It seems to me that most of the time when a movie changes something as compared to the novel (or whatever it is based on), it is a change for the worst.
Examples:
-The Lord of the Rings trilogy
-The manchurian Candidate, 2003 version (as compared to the original version)
-Troy
-Catch me if you can (Less good than reality)
-Dune, 1984 version
etc.
And the best adaptations are those that stay very close to the book, such as Godfather I, Fight Club and Shawshank Redemption.
Can you name any movies where the changes made were an improvement? I can only think of the movie called adaptation, and that is only loosely based on the story.
IIRC, Chuck Palahniuk said he liked the movie ending of Fight Club better than his own ending in the novel. I’m inclined to agree, but his was pretty good.
I’ve got two movies that I prefer, vastly, over the books that they were nominally based upon.
First is Mister Roberts. Now, whatever else one can say about the movie, it’s got some first class talent in there - and that’s often enough to transform a decent story into something great. Still, having said that, the tone of the book was more ‘smutty’ (IMHO) than the movie. The whole bit with Boxy (If that was the character’s name) annoyed me in the book - I don’t deny it’s likely accurate that the crew would have done a lot to push the crew’s favorite younger brother to a brothel - but having the kid come back from liberty after spending the night just talking to one of the island women was just more enjoyable to me.
The second is The Princess Bride. This is not to say that the book is bad - but there’s a bitterness in the book that wasn’t in the movie. Again, it’s going to be a matter of personal taste - but I liked that the movie was more of an unabashed happy ending, rather than the way that Goldman spent the last page or three trying to rain on the reader’s parade. I get Goldman’s point - just preferred the movie version.
I can’t comment on LOTR - I’ve not seen the movies, yet. (Sooner or later I’ll get around to it… honest.) But I know that there are number of people here on the Dope who think that they’re superior (esp. The Return of the King) for having removed some of the ‘extraneous’ parts of the books. cough Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire cough
I didn’t mean to ask about taking stuff out. Of course some parts has to be taken out, in order not to make the movie too long. And its not that difficult to pick the scouring of the shire. But as for the actual changes in rotk, we have Aragorn beheading the negotiator, Faramir being evil, and the army of the dead being seemingly invincible, and more. One thing more stupid than the next.
Well, LOTR was always considered unfilmable, not only because of its epic fantastical nature, but also because as written it wouldn’t work as a movie - the adaptation would need to be ruthless. And it was - it had to make it into a workable movie, which is an incredibly tough challenge at the best of times.
Anyhoo, to answer the OP, I think the last two Harry Potter movies made many alterations to help keep them to a manageable length, and in doing so concatenated and combined certain scenes in ways that work better and have more logical sequences of events than in the books.
Rising Sun Wesley Snipes played a character who was not black in the book, at least according to my friend who read the book. Actually having the character be black instead of just married to a black woman made the charges of racism that much more ironic and was an improvement, in my opinion.
I approved of one change in The Green Mile. In the book, after Percy deliberately botches that execution, they stop Brutal from punching him. In the movie, he cracks him a good one. Made me feel a lot better! And the execution scene itself was, IMO, much more horrifically described in the book than they depicted on film–which was good, because my stomach isn’t that strong!
And I have to add that I think that, for the most part, they did a damn fine job in the casting of that movie. I’ve seen an adaptation or two (like Morning Glory, a romance novel made into a TV movie, and Cheaper By The Dozen–the old version) where I thought the casting stank.
I consider like many others that the Shawshank Redemption is one of the best movies ever and endlessly re-watchable. The book is pretty dull and lifeless. It is true that the movie is fairly faithful to the book as far as the story goes. But Darabont tells the story in a fantastic way. I am not a King reader. The book was bad.
Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet managed to improve on the original – no mean feat. Not so much by the setting – there are plenty of F&J films or stagings that use different settings. But Luhrman rewrote the final scene so that Romeo is still alive when Juliet awakes, so he dies knowing the mistake he had made. A real improvement, especially since there was nothing wrong with the scene as Will originally wrote it.
I tried to read the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart in about 93. I did not make it through. It was not written well in my opinion. I watched Wag the Dog in about 98. I did not actually realise that Wag the Dog was based on the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart until months after.
I tried to re-read American Hero. But I still did not like it. That was some great piece of film-making- making that great movie from that book.
It’s not what they took out that bothers me, but what they added. The love scene between Arwen and Frodo was not only gratuitous, but also quite graphic. And no way should faramir be driving an Astin-Martin around Minas Tirith. If he does, though, the steering wheel should really be on the right.
It’s been said many times, but Goldfinger. In the book, Auric Goldfinger really did plan to rob Fort Knox. They wisely changed that for the film.
Also, the villains – the mobsters and eveb Pussy Galore – were more cartoonish in the book than in the movie (hard as that is to believe). Overall, the movie’s better.
Jeremy Levin wrote the screenplay for Creator, based on his novel. The two are significantly different, but I think the filmed version is better for having a simpler story line. Who Framed Roger Rabbit differs very significantly from Gary Wolfe’s book “Who Censored Roger Rabbit”. Wolfe gets high marks from me for his off-the-wall blending of film noir hard-boiled detective genre and cartoons, but the movie’s better. The story line is a lot less convoluted, I prefer the shift in villain, and the movie changed it from comic strip cartoons to movie cartoons, making many points about the significance and appeal of cartoons in the process.
The Hunt For Red October movie ending was a lot cleaner than the book’s; Clancy had some incredibly complicated scheme for “getting rid of” an extraneous submarine, but the movie did it a lot more cleanly and simply.
The Quiet Man far surpasses its source material, a decent, but not wonderful, short story.
In converting from the tv series to the big screen, Joss had to make a number of changes:
Characterization. In the series, he had time to develop all the characters as whole people. In the movie, he only had time to show the one archetypal aspect of the character. For example, Jayne is characterized in the series as a thug who is also a good tracker, strategist and weapons specialist, who also cares about the people on his crew. In the movie, he’s a Thug. Nothing more.
Pace. In the series, he could have slow points, places where the pacing grinds to a halt and we just watch one beautifully-acted scene. In the movie, ever bit of pacing experience he learned making BTVS, Angel and Firefly got scrapped in the interest of keeping things moving.
The origin of the Reavers. In the series, there are several indications that Reavers are a naturally-occurring phenomon. Movie: Not so naturally-occurring.
Going obscure: Plague Dogs, a book by the author of Watership Down, was pretty good. But its ending was completely implausible–and I’m talking about implausible for a book about two best-friend dogs who can talk to one another.
) and watched the movie, but what was the change made in Troy?