# Great novelisations of movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 20, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284 "2012-09-20T16:47:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/21 "2012-09-21T12:42:26Z")
_Summer of '42_, _Love Story_, and _2001_ are all dubiously novelizations. In each case, the screenwriter wrote and published the novel before the movie came out, although probably the screenplay was finished first. The screenwriter may or may not have thought of the novel as being just an afterthought. I would only call it a novelization if the novel is written by someone unconnected to the screenplay or if it was written by the screenwriter after the movie came out. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/22 "2012-09-21T13:23:02Z")
> [@Suil\_Dubh](#): > > Didn’t he also write the original “Star Wars” novelization? > > . Alan Dean Foster is the King of Novelizations. I’m sure he’s done more than anyone else. Officially, George Lucas wrote the novelization of Star Wars, but persistent rumor has been that Foster really wrote it. Heck, it _reads_ like Fostoer’s stuff. And Foster wrote the very first Star Wars novel (_Splinter of the Mind’s Eye_) , which came out well before the second movie, and which read like the Star Wars novelization. I haven’t read Fostoer’s novelization of _Alien_, but I have read some of his others, and I haven’t been all that thrilled (even though I do like his original works). As I observed above, James Cameron evidently didn’t like the stuff Foster did with his other movies. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/23 "2012-09-21T14:25:16Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > _Summer of '42_, _Love Story_, and _2001_ are all dubiously novelizations. In each case, the screenwriter wrote and published the novel before the movie came out, although probably the screenplay was finished first. The screenwriter may or may not have thought of the novel as being just an afterthought. I would only call it a novelization if the novel is written by someone unconnected to the screenplay or if it was written by the screenwriter after the movie came out. All the Star Wars Novelisations were published before the movie with the exception I think of the Phantom Menace. All of them were based upon George Lucas’s ideas and he was closely involved in all. Indeed its not uncommon for novelisations and “making off specials” to be published before the movie is released. ---
**Author:** ![Panthan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Panthan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panthan)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/24 "2012-09-21T14:39:17Z")
Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, by Fritz Leiber, based on the 1966 Sy Weintraub movie. One of the rare Tarzan adaptations authorized by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. It doesn’t read like ERB, but it’s not bad.I like it better than the authorized Tarzans by Philip Jose Farmer or Joe R. Lansdale. ---
**Author:** ![Mavic\_Chen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mavic\_Chen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mavic_Chen)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/25 "2012-09-21T14:42:14Z")
As a kid I read William Kotzwinkle’s ET the Extra-Terrestrial many times, enjoyed it more than the film, really filled in a lot of gaps. Another good one for Alan Dean Foster is his novelisation of The Thing which has some extra stuff not included in the movie, a good read (and it will only take an afternoon to get through). ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/26 "2012-09-21T14:44:19Z")
I hated the film _2001: A Space Odyssey_ until I read the novel and found out what the hell was going on with the Star Child. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/27 "2012-09-21T14:45:14Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Sure. Good examples. One other in similar vein. Arthur Conan-Doyle wrote a one act Sherlock Holmes play “The Crown Diamond”, which he later adapted into a short story, [The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Mazarin_Stone). The story is written from the audience POV, rather than an account by Watson. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/28 "2012-09-21T14:45:55Z")
Believe it or not the novelization for Flash Gordon, by Arthur Byron Cover is worth the read. While it follows the plot well Cover (of whom, other than this, I have not heard) fills in some great lines about Flash’s football career and other characters. It does include this HILARIOUS bit during the reunion of Flash and Dale in Vultan’s throne room: The run together… Flash: Save 'em for our kids. Dale, thinking: _Kids? Should I tell him about my operation? Oh, he’s a liberal. He’ll understand._ Dale, speaking: Ooo, I accept. I’m telling you, that is some quality funny. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/29 "2012-09-21T15:01:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Something similar happened with the James Bond novel _Thunderball_. The novel was based on a film script that Ian Fleming had collaborated on. