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I just finished reading Circle of Friends, which I thought was very good, and then watched the movie (same title).
Warning: spoiler alert
The book is set in 1957-8, and a "plain" university student, Benny (short for Bernadette) falls in love with a very handsome and popular fellow student, Jack, who then falls in love with her, but then has brief sexual affairs with two other young women, which he comes to regret. After about a hundred pages in which Benny pines for him and tries to hide her feelings, at the end of the book she realizes that she does not truly want him after all. Very good affirmation and message to women that, in short, they don't necessarily need a man in order to be happy. (Btw, the Benny-Jack relationship is just one of many plots within the book all woven together.)
Then I watched the movie and was very disappointed that it completely changed the ending after Benny blames herself for Jack being unfaithful because she would not have sex with him due to her Catholic upbringing, she then takes him back, and the movie ends with them going into a cottage where they then apparently have sex and all presumably ends well.
Btw, this movie was made in 1995, well after the Women's Lib movement began, so why did the movie-makers feel they needed to change the essential message of the book? Urgghhh!!
So what movies have you seen after reading the book and felt the same kind of letdown?
Last edited by katharsis; 03-27-2019 at 04:31 PM..
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That's Hollywood for ya. "The feel-good movie of the year" and "Happily ever after" bring in the biggest bucks, I guess.
ETA: It wasn't the ending but it was a huge part of the book. In The Prince of Tides (the book), there's a storyline about a tiger. The tiger is integral to the rest of the book, as I recall, and there's one pivotal part. Then the movie came out. I had no intention of seeing it, but a friend did. I asked her how they handled the tiger part. She said "what tiger?"
"Unbroken", by Laura Hillenbrand about the remarkable life of Louis Zamparini.
Spoiler alert: in the book (which is a non-fiction biography), Zamparini comes back home from being a Japanese POW suffering from PTSD. He becomes an alcoholic and is somewhat abusive towards his wife, can't hold down a job, etc.
In 1949, Zamparini attended Billy Graham's crusades in Los Angeles and is "saved" (becomes converted to Christianity) and subsequently turned his life around. The Billy Graham connection is so vital that The Billy Graham Library/Museum has a display dedicated to the story.
There is also an epilogue in the book that details how Zamparini eventually meets his Japanese tormenter, who had been living in hiding in order to avoid execution for war crimes.
In the film version, directed by Angelina Jolie, all of this is basically disregarded. The entire theme of the book is undermined because Zamparini's conversion to Christianity is ignored. The movie ends basically with him coming home from the war. The audience never learns about his meeting in Japan or his evangelical work or anything.
Here's a great article about it (sorry it's from Fox News):
"Unbroken", by Laura Hillenbrand about the remarkable life of Louis Zamparini.
In the film version, directed by Angelina Jolie, all of this is basically disregarded. The entire theme of the book is undermined because Zamparini's conversion to Christianity is ignored. The movie ends basically with him coming home from the war. The audience never learns about his meeting in Japan or his evangelical work or anything.
But there was a reason for that. No other screenwriter would touch the book. It was too long and involved to fit into a two hour film. And Zamparini worked with Jolie on the screenwriting of the film.
Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code) wrote "Inferno." The MacGuffin was the development of a virus that DRASTICALLY reduced the ability for humans to procreate without any other health side effects. The book used it to have an exposition of the current overpopulation issues which, if left unchecked, have the potential to destroy the carrying capacity of the Earth; resulting in extinctions and a hellish existence for any humans in the future. The book and movie endings differ.
Spoiler
The book ended with the protagonist being unable to stop the virus, thus allowing population levels to drop without physical pain and suffering to people currently alive. It was a provocative ending designed to foster discussion and dialog on a touchy subject.
The movie completely castrated the ending by having the protagonist "rescue" humanity by stopping the spread of the virus in a cliff-hanger ending. The movie failed miserably at the box office because of that decision.
Curiously, a similar theme was taken in "Avengers; Infinity War," where Thanos, as a villain, eliminates large chunks of populations to create better living conditions for those left alive.
The subject may be one that is extremely troublesome to contemplate, but it is simple to extrapolate from the overpopulation issues in various animals, and to review how history contains repeated population reductions of humans via plagues, wars, genocides, and starvation. The inconvenient truth is that the likelihoods of such events occurring increase as populations swell. As for ways to stop it? I have absolutely no idea, and have resigned myself to knowing that there will be a massive train wreck at some point in the future. I can't envision the forces driving overpopulation ever being stopped on a voluntary basis. Perhaps blissful lack of awareness is a valid response in such a case.
But there was a reason for that. No other screenwriter would touch the book. It was too long and involved to fit into a two hour film. And Zamparini worked with Jolie on the screenwriting of the film.
First of all, the OP's question is not "why did they change the ending of the book?" It was, which book to film had a very different ending.
Second, I believe it would have been possible to create a 5 minute montage of Zamparini's life after the war. Five minutes of film can tell a great deal of story. Or they could have compressed some of the earlier scenes.
Also some comments about the article you referenced:
"The insurmountable challenge had been how to jettison the last third of Hillenbrand's biography — everything that Zamperini experienced after being liberated from his third and final camp — without excising the book's potent message of reconciliation."
In deciding to "jettison the last third" of the biography, they missed the major defining point of the book. Jolie had to create an artificial spiritual arc in the POW camp. That IMO interferes with the true point of the story: although Zamparini survives the torture so that one may consider him "unbroken", his spirit and soul are very much broken. It is his relationship with God that heals him; it is his reconciliation with God that allows him to reconcile with Watanabe. It is Zamparini's relationship with God that makes him unbroken.
