Peter Weir’s film of Fearless is far better than the book, which is odd, because Rafael Yglesias wrote both the book and the screenplay. It seems to me that just the structure Weir applied worked better, and the story just was better told in the visual medium.
The African Queen
The Natural
I wish I’d never read either book. Both movies were much more satisfying.
The movie was based on the Clarke story, “The Sentinel.” Clarke worked on the screenplay, and the book version is a novelization of that, with Clarke making changes.
People also think that Fantastic Voyage was made from an Isaac Asimov novel. What actually happened was the Asimov was asked to write a novelization of the script (and he corrected some of the grosser scientific errors as he did so). However, this was in the early days of novelizations, so there was no coordination between the movie and the book publisher. Thus, Asimov’s book came out several months before the movie was released.
Just by coincidence, this thread happens to be positioned directly under the Dr. Strangelove appreciation thread. It’s noted that Dr. Strangelove was based on the now-forgotten novel Red Alert.
Now, in my opinion, Battlefield Earth the movie was quite a bit superior to the book, insofar as it only attempted to depict half the story. Sometimes less is definitely more, especially when you’re dealing with one of the most eye-bitingly wretched science-fiction stories ever to sell a zillion copies. They never even got to my favorite part of the novel, where we find out exactly why the Psychlos are so evil: turns out they’re made of viruses! Classic stuff. Maybe they were saving the second half of the book for the sequel.
Diggstown, with James Woods & Louis Gossett Jr, is one of my all-time favorite movies. I recently read the book, and am left wondering how on earth such a great, fun story onscreen could even have been adapted from such a dismal book. The book has the same basic plot, but it’s not even close to the level of storytelling skill shown in the film.
Orlando was a far better book than movie, save for the last five minutes.
I disagree with The Princess Bride, though. I liked both of them for different reasons.
Seems to me that inspired by would be a better phrase.
I wish I could remember the name of the book about the making of the 2001 story… I seem to recall it had some details of the movie/book creation. Plus, many alternate plot points.
Either way, your points about screen play and novelization are well taken. Thanks.
I can understand feeling that the first movie is better than the first book(though I disagree), I don’t think you can really compare the next one.
You are going to find an awful lot changed between the movie Two Towers and the book. The good thing is that this should keep you on your toes. Don’t assume anything is going to go the same way or that the high points of the movie are going to be the high points of the book.
It’s shockingly different(but still a great movie). Fortunately, the third movie will be quite like the third book, which is great because both should be the best parts of their series.
On a similar note, the movie The Shawshank Redemption is based on another Stephen King novella from the same collection (Different Seasons) that includes the story Stand By Me is based on. The novella titles were Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body. The Shawshank story is a good read, but the movie version is better.
i’m gonna have to nominate two curtis hanson films:
l.a. confidential: the movie is one of the best of the last decade, and while the book is ok, it’s almost too detailed. i mean, i love detail, but it’s just too too much, and it drags the story down. curtis hanson and brian helgaland(sp?) turned alot of this detail into visual imagery and streamlined the story for what i think is the better.
wonderboys: one of my all time favorite movies, the book is much sadder and more meandering, which works in the context that it’s being told by grady, who is meandering through his own novel, etc., but i just think the film is much better…
It’s A Wonderful Life (the movie) is based on a short story by Philip Von Doren Stern. I read it many years ago, and I remember thinking that I liked the movie much better than the short story.
The Maltese Falcon. To my mind this novel was just a weak sister variation on the hardboiled Continental Op stories – and not nearly as horrifying as the best of them, such as Red Harvest. It took Bogart to really bring to life the character of Sam Spade, master manipulator – the scene where he explodes in rage at Guttman, storms out of the room, and then immediately regains his composure was a revelation.
–Cliffy
I disagree - but then, there’s no point in posting to slavishly AOL, is there? 
Incidentally, nobody’s mentioned the third movie adaptation from Different Seasons - Apt Pupil, with Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro. I haven’t seen it myself, but does anyone know how it compared to the novella?
There are plenty of examples in all four categories: You have good movies made from bad books (the examples in this thread), bad movies from good books (discussed in many other threads), good movies from good books (The Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park), and bad movies from bad books (Battlefield Earth, Jurassic Park II). I think that the reason that the second category (bad movie from good book) gets so much attention is that everyone hears about all movies, but most people only hear about good books. I mean, most of Hitchcock’s movies are based on books, but how many of those have you seen in your library?
The point is, they’re different art forms, and the things which make for a good movie are not necessarily related to the things which make for a good book.
Gotta agree on Jaws and would add The Dead Zone.
I liked the movie version of The Guns of Navarone better than the book.
The ending of the movie version of About A Boy was more interesting than the book version, IMHO.
Apt pupil was very good. I have always wondered how “The Long Walk” would play out in a movie, or how “Dolan’s Cadillac” would look as a Twilight Zone episode…
I thought the movie [ITALICS]Dr. Zhivago[/ITALICS] was much better than the novel of the same name.