Superman originally just jumped really high in the comics before he switched to flying in the cartoons.
And the Smurfs were originally in comic book form. They began as the same as we remember them in the cartoons, except that Papa Smurf loses his hat (I certainly don’t think he was ever bald on the cartoon).
And when Smurfette first showed up in the comic, she was dark haired. She’s blonde on the cartoon.
One example is The Giant Squid in Jules Verne movies. There’s only one novel of Verne’s where a giant squid attacks – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In that novel one squid eight meters long attacks the Nautilus. But it’s part of a pack of them, and Captain Nemo doesn’t regard them as a serious threat, calling them “vermin”. The beak of one gets caught in the propeller, and they surface to clear them away. Not one movie I know of depicts the incident this way. The only place I know that does is the adaptation in Classics Illustrated.
Instead, the movies have concentrated on one enormous squid or other sea monster, and it started doing so before the Walt Disney version. the 1916 silent version features an octopus-like monster. The 1929 quasi-silent movie The Mysterious Island (which is a weird adaptation of 20,000 Leagues, a little of The Mysterious Island, and a lot of non-Verne stuff) has a giant sea monster attacking underwater frog-people. The 1954 Disney version of 20,000 Leagues has its giant squid (which swims backwards, probably because they could run the film backwards to show it attack). The 1958 Czech film by director Karel Zemon, Vynález zkázy (“The Weapon for Destruction”, released in the us as The Fabulous World of Jules Verne), although actually based on Verne’s novel Face au drapeau (“Facing the Flag”), includes a giant squid attacking the submarine. There IS a submarine in this Verne novel, but no squid – I guess Zeman didn’t want to let the opportunity for a giant squid attack slip by unrealized. Similarly, Ray Harryhausen’s version of The Mysterious Island (1961) has a giant ammonite (a prehistoric relative of the squid with a characteristic coiled shell) attack Nemo underwater. I guess just having Captain Nemo there was enough of an excuse, because there is no giant squid or ammonite in Verne’s novel. Finally, in TV adaptations of 20,000 Leagues Under the sea there’s the obligatory giant squid or, for variety, so other sort of monster.
Well, even after that “finally”, there’s 2012’s Journey 2 The Mysterious Island, a sequel to the 2008 version of Journey to the Center of the Earth, this one starring Dwayne Johnson. It features the Nautilus, in which the heroes escape, but are attacked by a giant Moray Eel (an electric moray eel, no less, whose electricity they use to recharge the Nautilus’ batteries). This version also features a Nautilus with periscope and torpedoes, which Verne’s Nautilus did not have, but which featured in several screen adaptations. That these more modern submarine features didn’t become standard I attribute to the good influence of the Disney version, which didn’t have them. Of course, I think the Disney version is also responsible for the “Steampunk” aesthetic. Harper Goff, the Art Director, came up with that iconic design for the film because he though Verne’s featuireless “spindle” design would be too boring to look at.
Speaking of a movie version taking over - the dramatic conclusion to The Bridge on the River Kwai is not how Boulle’s book ends.
Harking back to the OP, I’d disagree that the movie version of The Shining is “radically” altered from the book. Key characters are fleshed out somewhat differently and the fate of one of them is changed, but the essential plot remains the same. (I read the book after seeing the movie and enjoyed both; the book was richer and more satisfying).
She was black haired in her first cartoon appearance, too.
However there was a story about Smurfs getting a disease and turning black where in the animated version that was changed to purple for obvious reasons.
64 posts and no one brings up Blade Runner?
The script is based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but many liberties were taken. If you read the book now not knowing this it might seem weirdly almost familiar. Going further the title comes from a completely different story that Scott like the title of and bought the movie rights just for that. In terms of the latter, the movie version has taken over the original, smashed to bits and left on the side of an dirt road in SE Utah.
First off…
I am unaware of any “sketches by anonymous studio artists,” though I do recall reading somewhere that James Whale sketched various versions of the monster based on what he imagined Karloff would look like had he been stitched together from corpses. I do not know what use, if any, Pierce made of these or any other sketches.
“The first director to spot the potential in Pierre Boulle’s novel was Blake Edwards. He brought on board leading sci-fi writer Rod Serling, who produced nearly 40 drafts of the screenplay. While Serling was able to come to grips with the structure, he gave full credit to Michael G. Wilson for the final screenplay.”
