The movie version of A Simple Plan made several changes and omissions that had the effect of making the character played by Bill Paxton somewhat more sympathetic than he was in the book. While I loved Scott Smith’s novel, by the end of it I was so horrified by the lead character that I could no longer identify with him or feel for him. The movie enabled me to think “My God, that could be me” every step of the way. That made the movie a more powerful experience for me.
I don’t get the complaints about Troy, the movie wasn’t called “The Illiad” and it didn’t claim to be anything more than loosely based on it. I’ve even heard people claim it wasn’t “historicaly accurate” because it differed from Homers version. Its called Troy people, its about the battle of Troy of which we know very very little about and personally i think this version is a lot better than Homers. I much rather see Hector go down fighting than running like a pussy and only agreeing to fight when someone tricks him into thinking hes going to have help. I rather see the characters doing things themselves rather than letting gods dictate everything. Hell if you want historically accuracy then Troy was probably much closer to what really happened than The illiad just because of the fact that there where no gods involved.
Well, it’s pretty clearly inspired by The Iliad – it says so at the start, asnd it’s immediately obvious. It’s not a historical re-creation, because it’s too damned close to the Iliad not to be (and, if you think they were tring to be historically accurate, it’s even farther from the mark).
Taking a story that is so clearly and obviously the story of Troy as told in the Iliad, then making changes that don’t affect the story line but seem to be arbitrary (as well as non-arbitrary ones that do affect the story line) seems weird, and is certainly worthy of comment. Bewilderment, even. It’s equal to the consternation you’d feel if, at the end of “Gone With the Wind”, scarlett pulls out a pistol and blows Rhett Butler away. Yeah, it’s not historical to begin with. Yeah, the filmmaker is entitled to make changes and present his/her vision. But it’s gonna get you talked about.
Joss Whedon has said in interviews that if the show had continued the explanation for the Reavers would have been identical to the movie.
And I believe him.
Disagreed. V was not justly portrayed in the movie. His presence in the graphical novel was close to divine, but in the movie he was more of an excentric Batman like cloakee with neat kniving skills and an interest for fine litterature (and questionable modern day pop). Didn’t do as much for me, story wise. I also preferred the original ending, with a **Godfather **like role transposition.
I think Forrest Gump is a better movie than it is a book. The book has some extra stories (like the time Forrest was an astronaut with another human and an ape, and splashed down in a cannibal village and managed not to get eaten, but his co-pilot married a cannibal, or the story in which he was a professional wrestler) that seem like padding, and farfetched even for the story.
The book also seemed vulgar at times in a way not compatible with Forrest’s sweet character, considering he was narrating.
Also, Mrs. Gump was better fleshed out in the movie, and because the movie allows you to watch Jenny’s life unfold independent of Forrest’s narration in a way the book can’t, you get a much better understanding of her character.
I also think it’s more believable for Jenny to start sleeping with Forrest when she does in the movie and not earlier, as she does in the book.
I also like the little touches the movie throws in, like Forrest calling to report the lights keeping him awake in the Watergate Hotel, or the second appearance of Dorothy Harris, or the magazine cover with Forrest and Lieutenant Dan.
Overall, it’s a good book, but it’s a better and more pleasant movie.
Now, I haven’t read the novels. But this is the problem I often have with adaptations. They take a unique character or plotline in the book and transform it to more of the same. Another batman character in V for vendetta, another boring revenging hero in The Count of Monto Cristo, 2002, etc.
I guess the original is not always better. A good example is the mentioned the little mermaid. But they are almost always more flavourful and, well, original.
Right after Rhett says “Frankly, babe, I don’t give a f*ck”?
I don’t know if I would say the The Natural is a better movie than the book, but I think it is a better movie than the movie that would have been made in a truer adaptation to the book’s ending.
This was the movie I thought of when I read the OP. However, I’d disagree with Zahava424 in that I thought the book really sucked – though I do agree that with the poin that the book was sometimes stupid and often vulger. In comparison, the movie was a triumph.