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > He helped change the novels to those…I am at a loss. Well, it’s not _that_ confusing. Fleming had sold the movie rights to his novels to Cubby Broccoli (except the first one, _Casino Royale_, which he’d sold for a pittance long before and which had been made into a little-known TV movie) and saw that potentially serious money was in writing the screenplays directly, so he took a series of meetings with Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham, at which they kicked around a number of ideas including one about a criminal organization stealing an atomic bomb for high-stakes blackmail. Fleming, needing an idea for his newest novel, ended up using this work-product (which didn’t belong exclusively to him) as the basis of _Thunderball_. Broccoli claimed he now had the movie rights to these ideas as part of his agreement (and, I gather, he preferred the idea of international criminals as bad guys instead of Russians) which kicked off the legal battle that led to the oddball authorship of _Thunderball_ (it is always given as “Based on a screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and Ian Fleming”) and, eventually, to _Never Say Never Again_. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/30 "2012-09-21T15:13:10Z")
AK84 writes: \> All the Star Wars Novelisations were published before the movie with the \> exception I think of the Phantom Menace. All of them were based upon George \> Lucas’s ideas and he was closely involved in all. Then by my definition, they’re novelizations. They weren’t written by the screenwriter. If anything, all this shows is that there isn’t a clear line between novelizations and novels which are adapted into films. Consider the following examples: An author writes a novel. He shelves it for a few years because he’s not satisfied with it. Or he submits it to publishers and is rejected. Several years later he writes a screenplay which is made into a film. He arranges to get the novel published around the time the movie comes out. Or perhaps he changes a few things in the novel before it’s published to fit the plot of the movie better. Or perhaps a ghost writer changes a few things in the novel for the same reason. Or perhaps the ghost writer reads the novel and the screenplay and completely rewrites the novel. There’s no clear difference between novelizations and novels adapted to movies. The categories blend into each other. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/31 "2012-09-21T15:38:35Z")
I loved novelizations when I was younger; I remember reading and enjoying **Twilight Zone: The Movie: The Book** in particular, and I’m pretty sure I also read a novelization of **Krull**. I also read the **Gremlins** book, which contained interesting details about the Mogwai’s background; apparently they’re an alien species, big surprise, and only about 1 in a thousand is “good”, like Gizmo, rather than destructive. There was one scene I can recall that involved Stripe experimenting with the rules, finding that sunlight was deadly; he came to Gizmo grinning, saying, “Clorr is dead.” One book that really stands out for me was **The Dark Crystal** , which had several details not in the film, such as the names of the individual Skeksis and urRu (who are just called “Mystics” in the film) and had the Skeksis speaking their own language, which was apparently the original intent in the movie, but they ditched the idea because their likely audience members weren’t big readers yet. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/32 "2012-09-21T16:22:19Z")
> [@Rubixcube](#): > > You’ve got it backwards, a novelization is when an author adapts something _into_ a novel. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/33 "2012-09-21T17:28:22Z")
The post-Fleming Bond novelizations are interesting. They publisahed \*Diamonds are Forever[/io] as a movie tie-in, despite the fact that the movie plot had almost nothing to do with the novel. They even put the movie poster on as a cover. It was the last Fleming novel, AFAIK, to be published as a Bond movie tie-in (To the best of my recollection all the others had been puvlished as tie-ins, with the exception of _You Ony Live Twice_. This one diverged sharply from the film, as well.) When Christopher Wood’s two Bond films, _Moonraker_ and _The Spy Who Loved Me_ came out, they had tie-ins, too. These were the first Bond novelizations written as tie-ins to the films, rather than reprints of Fleming, and Wood himself wrote them. The Wood films were the worst and most puerile of the Bond films, but his novels are actually better than the films. Fortunately, Wood had nothing to do with the later Bond films, going on to script the even more puerile _Remo Williams … the Adventure Begins_. Wood didn’t try to rewrite the Sapir and Murphy Destroyer books, though. John Gardner, who had been doing the “new” Bond books, did the nove,lization for _License to Kill_. It added characterization and tried to patch up the errors in the screenplay (such as explaining that they must have been using training Stinger missiles at the end, to explain the lack of target lock). After him, Raymond Benson, who took over the writing of the Bond books after Gardner, also did novelizations for the Brosnan films. They were competajntly done. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/34 "2012-09-21T20:01:51Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > > [@mbh](#): > > > > _Conan the Barbarian_, novel by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, based on the script of the Schwartzenegger movie. Fleshes out a number of details that didn’t make the final cut of the movie. You remember the scene with young Conan and his father on the mountaintop? “This, you can trust.”