Book or film version?

Book or film version?

31 answers , last was 7 years ago

What books or pieces of literature did you enjoy reading but were horrified by the adaptation of it for the silver screen?

EDIT:
I have seen Bram Stoker's Dracula before reading the book. It is one of my all time favorite movies...visually it was amazing and you gotta love Gary Oldman! I love the fact too that all these years of knowing Romanian made me chuckled at the subtitles for they werent dead on translation. Anyway, the book was offered for me read in AP English-years ago-it was that or 1984...of course, Dracula! Anyway, love it too...and was impressed at the organization of it. I thought the movie complimented the book wonderfully and created a more appealing villain than the book. NOW..recently, and thanks to Jim for pointing it out....I saw Twilight and in the process of finishing the book Breaking Down-I was a bit disappointed. Not with the direction of it and I know about the editing and condensing need to be done to transform a book into a movie but it was a bit painful to watch at how, i didnt see what reviews were raving about. I thought the casting of Bella was horrible. She spent the whole movie with her mouth open-it was so distracting! She's supposed to have a heart shaped face-this girl was crescent mooned shaped! BOO!

I have never read The Count of Mount Crisco but have seen the movie several times, even during an international flight was entirely entertained. I loved it too I have yet to read the book :)

Maybe one should see the movie first and than read the book and might find the two complimenting each other...but there seems to be more disappointment when one reads first and than views the movie. Thats what i've noticed at least with me.

Asked by Zee Zee in Entertainment at 1:47am on April 8th, 2009
Ahmed Ibrahim 1211
Answered at 4:44pm on January 30th, 2017
Mabye if I'd read the book first knowing that my imaginatiion is widley running then whats on a screen. But Who doesn't love movies
Javier Segovia 1327
Answered at 2:02am on April 17th, 2009
Maybe I'm just being picky, but the easier question would be which adaptation I wasn't horrified by. I remember having a good deal of faith in the Lord of the Rings trilogy after watching The Fellowship, which subsequently shattered by the next two movies. ("We didn't have time to put everything in, what with all the extra scenes we made up to stay faithful to the books.") Coraline, as much as I like the work of Neil Gaiman and Tom Sellick, aggravated me. The Coraline in the book and the Coraline in the Movie seemed two different people, the movie version needing rescuing by the new character from situations she had planned or controlled in the book. ("We needed to put him in because certain things that worked in the book wouldn't have worked in the movie, like having a strong, capable young female lead who can handle these things without a male lead to help her.") Omegaman made me honestly believe the people involved had never actually read I Am Legend. (I haven't seen the new version.) The list really goes on and on, which is a shame because it gives a bad reputation to adaptations as a whole and makes poor adaptations expected and acceptable.
Mike Qtips 1326
Answered at 8:56pm on April 14th, 2009
Pretty much every Stephen King adaptation. "The Shining" was both a great movie and a great novel, but that's because the movie and the novel were very different. My feeling is, all by themselves, the best movies don't work as books and the best books don't work as movies. Books and movies are two very different art forms, and they don't translate well from one to the other unless you make radical changes to adapt it for success in the other medium.

Look at "Coraline"... they added a whole new lead character to the movie that wasn't in the book, with the with the original author's permission, because what worked in the book (the lead character walking around thinking to herself) woudn't work very well in a movie, and the author understood that. It ended up a pretty good movie (even though I thought the new character was annoying.)

On the other hand, 'V' For Vendetta is one where the book was just too heavy and in-depth, and the movie failed to capture the nuances that made it so good - but the movie also didn't add anything new that made it a great movie. So, great book (comic book, actually,) not-so-great movie.
John Grant 1276
Answered at 6:40am on April 14th, 2009
The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

The Lifetime movie adaptation was good enough to make you interested in the book.

I read I Am Legend, I read The Bourne Supremacy, and their movie counterparts just were good as stand alone stories. I read The Memory Keeper's Daughter, and it was really a riveting book.

I know when I say "Lifetime movie" it doesn't have the same budget as a Hollywood release, but the TV movie barely touched on the story. Like a rock skipping on water.

As a side note, I always loved Romeo & Juliet, the more modern one with Leonardo DiCaprio. I think that despite the new settings, the characters stayed very true, but also, they kept the original dialog. It's kinda hard to mess that up.
Trisda JoAnne New Brain
Answered at 11:43pm on April 13th, 2009
The Devil Wears Prada, Angela's Ashes, and The Notebook... there are so many vital pieces from these stories that make the storylines click correctly and the movie adaptions all seem to loose them, making the storyline less then stellar.
Maryam Gilmore New Brain
Answered at 10:24pm on April 13th, 2009
The Devil Wears Prada, The DiVinci Code, & In Her Shoes.
Mark Dittman 1224
Answered at 8:08pm on April 13th, 2009
I really enjoyed "Timeline," by Michael Crichton. The way they handled time travel was really good. But when I saw the trailer for the movie, I knew I wasn't going to see it. I mean, Paul Walker was in it.
Denise Betegh 1294
Answered at 6:07pm on April 13th, 2009
the count of monte cristo. the book was looooong and had so much stuff in it. i LOVED the movie, but it had so much left out and they even changed the ending from the book version.

usually if i watch a movie that was previously a book, i dont compare it. because the film itself takes time and effort to make and even though its based off a book, its still its own production. so i try to be fair and recognize the effort put into the film and enjoi it for wat it is: a movie. being a filmmaker myself, i know the difficulty and patience involved with movie making. so i just watch and enjoi.
Pam Taylor New Brain
Answered at 5:38pm on April 13th, 2009
The WORST movie that I saw adapted from a wonderful book was Cujo by Stephen King.

A close second is Battlefield Earth starring John Travolta. The book was a wonderful book by L. Ron Hubbard.
Amelia Pendry New Brain
Answered at 5:30pm on April 13th, 2009
Every single one!!!!!!
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