Good and Bad Adaptations

[sun-star]

Which are your favourite TV/film adaptations of novels? Do you think adaptations have to be totally faithful to the original book to be any good, or is some degree of difference allowable, in your opinion?

And how about really terrible ones? There must be some

[Nurvingiel]

*cough* Lord of the Rings *cough*

I saw a very good adaptation of "The Mists of Avalon", by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It was as a movie, and very well done. (I love that book, and the prequels, so much!)

[Elvedans]

Pride and Prejudice is a brilliant adaptation. It sticks very closely to the story and the style, though it adds a little more sex appeal for the modern audience. I was also impressed with the TV drama adaptations of Nicolas Nickleby and David Copperfield. I was not so keen on the film of Sense and Sensibility. And the Harry Potter films should not have been made either. Books like that with so much left to the imagination are spoilt if shown from one fixed idea of hpow things should look, especially when there are more to come, as it ruins how you see things in your mind's eye.

[brownjenkins]

to kill a mockingbird ~ not terribly accurate with the book (there were a lot of fans up in arms at the time i've read), but a true classic

the shining ~ stanley kubrick's version was quite a digression from king's book, but is vastly superior to the "true to the book" version king later made (and king's book is also a masterpiece... it's just to very different mediums)

paths of glory ~ another kubrick film, pretty faithful to the book and one of the best war films ever made

lawrence of arabia ~ the movie is greatly condensed but pretty true to the general flow of the novel, as it had to be, but remains a classic

under terrible, anything based on edgar allen poe or hp lovecraft stories... based usually meaning sharing a title and a few character names at best... bakshi's fellowship was pretty bad all in all too (great tongue-n-cheek review here )

i've seen many other terrible movies... but they are based on books i never read... i don't want to slight a director who may have had little to work with

[Katie of the Golden Wood]

Originally posted by Elvedans
And the Harry Potter films should not have been made either. Books like that with so much left to the imagination are spoilt if shown from one fixed idea of hpow things should look, especially when there are more to come, as it ruins how you see things in your mind's eye.

I agree, but for different reasons. I've seen the movies, but I still see Harry as he appears on the US version of Goblet of Fire and I still picture Ron completely different. Hermione, is a bit like the girl in the movie, but thats only because that's already as I pictured her.
I think the problem with the HP movies was that they should have changed a bit more. The plot twists that worked in HP and the Sorceror's Stone didn't work in the movie. I thought it was a bit slow with too much exposition. HP and the Chamber of Secrets was a bit better, and I'm hoping that under Alfonso Cuaron it will live up to its potential as a movie series.


Katie

[sun-star]

Originally posted by Elvedans
Pride and Prejudice is a brilliant adaptation. It sticks very closely to the story and the style, though it adds a little more sex appeal for the modern audience. I was also impressed with the TV drama adaptations of Nicolas Nickleby and David Copperfield. I was not so keen on the film of Sense and Sensibility. And the Harry Potter films should not have been made either. Books like that with so much left to the imagination are spoilt if shown from one fixed idea of hpow things should look, especially when there are more to come, as it ruins how you see things in your mind's eye.

I agree with all of that. It's funny how a really long and complex novel like David Copperfield can translate well on screen, while something like Harry Potter, which is more straightforward in plot terms, doesn't work at all. I guess it's because they had to do a lot of exposition of the magical world in the HP films (suppose you can't blame the actors though - wasn't Daniel Radcliffe in both?)

One of my favourite adaptations is the 1980s TV Brideshead Revisited, which was faithful to the book but not slavishly so. I hear they're making a new version which will add a happy ending instead of a religious one - so we'll have to wait and see if Evelyn Waugh starts rolling in his grave

[trolls' bane]

The Scifi Dune is pretty bad: they left so much out, and the background was noticably flat, oh...there I go using that word again...

[Tuor of Gondolin]

It's now an older movie but I thought "The Day of the Jackal" was a good movie adaptation, although, interestingly, in many detailed ways the book was better (I read it after the movie and thought it better).

I suppose I shouldn't comment on Harry Potter, since I haven't read them- although as a school librarian I've bought them for my school (more requested then The Hobbit [drat], but I quite liked, to my surprise, the first movie but thought the second was very repetitive in many ways, virtually the same as the first movie in essential characters and plot from beginning to end.

