# Has a movie adaptation of a beloved book ever lived up to your expectations? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 2, 2018, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760 "2018-01-02T17:26:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/21 "2018-01-02T20:11:24Z")
I liked the recent film version of _It_ much better than the book. Perhaps the book has just not aged well, and it had some plot points that never sat well with me. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/22 "2018-01-02T20:11:30Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > 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. Having a tough time seeing how you regard a film both good and unwatchable. If an actor blights a film, then would not that blighting take precedence over everything else? I suppose you can appreciate other aspects of the film, but a lead more often than not leaves their stamp on a film, and accordingly, much of a film’s merits is directly correlated to that. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/23 "2018-01-02T20:11:43Z")
Years ago, I was lying on the couch, reading _The Right Stuff_ for the first time, and really enjoying it. The TV was on, but I wasn’t really watching. But then something on the screen caught my attention; something featuring shots from the early days of space flight. Turned out it was an ad for the movie version of _The Right Stuff_. I saw it opening day with the book still fresh in my mind; brilliant book and brilliant movie. > [@Telemark](#): > > **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. I saw the movie first, so I can’t say if the movie lived up to expectations. Having read it, I often think that the book was a satire of fairy tales, while the movie was a parody. Both were done by people who absolutely loved what they were parodying/satirizing. On the advice of a friend, I searched some used bookstores for a pre-movie version of the book. The comments from the abridger are in red. When I wrote to the address for the reunion scene, the letter was returned unopened. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/24 "2018-01-02T20:12:45Z")
I grew up in the desert. My mental image of mountains and forests was rather lame. In _Lord of the Rings_, New Zealand’s landscapes were far more impressive than I had imagined. _Watchmen_ should have been a 12-episode series, but considering how much they had to abridge it, they did an amazing job. The 1978 NBC version of _Four Feathers,_ starring Beau Bridges and Jane Seymour, is more faithful to the book than any of the theatrical films. The 1977 BBC version of _Count Dracula_, starring Louis Jordan and Frank Finlay, is more faithful to the book than most of the theatrical films. _John Carter_ too liberties with the letter, but was relatively faithful to the spirit, of the Edgar Rice Burroughs books. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/25 "2018-01-02T20:25:14Z")
LA Confidential ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/26 "2018-01-02T20:30:45Z")
The movie version of 1408 is vastly superior to the book. Can anyone compare ‘the body’ by King with the movie Stand by Me? I haven’t gotten around to reading the book, but I’d assume it can’t be better than the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/27 "2018-01-02T20:33:12Z")
_The 39 Steps_ (1935) Definite improvement on John Buchan’s book where the steps of the title are literal. _The Killers_ (1946) Elaboration on Hemingway’s short story makes for more satisfying entertainment. _Out of the Past_ (1948) _Kiss me Deadly_ (1955) Derivative and/or potboiler pulp fiction turned into film noir classics. I would assume the same for _Touch of Evil_ (1958), but I haven’t read the novel it was based on (I gather Orson Welles didn’t, either). Ninja’d on _LA Confidential_ (1997) Certainly more focused than James Ellroy’s book. Re: _The Hobbit_ - Anyone seen this: > **[Skazochnoe puteshestvie mistera Bilbo Begginsa, Khobbita (TV Special 1985) -...](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2563662/?ref_=kw_li_tt)** > > Skazochnoe puteshestvie mistera Bilbo Begginsa, Khobbita: Directed by Vladimir Latyshev. With Zinoviy Gerdt, Mikhail Danilov, Ivan Krasko, Anatoliy Ravikovich. Soviet television movie adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy novel "The Hobbit". I would also be curious to know how _Uncharted Seas_ by Dennis Wheatley compares with the film version, _The Lost Continent_ (1968). ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/28 "2018-01-02T20:39:39Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > I grew up in the desert. My mental image of mountains and forests was rather lame. In _Lord of the Rings_, New Zealand’s landscapes were far more impressive than I had imagined. Like others have said, LotR was a great adaptation and in many ways was exactly what I was visualizing – except New Zealand. The terrain worked the majority of the time but I was expecting the Misty Mountains to look more like the Alps, Anduin to look more placid, and Rohan to look less volcanic. But The Shire, Mordor, and the White Mountains were spot on, and Rivendell was even better than I had envisaged. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/29 "2018-01-02T20:40:36Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > 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 had high hopes for the Hobbit films, especially as it was clear that Jackson was pulling in material from the LotR appendices, etc., for connective tissue. The first movie disappointed me, but I was willing to go see #2. However, _that_ one was such a departure from the actual book (and I disliked it so much) that I vowed to not even bother with the third film (and I still haven’t seen it). ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/30 "2018-01-02T20:42:44Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I saw the movie first, so I can’t say if the movie lived up to expectations. Having read it, I often think that the book was a satire of fairy tales, while the movie was a parody. Both were done by people who absolutely loved what they were parodying/satirizing. It sometimes helps when the person doing the adapting is the person who wrote the book. 😃 ---
