I don’t think I’d say that “Les Miserables” is much better than the novel, but I’m positive that “Oliver!” is a great improvement on “Oliver Twist” after ditching a lot of Dickens’s stupider plot points.
The book and the movie handle the question of “what is humanity?” in related but different ways.
In the book, the question is “Can humans lose their humanity and become just like the androids?” (the android characters try to pass as humans by encouraging cynicism and confusion among the humans - it would make no sense for Deckard in the book to be an android).
In the movie, the question is “Can androids have humanity?” (which is why the question of whether Deckard is an android is a valid one for the movie).
You’re exactly right. I don’t know why I didn’t mention that too. By the fourth or so book out of 14 written by Baum (and I read them all again and again) Dorothy is happily settled in Oz, and best friends with the girl ruler of Oz. Toto, of course, lived happily in Oz as well.
A great place. Dorothy wants to go home more out of a sense of duty than a sense of longing.
A movie needs to get made before even having a chance at being successful.
Lets compare:
Spectre (2015) IMDb rating 6.8 Rotten Tomatoes 63%
Box Office Mojo: Domestic: $200,074,609 Foreign: $680,600,000
Spy (2015) IMDb rating 7.0 Rotten Tomatoes 94%
Box Office Mojo: Domestic: $110,825,712 Foreign: $124,840,507
OK, someone will trot out that any comparison is a “false comparison” and fine. But the point is the boost of an established franchise isn’t negligible. Not by a long shot.
Marketing a movie is so different from marketing a book that they almost have to do this kind of thing. An expensive move has to appeal to a huge and diverse audience, not just a lot of fanboys/girls who love the source material. A book can last in print for years with a relatively modest audience because it is relative cheap to produce (more so now for digital books).
So frankly I think this kind of criticism is elitist and ridiculous. Any studio that followed it would either go out of business or would not be able to adapt very much source material. Opting for original stories might not be a bad thing, but if you want to see your favorite book on the big screen, you shouldn’t be surprised or upset if elements have been added to widen its appeal.
Well, the bare bones of the short story Octopussy were used, but rather significantly changed. The character of Octopussy’s father (Dexter Smythe) was indeed a disgraced former agent but:
- He didn’t have a daughter, or indeed any children.
- He didn’t take the “honorable alternative” by committing suicide, though Bond assumed he had.
Some of the circumstances were updated, which is fine. Short-story Smythe chanced upon a cache of forgotten Nazi gold, killed his guide, then retired to Jamaica. Movie Smythe was assigned to steal a cache of Chinese gold from North Korea, killed his guide and then disappeared.
Cast Skin from Skunk Anansie as the lead and I’m in. Also, they should have given her a Bond theme tune.
The movie ‘These three’ was based on Lillian Hellman and book ‘The Children’s hour’. A story about 2 lesbians living together and opening s girls school. The movie was about to women and one of them boyfriend, a local doctor. The original story would be never have passed the censores. So Hellman write in the doctor/boyfriend. They remade it later but it still had the doctor/boyfriend character. The book is a poignant story of the 2 women and their struggles. I liked the movies, but they are different than the book.
I think so. Consider Sin City, based on a comics series written and drawn by Frank Miller, who wrote and co-directed the film. After about a decade of making well-regarded superhero comics, Miller shifted gears and made a crime comic that was grounded in his view of how the world really is, with no fantasy elements. The film was over-the-top cartoony and made no pretense at realism.
I disagree about Frankenstein. I thought that Calvin Floyd’s Victor Frankenstein/Terror of Frankenstein did an amazingly good job, very faithful to the novel.
The 2004 Hallmark TV-movie is also very faithful to the novel, except that a.) Donald Sutherland is WAY too old to play Captain Walton and b.) The Creature is too damned good-looking. You have to wonder what he’s so mad about.
Kenneth Branaugh’s version looked as if it was going to be faithful, but veered away significantly at many points. It looks gorgeous, though.
