I can see where you’re coming from with this, but in my opinion, the book itself was superb, and the Sinise/Malkovich movie was extremely faithful and beautifully done. I could not choose one over the other as definitively “better.” The original version of the movie with Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney, Jr. was also quite good. Though it can’t hold a candle to the more recent version, it was an excellent movie in its own right.
(My husband and I have been together for 19 years. I have seen him cry twice - once in the delivery room when our daughter was born, nd once at the end of the Sinise/Malkovich version of this.)
The movie version of Jaws cut out a number of story lines, and is better for it. In the book, Mayor Vaughn is mixed up with the Mob, who threaten Chief Brody and kill his family’s cat to get him to stop looking into Vaughn’s business dealings. Then there’s Hooper, who comes into town and immediately begins having an affair with Mrs. Brody. I skipped to the end around this point, to discover that the ending isn’t very satisfying at all.
Brody doesn’t kill the shark. After eating Quinn and Hooper, it just leaves. Maybe it felt sorry for Brody because he was such a helpless loser. It’s like Peter Benchley couldn’t think of a good ending, so he just said “fuck it,” and turned in the story as it was.
Blasphemy! I love C.S. Forester’s prose and his incredibly introspective captain. Good as the TV series was, it dropped a lot of the detail and subtlety. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve re-read the books.
The movie The Hunt for Red October was marginally better than the novel.
No, I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. Kubrick did indeed do some amazing things with the story; the problem is that it’s not quite the same story.
I was actually just thinking about this subject on my way into work this morning and came in here to confirm what’s already been said: Forrest Gump!
The book is a muddled mess of a story and its only relation to the movie is that it includes the characters Forrest , his mom, & Jenny and takes place in the same time period as the Vietnam War. Truly that’s the only link between the two. The relationships of Forrest to his mom and Forrest to Jenny are both quite different. I found it disappointing that even his mom made fun of Forrest in the book!
Oh yeah. and it also involves Forrest’s adventures in space with a monkey and a chess match with the cannibals of New Guinea. If Zemekis had just changed the character’s names, I guarantee you the author Winston Bloom wouldn’t have sued for copyright infringement. He wouldn’t have even recognized his own story!
I was under the impression that the Goldman book was itself an adaptation of an earlier book… or was “The Princess Bride, by S. Morgenstern” from which Goldman allegedly took “only the good parts” part of a fictional set-up?
Why the “ahem”? I had originally included that facet with my original post, but removed it because I felt it was unnecessary.
In fact, perhaps I should clarify. I hate the entire “hotel-room made by aliens” concept the book presented. The movie’s intentional ambiguity made for a far more fascinating conclusion.
I’m the one in a million exception to this one.
The Godfather is one of two books* where I can’t stop to just read a page from it because I’ll have to finish it cover to cover. I felt the book portrayed Michael Corleone as being just like his dad, and the natural person to take over for his father. I felt like the movie showed Michael as falling into the role that his father succeeded at, but he was consumed by rage and revenge. In many ways, I feel like they’re totally different stories.
But like I said, not many people share this view with me.
It’s funny how people can see the same thing, yet interpret it totally different. I love the way the book rambles on. It cracks me up the way the author (Goldman) interrupts in the middle of the story to interject his own thoughts. The movie does a great job of copying that ‘sensation’ if you will. Don’t get me wrong. The movie is on my top 5 list, but the book is on my top 2 list (along with The Godfather).
