Best and Worse Book to Films

[Glocksman]

Hunt for Red October was a good book made into a shitty movie.
I will confess to placing Battlefield Earth into this category as well.
I loved the book but hated the movie.

HFRO the movie was mediocre at best. The rest of the TC into movie was shit. Of course to do justice to Clear and Present Danger, it should be a mini-series or an entire TV season.

Movies from Clive Cussler flicks should be destroyed the moment some idiot thinks that they're a good idea. I liked the Pitt stories, but Raise the Titanic and Sahara movies were beyond clusterfucks.

God, I (mercifully) forgot about the Raise the Titanic movie, and I never even knew they made a Sahara movie.
Some of the Pitt books (Vixen 03 in particular) were pretty good, but Raise the Titanic the movie blew donkey balls.

[Lost Soal]

generally Tom Clancy books are a wee bit too long to make a faithful adaptation.

HFRO ignored the fleet bits, the decoy bits, etc. while CAPD really compressed the whole abandoned desperate fighting thing.


As for what I'm hoping for that turns out well is the Honor Harrington movie in the pipeline.

What about Sum of all Fears. I haven't read it, but I did listen to the comentary where Clancy introduced himself as "author of the book they ignored." Then for most of the movie took the piss out of how innacurate everything they were showing was.

EDIT: Changed book title

[Danny Bhoy]

What about Sum of all Fears. I haven't read it, but I did listen to the comentary where Clancy introduced himself as "author of the book they ignored." Then for most of the movie took the piss out of how innacurate everything they were showing was.

EDIT: Changed book title

The scene where the Backfires clobbered the CVN, they should recycle and upgrade that bit for the Dance of the Vampires scene of Red Storm Rising. Throw in SAMs from the escorts going out to intercept the ASCMs, it'll be good enough. That was probably the only bit of SOAF the movie that I liked.

[Frank Hipper]

I just remembered a book which was uterly changed for the film and fucked it up. The Running Man.
The show is called The Running Man, and he is called Ben Richards. Other than that, I think the script writer saw the title and thought, Ummm, I'll write a film called that.

Yes!

Talk about insulting the source material!
Arnold Schwarzenegger's character was supposed to be suffering from malnutrition and trying to win money so he could buy antibiotics for his kid who had the flu, and was likely to die...

Ah-nuld?

Malnourished?

...Awful.

[Lost Soal]

I just remembered a book which was uterly changed for the film and fucked it up. The Running Man.
The show is called The Running Man, and he is called Ben Richards. Other than that, I think the script writer saw the title and thought, Ummm, I'll write a film called that.

Yes!

Talk about insulting the source material!
Arnold Schwarzenegger's character was supposed to be suffering from malnutrition and trying to win money so he could buy antibiotics for his kid who had the flu, and was likely to die...

Ah-nuld?

Malnourished?

...Awful.

Don't forget dieing. But this isn't the Terminator and he's a star now. And of course with the ending there is now no chance in hell that it will ever be made properly. Any director who tried would be made to look like the devil himself.

[solitaryshell]

The movie version of "The Last Unicorn" was almost word for word from the book, so I thought that movie adaptation was good.

I also thought the movie of The Great Gatsby was pretty good and accurate to the book.

I agree with those who posted earlier, The Time Machine was a horrible adaptation. Did the movie have anything in common with the book other than the title??

Oh, and so far as I've seen, every Frankenstein movie has been awful, which is terrible considering how wonderful the book is.

[The Dark]

The Postman was a horrid translation to movie. I liked the novel, but I had to watch the movie three times to finally see the whole thing without falling asleep.

[SylasGaunt]

Talk about insulting the source material!
Arnold Schwarzenegger's character was supposed to be suffering from malnutrition and trying to win money so he could buy antibiotics for his kid who had the flu, and was likely to die...

Ah-nuld?

Malnourished?

...Awful.

Horrible adaption yes but damn was that movie fun.

[Pick]

Having just seen it, Lion Witch and the Wardrobe is the best book-to-movie I think I've ever seen. Not because it was a top-top-tier movie, but because the book was fucking awful upon reflection, and I found the movie to be artistically beautiful (as for the plot, er, I wasn't paying too much attention, honestly.)

