. It's succeeds as a film for reasons completely unrelated to it's source, ie for it's cinematography, though I'd argue it is ultimately, more than just pretty. 

A work needs to succeed in it's own medium, which is why I don't particularly care if a movie adaptation is faithful to the source text. To risk a tautology here, faithfulness is indicative of faithfulness, not of quality. 

As an aside, one of my favorite movie adaptations is Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys. I think it's a better film than novel, but here's the damnedest thing: the book does the near-slapstick comedy better while the film has warmer, better fleshed-out characters. You'd think it would be the other way around...


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## Tonguez (Sep 17, 2008)

Silver Moon said:


> *First Blood* - I thankfully read David Morrell's excellent cat-and-mouse thriller prior to the Stallone movie, so had no preconceptions about John Rambo.  In the book he is an average looking guy in his early twenties, which is not how it appeared in the film.  The movie also changes the setting to the Pacific northwest in the late seventies rather than the deep south in the early seventies while the Vietnam war is still going on.




First Blood was a great novel.



Storm Raven said:


> . The "satire" in ST mostly consisted of making the military organization look stupid by having them act stupid. On their own terms, all of the military characters were simply idiots. As a result, the alleged satire simply falls flat.




You are aware that many parts of the world would actually view ST as an accurate depiction of the the US Military - at least as it is depicted by the media


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## David Howery (Sep 17, 2008)

well, if you want to see a movie that is very faithful to the book, check out the Pendragon version of "War of the Worlds"....


... and then promise not to kill me for having you watch something so awful...


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## Desdichado (Sep 17, 2008)

I say watch the Asylum version with C. Thomas Howell.  Despite coming from a notorious b-movie studio, it's actually somewhat intelligent.

Plus, because it comes from a notorious b-movie studio, it's got a fair amount of gratuitous topless women.


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## Rackhir (Sep 17, 2008)

Hobo said:


> Holy cow.  Seriously?  The entire movie was rife with ham-handed satire.  Like I just said, it didn't work because it was quoting so much directly from the book, and the book largely resonates with the philosophy that permeates it.  Just because you suddenly put your monologuers in Nazi uniforms doesn't mean that you've made your point that the philosophy their espousing in any way resembles the Nazis.  But Voerhoven (or however you spell it) isn't nearly subtle enough to actually pull that off.




Except that the only character wearing a Nazi outfit is Neil Patrick Harris and he's in only a handful of scenes. The MI uniforms aren't even vaguely Wehrmacht or SS.


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## Desdichado (Sep 17, 2008)

No, all of the officers had very Wehrmacht like uniforms.  Doogie Hauser was the only one who had a Gestapo type uniform, I'll grant you that.

The grunt fatigues also weren't very Wehrmacht like either.


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## Pbartender (Sep 17, 2008)

el-remmen said:


> "To Kill A Mockingbird" is the best book to film adaptation I have ever seen.




I agree whole heartedly.

I'd also suggest that Charlton Heston's 1990 version of _Treasure Island_ is right up there with it.


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## Desdichado (Sep 17, 2008)

With Christian Bale, before he was famous, even.


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## frankthedm (Sep 18, 2008)

Aries_Omega said:


> Two words....Starship Troopers. Book was WAAAY better. Makes me cringe at the idea of Stranger in a Strange Land being adapted to the big screen.





Adaptation Decay - Television Tropes & Idioms
_The film version of Robert A Heinlein's Starship Troopers completely removed the philosophical questions of the book while transforming the all-male power-armored Mobile Infantry who go to extreme lengths to recover their own wounded and dead into a co-ed showering Redshirt Army who see nothing wrong with ''killing'' their own wounded. Director Paul Verhoeven subverted the entire book, seemingly in order to satirize what he (and a great many other readers) felt to be Heinlein's fascistic tendencies. Whether adaptations that parody their source material really count as Adaptation Decay is a question for another day.

    * Verhoeven admits that he never got more than a few chapters into the book, which raises the question of whether lazy adaptation can count as parody.
          o The reason Verhoeven never bothered to read much of the book is that the film wasn't actually intended to be an adaptation or parody of Starship Troopers itself, but instead a satire of that kind of gung-ho militarist Sci-Fi. The studio optioned the rights to Starship Troopers and made Verhoeven change character names. 
    * The main enemy, the "Arachnids", was, in the book, a highly technical race. In the movie, they are just bugs who breed into missile throwing mutants. It's never quite explained how they manage to be a real threat to humanity, how a planet based species manages to send asteroids across light years to hit Earth without technology is never explained. It's perhaps worth noting here that it's implied in the movie, however, that the bugs are merely scapegoats and it's in fact the humans who are the evil invading aliens. _


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## Andre (Sep 18, 2008)

The most successful adaptation of a book that also stayed remarkably close to the source material: the first Harry Potter movie. I read the book just before seeing the movie and I was constantly surprised how closely they kept to the original story, while still taking advantage of the different medium. The other Harry Potter movies have suffered from the fact that the later books are much longer than the first one, so whole swathes of material have to cut out.

