If you read a book and it's adapted to film, is it usually what you imagine it to be? (Hollywood, scene)

[nightbird47]

Some aren't even bothering to do the book. Blade Runner is only a shadow of the story. I found the book SO depressing. I deal with both as seperate entities. The book is good, but on its own merits. There was actually a book written, called Blade Runner, which is the movie story, or one version.

Then there are the ones they do well. I'd just finished 2001. It was utterly wonderful. It was the very vision of the book, which might have been because Arthur Clarke worked with them. People said there were things they didn't get and I was never sure if its just that I'd read everything he wrote and understood his neuances or it was something which didn't translate well.

My son has read all the harry potter books and spent half of the movie telling me what they left out. I finally told him he had to at least wait until it was over. I plan to read them, loved the first one, but the movies were enjoyable too, if you didn't know what they missed.

Classics they tended to follow closer. Dr. Zhivago was like seeing the pages come to life, but the book was so visual there are scenes I was sure were in the movie but they were only in the book.

and then there were the older ones they blew it big on. There is a novel by Robert Penn Warent, Band of Angels about a woman who discovers upon her fathers death that she was his slave child. She gets sold with the estate. Its really about her search for freedom which she still doesn't find until years after she's free. Its a wonderful book.

The movie starred Yvonne DeCarlo and Clark Gable. The first early part of her life was a quick few scenes. They romanic part with the rich man in New Orleans (gable) took over the rest. It was well played up to the end, where they dumped the whole second half of the book and her rescue and eventual discovery that freedom is something one finds from within. She leaves the rich guy when he runs when the port if overrun in the book, leading to the other half. In the movie she goes WITH him???? If I was the author I'd have told them to take my name off of it.

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

The beauty of fiction is that each person visualizes the characters, scenery.etc differently based on his or her own personal perceptions/filters. When that book is adapted into a film, then the characters and locales come to life, but it also takes away some of the magic of imagination from it. It shatters that imaginery world you have created and replaces it with the ideas of the film-makers and producers. Sometimes with or without input from the authors. Oftentimes, it's not at all how I imagined it when I read the book. Tom Hanks in the Da Vinci Code is one example. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was one which, weirdly enough, was almost exactly how I imagined it when I read it. There are too many others that I can't remember but those are just two examples. Commonly Hollywood totally butchers a book - I understand scripts aren't the same as novels, but often the dialogue is totally butchered or worse, the whole story is changed like 'My Sister's Keeper' which was a great read. When my mum saw it and told me they'd totally changed the ending I didn't even want to see it. Also, Cameron Diaz is the last person I imagined would play that role. Disney films are notorious for totally changing the original story, but I think it's forgivable. Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland and the Jungle Book all stand out. All great novels in their own right, but Disney did not follow them at all. While Pinocchio the film was quite dark in parts, the original novel by Collodi was surprisingly 'adult' in parts.

Also, a related question. Once you read a book do you normally make an effort to see the film adaptation?

I tend to read the reviews first. However, there are times when, out of morbid curiosity, I will go. Witness the complete utter atrocity of Vanity Fair. I cannot imagine how they could have gotten the book more wrong, unless they had scripted in a car chase and some vampires running amok. Simply the worst adaptation of a book I have ever seen. The entire cast of this abomination, even cute little Reese Witherspoon, should have been dragged out onto Hollywood Boulevard and shot as a warning to future generations of screenwriters, actors, and directors.

Mind you, I fully recognize that a book cannot be replicated word-for-word on the big screen. It just doesn't work. But can you at least try to get somewhere close?

One movie that was a complete and utter pleasant surprise for me was Master and Commander. When it read that Peter Weir was directing, I did have higher hopes. But it managed to capture the spirit of Patrick O'Brian's freaking great novels very well.

[lauramc27]

So far I have yet to see a movie that was as good as the book

I plan on going to see the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I am hoping that it will be as good as the book. My mother and another friend said it was a pretty good adaptation, so I am hopefull.

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

Depends.