"I think to see somebody rise up, to see somebody confronted with so many obstacles in life who refuses to go down, and not only stand back up but somehow find a way to love and live again and be full of usefulness and joy…," Jolie said, pausing as she considered her subject's life." (Snip). "I've spent time with Lou and have been influenced by his story. I think it's something we need today more than ever: You look around you and there's so much to be overwhelmed by, and you study this life, this imperfect life, which is what's so beautiful about him. He was a little immigrant kid who was smoking, stealing and drinking by the time he was 9, and thought he was worth nothing.
"A lot of us have had that feeling. I've certainly had it myself. And he turned his life around and became somebody who would later inspire so many people."
Again, Jolie misses the more profound message. She gets close but it seems she shies away from mentioning Christianity. How does Zamparini "turn his life around"? He doesn't do it on his own. When trying to heal on his own, he fails spectacularly (alcoholism, PTSD, etc.)
It is because Zamparini becomes "saved", or "born again" if you like that he "turns his life around." The book is very clear about that line of demarcation in 1949. There is his life before Christ and there is his life after Christ and they are not the same.
Zamparini is an example of how God and the Holy Spirit work through people. Although Zamparini's life is inspiring, it is not him by himself who is the cause of the inspiration. Zamparini's outer life is the manifestation of his inner spiritual transformation.
And without touching upon that, the movie fails to deliver on the very heart of the book.
Last edited by calgirlinnc; 03-29-2019 at 05:00 PM..
The Horse Whisperer - for once, I liked the ending of the film better than the book.
(Is it still called a spoiler when the movie was made in 1998?) At the end of the book, there is a brutal confrontation between a young girl's horse and some wild mustangs. The Horse Whisperer is killed by the horses. There are other dramatic threads such as an affair between the girl's mother and the horse trainer. None of these events occur in the movie allowing it to have a calmer, less drama-filled ending than the book.
The Mist. The film gives the story a very definite, soul-crushing, heart-wrenching, conclusion; whereas the book leaves it on an ambiguous, neither-here-nor-there, but let's give it a cheesy sense of hope note.
Stephen King, who himself works against the Pollyanna principle, said of Frank Darabont's "anti-Hollywood, anti-everything, nihilistic ending":
Quote:
Frank wrote a new ending that I loved. It is the most shocking ending ever and there should be a law passed stating that anybody who reveals the last 5 minutes of this film should be hung from their neck until dead.
I just finished reading Circle of Friends, which I thought was very good, and then watched the movie (same title).
Warning: spoiler alert
The book is set in 1957-8, and a "plain" university student, Benny (short for Bernadette) falls in love with a very handsome and popular fellow student, Jack, who then falls in love with her, but then has brief sexual affairs with two other young women, which he comes to regret. After about a hundred pages in which Benny pines for him and tries to hide her feelings, at the end of the book she realizes that she does not truly want him after all. Very good affirmation and message to women that, in short, they don't necessarily need a man in order to be happy. (Btw, the Benny-Jack relationship is just one of many plots within the book all woven together.)
Then I watched the movie and was very disappointed that it completely changed the ending after Benny blames herself for Jack being unfaithful because she would not have sex with him due to her Catholic upbringing, she then takes him back, and the movie ends with them going into a cottage where they then apparently have sex and all presumably ends well.
Btw, this movie was made in 1995, well after the Women's Lib movement began, so why did the movie-makers feel they needed to change the essential message of the book? Urgghhh!!
So what movies have you seen after reading the book and felt the same kind of letdown?
Ha ha ha...bc no one is gonna pay for a movie where the two main characters don't wind up together/doing it. Not in 1995 anyway. Also probably not today either.
Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code) wrote "Inferno." The MacGuffin was the development of a virus that DRASTICALLY reduced the ability for humans to procreate without any other health side effects. The book used it to have an exposition of the current overpopulation issues which, if left unchecked, have the potential to destroy the carrying capacity of the Earth; resulting in extinctions and a hellish existence for any humans in the future. The book and movie endings differ.
Spoiler
The book ended with the protagonist being unable to stop the virus, thus allowing population levels to drop without physical pain and suffering to people currently alive. It was a provocative ending designed to foster discussion and dialog on a touchy subject.
The movie completely castrated the ending by having the protagonist "rescue" humanity by stopping the spread of the virus in a cliff-hanger ending. The movie failed miserably at the box office because of that decision.
Curiously, a similar theme was taken in "Avengers; Infinity War," where Thanos, as a villain, eliminates large chunks of populations to create better living conditions for those left alive.
The subject may be one that is extremely troublesome to contemplate, but it is simple to extrapolate from the overpopulation issues in various animals, and to review how history contains repeated population reductions of humans via plagues, wars, genocides, and starvation. The inconvenient truth is that the likelihoods of such events occurring increase as populations swell. As for ways to stop it? I have absolutely no idea, and have resigned myself to knowing that there will be a massive train wreck at some point in the future. I can't envision the forces driving overpopulation ever being stopped on a voluntary basis. Perhaps blissful lack of awareness is a valid response in such a case.
It is an interesting discussion, albeit...uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, people pay thousands of dollars, dress up, and gleefully shoot up populations of deer, hogs, etc, all in the name of population management. Stating it would be cruel to allow their population to run unchecked.
Meanwhile...humans...
I dunno. Creepy and horrible to contemplate on an animal scale let alone a human one.
To the op: Jurassic Park. I don't know if it really ruined anything, per se. I really thought it was one of the few times the movie did well by the book. But I was annoyed that Hammond, etc, wasn't killed off like he was in the book.
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