I love fiction. It allows us to live in worlds that have nothing to do with our own; escape for a little while. I like it in just about any form. Even so, I like to read a lot and I like to go to the movies now and then.

What I don't like is when they take a good book and then make alterations to the story when they make a movie.

Most books are too much to squeeze into a single 2 hour movie. However, some have been done well. A good example in recent times is Ender's Game. The movie is fairly true to the book. There was stuff they left out due to time constraints, but they didn't change the central theme of the story. I enjoyed watching it even though I'd read the book.

Some are absolutely destroyed. The current run of the Hobbit is one such example. I mean, the story is HUGE. Far too much to even squeeze into three movies. Why on God's green Earth then do they feel they have to ADD to the story?

We just watched the most recent edition, The Hobbit; The Desolation of Smaug. What a pile! They took a perfectly good book, probably one of the most popular in history, and added a bunch to the story. What is the reasoning for that? The story wasn't big enough for them? They did the same with the Lord of the Rings, but it was better than this.

By itself the movie isn't bad. The effects are good and the acting is OK. Why not just pick another title if you're going to completely abandon the story line?

Don't you just hate that?

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Freedom isn't free.

Actually, in The Lord if the Rings movies, seems to me they left a lot out. E.g., Tom Bambodil. What I can't figure is why Peter Jackson took the Lord of the Rings trilogy, three good sized tomes, and made three movies, and then takes The Hobbit, a comparatively slim volume, and makes another three movies... (Hmm. Ya don't suppose it's fer the money, do ya?!)

Some have been done BETTER than the books.

I've read several of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and EVERY one of them is dreadful. The film "Goldfinger" is as good as they're awful.

"Cross of Iron" is a pretty decent movie. It's based on a novel by German author Willi Heinrich. I TRIED to read his other novel "Crack of Doom". It is one of the worst novels I've ever read that didn't have a naked woman on the cover. I don't know if it's the translation from German to English or if Heinrich is just a disastrously bad writer. It was every bit as bad as the German "Perry Rodan" science fiction novel that my freshman high school English class used as an example of bad writing.

Oh, perish the freaking unworthy thought!

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Oh well, what the hell.

I see them entirely different. Movies are movies, books are books. If the movie is good, yet entirely different from the books it's based off of, it doesn't bother me at all. Lord of the rings, for example, are great movies. I tried to read the books but they're beyond me. I liked the Harry potter books, and the movies, even though they are different.

I don't care to force a director to stick to the way it's done in the books as accurate as possible when making movies.

the original point and click interface, by Smith and Wesson

Oh yeah, it's about the money, but that doesn't explain why he ruined the story.

And, yes, some books have been made better in the movie, but it's rare.

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Freedom isn't free.

I think of Phil Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", a pretty darn good sci-fi book, that became the legendary Blade Runner in Ridley Scott's hands.

Lawrence of Arabia is another example. I remember Lawrence's memoir, Seven Pillars of Wisdom as being pretty heavy going, although I may have been a bit young for it. Of course, the movie was spectacular and memorable.

Winter's Bone, No Country for Old Men, and Legends of the Fall spring immediately to mind as movies that at least did justice to the book. And how about Ellroy's L.A. Confidential ?

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Not in jail.

Ever read Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny?
Ever seen the Film? Don't!

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Regards, Ron
USASA 1965/69

Everyone's different. I loved the original Bond novels and can't stand the later movies and the present books. I also liked Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise novels and the related comic strip. The movies based on it were dreadful, as was a T V show that tried to move Modesty and Willie to Caifornia from the UK!

When O'Donnell retired in 1996, he killed off his characters in a volume called, "The Cobra Trap". He forbade anyone else to use his creations. I suspect that this was in part because he'd seen what a mess was made of Fleming's material.

David Lindsey's superb thriller, "Mercy!" was made into only a fair movie that used Canadian locales in lieu of Houston and completely changed the heroine to one I can't stand. (The actress.) The whole thing was made too sterile and PC.

Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm books also suffered on film, with the ridiculous Dean Martin playing Helm as a camp comic series.

Jack Higgins has had better luck with his books becoming movies than most. So has Wilbur Smith.

On the whole, the movies are so different from the books that there may be only a loose connection. The only time I recall a movie or TV show being better than the book that inspired it was the 1999-2002 series, "The Lost World", which was indeed better than the parent book by Doyle.

Michener's, "The Bridges at Toko-ri" was well done, though, with Wm. Holden as the USN aviator in Korea. The splendid Grace Kelly played his wife. You can get parts or all on YouTube.

I haven't read Isaak Dinesen's, "Out of Africa", but the movie richly deserved its seven (?) Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Again, hit YouTube if you haven't seen it. Redford and Streep and Klaus Maria Brandauer did some of ther best work in it. And you'll like the authentic rifles.

Robert B. Parker was a consultant to the, "Spenser For Hire" series and evidently had some creative control, as the characters and plots were much like his books.

The most egregious desecration of a book as a movie (that I know of) has to be Starship Troopers. I'm willing to change my opinion given sufficient evidence, but wow, that was a bad, bad movie made out of a good, good book.

Actually it may. The book tells a lot of story very economically. To pad it into three feature-length flicks would take tons of extraneous material, not to mention poor judgment.

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Oh well, what the hell.

The movies usually don't compare well to the book. "Lonesome Dove" being a notable exception. Excellent book, and an excellent movie- due in a large part to great casting and to the script following the book with great accuracy.
I've read all of the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child and really enjoyed them, although like in some series the hero seemed to become almost superhuman (for example Joe Pike in the Elvis Cole novels, and Hawk in the Spenser novels). I recently saw the 2012 movie Reacher and was surprised to find that I enjoyed it- in spite of Tom Cruise being IMHO totally miscast as Jack Reacher.

It has almost nothing to do with the book, and its twin purposes appear to be to push a particular political agenda and to justify some particularly gruesome special effects.

I read the book in grammar school. It's so much better than the movie (and the two direct to DVD sequels) that there's simply no reason to watch the movie except masochism.

Clint Eastwood's early 80's film "Foxfire" (or Firefox, it's been a long time ...sorry) was cast with Eastwood in his normal 'spaghetti western' tough guy self. If wasn't until I read the book that 2 or 3 scenes from the movie even made sense. I guess that sometimes, they pick a big name star to draw an audience, and the actor can't be a person of a different character. Eastwood finally learned he couldn't be some things and didn't try to be a Japanese solider in "Letters from Iwo Jima", or am I going to be shocked again? Ivan

I have always been a reader but I never had any interest in The Hobbit growing up. When I was in the 9th grade I had to read it for an English Lit class. I didn’t think it would hold my interest, I thought it would be boring but I also knew I had to be able to discuss it in class. So I opened it up and didn’t put it down for 50 pages. It became my second favorite book of all time.

LOTR wasn’t bad, I was familiar enough with the books to fill in the blanks and I enjoyed it; The Hobbit on the other hand, all I had to do was watch the trailer to know they butchered the book. Didn’t even waste my time with the DVD.

IMO the worst job of book butchery of all time was the first Dune movie but to be fair they would have had to make that movie 4 hours long and stopped every so often to explain what was going on because so much of the book happened in the character’s heads.

I thought the Disney adaptation of Narnia was better than the book although they completely ruined Johnny Tremain .

I thought Blade Runner was better than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

The alternative is making movies from bad books.

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Front sight and squeeze

How about books that start out as movies? Has there ever been one of those that was decent?

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Not in jail.

I read "Dune" during a weekend retreat during Catholic prep seminary (highschool). I LOVED the book. The movie with Kyle McLaughlin, not so much, although I thought the non-Fremen costuming was excellent.

I read "The Stand" just about in a night while on the guard force mission at Camp Humphreys, Korea. The mini-series was pretty decent and generally kept to the spirit of the book.