[Metatwaddle]

Having just seen it, Lion Witch and the Wardrobe is the best book-to-movie I think I've ever seen. Not because it was a top-top-tier movie, but because the book was fucking awful upon reflection, and I found the movie to be artistically beautiful (as for the plot, er, I wasn't paying too much attention, honestly.)

Agreed. I loved it in fourth grade, but now it just seems so fucking preachy. And C.S. Lewis pisses me off. My dad loves him, though.

[Pick]

Having just seen it, Lion Witch and the Wardrobe is the best book-to-movie I think I've ever seen. Not because it was a top-top-tier movie, but because the book was fucking awful upon reflection, and I found the movie to be artistically beautiful (as for the plot, er, I wasn't paying too much attention, honestly.)

Agreed. I loved it in fourth grade, but now it just seems so fucking preachy. And C.S. Lewis pisses me off. My dad loves him, though.

Yeah, see, I was really into it in fourth grade too! I didn't have the perception then of the CS Lewis I percieve now (wanker.) So I picked up my old copy before I went to the movie, just to read the introduction again, but I found myself incapable. I hate his writing style, and his story. It washed over me like the memory of a delicious pie that proved to be full of maggot. Jesus maggots.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yeah, see, I was really into it in fourth grade too! I didn't have the perception then of the CS Lewis I percieve now (wanker.) So I picked up my old copy before I went to the movie, just to read the introduction again, but I found myself incapable. I hate his writing style, and his story. It washed over me like the memory of a delicious pie that proved to be full of maggot. Jesus maggots.

Some of the later books were okay, though the last one was, of course, a disgusting work through-and-through, senseless and a bit disturbing. The first few were nothing to speak of in my opinion.

Yeah, his writing style isn't good.


That series of books he wrote about the solar system--now those were the stuff of nightmares for me as a kid. For some reason they were just really freaking disturbing, and not in a good way. I can easily believe that any movie adaptation would be better.

[Edi]

Movies from Clive Cussler flicks should be destroyed the moment some idiot thinks that they're a good idea. I liked the Pitt stories, but Raise the Titanic and Sahara movies were beyond clusterfucks.

Not seen Raise the Titanic, but I liked Sahara. One of the best flicks to come out in recent years if you're looking for something somewhat in the style of Indiana Jones or other such lighthearted action.

I've read a couple of the pitt books and the rest are on my to-do list. I had no trouble at all with Sahara and enjoyed it immensely. Even if I did, I have the right to either shut up about it or get my ears blistered off at home, so...

Edi

[Pick]

Duchess, out of my most basic human kindness in regards to the man's legacy, I like to pretend The Last Battle was never written. Worst POS ever.

I am glad I liked Susan in the book when I was younger, though. She was always my favorite. She always seemed smarter than the rest... and I get dark amusement out of her eventual fate in the books . Way to go, Susan!

As for other good book-to-movie translations, I'm going to be cliche and say Lord of the Rings for a similar reason. The books were pretty tedious.

As for The Last Unicorn? I can't talk about it without being biased. It was my favorite movie as a kid. I still find myself singing that super depressing introductory song randomly. I still love it .

[Straha]

Congo.

I loved the book. It might not have been the best of books, but the one thing it had going for it was that it scared the shit out of me. I always read it before I went to bed, and I had nightmares about those gorillas. Honest scared as ever fucking shit nightmares. Then I saw the movie adaptation, and it was so pitiable it was almost funny.

I hated that adaptation.... it deserved pain.


As for the best adaptation?

I don't know...

[Metatwaddle]

Yeah, I always loved Susan, both in the book and the movie. She was the skeptical, smart one. Peter annoyed me horribly; he never seemed to have any common sense. He just went around pointing swords at people when he had never wielded so much as a knife in his life.

And of course, I agree about The Last Battle.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Another nomination is the first movie of "the 3 musketeers", which was even better than the novel.
The cheorography was beautiful, all the important plot parts were kept and even expanded, the only thing lost was historical accuracy