Most of the time, I prefer the book for the depth of character, expansion of story, etc. But I can think of several examples where a good to great movie was made from a bad book. Such as:

JAWS --- The greatest action/adventure movie ever made. The book is pretty awful. In the novel, the "heroes" were so unlikeable that I wanted the shark to eat them.

THE GODFATHER --- One of the greatest American movies ever made. The book is lacklustre at best. And large parts of it are downright bad.

FORREST GUMP --- Fun movie. Terrible book.

BLADE RUNNER --- Great movie based on a horrible novella.

PSYCHO --- The book by Robert Bloch is actually pretty good. Not what I'd rate a classic, but it's good. The movie is an undisputed classic.

JACKIE BROWN --- Based on the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard. The books is okay. Not one of Leonard's best. The movie is awesome.

All of the BOURNE movies are fun. The books are painfully bad.

L.A CONFIDENTIAL --- Book is okay. The movie is fantastic and easily one of the best films of the 1990s.

APOCALYPSE NOW --- Great movie. Conrad's Heart of Darkness is okay. Coppola nailed the pathos that Conrad was attempting.

You're probably aware that films are often 'novelized' as well. After a successful film comes out someone decides to further cash in by writing the novel. It's not as common as the other way around, but I remember 'film-books' being something of a genre back in the 90s. I remember reading the novel version of 'Volcano' for any of you who remember that. I also had the original Star Wars trilogy in novel form which wasn't too bad. But yeah some novels are just plain bad but the script-writers carve out something decent out of it and bring it to life.

'Heart of Darkness' has nothing to do with Apocalypse now.

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by lauramc27

So far I have yet to see a movie that was as good as the book

I plan on going to see the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I am hoping that it will be as good as the book. My mother and another friend said it was a pretty good adaptation, so I am hopefull.

I fail to see why Hollywood needed to do an English language version, which is exactly like the Swedish version that came out 3 years ago . It's like they think most people won't read subtitles. It's to cash in, nothing more. You should at least see the original version in Swedish if you're going to see this new one. I mean it's by a Swedish author, set in Sweden, and has a lot to do with Swedish politics. It was also originally written in Swedish. I'm not sure where this film will be set...I mean they'd really butcher it if they changed the whole setting, but then they'd have to do it Sound of Music style and make all those Swedish people speak English.

[Lamplight]

Something I just considered, I think we all know film adaptations of novels require much of the original story to be cut due to time constraints. Sometimes it's done well and the story doesn't lose much, but other times it's a disaster. But what if everything was left in? Maybe not in one twenty hour movie, but perhaps it could be done in a series of movies. I'm sure this has been done, but I think I'd gladly watch a word-for-word film adaptation of some of my favorite novels, even if it required a dozen two hour films. I guess it wouldn't literally be word-for-word, but a film that doesn't leave out any portion of the plot.

Originally Posted by Trimac20

'Heart of Darkness' has nothing to do with Apocalypse now.

I think the script is based on, or perhaps I should say, inspired by Heart of Darkness, though I'm not sure I'd call it a film adaptation. I believe there's also some reference to a T.S. Eliot poem that in turn references Heart of Darkness.

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by Lamplight

Something I just considered, I think we all know film adaptations of novels require much of the original story to be cut due to time constraints. Sometimes it's done well and the story doesn't lose much, but other times it's a disaster. But what if everything was left in? Maybe not in one twenty hour movie, but perhaps it could be done in a series of movies. I'm sure this has been done, but I think I'd gladly watch a word-for-word film adaptation of some of my favorite novels, even if it required a dozen two hour films. I guess it wouldn't literally be word-for-word, but a film that doesn't leave out any portion of the plot.



I think the script is based on, or perhaps I should say, inspired by Heart of Darkness, though I'm not sure I'd call it a film adaptation. I believe there's also some reference to a T.S. Eliot poem that in turn references Heart of Darkness.

I don't usually feel the need to see everything described in a novel. Often times, what takes pages in a novel (like descriptions) can be shown with a few minutes or seconds of film. Those countless Jane Austin adaptations are wordy enough, watching a movie depicting the novels word for word would be painful.

Yes I do recall the reference to Heart of Darkness, but it's of course nothing to do with Conrad's novel, other than having a similar theme and being set in the jungle. The heart of darkness being the heart of man, not the jungles of Africa or Vietnam.