I'm impressed you actually got through Dune. I couldn't even stick it out at the movie's...I'll admit some great scenes but I couldn't stay focused on all the plots and sub plots..Sting did make a good bad guy and that guy that had all the sores over him and was puffed up like a toad with acne was a good bad guy if you like ugly, real ugly...

I thought that was an acting tour de force for Ted Kennedy...

That statement seems to be most of Hollywood's agenda for a while now.
Getting back to Tom Bombadil, judging by 'The Hobbit's' size, they are planning a movie or seven about him. I thought he was an intriging character, a shape-shifter no less.

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PC, censorship
with a smile.

Tiny little Cruise is completely miscast as the Reacher character. Reacher's size is a huge part of the character.
They completely destroyed any semblance to the Bob Lee Swagger character from the novel "Point of Impact" by employing the *** actor Wahlberg as Bob Lee in "Shooter".
Money talks.

The Cowboys by william Dale Jennings was a much better movie than book and Little Big Man by Thomas Berger was a better than the movie although I liked both

Several come to mind but the most memorable would have to be the first book I ever read....Doctor Dolittle. I remember thinking to my self everything is so small and the singing sucks but the Sea Snail was great.
Recently... The Life of PI, while the movie was visually stunning not enough was made of what made Pi who he was and the twist towards the end while surprising,was not in the book.
And the English version of The Girl with the dragon tattoo. the Swedish version while lacking in the "whiz bang" production values was much more faithful to the book.

Dune was the worst for me, a pathetic attempt at rendering the book for the screen in my opinion.

The director (Paul Verhoeven, of Robocop & Total Recall fame) of that mess admitted as much in interviews after the film was out. Clear subtext was that he didn't dare try to make that film until Heinlein was safely dead. He admitted that he was trying to satirize certain aspects of what he perceived as American flaws, and once even admitted that he never even read the book; he claimed that he read the first two or three chapters and became "both bored and depressed." The guy could apparently have given 'unsupportedly haughty auteur' lessons to Ed Wood.

The movie took character names and the background story of the war to make a comicbook shoot-'em-up supposedly intended as a satire, and completely ignored the original book's primary story of the main character's personal discovery of the concepts of honor, duty, and the idea of the greater good.

For me, most film versions of good sci-fi works tend to fall short, because of the limitations of the film media. Even a long movie is far too short to really address the concepts in a good novel, and well-written sci-fi tends to be more mental and internalized than film seems able to capture.

So really popular sci-fi books seem to end up either as action films or horror films, those being the aspects of the stories that are most given to visual representation. Even if the action or horror aspects of the original story were the minority of what made the book interesting.

Even Kubrick struggled to visualize the whole story of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film is actually quite true to the book, which is why it is one of the oddest movies ever to make it big, and much of it went straight over the heads of people who had not read the book.

Blade Runner being a notable exception. Though even with that excellent film, many interesting sub-stories had to be left out from the book.

Another example of fine sci-fi that was turned into a mediocre action flick would be I, Robot. My dad had me cut my SF teeth on the ABC's (Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke) & I knew Asimov's robot stories inside and out before I was out of grade school. That movie bore no relationship to the book (a collection of short stories, in fact) beyond the name.

How about iffy or just plain bad remakes? True Grit starring Jeff Bridges being a good example. Overall it really wasn't too bad, even though there was no way to match the original (so why bother trying?), but they still managed to butcher it up. The scene with the dead guy hanging way up in the tree wasn't in the original movie, wasn't in the book, and added nothing to the movie except weirdness.
Lost In Space starring John Hurt was a remake of a 1960's TV series and I thought it was pretty good. On the other hand, Wild Wild West starring Will Smith was another remake of 1960's TV and it sucked.

"In a hole, in the ground, there lived a Hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a Hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." Probably one of the best openings to a piece of fiction ever written and they couldn't even quote this one paragraph right.

Hands down, the Hobbit is my favorite piece of fiction. I can still read it and enjoy it today almost as much as I did the first time. Of course I had to see the movie to know just how much they butchered it. I will go through pain of the third one too. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.