**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:** [January 2, 2018, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/31 "2018-01-02T20:54:46Z")
The one time Vincent Price and Roger Corman actually did a faithful adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe was this: > **[An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Evening_of_Edgar_Allan_Poe)** > > An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe is a 1970 film which features Vincent Price reciting four of Edgar Allan Poe's stories, directed by Kenneth Johnson, with music by Les Baxter. > The stories included are: "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Sphinx", "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Pit and the Pendulum". > > This article related to an American television horror film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. It’s really just a filmed performance of Vincent Price reciting and acting out the stories of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Sphinx”, “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”, but he does them absolutely straight, with no additions or changes. You can get much the same thing from the audio recording being sold of Price and Basil Rathbone doing dramatic readings of Poe, but in this case you get to see Vincent as he emotes. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/32 "2018-01-02T21:02:52Z")
I thought _Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World_ did an excellent job capturing the spirit of the Patrick O’Brian books. It didn’t actually follow any one book - the plot was taken from at least 4 different books, with scenes & lines stolen from most of the others. But all in all, I felt like I was actually on the HMS Surprise for nearly the entire film. ---
**Author:** ![amaguri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@amaguri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amaguri)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/33 "2018-01-02T21:06:13Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > 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. I think this was it right here. Depp’s interpretation of the character was just weird and unnecessary and it pretty much tanked the whole movie for me. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/34 "2018-01-02T21:07:53Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > I thought _Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World_ did an excellent job capturing the spirit of the Patrick O’Brian books. It didn’t actually follow any one book - the plot was taken from at least 4 different books, with scenes & lines stolen from most of the others. But all in all, I felt like I was actually on the HMS Surprise for nearly the entire film. Yes, and I am sorry there were no sequels as planned. Russle Crowe did need to be a little pudgier,😛 but that is a nitpick. The film captured the spirit very well. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/35 "2018-01-02T21:11:04Z")
I have high hopes for [Good Omens](http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2017/good-omens). ---
**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:** [January 2, 2018, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/36 "2018-01-02T21:31:09Z")
I was okay with _Watchmen_. Whatever flaws were in the movie were pretty much already in the source material. The Owlship love scene did go on a lot longer than necessary, though. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/37 "2018-01-02T21:43:46Z")
This was a TV miniseries, not a film, but I thought the adaptation of _Centennial_ was quite good. I know that Michener’s books can be a bit cheesy, but I really enjoyed that book in particular and the miniseries it spawned was excellent. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/38 "2018-01-02T21:46:26Z")
Shawshank Redemtion has already been mentioned, but I thought Misery did a good job, too. And although the movie was very different from the book in ways, I thought that Cuckoo’s Nest was quite well done. ---
**Author:** ![Chicken\_Fingers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Chicken\_Fingers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicken_Fingers)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/39 "2018-01-02T21:46:56Z")
I liked the film of Amelie Nothomb’s _Fear and Trembling._ ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760/40 "2018-01-02T21:54:17Z")
The first movie of 'Mice and Men 'was the only that lived up my expectation and the movie ‘Lord of the Files’ was a lot better than I expected it to be . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-adaptation-of-a-beloved-book-ever-lived-up-to-your-expectations/805760.md?page=3)