# Movie novelizations: any good ones? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 26, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100 "2010-07-26T21:01:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [July 28, 2010, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100/21 "2010-07-28T05:36:47Z")
The novelization of **Stargate** was much better than the movie. Mostly out of perverse humor, I decided to read the novelization of **Snakes on a Plane** while flying from Toronto to Vancouver. The author did a tremendous job turning caricatures into actual characters. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100/22 "2010-07-28T11:06:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The novelization of _Fantastic Voyage_ by Isaac Asimov was better than the movie. Asimov cleared up some gaping plotholes and added some needed characterization. His sequel, **Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain** , is better still, despite a bit of a goofy-sounding title. And Orson Scott Card’s novelization of **The Abyss** is spectacular. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100/23 "2010-07-28T13:20:18Z")
> [@](#): > > His sequel, Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain, is better still, despite a bit of a goofy-sounding title. I have heard in that one the commies are the good guys, so much so that Asimov has been accused of being one. **Forbidden Planet** , although be warned very different in tone and story elements. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100/24 "2010-07-28T15:14:39Z")
If we don’t restrict to movies, there’s a few more famous examples. The Hitch Hikers’ Guide To The Galaxy, was originally a radio series, of course. Peter Pan And Wendy was originally a stage play, then novelized by the author. One of the later [Sherlock Holmes stories](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mazarin_Stone)by ACD was originally a play. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100/25 "2010-07-28T15:20:33Z")
Some of the Target novelizations of Doctor Who stories are pretty good. Some better than the original episodes. \*The Dalek Invasion Of Earth, \* for instance, is a great read, which cuts out some of the duller bits of the televised version. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100/26 "2010-07-28T15:23:52Z")
Flashing on an old [_What’s New with Phil & Dixie_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_New_with_Phil_%26_Dixie) panel from the _Dragon_ magazine: A smiling Hollywood exec, in tropical shirt and sunglasses, is in his office, on the phone; a big poster for the David Lynch _Dune_ movie on the wall behind him. Caption: “But, Frank! Sweetie! Alan Dean Foster does **all** our novelizations!” If that sounds too silly for words, I also recall a book I saw in a bookstore about the time Kenneth Branagh’s film _Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein_ came out (which Branagh touted as being the most true-to-the-book Frankenstein movie yet, emphasized in the title). The book was _Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein_ – that is, not the novel _Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus,_ by Mary Shelley, but a **novelization of the movie.** ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100/27 "2010-07-28T15:33:41Z")
The novelization of Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp was worlds better than the movie. It fleshed out the happenings in Tombstone and was much more historically accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100/28 "2010-07-28T15:35:51Z")
Oops!:smack: Misunderstood the OP. Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100/29 "2010-07-28T15:38:16Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Flashing on an old [_What’s New with Phil & Dixie_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_New_with_Phil_%26_Dixie) panel from the _Dragon_ magazine: A smiling Hollywood exec, in tropical shirt and sunglasses, is in his office, on the phone; a big poster for the David Lynch _Dune_ movie on the wall behind him. Caption: “But, Frank! Sweetie! Alan Dean Foster does **all** our novelizations!” > > If that sounds too silly for words, I also recall a book I saw in a bookstore about the time Kenneth Branagh’s film _Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein_ came out (which Branagh touted as being the most true-to-the-book Frankenstein movie yet, emphasized in the title). The book was _Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein_ – that is, not the novel _Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus,_ by Mary Shelley, but a **novelization of the movie.** Along that vein, we have Pier’s Anthony’s novelization of _Total Recall_, which was itself a (loose) adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s _We Can Remember It For You Wholesale_. I can kind of see that one - the original was a short story, and there are major differences between it and the movie - but still. Piers Anthony? ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100/30 "2010-07-28T19:34:26Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > His sequel, Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain, is better still, despite a bit of a goofy-sounding title. > > I have heard in that one the commies are the good guys, so much so that Asimov has been accused of being one. Well, I don’t think so – there aren’t really any “good guys” or “bad guys” in the book. The US and the Soviet Union are friendlier than they were in the mid-80’s (when the book was written), and the main character, an American computer scientist, goes to the Soviet Union to be miniaturized and travel into a comatose scientist’s brain, so he can use his super-EEG device directly on the neurons and hopefully extract information that will lead to a massive scientific advance. I don’t recall getting a pro-commie vibe from it, but it’s been years since I read it. I’ll have to go back and read it again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-any-good-ones/548100.md?page=1)