Silence of the Lambs was also good.
I would endorse the nomination of “A Clockwork Orange” by Anamorphic and “The Name of the Rose” by hergrace
Films that use narration extensively tend to be faithful reproductions, because so much of the dialogue comprises direct quotes.
It isn’t what they cut out, it was what they added in that makes the movie so monstrous. The dramatic (but vague) political problems on Earth that result in the Americans getting kicked off the Leonov, with that hyper-maudlin visual of the bridge between the two ships being retracted. The Soviet team acting like good little mindless Hollywood commies. The incredibly bad dialogue: “HAL was taught to lie - (dramatic catch in throat) - by people who find it easy to lie.” (Uttered by Dr. Chandra, who looks a lot more like a Californian hippie than an ultratalented computer programmer from India…) And the final insult: “USE THEM TOGETHER - USE THEM IN PEACE”.
Dreck, dreck, dreck.
Angel Heart. There was a lot of cheese potential in that book. I thought the film brilliantly avoided it.
Pushkin Wrote:
If so then Blade Runner and Total Recall make two enjoyable films out of neat ideas from Phillip K Dick’s two stories even though they were nothing like the written word.
I have to disagree on Total Recall. I seriously doubt that Dick had a major bodybuilder type like Schwartzenegger in mind as his hero. More to the point, however, they exhaust Dick’s material in the first twentry minutes or so.
As I’ve remarked elsewhere, I think scripter Dan O’Bannon lifted the rst from other authors, particularly Robert Sheckley’s “The Status Civilization” (Sheckley has to be the most ripped-off author ever. And to add insult to injury, th adaptations of his own works – see “Freejack” and “Condorman” and “The Seventh Victim” – have been pretty awful) and Edgar Rice Burroughs (An atmosphere plant on Mars and a cliffhanger ending about turning it on? Read the first three Burroughs Mars books.) Actually, I understand that even O’Bannon was appalled at what ended up on the screen. Suffice it to say that it’s not unadulterated Philip K. Dick.
Snooooopy (hope I got all the o’s in). Thanks on the reply to tracer. It’s good to distinguish between “faihful” and "slavishly faithful.
flodnak:
I agree that th additions to 2010 were heavy handed. The movie woiuld be markedly improved by deleting ALL of the voice-overs. I still think it’s a pretty good adaptation of Clarke’s work, given the imitations of two hour flick.
Movie trivia: The role was first offered to Robert Redford, who turned it down because he didn’t convey the right touch of naivitee.
John Huston’s version of “The Maltese Falcon” follows the book very closely.
Eric von Stroheim’s “Greed” is a very faithful rendition of “Mcteague” (at least it was in its original 8-hour version – read “The Complete Greed” to see).
“A Clockwork Orange” is quite good as both a book and a movie, though Kubrik took liberties.
“A Boy and His Dog” (the only title to win Hugo awards for both the original story and film versions) was very faithful (except for one line of dialog at the end that pissed off Harlan Ellison) and successful as a movie.
Cal – “Condorman” wasn’t all that bad, though it was only vaguely like “The Game of X.” It’s so obscure that I had to remind Roger Elwood (then working for Disney and running a Disney movie trivia contest) that they even made it.
It still scares the crap out of me, which the book never did. from what I rememeber, the miniseries stayed pretty faithful. As did the one for The Stand. Yes, there was some character merging, and they should’ve shown the part with the spy, but for a 1000+ page book, the adaption was pretty accurate. While I’m talking about SK, let me say that The Tommyknockers was the worst adaption of any book, ever. The book was incredibly more darker, and the plot was a hell of alot worse in the miniseries.
from what I’ve heard, the movie Contact was a pretty good adaption. I’ve never read the book, but the movie was awesome. and The Client was a very good adaption, except for the casting of Susan Surandon (the character’s supposed to have gray hair and wear heavy glasses, from what I recall).
I thought that Total Recall (the book) was loosely based on the Phillip K. Dick short story I Can Remember it for You Wholesale and was written by Piers Anthony. Dunno how it compared to the flick.
The Duellists is IMHO Ridley Scott’s most brilliant film. Yes, better than Blade Runner, and a full mile better than Gladiator. It is an exquisite treatment of Joseph Conrad’s short story, The Duel.
MR
Mojo:
Total Recall WAS nominally based on Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember it For you Wholesale”, but that was a pretty short story, with no trip to Mars/ Was it a dream or not really aspect (In the story it turns out NOT to be a dream. The movie is pretty vague, but it probably WAS a dream. I hope you’re confused). As I noted above, though, they exhaust the Dick story in the first twenty minutes or so. I think the rest was lifted from Sheckley’s book. Piers Anthonky did the novelization, but had nothing to do with the movie. (Just as “Fantastic Voyage” was a Jerome Bixby/Otto Klement movie. Asimov only wrote the novelization.)
You heard wrong. The movie talked down to the audience and left out lots. IMHO, the most egregious omission was how the code was constructed and where it was found. Without knowing about that, the movie is just another SF/fantasy, with the emphasis on the fantasy.
Snooooopy wrote:
The subplot with the Chinese beating the Russkies to Jupiter (and beating them to the first-ever use of Jupiter’s atmosphere for aerobraking) wasn’t what annoyed me about the film rendition.
What did annoy me was the way that everything had to be turned into a life-or-death scenario:[ul][li]The temporarily debilitating, but entirely expected and non-dangerous, G forces during the aerobraking maneuver became “OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!” followed by “Oh thank goodness we’re safe!!”.[/li][li]Walter Curnow’s mild case of acrophobia while going EVA over Io became “OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!” followed by “Oh thank goodness we’re safe!!”.[/li][li]The normal levels of international tension between the U.S. and the Soviets became “OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!” followed by “Oh thank goodness we’re safe!!”.[/li][li]The mild concern with whether or not HAL was going to time Discovery’s first rocket burn properly became “OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!” followed by “Oh thank goodness we’re safe!!”.[/li][*]The little nudge that the exploding Jupiter’s “shock” wave gave to the Leonov became “OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!” followed by “Oh thank goodness we’re safe!!”.[/ul]Are you seeing a pattern here yet? 