? In the book, that speech is longer, more philosophical, and much more poetic. > > I believe they were both finishing REH stories before the movie. Yeah, but _Conan the Barbarian_ is based more on the movie script than on their earlier work. Granted, the crypt scene is based directly on their story “The Thing in the Crypt”. The scene in the novelization pretty much reprints the short story. But the rest of the movie is based on other people’s work. > **[Conan the Barbarian (1982 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_the_Barbarian_(1982_film))** > > Conan the Barbarian is a 1982 American epic sword-and-sorcery film directed by John Milius and written by Milius and Oliver Stone. Based on Robert E. Howard's Conan, the film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Earl Jones, and tells the story of a barbarian warrior named Conan (Schwarzenegger) who seeks vengeance for the death of his parents at the hands of Thulsa Doom (Jones), the leader of a snake cult. > Ideas for a Conan film were proposed as early as 1970; executive producer Edward R. P... > [@](#): > > When Milius was appointed as director, he took over the task of writing the screenplay.[90] Although listed as a co-writer, Stone said Milius did not incorporate any of his suggestions into the final story.[91] Milius discarded the latter half of Stone’s story.[92] He retained several scenes from the first half, such as Conan’s crucifixion ordeal, which was taken straight out of “A Witch Shall be Born”, and the climbing of the Tower of Serpents, which was derived from “The Tower of the Elephant”.[93] One of Milius’ original changes was to extend Stone’s brief exposition of Conan’s youth—the raid on the Cimmerian village—into his teens with the barbarian’s enslavement at the Wheel of Pain and training as a gladiator.[55] Milius also added ideas gleaned from other films. The Japanese supernatural tale of “Hoichi the Earless”, as portrayed in Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan (1965), inspired the painting of symbols on Conan’s body and the swarm of ghosts during the barbarian’s resurrection,[15] and Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) influenced Milius’s vision of Conan’s final battle against Doom’s men.[19] Milius also included scenes from post-Howard stories about Conan; the barbarian’s discovery of a tomb during his initial wanderings and acquisition of a sword within were based on de Camp and Carter’s “The Thing in the Crypt”.[21] ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/35 "2012-09-23T03:52:46Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > _Fantastic Voyage_ by Isaac Asimov. Asimov straightened out all of the science errors from the movie. Been meaning to ask, which ones in particular? ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/36 "2012-09-23T04:09:04Z")
I really enjoyed the novelization of _The Blues Brothers_. I read it many years ago, and still remember some of it. It added background to a lot of the characters, mostly the band members. Very very light, but funny. This was different from the other book which was mocked up to look like the briefcase Elwood Blues always carried. I think it was called _The Blues Brothers Files_ or something, and had a bunch of stuff in it like the orphanage records of Jake and Elwood, the menu from the Soul Food Diner, band reviews of the Good Ole Boys, etc. That was a fun book too. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/37 "2012-09-23T06:00:02Z")
I think that the only novelization I’ve ever read was Piers Anthony’s version of Total Recall, which I remember liking fairly decently. I was a kid and the movie was rated R, so the book was all I could see - and likely far more smutty than the film. The recent movie, while fun, dropped all of the mystery and ambiguity that was in the original story. The book did a good job of keeping you uncertain as to what was the truth and what wasn’t, all the way through to the end. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/38 "2012-09-23T07:25:08Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Been meaning to ask, which ones in particular? Not science errors so much as plot holes. Two spring to mind: 1. The submarine loses its air supply, so they go to the lungs to restock. Plot hole - the air molecules would be too big for them to breathe. Asimov corrects this, by explaining how they were able to shrink the air so it was breathable. 2. At the end, the sub and the bad guy get eaten by white blood cells. The others swim out of the eye ju8st before they enlarge. Plot hole - the sub would still enlarge, and kill the patient, being eaten wouldn’t prevent this. Asimov corrects this by describing how the wrecked sub is removed before it expands. There’s probably several other similar ones. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/39 "2012-09-23T07:37:59Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Been meaning to ask, which ones in particular? None of what happened in the film is possible. (It was a really short book.) ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284/40 "2012-09-23T08:05:57Z")
**Snakes on a Plane**. I’m not kidding. The novelization of **Stargate** (the movie) was great as well. Keith R.A. DeCandido’s **Serenity** novelization is written with true Browncoat love. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-novelisations-of-movies/635284.md?page=3)