Yeah, at least far more economically than the book.
I liked the point of it all. But, you don’t need to batter the reader over the head with it to the point of boredom and at the cost of narrative.
The movie got the point across just as well, and had a better balance between the plot and the details.
I liked both Adaptation as well as its origin, The Orchid Thief.
But both were so different from each other, I am not sure you could judge how well Adaptation was ‘adapted’ from Susan Orlean’s book.
I’m in complete agreement with Mr. Kinsella.
IIRC, Chuck Pa-whoozit, author of Fight Club, said that he
thought the movie was better and liked their ending.
I agree with him.
In the book, The Guy doesn’t fails to blow up the building (or Tyler Durden doesn’t, I guess, since ‘he’ mixed it with sawdust. He wakes up in a mental institution with the orderlies saying ‘Good to see you, sir. Hope to have you back soon.’
I think a lot of times it also depends on which one you experience first. I’ve read novels and then watched the movie and couldn’t believe how they ruined it. My husband, not having read that same novel, enjoyed the movie on its own merits. I’ve never read the LOTR trilogy, so I’m able to completely enjoy the movies without any preconceived notion of what should happen. I like the idea someone above posted about sometimes bad books make great movies. Some stories are created for the wrong format.
Another Michael Chriton book…Eaters of the Dead was made into The Thirteenth Warrior, and I found the movie to be a hell of a lot better than the book. I like what the book tried to do, but there was really no expanse of the main character…he never grew, never changed, never did anything but come to the conclusion that it’s okay to sleep around, whereas in the movie he developes and grows a hell of a lot. It was a great fantasy/action film and a rather mediocre book.
What about Last of the Mohicans? I tried to read the book, I really did, but come on – how could Hawkeye be called “Natty Bumpo”? What kind of crap name is that, I ask you?
This came up in another thread: I thought that the adaptation to Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff a great adapatation of a great book. I thought that the differences between the movie and book were logical, both leaning to the strengths of their respective media.
Uh, I thought that was brilliant.
And when I read it, I remember thinking, they’ll never have the balls to end the movie this way. Surprise, surprise.
I think its debatable that the book was better than the movie, and vice versa. Personally, I didn’t mind reading pages and pages about Bateman’s excercise routine and what suit hes wearing etc. This banality was set against the psychotic episodes in which he turns into a crazed animal. I would say the movie left out more than 75% of what happens in the book, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. It wasn’t a bad movie, but I found the book far more engrossing and disturbing. Its a matter of personal preference, of course.
Question regarding the ending
That end was meant to imply the guy was completely nuts and was imagining people calling him sir and being part of his group, right? If so, then is he totally nuts through the whole thing, or what? Or did I misread the ending?
I’m a big fan of The Hunt for Red October as a movie that’s better than the book. IIRC, the novel’s “climactic” chase scene lasts something like twenty or thirty pages and then takes a break from the action then resumes for another ten or so, whereas the movie does a great job of compressing the action.
The movie also included the “I… was never here” line from James Earl Jones. Maybe the book did, too, but it’s clear which one I remember more clearly.
I was never a fan of the Patrick O’Brian books, although I also always felt this was somehow my fault.
IMO, Master and Commander was better, but shouldn’t have mainstreamed things quite as much as it did…i.e., the Maturin was allowed to be considerably more quirky in the books. I suppose that’s the price an author has to pay to get his books made into movies.
While I enjoyed the novel, the film adaptation of High Fidelity is near-perfect. The movie’s subtle visual details - like the indie rock posters adorning John Cusack’s walls - and the fact that you get to actually hear the music they’re talking about makes the movie better, in my opinion.
I tell people NEVER to read the books the following movies were based on:
The Natural
and
The African Queen
I think the movies were superior in both cases.
For SenorBeef:
It was my impression that Fight Club had outgrown it’s leader and it was unstoppable. Even with the leader committed and their original mission failed, the troops continue to push onward - similar to the movie when Ed Norton tries to tell them to stop.
Your theory is very intriguing, however. I’ll have to re-read the ending and take another look.
The movie was better because it straightened things out. The book has so many subplots and dead ends that it can get painful to keep track of everything. One I remember is the crew of technicians sent out to meet the Red October but their helicopter crashes enroute and Jack Ryan is forced to go out. In the movie, it’s much simpler, he is ordered to go out. There is also some very muddled thread in the book about a Polish resistance movement or something similar giving the Red October orders. I can’t remember the details but I do remember thinking that it added nothing beyond additional pages to the book
I guess early on I enjoyed Tom Clancy, mainly because of Red Storm Rising but now I find his work far too concerned with minute details to be enjoyable.
Not that the movie Patriot Games was any great piece of work but I tend to think that it is better than the book for the same reasons. This doesn’t even begin to cover Tom Clancy trying to write romance into his novel ::shudder::
The thing about Forrest Gump was that the book was NOTHING like the movie. The only thing the same was the character of Forrest Gump was kinda stupid, and the girl Jenny was his friend. That’s about it. Truly.
But i liked both. The movie was sappier, and it had Tom Hanks and was touchy feely, so I preferred it.
The film Ordinary People is much better than the book - some details are left out, and Conrad’s life takes a different turn, but it’s a very well-made movie, where the book was only reasonably well written.
And the movie Fried Green Tomatoes is better than the book, much livelier and more coherent (although the movie should’ve been honest and kept the lesbianism the author intended).
I really disagree about Lonesome Dove - Robert Duvall was the only part of the movie that worked for me, I though the remainder was far inferior.
I have to heartily agree, after making the mistake of picking up The Natural one day in a book store and browsing through it. Yecch.