Because that’s the nature of an adaptation - if you change one thing, it usually means you have to change many things to follow it through, balance it out, and make it work. Those things may be subtle, or may be large, and every writer would do it differently. But the more complex the original source, the more dramatic the changes need to be, and will appear to be.
My respnse to this old chestnut long has been (and remains) Being There. One might argue that this was because Kosinski wrote both the novel and the screenplay, but I don’t think so. Rather, I think it was because the contributions by talented actors, a skilled director, good film and sound crews, etc. made the story more interesting and textured.
As regards LOTR, I agree Jackson & Co. did a good job accomplishing what many thought impossible, but better than the book? Not even close.
I remember saying over in the thread about the movie (and I still think) that both versions of V for Vendetta work and are interesting to watch; you just have to keep them both separate in your head.
I like that they tried to make Hatsumomo slightly more sympathetic in the movie adaptation of Memoirs of a Geisha; the book version of her is cruel and violent and just plain evil, and you’re more than rooting for her to go down in the end–which is what makes the climax so satisfying–but the movie added a very slight touch of gray to her black character which made it more subtle and layered, which I appreciated.
I’ve been there with bullies like that, and to this day I always, always wonder what made them lash out that way. I really wish they’d covered a bit more of Hatsumomo’s own background in the book.
I felt the Godfather movie was much better then the book just because they dropped the whole Johnny Fontane subplot in the book beyond the horses head. In the book it goes on forever but doesn’t seem to fit into the rest of the reason. Coppala was smart enough to drop it completely.
I would say that Field of Dreams is superior to the book its based on (W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe, not despite, but because of the many changes. The book certainly doesn’t end like the movie. In fact, there’s nothing suspenseful about the father’s appearance in the book at all, becuause the main character is acutally BARGAINING with Shoeless Joe to use the file to bring his father back (“Do you need a back-up catcher? I know a guy who played in the minors a few years…”)
Interesting trend: a lot of you are saying that tacking on a happy ending to the original sad ending is an improvement. :rolleyes:
Boy do I ever disagree, especially about Anderson’s The Little Mermaid! What has happened to culture that treasured stories with sad or tragic endings are forced to have happy endings in order to be suitable for mass consumption?
Frankly, I had hoped that people at the SDMB would have better taste.
In the spirit of the OP, however, I will say that the changes to Boromir’s character in Jackson’s movie version of the Fellowship of the Ring are in general for me an improvement, in that the character is much more sympathetic and his motivations more understandable.
Nope - I explicitly said otherwise. I don’t like a tacked-on happy ending (as with the Demi Moore Scarlet Letter. But I dislike a tacked-on sad ending as well, and Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” definitely has one of those.
Frankenstein - the novel was a great concept, but the mythology that grew up around it almost immediately afterward is much better.
I haven’t read the book, but I understand the movie ending of The Firm is much more believable.
And somebody brought up Joss Whedon - Buffy the TV show was better than the movie.
Also agree about Spiderman - not only the organic web fluid, but also a genetically-enhanced spider as opposed to one with radiation sickness. And making him acquire his powers in high school as opposed to college.
CalMeacham expresses my viewpoint precisely. I don’t like happy endings for the sake of happiness; however, I also dislike needlessly or pointlessly sad endings – and Hans Christian Andersen certainly seemed fond of those.
Disney does sometimes bastardize good stories (I wasn’t thrilled with their alterations to the Hercules mythos, for example), but they can also improve on existing works. Their positive changes to The Little Mermaid and The Steadfast Tin Soldier stand out in that regard.
Not IMO. In the book, McDeere, having been advised by the FBI who he is really working for, never for a moments wrestles with the ethics of betraying his clients. Why should he? He was brought into representing them under false pretenses. He does not blackmail the Mob into leaving him alone, he simply copies all relevant records and turns them over to the FBI, forcing the firm (if not the Mob) to shut down. Much more believable.