And, as pointed out, Starship Troopers started life as an unassociated screenplay that was later shoehorned into being an adaptation, despite being completely at odds with its source material in philosophy, intent, mood, and scientific credibility. It still annoys me considerably. They did the same damned thing with I, Robot, which is an appalling thing if considered as an “adaptation”.
Some films which were great, despite departing significantly from the source:
The aforementioned Dr. Strangelove and Bridge on the River Kwai (although only for the ending). Similarly, The African Queen is pretty faithful, except for the changed ending.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit departs very significantly fro Gary Wolfe’s novel, but is an excellent commentary on cartoons and our relationship to them. And even to film noir.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, a made-for-TV adaptation of Mark Twain’s novel starring Ken Howard takes large liberties with its source material, but is a helluva good film. I highly recommend it. They left the central twist intact.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is far superior to the science fiction short story it’s based on, which is the opposite of the way things usually go.
I’ve never read the short story that Orson Welles’ film Touch of Evil is based on, but I understand the film is far superior and takes substantial liberties.
And it’s not a masterpiece, by any stretch of the imagination, but They Live is much more entertaining and effective that the short story it’s based on.
As a person who tried multiple times to read the Song of Ice and Fire and Lord of the Rings series and just couldn’t get into them (long before they were developed for Movies and TV) I would submit both adaptations as improvements for me.
It’s not a great book or movie, but there’s some amusement value in the adaptation of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. In the novel, Dominique Francon marries Peter Keating, then divorces him to marry Gail Wynand, then divorces him to marry Howard Roark, her soulmate. This would never fly in a film adaptation in 1949, though, so Rand’s screenplay of her own novel changed so that Dominique merely broke off her engagement to Peter, and Gail ended their marriage by committing suicide - something his novel-version had considered early on but dismissed. Considering how big Rand was on the theme of not betraying the artist’s work, she knew how to sell out when she had to.
Apparently Ayn Rand managed to get off meth for awhile after her Hollywood days and wrote The Fountainhead II, a prison drama where Roark turns himself in for rape after coming to accept that the needs of the many do outweigh the wants of a few. The minority characters and scenes of gay love were surprisingly well-realized for the time, including the powerful finale where a transexual woman wrongly imprisoned with men and mentors Roark in math and physics helping him finally get his architecture degree.
What? No way. The book is a lot of fun, very cute, and stands on its own quite well. And, as already pointed out, the movie is written by the author of the book.
Phantom of the Opera? Yes, for sure. I also love the movie version.
Les Mis? The book is amazing, if you get the right translation. The musical is also amazing, though. The movie…was really good, but had some misfires.
Les Mis definitely does not betray its source material, either.
Someone should give their opinion about Octopussy some time. 
You must be talking about a translation of Mogenstern; the original - in Florinese - is magnificent.
I agree. And, at the same time, it’s not a faithful rendering of the story, which is why I said what I said.
Kind of funny, that. Randle Patrick McMurphy was burly, red-haired, with a very Irish way about him. Nicholson was dreadfully miscast for that role, but he managed to pull it off rather well.
Not a movie but while I enjoyed Daredevil Season 2 on Netflix especially the Punisher episodes, the episodes themselves took iconic Punisher moments and altered them to make Daredevil the more heroic character at the expense of Frank Castle, completely changing the point of the original comic panels.
The Firm movie took a pivotal legal technical plot point and turned it into something completely lame. I do not know why unless they felt they needed to dumb down the plot for the audience. I had read the book first and was completely off balance when this happened until I realized that they had corrupted the plot for the film.
The Hunt for Red October movie took a pivotal strategic plot point and turned it into something completely lame. I do not know why unless they felt they needed to dumb down the plot for the audience. I had read the book first and was completely off balance when this happened until I realized that they had corrupted the plot for the film.
Cast Grace Jones!
Which one? There have been several.