Agreed. This book was too huge to even attempt to put into a 4 hour movie let alone a 2 hour one. The only way to handle a book like this is with a 5 year TV series. It should never have been attempted.

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Freedom isn't free.

There is a book I'd like to see made into a movie: A Fall Of Moon Dust by Arthur C Clark. This book lends itself to a movie perfectly. It would be easy to make into a 2.5 hour movie and not deviate from the book at all.

Alas, I'm sure they'd butcher it.

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Freedom isn't free.

Well, the book was better, although it did have a certain agenda, as do many TV shows and movies. At least, Heinlein was trying to push the idea of patriotism and honoring vets. He did do some race-mixing, I think at the behest of his NY editors. But his books usually managed to convey a distrust of government and stressed the need to be prepared.

This is in sharp contrast to Ed McBain's 87th Precindt books, which were anti-gun. He also wrote a book ("Danger: Dinosaurs") under another name, in which he pushed racial issues from a lberal viewpoint. He was a liberal activist and lectured to aspiring authors in Canada about including anti-gun remarks in their books. I detest Ed McBain, whatever his real name was. I think I know, but it'd raise issues banned on this board.

I enjoyed the Starship Troopers movie for what it was, although they were excessively violent toward our own troops. But it has the redeeming feature of Denise Richards being in it, and you get to see a lot of shooting, if that appeals.

I don't find the violence excessive, other than one scene where a man was punished for an error. It bothered me more when one of Robert C. Ruark's anti-Mau-Mau police reservists took a black baby by his feet and swung its head into a tree trunk to kill it, after a patrol had killed the Mau-Mau parents. That was the logical thing to do in the circumstances, and the white hunter who is the protagonist had suffered greatly from a Mau-Mau attack on his sister and brother-in-law's farm. He was a nice man, and what he did to fight terrorists in the cold, wet Aberdare Mountains in Kenya gave him nightmares. This scene was not in the movie version of Something of Value, of course. Might have revolted the audiences, as would the vile (but truthful) Mau-Mau oathing ceremonies and the full knowledge of what they did in their raids on other blacks who wouldn't join them, as well as their attacks on white settlers. That movie was really watered down from the book, and I'd like to say some thngs about the casting, but had better not on this board. The book is splendid, if perhaps a bit more candid in places than some mild mannered readers might like. But I think it is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the situation in Africa, and much of what it reveals also applies to other countries there in more recent times.

Ruark's later title, "Uhuru!" is also strongly recommended, although I don't think it was made into a movie. His white hunter heroes were largely based on his real life hunter, Harry Selby, and several of his friends whom Ruark met. Ruark made Selby a celebrity with his recounting of his own first safari, and the men became friends. See,"Horn of the Hunter" for that true hunting adventure. It is not a novel; it is a first person account of the safari.

Ruark is sometimes called a Hemingway wanna-be by critics, but I think he easily eclipsed Hemingway's writing. He also did a much better job of promoting safari hunting. One of his final articles was about safari, and in it, he detailed an eerie occurence that took place after he and his hunter (not Selby on that occasion) consulted a native witch doctor about hunting elephant in Mozambique after Ruark was banned from an independent Kenya. The witch doctor made smoke in his hut (probably contained hallucinogens (sp?) and rolled some animal bones and studied them. Then he told the hunters to go to a certain place on a certain day, where they would see three big elephants. They must shoot one of those. They would see no others on that trip. He was right! Ruark found that prophecy a little scary. That would be a good storyline for a movie, if anyone wants to make one. I'd like to see a good new safari movie, if it wasn't too PC.

I'm just not a fan of fiction. I prefer distorted truth.

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

I had completely forgotten about I, Robot. Guess that tells you how much I thought of it.

What would really be interesting is someone trying to make a movie out of Cordwainer Smith's works. But there's way too much backstory for anyone but those who've reads the books to figure out within the constraints of a movie.

Soooo... You watch CNN?