Also, this may seem bizarre, I thought the musical Oliver was a good example of an adaptation that worked, especially changing Fagin into a "good bad guy" character and the way the songs were really incorporated into the plot.

[trolls' bane]

Originally posted by Tuor of Gondolin
It's now an older movie but I thought "The Day of the Jackal" was a good movie adaptation, although, interestingly, in many detailed ways the book was better (I read it after the movie and thought it better).

I suppose I shouldn't comment on Harry Potter, since I haven't read them- although as a school librarian I've bought them for my school (more requested then The Hobbit [drat], but I quite liked, to my surprise, the first movie but thought the second was very repetitive in many ways, virtually the same as the first movie in essential characters and plot from beginning to end.

Also, this may seem bizarre, I thought the musical Oliver was a good example of an adaptation that worked, especially changing Fagin into a "good bad guy" character and the way the songs were really incorporated into the plot.

Your a school librarian? Cool! My school library is ALWAYS closed. Never have borrowed a book from there once. Okay, forget photograhpher (no, make that a side job), and become a librarian, at a regular library, though, not a school one. Although I am in Middle School, I already don't like kids (with several exceptions), partly because no one wants me to read. Once a classmate, a teacher, and then another classmate tried to take my book, The Silmarillion. A librarian would be a good job for me, especially because it has been proven twice (once at an IEP, and once this year in a test in my school library) that I have a college reading level [the latter of the two, the test, I scored with a lexile (please tell me what that means) of 1339) and a high-school vocab. The only problem is, I have been known to make run-on sentences full of small details and too little main details (like the one above). Once I got a 2 on a paper because I did "too much explaining and not enough story telling."
And, not to brag, I didn't get angry when I read Dune, nor when I saw the movie.

[sun-star]

I was watching an episode of Inspector Morse the other day and I realised this is an adaptation which is better than the book it's based on. The original books are dull as dishwater but the TV series is great. That must be the only time I've ever said that

[Mercutio]

Most of the Austen adaptations that exist (excepting Mansfield Park), are quite good. They generally stick to the book, and the costuming in all of them is wonderful.

I also enjoy the Importance of Being Earnest. That is almost entirely from straight from the play, the acting is wonderful, the set exceptional, and overall it is quite hilarious to watch. They even took the lyrics that Oscar Wilde wrote in the play and added music to them to be sung in the movie!

[GrayMouser]

Originally posted by Tuor of Gondolin
It's now an older movie but I thought "The Day of the Jackal" was a good movie adaptation, although, interestingly, in many detailed ways the book was better (I read it after the movie and thought it better).

I suppose I shouldn't comment on Harry Potter, since I haven't read them- although as a school librarian I've bought them for my school .

Unsung heroes!

[GrayMouser]

Originally posted by GrayMouser
Unsung heroes!

School librarians, that is.

[Mercutio]

Ooooo. The Princess Bride is a book adaptation--brilliant!

[Willow Oran]

The Princess Bride and Pride and Prejudice are probably the best adaptations I've seen. The Importance of being Ernest was good too but I didn't like all the dream sequence thingys with Cecily. I really hated the Mists of Avalon movie. They took out just about everything positive that was in the book and focused on all the negative events. The parts they kept were true to the book though, which is sort of sad. It wasn't until I watched the movie that I realized just how disgusting that story really is... it isn't a bad story, but it includes a lot more gratuitous sex and violence scenes than it needed to.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Mercutio
Ooooo. The Princess Bride is a book adaptation--brilliant!

Eh? Wasn't the book written after the movie?

[Mercutio]

Originally posted by BeardofPants
Eh? Wasn't the book written after the movie?

Oh? maybe, I don't really remember. Its by William Golding, I think. And its more complicated then the movie (and funnier).

[Count Comfect]

The best book adaptation I've seen is probably the Day of the Jackal (the old one), as someone mentioned above. I like it more than the book, although they are both very very good.

A recent really good one is Master and Commander - they do a brilliant job of translating Captain Jack Aubrey onto the screen.

[Millane]

cant go past Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, incredible movie and incredibler book (incredibler ) i think the movie can attribute most of its greatness to Roald Dahls pure creativity and genius and the incredible portrayol of Willy Wonka by Gene Wilder, i cant wait for Tim Burtons film next year i think Depp can do as good if not better with Willy Wonka and Tim Burton is going to stay closer to the book... and of course i bought Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the other week and although i havent read Ian Flemings book it is such a good movie that it is one of the greatest adaptations...