“Michael Wilson was brought in to do a rewrite of Rod Serling’s screenplay. Wilson’s contribution is most evident in the kangaroo courtroom scene, Wilson being an embittered target of the blacklisting Joseph McCarthy “witchhunts” of the 1950s.”
“According to associate producer Mort Abrahams, an additional uncredited writer (his only recollection was that the writer’s last name was Kelly) polished the script, rewrote some of the dialogue and included some of the more heavy-handed tongue-in-cheek dialogue (“I never met an ape I didn’t like”) which wasn’t in either Rod Serling’s or Michael Wilson’s drafts.” - Planet of the Apes (1968) - Trivia - IMDb
IMDB lists John T. Kelley for “additional dialogue (uncredtied)." Note as well that although Serling was the first writer on the project, the onscreen writing credit puts Wilson’s name first.
Neither film features reanimated corpses. Rather, the zombies are regular folks who have lost their will and autonomy through drugs and/or hypnosis. Ditto King of the Zombies (1941) and Zombies on Broadway (1945). By contrast, Revenge of the Zombies (1943) does feature a reanimated corpse, though it still seems to possess some free will. NotLD added a different kind of origin for the zombies and flesh-eating.
To the list of cases where the movie version has taken over, I would add The Thin Man, the title character being a murder victim in Dashiell Hammett’s original 1934 novel, but the sobriquet was forever after linked to the drunken sot hero-detective following the same year’s release of the movie adaptation.
East Of Eden. Don’t know about it’s having “taken over” but the movie (great as it is) covers only about half of the original novel. If my memory is accurate.
The issue with Disney is that they take old fairy tales etc- and sanitize them . But- there are so many old versions of Snow White, Sleeping beauty etc, that pretty much anything goes,
In My Babusya’s stories- Vampire avoid the sun and only come out at night- but no reason is given.
Almost- In Silver Blaze when in Dartmoor- he wrote 'Sherlock Holmes, with his sharp, eager face framed in his ear-flapped travelling-cap…’
No no one would wear a deerstalker around the City.
What is amazing to me is that in Fear the Walking Dead- they have a world where no one has ever heard the word - Zombie- which leaves out Voodoo, and D&D- besides all the Romero films. So a LOT was excised in their culture. Maybe that’s why they are such bad human beings.
As usual- the Book is better- one of my faves- but I kinda like the film also.
We were playing D&D, and one of the artifacts was the Hat that summoned the Flying Monkeys- BUT- the verse that summoned them was not included- this hopefully would lead to a long and arduous quest.
When that was mentioned two of our “girl gamers” (17? ) jumped up stood on left foot and chanted- Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!” then on right foot and said: “Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!” then both feet and chanted: “Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!”
We were dumbfounded and just let the girls have the item - Turns out they were huge Oz fans and one was working on a complete set of the original books.
That is awesome!
Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
To Have and Have Not, deservedly so. A classic film from a so-so novel.
I won’t say “taken over” because the movies weren’t that memorable, but to the best of my knowledge no one has ever made a faithful adaptation of “King Solomon’s Mines”. Which to my mind is inexplicable because the original book would be perfectly filmable as is. They could even make the unconsciously racist and colonialist parts suitable by showing that up as a character flaw in the protagonists.
I would say that Morgan Freeman’s voiceover narration is an iconic part of Shawshank Redemption, as is his role.
But his character, Red, looked more befitting his nickname in Stephen King’s story. He was not a Black man and looked nothing like Morgan Freeman. He was a red haired Irish man.
That’s a great book, and it’s still in print. I had totally forgotten that it was made into a movie.
-Fans of the TV Muppet special Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas maybe surprised to learn it is based on a children’s picture book.
This is a running motif with casting Morgan Freeman in adaptations – he played the judge in the movie adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities, who is Jewish in the book. This actually matters, as the racial politics are pretty central to the story.
I recently saw a colorized still of Charlie Chaplin on set. Only his face remained white due to the makeup he was using.
Wasn’t one of King’s problems with The Shining that Jack was too crazy too soon?
Instead of the slow burn King intended, Jack was well into his turn around the bend when the film started.
According to Wikipedia, the movie (like the play) was known for the amount of profanity in the script. So much so that the movie cast called it Death of a Fuckin’ Salesman.
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Sort of like Randall P MacMurphy in another Stephen King tale.
Do you mean Randall Flagg? McMurphy was from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.