The movie was ‘ok’, but as compared to the story and the morality play in the book it was atrocious.
The rest of your post seems to indicate you think that I meant to put them in the same category because of pedigree.
No. I don’t really know much about the source material for BR or Terminator.
I just mean the movie I, Robot will be remembered as the same quality as some of the best sci-fi ever made. I think it’ll be in the sci-fi de facto hall of fame.
Sure, It has the robots-take-over-the-world theme, just like Terminator and a zillion other movies about “the robots got consciousness.” But it’s different - it was the less-advanced robots who were the problem - the new breed of robot was a recognition that true virtue requires recognition of gray area.
Plus, it works on many levels - it’s a great action movie; Will Smith’s character is interesting; the vision of Chicago in the year 2030 is provocative; and, of course, the stuff in the spoiler tag.
Although, A Beautiful Mind was not a bad movie, and was quite watchable, it portrayed John Nash in a way that had little resemblance to that of him in the book (and in real life). The movie omits his general prickiness, his anti-semitism, his misogyny, and his utter lack of any sense of responsibility. It makes him seem almost likeable 
Of course, the thoughts in voice-overs did have one advantage: lots of quotable, unintentionally hilarious thought-bubble quotes. To wit (and these are all funnier if you repeat them four or five times in an urgent whisper, like the movie):
“Why would they want the Duke’s son killed?”
“Arrakis…Dune…desert planet.”
“The worm IS the spice…the spice IS the worm…”
…and just for fun, one unintentionally hilarious out-loud quote:
“I WILL KILL HIM!” :mad:
Mansfield Park. They totally replaced the central character with a fictionalized characterization of the young Jane Austen based on her letters and journals and including a number of her letters as part of the text of the film. GAH. OK, so I quite enjoyed the film, and I know MP is unpopular with even many Jane Austen fans because Fanny is such a doormat, but I like Fanny and think she gets a bad rap when actually she’s quite good at quietly and courageously standing for what she feels is really important, and I’d love to see a well made film version of it that actually included her!
ah, bup now I understand. I wouldn’t have without that explanation because:
…I could not disagree with you more, and wouldn’t have thought of that film in that regard with respect to the other two. But de gustibus…
My vote goes for David Brin’s The Postman - a great book that Kevin Costner just ruined.
One of my favorite bits of movie trivia: when they made the movie, they had to raise the age cap for the society because they couldn’t find enough actors that young to cast the film. Can you imagine them having that problem in today’s Hollywood?
OneCentStamp: You left out my favorite Dune voice-over:
“My name is a killing word.”
I can’t think of a single book that has ever been ruined by Hollywood. The book is still there, and remains unchanged. Unruined. The movie is a separate experience. And to the extent that it is slavishly “faithful” to the original–to the extent that the director has had zero artistic input–that’s the extent to which I, personally, am not interested.
Want an experience exactly like reading the book? Reread the book.
buzz kill!!!
(of course you’re correct… )
The director (and other contributors) never have zero artistic input – do you think a book can translate itself to the screen?
If you undetrtake to translate a book to the screen you effectively suggest that you’re going to be reasonably faithful in doing so. although there are holdouts in both cases, both the lord of the Rings movies of Jackson and the film Gone With The Wind were remarkably faithful and well received by fans of the book. Yet in both cases there was plenty of cutting and re-arranginf, and in every damned frame of bnoth films you could see the various contributing artists having to decide exactly how to show something, what emphasis to give it, etc.
this is worlds away from dumbing down This Island Earth, giving a happy ending to The Scarlet Letter, or (in a version of dune storyboarded, but never made) Jodorowski was going to have Lady Jessice involved in an incestuous affair with Paul Atreides.
again: . . . to the extent that . . .
Yes, but you seem to miss that I’m saying that the director’s input is never[ zero.
Otherwise, you could say that, to the extent that I’m an eagle, I’m a good flyer .
I hate to continue to derail this thread (I was quite enjoying it!), but I also disagree with you, lissener.
The problem with a really shitty interpretation is twofold: (1) it can prevent potential new readers from ever reading the original material, and (2) generally speaking, there is no second bite at the apple. That is, once a shitty movie is made - a wonderful will probably never be made.
Does the movie Starship Troopers change one word of the original novel? No.
Does the movie Starship Troopers ensure that fans of the book will probably never get to see the potential of the book reenacted on film? Yes.
And, in going back to reread Starship Troopers, will they feel a profound sense of disappointment and frustration at what could have been? Yes.
Will new readers run out and get Starship Troopers after seeing it? Maybe, but I doubt it.
To me, saying that the books can’t be ruined by a bad interpretation is somewhat silly. It’s like saying that Madonna’s version of American Pie didn’t ruin the song for anyone who heard it. Because it did.
Also - no one is arguing that a slavishly detail-perfect, completely faithful movie is necessary - i.e. where the director has no leeway to actually direct. Obviously the mediums are different, and in order to succeed, a movie must have different traits than a book. What we are discussing are movies that are so unlike or so far departed from the soul of their source material so as to utterly eviscerate said source material.
All that said, I just thought of another one — the stupid Lemony Snicket movie with Jim Carrey which fused the first three books into a despicable abomination.
The Doctor
To wander into a new genre, I’d nominate The Prince of Tides. I never saw the movie, but I’ll give the producers a clue: if you’re going to take a minor, tiny sub-plot of a book and make that the main theme of your movie, while ignoring an entire beautifully written, complex novel that makes up the other 98% of the book…GIVE IT A DIFFERENT FREAKING NAME AND USE THE ‘BASED ON’ CREDITS. Gah!
I just remembered one of the biggest cinematic disappointments of recent times: Simon Birch. This was based upon one of my favorite John Irving books, A Prayer for Owen Meany. What a disaster. Not only is Simon Birch a piece of crap, but now this wonderful book will probably never be filmed again. And it would have made a remarkable movie indeed, in the right hands. If I were John Irving, I would sue.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
On the same subject: If I could send a message back in time twenty years to the late 80s Barbra Streisand, it would be this: "I’m sorry that you aren’t content with the gifts God has given you, the incomparable singing voice that leaves people who hear it stunned and enamored. You wan tot be pretty as well, I get that; I even get that you’ve suffered in your youth because you’re not. But YOU’RE NOT PRETTY. You can’t pull off playing a character as lovely as Susan Lowenstein is described as being. See Michelle Pfeifer? Right over there in the bushes? Hire her.
“Oh, and don’t give Nick Nolte your phone number. He’s going batshit crazy in above five years and you don’t want to be around for that.”
I often hear this argument, and I’m curious: has any book ever undergone a long-term drop in popularity because of a movie or TV adaptation?
No, I’m not missing what you’re saying. What you’re missing is “to the extent that” means that I acknowledge that there’s no such thing as zero, nor did I ever suggest there was. “To the extent that” means that the less the director has artistic, the less interested I’m likely to be to see it. It never suggests any kind of absolute, like zero: the nature of “to the extent that” is the opposite of such abolutes.
“To the extent that” means that A exists in direct proportion to B. Pretty simple really. “Do you like karaoke?” “Well, to the extent that the karaoker can sing, sure.” Where’s the absolute in that?
As far as the bad publicity strawman: sorry, no such thing. Just ask David Frey. I’d bet dollars to donuts that even Demi Moore caused a spike, however slight, in the sales of The Scarlet Letter.
sigh . . .