Books made into films, they don't always work..

BigBearKris

Clarky said:

Dune

loved the books... the movie was pants

It wasn't as good as the books but it had a great vibe. I liked it.
Do you like anything else by D.Lynch?

Clarky

BigBearKris said:

Clarky said:

Dune

loved the books... the movie was pants

It wasn't as good as the books but it had a great vibe. I liked it.
Do you like anything else by D.Lynch?

not heard of him...

Philly_Q

BigBearKris said:

Clarky said:

Dune

loved the books... the movie was pants

It wasn't as good as the books but it had a great vibe. I liked it.

I wish Alejandro Jodorowsky had been able to make his version of Dune.  I'm not saying it would have been great, but it would've been barking mad.  Lynch's version would seem quite conventional in comparison.

LuttiS

BigBearKris said:

Clarky said:

Dune

loved the books... the movie was pants

It wasn't as good as the books but it had a great vibe. I liked it.
Do you like anything else by D.Lynch?

Loved the book (follow ups left something to be desired..) I agree the film was a good effort

Sassafras

Taking of Pelham 123.
Good book, good film. So how did they manage to screw it all up with the execrable John Travolta/Denzel Washington remake.?
Truly awful film adaptation.

ICBM

Sassafras said:

Taking of Pelham 123.
Good book, good film. So how did they manage to screw it all up with the execrable John Travolta/Denzel Washington remake?

Sassafras said:

remake.

Like that.

You can probably count the number of remakes that aren’t shit on the fingers of one hand.

Philly_Q

The Golden Compass. 

Probably just as well they never got to make the sequels, because I really don't know how they'd have been able to successfully skate around the religious - or anti-religious - themes of the books.

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

You can probably count the number of remakes that aren’t shit on the fingers of one hand.

Well there's The Thing.  But then they did a shit remake of Carpenter's non-shit remake.

ICBM

Philly_Q said:

Well there's The Thing.  But then they did a shit remake of Carpenter's non-shit remake.

It seems to be a rule - if the first remake is good, they have to do another one later to make it shit.

There's also The Magnificent Seven - as good as the original Seven Samurai in a different way - but they remade that too.

And Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978 version) which is better than the original - but they've remade that *twice* more. The third one wasn't shit enough so they did it again...

Jalapeno

Clarky said:

Dune

loved the books... the movie was pants

There was a mini-series, that was a lot better despite the low budget.

Jalapeno

I'm going to stick my neck out and say James Bond (Daniel Craig versions aside) - the films are what they are, but they don't really portray the brutality of the books (which I have enjoyed).

Neill

ICBM said:

Sassafras said:

Taking of Pelham 123.
Good book, good film. So how did they manage to screw it all up with the execrable John Travolta/Denzel Washington remake?

Sassafras said:

remake.

Like that.

You can probably count the number of remakes that aren’t shit on the fingers of one hand.

Not sure what the current situation is with "The Dam Busters" but I always thought if there's one film that should never be remade, that's it.    

axisus

boogieman said:

Lord of the Rings is way better than the books. The Hobbit isn’t. 

Actually the Hobbit is a pretty poor book. I twice decided to read it about 8 years ago, but both times couldn't get beyond the childish style at the start. When the films were coming out I girded my lions and forced myself to read it. It had good ideas in places, and some very good bits, but it's a pretty poor book overall and nothing like the quality of the epic saga that is LotR.

The films 'should' have been much better than the book, but unfortunately we got Peter Jackson at his most indulgent, writing in loads of bloated junk and sillyness and taking his eye off the ball in terms of the core message - the journey of Bilbo as a character.

Having said that, I do think that overall the film is better than the book. Richard Armitage was brilliant as Thorin, and they did a great job on giving personality to the individual dwarves, something that just doesn't happen in the book. Apparently a 'fan' has re-edited the films to take out everything that wasn't in the book - I'd like to see that! 

I do think that somewhere down the line someone could make a better film of the source material though.

Sassafras

Pretty much every Dracula film ever made.

57Deluxe

T L T W A T W

https://victorianlibrarian.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/lamppost.jpg

Sassafras

War of the Worlds, the one with Tom Cruise.
Then again it was a Spielberg film so it's no surprise that I thought it was crap.

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

Philly_Q said:

Well there's The Thing.  But then they did a shit remake of Carpenter's non-shit remake.

It seems to be a rule - if the first remake is good, they have to do another one later to make it shit.

There's also The Magnificent Seven - as good as the original Seven Samurai in a different way - but they remade that too.

And Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978 version) which is better than the original - but they've remade that *twice* more. The third one wasn't shit enough so they did it again...

I think all the versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers have their moments.  I like the way each version reflects the period in which it was made.

The original is one of the first things I remember actually scaring me as a little kid, but it seems rather hokey now and the "Reds under the bed" stuff is a bit heavy-handed.  The 1978 and 1993 (whatever happened to Gabrielle Anwar?) versions are both very good, I think.  I suspect even The Invasion would have been OK - or at least not as bad - if the producers hadn't insisted on rewrites and reshoots to make it more "exciting".

munckee

axisus said:

boogieman said:

Lord of the Rings is way better than the books. The Hobbit isn’t. 

Actually the Hobbit is a pretty poor book. I twice decided to read it about 8 years ago, but both times couldn't get beyond the childish style at the start. When the films were coming out I girded my lions and forced myself to read it. It had good ideas in places, and some very good bits, but it's a pretty poor book overall and nothing like the quality of the epic saga that is LotR.

The films 'should' have been much better than the book, but unfortunately we got Peter Jackson at his most indulgent, writing in loads of bloated junk and sillyness and taking his eye off the ball in terms of the core message - the journey of Bilbo as a character.

Having said that, I do think that overall the film is better than the book. Richard Armitage was brilliant as Thorin, and they did a great job on giving personality to the individual dwarves, something that just doesn't happen in the book. Apparently a 'fan' has re-edited the films to take out everything that wasn't in the book - I'd like to see that! 

I do think that somewhere down the line someone could make a better film of the source material though.

A lot of the stuff which wasn't in the book is from bits of the chronology from Lord of the Rings so not totally made up, the bit with the female elf was all made up as Tolkien didn't write a lot of female characters.

Hobbit was always intended as a kids book LOTR is a great book though.  I would like someone to remake ithe lord of the rings series as a game of thrones style saga with flashback episodes of things like beren and luthien and the over throwing of morgoth etc.

JezWynd

57Deluxe said:

T L T W A T W

That was a particuarly disasterous attempt. Alough they kept fairly close to the first book the unfortunate fact was that the kids couldn't act. The second attempt, Prince Caspian was a total mess, Caspian and John getting fighty was daft and the overblown digital fighting was timesome. And the kids still couldn't act.

The third outing, Dawn Treader was pretty good, they finally got a kid in with some acting chops and the two remaining Pevensie's were forced to up their game. They did a pretty good job of rearranging the story for the screen without detracting from the feel of the book and the digital fx were getting pretty good.

So, having finally learnt how to make the books into film... they abandon the franchise. Genius.

AlexC

One of my all time favourite novels is The Magus by John Fowles. Very clever character study literary game. Beautifully written. The film with Michael Caine and Anthony Quinn is just a tedious mess. No way should anyone have read that book and said: that’ll make a great film.