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

IMHO, I think the best screen adaptation of a good book was John Irving's "Cider House Rules". I don't remember who the director was but he was able to keep every important element. The characters in the movie were exactly as I envisioned them while reading the book. I loved the book and I loved the movie. Oh, it was also my first look at Charlize Theron.

I guess we're all different. But when I read a novel I usually cast the characters. When Possible I identify with one of the good guys probably the main character/hero. As I read I form mental pictures of the scenery and action described.

I read slow compared to some. I spend a long time in a book. I spent a month in The Stand. and 2 weeks in Lonesome Dove. When I finish a really good book I feel empty for a while. Like I've gone off and left all the people I care about and will never see them again. I've been with them for weeks and really gotten into the story.

In a movie you have an hour and a half or two hours. I miss a lot now because of my hearing problems and because I have trouble staying awake. In a book I can go back and re read any part that I want/need to.

I guess the bottom line for me is that I get much more out of a book than a movie. And when the movie is not faithful to the book it's a big let down for me. Movies limit the viewers imagination and rush the ability to absorb features of the story.

And I'd also like to add that I think the audio books are the WORST. While I was laid up during one of my knee replacements I tried a few of these. One was read by a woman and when she would read dialogue by a male character she'd drop here voice down to try to sound masculine. Uh-uh. I didn't get very far in that one.

Actually I listened to one that was read by Burt Reynolds. He did a darn good job. In my very limited experience with these audio books Burt was my favorite Reader. But the woman and Elliot Gould were pitiful and I never got past the first 1/4 of the book for those two.

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Real men love cats!

...and Fox...
Me neither.....

One of my favorites was Misery from the book by Steven King. The cast was excellent: James Caan, Kathy Bates, Lauren Bacall, Richard Farnsworth and Francis Sternhagen.

The production design was awesome. Excellently written for the big screen and excellently directed.

I froze my tail off during the scenes where Caan drives through the snowy, frozen mountain side and I nearly had to leave the room during the "hobbling" scene.

I may have seen a better movie adaptation of a book but if I have I can't think of it right now.

Lonesome Dove was a fantastic movie. Saved primarily by the screen writing and performances of Duvall and Jones. But I can't say it was faithul to the book because they had to leave out too much. But what was in the movie was excellently done.

If you haven't seen the movie or read the book do both even if you don't like westerns. This is about life and humanity during that time in history and everyone needs this experience. But to get the most out of it see the movie first and THEN read the book. You will laugh you will cry you will experience real life and humanity.

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Real men love cats!

Agreed 100%. Changed the Mechs to simple battle armor worn by a bunch of pretty boys & girls and made it into a movie about their love lives, and preachy PC politics - in between scenes that would appeal to the "splatter flick" crowd. Heinlein must've rolled over in his grave!

I also agree with this 100%. So it can go both ways. A little deviation from the original story of a good book is OK if it contributes to the original plot and/or the visual appeal of the movie.

But even a great movie adaptation like Blade runner looses some of the subtle nuances of the book. In print you can really get inside the character's heads in ways that can never be depicted on film.

PERFECT example. When I first saw the movie I had never read any of the books and as a result whole scenes made no sense. I've since read all of Herbert's Dune series and a good number of the Dune "universe" novels written by other authors. I don't think it is possible to make a movie that is true to the book series. The original movie was definitely made for fans of the books who were already"in the know" enough to be able to follow and appreciate it. The mini-series did a better job of giving those un-initiated to the books a glimpse of what it is all about, and IMO that is the only way to even begin to translate the richness of truly good books to the screen.

That's pretty much the conclusion I've come to as well. There is too much in a good book that can't be put on film, and you can ruin a potentially good movie if you try too hard to capture all of it.

Didn't you see that I don't like fiction. I couldn't resist either.

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

I can agree with you there right up to the point in each of her scenes where she opens her mouth to speak. Amazingly beautiful, and quite distressingly vapid.

Frankly, I'd rather meet the actress who played Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer) any day. Gorgeous and sharp like a scalpel.

