Thinking about A Wrinkle in Time and hoping it’s good… but for books that I’ve loved, the track record is pretty bad:
Really hated the Tim Burton adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Distractingly awful casting ruined the movie version of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones for me
Disliked the boring and amateurish adaptation of Charles Baxter’s Feast of Love
So I’m a little worried about A Wrinkle in Time even though the pedigree appears good…
What do you guys think?
*Lord of the Rings *did a pretty good job (though it wasn’t particularly beloved by me).
Thomas Berger’s Neighbors made a pretty good movie. Problem was, if you hadn’t read the book, you didn’t realize it.
I’m not sure if you’re asking what we think about the two books/movies you mentioned or what we think re the original (header) question.
Re the original question, there are several movies (e.g., the screen adaptation of Forsyth’s The Dogs of War) that stay pretty faithful to the book. However, most of the time I’m extremely disappointed.
The 2005 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was an almost perfect translation of book to film. The only real misstep was the frozen river crossing, which was turned into a thrill ride not evident in the book. But, as movie revisions go, that’s a minor gripe. Otherwise, the casting, the vision of Narnia, and the storytelling were perfect. Would that the sequels were as faithful.
Ok for sure, this is a good one. I enjoyed the film version quite a bit!
The LotR books have been among my favorites since I first read them, 40 years ago. I felt that the movies did an incredible job of capturing the essence and spirit of the books – to the point that, there were some scenes in which I literally said to myself, “that’s exactly how I always pictured that!” Yes, Jackson made some changes to the stories, and omitted some things, but I felt that it was all done while staying true to the spirit of the original books.
That’s probably why his Hobbit movies depressed me so much – I felt that they strayed so far from the story, and the spirit of the book, that they should have been labeled “Based on a story idea by J.R.R. Tolkien.”
There are dozens of great films from books. Stories that I have read and loved and loved as movies:
The Maltese Falcon
The Godfather
Fight Club
Shawshank Redemption
The Silence of The Lambs
No Country For Old Men
To Kill A Mockingbird
Wise Guy which ended up as Goodfellas
Fight Club
I think the following all surpassed the book, which I had read long ago, by a fair margin:
Jurassic Park
The recent Bond movies
The Bourne movies
I think a lot of people hate this version because they love the Gene Wilder movie. In fact, the Tim Burton movie is much close to the book.
Most adaptations are terrible. I don’t expect perfect faith, but I do expect the movie to pretty much follow the storyline of the book, not screw around with characters or their motivations, and not change critical items.
Also, it’s kind of hard to include movies based on books I hadn’t read before I saw the movie – I can’t have any expectations in that case.
That said, I was pleasantly surprised by:
Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings
Watchmen, to my surprise
John Carpenter’s The Thing
The Andromeda Strain
The Dead Zone
The Robert Zemeckis/Jim Carrey A Christmas Carol
The Nebraska Public TV Adaptations of Mark Twain from about 40 years ago (Life on the Mississippi, The Innocents Abroad, Private History of a Campaign that Failed)
The Hallmark TV Adaptation of The Odyssey and Gulliver’s Travels
The Russian adaptation of War and Peace from about 45 years ago
The first half of Jess Franco’s Count Dracula
Calvin Floyd’s 1970 film Terror of Frankenstein/Victor Frankenstein
The Princess Bride - It’s not the same as the book since it would have been impossible to faithfully adapt the book to the screen - the mediums are too different. But it completely captured the spirit of the book, something I didn’t think was possible.
After reading “The Shining” I had pretty high expectations when the movie came out, and for the most part I was satisfied with the adaptation. Apparently Stephen King wasn’t too impressed when it was first released but I believe over the years he’s come to appreciate it a little more. Jack Nicholson was a good choice but I thought Shelly Duvall was just a little too…Olive Oily?
LotR.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Holes.
The Harry Potter films were close.
Nearly all of the movies with David Suchet portraying Hercule Poirot are very well done.
His movies are the best way to introduce new fans to Agatha Christie.
Closer, I think I’d give you - the Wilder version definitely veered wide of the book in a number of ways. Tim Burton was able the magic of cgi to preserve little details like the squirrels that the earlier movie just couldn’t recreate and he was a little more meticulous about sticking to the storyline overall, such as including Charlie’s sad-sack dad instead of having Wonka represent the father figure as in the Wilder version.
However much closer would be stretching it. The whole thing about Willy Wonka’s strange childhood, disappearing father and Depp’s weird Michael Jacksony version of Wonka were both very un-Dahl-like IMHO. Really neither Depp nor Wilder much resembled the book Wonka.
Greed 100% on LoTR. I, too, kept thinking: That’s exactly how I had envisioned it.
I was somewhat pleasantly surprised by the 1st Hobbit movie in that I didn’t think it was as terrible as some of the reviews made it out to be, but the 2nd one was garbage, and I never got past the first 1/2 hour of the 3rd.
I’d also agree on To Kill a Mockingbird. Very well done.
Chalk up another vote for Lord of the Rings.
Harry Potter was good.
But surprisingly enough, as much as I hate Christmas movies and music, I will gladly watch the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol. Nailed the story perfectly.
Joan Hickson did an excellent job portraying Miss Marple.
Most of Agatha Christie’s novels translated to film really well.
It’s because her protganists are so well drawn and the actors love playing them.
Oh, man. I hate those movies, with few exceptions. Something about the pacing of them, especially the dialog, just drives me crazy, a combination of mechanical, frenetic, and plodding that I don’t know how they achieved.
Holes, as DrDeth said, is an excellent adaptation. The author of the novel was heavily involved in the movie, and it shows. I also really liked LOTR.
Joan Hickson as Miss Marple, David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, and Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes are all spot-on, as far as I’m concerned.
I thought the Albert Finney version of Murder on the Orient Express was quite good except for Albert Finney himself, who unfortunately makes the film unwatchable.
A Room With a View was a good adaptation. Howard’s End was not; it completely misses the lovable zeitgeist of the book.
The Lord of the Rings movies did just fine; in fact, if you said I had to either watch the movies or read the books again, I’d choose the movies in a heartbeat.
Yet another vote for LotR.
To others already mentioned, I’ll add The Martian. It captured the humor and tension of the book without becoming a boring 2+ hour movie about engineering.