I agree that the LotR movies are mostly faithful adaptations, but I still don't get why they changed some things, other than a suspicion that Peter Jackson, et al, actually believe they can write Tolkien better than Tolkien. 

A bad adaptation that I felt was better as a movie is The Postman. Granted, I don't have a knee-jerk hatred of all things Costner, so that helped. But mostly I found David Brin's book to be incoherent, with a horrible ending.

Another bad adaptation that was a fun movie is I, Robot. Though I'd still like to see the original stories turned into a movie or short series, as the stories are good, classic Asimov. (Or better yet, the Foundation series.)

Amazingly, The Omega Man (bad as it is) is a much better adaptation of the original story than Will Smith's I, Legend. But Smith's is the better movie, IMHO.


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## Mallus (Sep 18, 2008)

Andre said:


> The most successful adaptation of a book that also stayed remarkably close to the source material: the first Harry Potter movie.



See now I didn't like the Harry Potter films until the third, when a really talented filmmaker (Alfonso Cuaron) got involved. The first movie might have been more accurate, but that didn't stop it from being hack-work fantasy.


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## Sabathius42 (Sep 18, 2008)

OK, I will admit right off the bat that I ENJOY the book Battlefield Earth.

The movie, however,.....

[can't even finish my thought]

DS


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## Pbartender (Sep 18, 2008)

Andre said:


> A bad adaptation that I felt was better as a movie is The Postman.
> 
> Another bad adaptation that was a fun movie is I, Robot.




I couldn't possibly disagree with you more. On both counts.

And on that note...

Nightfall, based on the excellent Asimov story.

Words cannot express how bad that movie is.  So...   Bad...


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## Villano (Sep 18, 2008)

The A&E TV series, "A Nero Wolfe Mystery", rather faithfully adapted the books.  There were a few minor changes.  For example, the books were written from the 30s to the 70s, but the TV series decided to keep it simple and set it in the 50s (with the exception of a few that contained plots which linked them to WWII and another which was set in the 60s).

There is one big change that does stand out.  In the episode, "Too Many Clients", a man's wife is openly cheating on him.  Later, the man snaps and badly beats his wife.  When Archie Goodwin, Nero Wolfe's assistant, discovers this, he checks in on the wife and threatens the husband.  I was a bit shocked to read that Archie originally sent the husband champagne.  

I suppose that, at the time the book was written, it was felt that the wife finally got what she deserved.  Obviously, in this day and age, a hero can't be shown rewarding a man who beat his wife.

As for movies that improve upon a bad book, check out "The Howling".  The movie has virtually nothing in common with the novel.  Director Joe Dante once  complained that the book was so bad, he didn't want even the few, minor things that did end up in the film.

The novel was more faithfully adapted as "Howling IV: The Original Nightmare".  Watch them back-to-back and see why one is considered a werewolf classic and the other is basically forgotten.


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## Brown Jenkin (Sep 18, 2008)

I will continue my crusade and point out the monstrosity that is the _Scarlet Letter_ with Demi Moore. Let me repeat my warning that I always give. You must trust me, DO NOT EVER watch this, You will not get the 2 hours of your life back and you will want a hot poker to shove into your brain to burn out any memories of the horror that is this movie. Even if you think you can deal with it because your expectations are rock bottom (as were mine and my girlfriends) this movie will make you forever regret that decision. Now on to point. One of many things that that happened that leave you wondering what this has to do with the original is why Hesters suposedly dead husband has taken up with the indians then dresses up in a costume with them while they attack the village. What you say, you don't remember that part from the novel, well at least it brought 5 minutes of action relief from an otherwise mind numbingly confused first 3/4 of the movie that included the voodoo practicing slave of Hester.


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## Andre (Sep 18, 2008)

Pbartender said:


> I couldn't possibly disagree with you more. On both counts.




Disagreement is a good thing, otherwise Hollywood would just produce the same stuff over and over. Oh wait...


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