# Movie Novelizations when There's Already a Book **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 29, 2001, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797 "2001-08-29T20:40:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**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:** [August 29, 2001, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/1 "2001-08-29T20:40:47Z")
I just noticed today that there are new editions out of BOTH Pierre Boule’s novel **Planet of the Apes** and the bastard novelization of the movie, evidently intended for people who are annoyed when the movie plot differs from the book it’s based on.See here for details: > **[Planet of the Apes: Movie Tie-In: Quick, William T: 9780061076350: Amazon.com:...](https://www.amazon.com/Planet-movie-novelization-William-Quick/dp/006107635X)** > > Planet of the Apes: Movie Tie-In \[Quick, William T\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Planet of the Apes: Movie Tie-In This is the first time I know of that a movie tie-in novelization AND the original were marketeed atthe same time. Until the 1970s they just republished the book, even if they changed it for the movies. But in the1970s they started producing movie novelizations in place of the originals – **The Island of Dr. Moreau** (by the ubiquitous Alan Dean Foster, in place of H.G. Wells’ original), the James Bond tie-ins **The Spy who Loved Me** and **Moonraker** , both by Christopher Wood, who wrote the screenplays. After that there were no Bond tie-ins until John Gardner’s **License to Kill** , another novelization. (Although there was no reasaon not to republish **For Your Eyes Only** or **Thunderball** (for **Never Say Never Again** ),both ofwhich were pretty faithful.) Ugly trend, I say. Even if the novel and the movie don’t agree (as with **Bladerunner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?** ) it’s worth reading the original to see how and why it was changed. ---
**Author:** ![Zanshin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e274bd/32.png) [@Zanshin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zanshin)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/2 "2001-08-29T20:48:30Z")
Interesting – I’ve read **DADOES?** but never knew there was a direct novelization of **Blade Runner**. (I was very surprised when reading **DADOES?** after having seen the **Blade Runner** movie and seeing just how different they really were.) An ugly trend indeed, considering that most every novelization of a movie turns out badly. F’rinstance, most sci-fi or fantasy novelizations seem to be written by Alan Dean Foster, another author who IMNSHO is little more than a hack. (With the exception of the Spellsinger series and a few notable others, but I digress…) I’ve given up reading any novelizations because they’re just plain disappointing. They’ll never be as rich or fulfilling as the original novels that the movies are based on (or even as the movies themselves are). ---
**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:** [August 29, 2001, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/3 "2001-08-29T20:51:17Z")
Sorry if I wasn’t clear – they simply released DADOES with a Bladerunner cover – it was novelized (is that a word?) – the exception to the rule. Damned near everything else is, though. Usually by Alan Dean Foster. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/4 "2001-08-29T20:55:35Z")
_Six Days of the Condor_ became _Three Days of the Condor_ to agree with the movies title, but without cutting the book in half. Three days outside, six days inside. ---
**Author:** ![Drastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Drastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drastic)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/5 "2001-08-29T20:56:13Z")
Movie novelizations are lame. I don’t think they’ll cause the downfall of civilization though. What I get far more worked up about is that it’s impossible to go to the sci-fi section in any bookstore, without half of it being consumed in Star TWraerks drek. Over the past several years, it’s spread like kudzu. ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/6 "2001-08-29T21:01:04Z")
I lost all hope for the future of our species when I saw the novelization of the movie adaptation of Frankenstein in the bookstore. There, there. There, there. ---
**Author:** ![Zanshin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e274bd/32.png) [@Zanshin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zanshin)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/7 "2001-08-29T21:01:31Z")
**Cal** , your OP was clear… I just misread it. Whoops. (That’ll learn me. Maw, get me my readin’ specs!) I actually like some of Alan Dean Foster’s non-novelization stuff – I’m thinking the Spellsinger series, To the Vanishing Point and Stranded on Prism specifically. It’s just sad when you see an author with some genuine talent get sucked in doing crappy novelizations; but then again, it’s gotta be easy work. Read a script, write a novel directly from said script, repeat. \ And regarding Star Wars novels… there are some good ones. They’re the exception, not the rule, however. (Check out the Rogue Squadron and Wraith Squadron series. Michael Stackpole, an excellent author, started the series and it continued well into the tenth book, where I left off. Good stuff, and much better than most of the other SW crapola.) As for Star Trek… I stay as far away from those as possible. The crapitude of those books is matched only by novels based on gaming systems, such as Shadowrun, Dragonlance, et al. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/8 "2001-08-29T21:20:16Z")
Why do the people who read these bastardizations even read books?!? Go watch another movie and don’t strain your brain on anything that requires thought or a time commitment of more than 2 hours. Arrrrgghhhhh. Sorry. I know there are great movies, I love them. But this just shows the dumbing down of popular culture. “But honey, that wasn’t in the movie!” You’re right, it wasn’t. This book has a plot, some character development, and no gratuitous sex or violence. You wouldn’t like it. Of course, on the other hand, I still get bent when I see a bad movie that bears no resemblence to a great book, but that makes me a snob, not a slob, right? Right? ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/9 "2001-08-29T22:32:12Z")
I used to read movie novlizations all the time—when I was ten (and I think even back then I thought they were lame). The only one I actually like is **The Omen** by David Seltzer, but he also wrote the screenplay, so that’s a plus. I managed to get this book in a used bookstore and am waiting for the others in the Trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![Kvallulf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@Kvallulf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kvallulf)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/10 "2001-08-29T22:42:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Infraggable Krunk \* > \*\ ***Cal** > The crapitude of those books is matched only by novels based on gaming systems, such as Shadowrun, Dragonlance, et al. \*\* You Go slap yourself now! Bad Krunk! Bad! The orignal Dragonlance series were a thousand times better than any SW novel, hell most of the Shadowrun books are better than most of the SW novels. The orignal Shadowrun trilogy was written by Stackpole. **Tosses a grenade in Krunk’s tent** ---