I'll take a pirate smile over empty cow eyes any day of the week (YMMV)

Another example that shows the lack of transition from novel to screen, are Tom Clancy's novels. While "...Red October" was a nice screen thriller, it lost quite a bit of the story in the transition. And none of the movies after "...Red October" even approached its plot line.

Part of the problem is with the acting. Harrison Ford did a credible Jack Ryan, and so did Alec Baldwin, but Ben Affleck? However, the portrayers are pretending to be a conservative, smart CIA analyst. Alec Baldwin makes Jack Ryan look so tentative, its amazing that he got the job done. Harrison Ford isn't bad, but the screenplays were adapted to Ford's personality. And Ben Affleck; what can one say? He's unable to put any real life into the role. And John Clark's role was never done justice by either Willem Dafoe, or Liev Schrieber. I did enjoy James Earl Jones' Admiral James Greer.

It's really difficult for actors to leave their real life personalities out of their roles.

I’m a bit of a Hobbit Geek I can read”Elvish”

I am almost positive I kept the copy of The Hobbit they gave me in English Lit and I picked up the Ballentine paper back of LOTR in a used book store in L.A. in the late 70s.

A couple of years ago I picked up a single Volume copy of LOTR in a used book store in Co Springs (Hooked on Books if you’re looking for good used bookstore here) anyway in the preface they said that the entire text of The Hobbit and LOTR had been entered into a computer that went through and cleaned up all the text errors. It’s supposedly a better copy but I haven’t seen any actual changes.

Just thought I'd mention that Lonesome Dove won the Pulitzer Prizei in 1985. I read McMurty 's other stuff, but thought he never hit that high again. And I, too, think the mini series did it justice.

Reading these posts, I think I need to go back and read The Hobbit again. I have read the Lord of the Rings every decade or so since I was 12, but I think I have only read The Hobbit once.

So, Smoke, what is your favorite book if The Hobbit is your second favorite?

I think the movie versions of CS Lewis Narnia series are nowhere near as good as the books.

I liked the movie Dune, but I read the novel before I saw it. I thought the movie had a cool sorta art deco vibe to it. I'd be up for a remake tho. I like the thought of a mini series...

I'm not gonna spoil it, but I'll bet I know what it is.

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Freedom isn't free.

I think the Game of Thrones books have been ported over to television fairly well.

The best transition from a book to a movie that I have ever seen was 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. It was true to the storyline. Mostly, movies that are made from good books just don't make the switch well.

I saw The Hobbit. It wasn't a bad movie, as long as you don't go in with the expectation that it follows the book. There were 1 hobbit, 13 dwarves, 1 wizard, and 1 dragon. They went through Mirkwood forest, to Esgaroth, and the Lonely Mountain. That is about the end of the similarities. The details of the journey are almost completely different.

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Common sense isn't so common.

It's a toss up between the Cambridge Press New English Translation of the Bible and the Spirit Filled Life Study Bible (NKJV) So ,essentially, the Bible


I always thought the movie conveyed the imagry much better than the books

In the seventh grade I had a hippy English teacher who turned me on to Jack Kerouac, (On the Road) Ken Kesy (One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, yet another book that was butchered when they made the movie) Bruce Springsteen, Weed (the plant) and Frank Herbert.

She walked into class one morning put Dune on my desk and said 'You'll Like this" She was right

So, were you right?

I was just watching the TV show "Almost Human". Its about a detective with a robot partner. Reminds me of reading Assimov's Elijah Bailey mysteries as a young man. Now those could make for some interesting movies.

I'm a fan of Micheal Crichton. Many of his novels have been made into movies. Some hit, but most miss. The Andromeda Strain and Jurasic Park were good even if they did stray a bit from the novels. The Terminal Man, Congo and Timeline were a total mess. I don't even want to talk about the disaster they made of Sphere.

I completely agree. I loved that book and would absolutely pay to see a movie made from it.

What really irritates me is when the book and movie have only a title in common. World War Z was a decent enough movie, but was nothing at all like the book.