[Lamplight]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I don't usually feel the need to see everything described in a novel. Often times, what takes pages in a novel (like descriptions) can be shown with a few minutes or seconds of film. Those countless Jane Austin adaptations are wordy enough, watching a movie depicting the novels word for word would be painful.

Oh I realize that, which is why I added "I guess it wouldn't literally be word-for-word..." and in fact I suppose that wouldn't work anyway unless you had a narrator which would probably become tiresome. I guess what I'm imagining is just a full inclusion of all the events of a plot, regardless of how long the movie might be as a result (which would probably need to be split into several movies). For example, I mentioned the film adaptation of Arrowsmith earlier, where the film loses considerably more of the novel than it retains. To be fair, it's probably a poor choice to try to cram into two hours of film. Martin Arrowsmith's entire experience in medical school is reduced to a couple of minutes, his experience with Leora Tozer as newlyweds, both attending school is omitted, and his experience as a rural doctor in North Dakota is reduced to maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. He later becomes a doctor in a well-funded practice in a larger city, where a great deal of the plot takes place, including a love affair with a young woman (while married), but none of that is included, a great deal of Maxwell Gottlieb's history is omitted entirely, Martin's time at McGurk Institute is shown reasonably well, as well as when he goes off to South America to help battle the plague. But while in South America he meets another lady who later becomes his second wife, which is a pretty big deal in the novel and is merely hinted at in the film. In short (or is it too late for that? ), wide swaths of important plot are completely absent in the film. But a film that actually includes all of those things would probably be twenty hours long if not more. Personally, I wouldn't mind watching that if it were divided up neatly, but I guess most people wouldn't care to spend that much time devoted to one story, except in a book.

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I fail to see why Hollywood needed to do an English language version, which is exactly like the Swedish version that came out 3 years ago . It's like they think most people won't read subtitles. It's to cash in, nothing more. You should at least see the original version in Swedish if you're going to see this new one. I mean it's by a Swedish author, set in Sweden, and has a lot to do with Swedish politics. It was also originally written in Swedish. I'm not sure where this film will be set...I mean they'd really butcher it if they changed the whole setting, but then they'd have to do it Sound of Music style and make all those Swedish people speak English.

Agreed. The Swedish adaptations of the novel were pretty much incredible. And not watered-down for American consumption.

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by Lamplight

Oh I realize that, which is why I added "I guess it wouldn't literally be word-for-word..." and in fact I suppose that wouldn't work anyway unless you had a narrator which would probably become tiresome. I guess what I'm imagining is just a full inclusion of all the events of a plot, regardless of how long the movie might be as a result (which would probably need to be split into several movies). For example, I mentioned the film adaptation of Arrowsmith earlier, where the film loses considerably more of the novel than it retains. To be fair, it's probably a poor choice to try to cram into two hours of film. Martin Arrowsmith's entire experience in medical school is reduced to a couple of minutes, his experience with Leora Tozer as newlyweds, both attending school is omitted, and his experience as a rural doctor in North Dakota is reduced to maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. He later becomes a doctor in a well-funded practice in a larger city, where a great deal of the plot takes place, including a love affair with a young woman (while married), but none of that is included, a great deal of Maxwell Gottlieb's history is omitted entirely, Martin's time at McGurk Institute is shown reasonably well, as well as when he goes off to South America to help battle the plague. But while in South America he meets another lady who later becomes his second wife, which is a pretty big deal in the novel and is merely hinted at in the film. In short (or is it too late for that? ), wide swaths of important plot are completely absent in the film. But a film that actually includes all of those things would probably be twenty hours long if not more. Personally, I wouldn't mind watching that if it were divided up neatly, but I guess most people wouldn't care to spend that much time devoted to one story, except in a book.

Sometimes I think it's harder for a script-writer(s) to adapt a novel - and please the author and the producers - than it is to write an original script, or base a script on a novella or a short story. Brokeback Mountain, based on the Annie Proulx short story, would've been easier to do since the screenwriters were at liberty to flesh out the story with dialogue.