**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:** [August 30, 2001, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/11 "2001-08-30T01:04:28Z")
Krunk: I agree ith you about oster’s early stiuff. I liked the Flinx Books (\*\*The Tar-Aiym Krang, etc.). They feel a LOT like Star Wars stuff. I always thought there was a lot of flimx in Luke Skywalker, and vice-versa. In that vein, there is a widespread belief that Alan Dean Foster ghost-wrote the novelization **Star Wars** that was publshed under George Lucas’ name. Certainly he wrote the first Star Wars novel, **Splinter of the Mind’s Eye** , and that would have been a _lot_ easier if he’d already had access to the script – the book SotME came out less tha a year after SW. (Itwasn’t his first movie novelization, even if true. He’d already done **Dark Star** before 1977.) As far as novelizations go, all I can say is that I’m glad they didn’t rewrite **The Scarlet Letter** with the sappy happy nding after the Demi Moore version came out. ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/12 "2001-08-30T01:14:41Z")
Back in 1992 I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry when I spotted the following cover at the bookstore: \*\* Bram Stoker’s Dracula\*\* by \* some other guy\* The best part was the lines of text at the bottom, something like “The novel of the film by \* the hack\* based on the screenplay by \* some other hack\* from the novel by Bram Stoker” ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/13 "2001-08-30T01:57:31Z")
Yes, the moment I lost all hope was when the most recent film version of _Little Women_ was released and there was a big marketing blitz of a _Little Women_ novelization. I ask you, what kind of literary bottom-feeder needs Louisa May Alcott _dumbed down_? Now I love Louisa May Alcott, but it should be pointed out that a seven year old can read and understand _Little Women_. If you can read the Family Circus comic, you can read _Little Women_ in its original form. It pained me to see this trash in bookstores. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/14 "2001-08-30T02:22:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > **In that vein, there is a widespread belief that Alan Dean Foster ghost-wrote the novelization Star Wars that was publshed under George Lucas’ name.** It’s not a rumour. Foster wrote an introduction to the Graphic Novel version of _Splinter of the Mind’s Eye_ where he detailed some of the tale of his being hired to write the novel of the original Star Wars. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/15 "2001-08-30T02:59:14Z")
I was in the book store the other day, and saw ‘Planet of the Apes’, thought ‘Cool, I’ve been meaning to read that for a while.’, looked at the cover. It’s a nfbsking novelization of the movie. ::Sigh:: ---
**Author:** ![Protesilaus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Protesilaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Protesilaus)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/16 "2001-08-30T04:32:47Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness \* > **Back in 1992 I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry when I spotted the following cover at the bookstore: > \*\* Bram Stoker’s Dracula** by \* some other guy_ > > The best part was the lines of text at the bottom, something like “The novel of the film by \* the hack\* based on the screenplay by \* some other hack\* from the novel by Bram Stoker” \*\* I recall reading somewhere (I’ll see if I can find it) that this was because the film completely changed the entire theme and message of the novel while at the same time proclaiming to be a faithful rendition of it, and they were just covering their ass, or something like that. The Dracula in the film is portrayed as a kind of tragic anti-hero and force of sexual freedom as opposed to the out-and-out monster of sexual corruption from the book. Mina in the book has to be coerced into drinking Dracula’s blood when he threatens to kill her husband, but in the movie, she asks to become a vampire, and Dracula refuses! (He doesn’t want to because he loves her too much to condemn her to vampiredom.) ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/17 "2001-08-30T09:45:02Z")
“Total Recall” was loosely based on a Phillip K. Dick story "“We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” and had a TERRIBLE novelization written by Piers Anthony. ---
**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:** [August 30, 2001, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/18 "2001-08-30T11:26:38Z")
> [@](#): > > “Total Recall” was loosely based on a Phillip K. Dick story "“We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” and had a TERRIBLE novelization written by Piers Anthony. I never read the novelization, but heard it was terrible, especially the flashback to the aliens who built the atmosphere plant. I read the Philip K. Dick story long before the movie came out. It was interesting, but not sufficient to sustain a movie. (And the hero was more a Woody Allen type than a Schwartzenegger type.) I always felt that most of the plot was lifted from Robert Sheckley’s novel **The Status Civilization** (a guy dropped into a society on a frontier world, people playing tricks with your memory, sympathetic deformed mutants with mental abilities who can tell you your real past, a hero that everyone is irrationally trying to kill, etc.), with the ending stolen from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ **A Princess of Mars** (An Atmosphere Plant?? On Mars??). ---
**Author:** ![Rue\_DeDay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/41988e/32.png) [@Rue\_DeDay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rue_DeDay)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/19 "2001-08-30T14:32:41Z")
Just a note on **DADOES?** and **Blade Runner**. When the movie came out, yes, there was a re-release of **DADOES?** , but was there a novelization of the movie too? In 1995 _Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human_ by K. W. Jeter was released. It is a continuation of Blade Runner. Kinda. It sorta blends the original novel and the movie and goes on from where the movie left off. Sorta. This really has nothing to do with the OP, but it’s a weird novel to movie to cheap paperback thing. Taken one step further. -Rue. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797/20 "2001-08-30T14:33:11Z")
My “favourite” was when I saw a poster for _A Midsummer-night’s Dream_ whereon the billing-box text said, “Read the book from Random House,” or wherever. I did **not** need to be **told _that._** [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-novelizations-when-theres-already-a-book/78797.md?page=2)