There has been much discussion over what RAH meant for that society. He later clarified it, but many say what the book shows and what RAH said are not the same.
John Irving’s The World According to Garp is okay. The movie took the best parts of the book and made them really good.
Not a movie but I feel the series Dexter is much better than the book Darkly Dreaming Dexter. While I like the premise of the book it felt like it was a draft that needed a few more run throughs. I didn’t bother with the followup books but really enjoyed the series.
I’m the opposite. The movie was okay, but the book is really good.
Agree. I read the first Dexter book and decided that was enough. The series was great.
And Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me are perfect examples of that…
Yep.
I prefer the version with Shatner. In space.
Oh, I’m afraid you somehow stumbled on the rare Way Too Long and Boring Original Version by S. Morgenstern… William Goldman’s father did you a favor by cutting out the slow parts.
Ah, but the 1934 movie is wonderful, mostly due to Leslie Howard as *Sir Percival, *the floppiest, foppish-est Secret Identity ‘eveh’.
My condolence.
The society in the book is a society that soundly rejects democratic and egalitarian ideas, and idolizes military service above everything else while damn near fetishizing corporal punishment as the solution to crime. In the book it was presented from the viewpoint of someone who has accepted that society’s propaganda after growing up with it, while in the movie it was cynically viewed from outside, but it’s definitely not the opposite.
children of men … I remember every major critic and review telling pd james stick to her cozy mysteries and then the movie came out it was major sci-fi…
I loved that book. I loved it so much I hated the movie.
(That’s not true; I hate the movie because they changed the crisis to a complete loss of female fertility for no reason. I still don’t know why they made the change.)
(And PD James mysteries were not cozy.)
RAH himself disagrees with you.
*Some reviewers have suggested that Heinlein was simply discussing the merits of a selective versus a nonselective franchise.[18] Heinlein made a similar claim, over two decades after Starship Troopers’s publication, in his Expanded Universe and further claimed that 95 percent of “veterans” were not military personnel but members of the civil service. …
Dennis Showalter, writing in 1975, defended Starship Troopers, stating that the society depicted in it did not contain many elements of fascism. He argues that the novel does not include outright opposition to bolshevism and liberalism that would be expected in a fascist society.[88] Others have responded by saying Showalter’s argument is based on a literal reading of the novel, and that the story glorifies militarism to a large extent.[88] Ken Macleod argues that the book does not actually advocate fascism because anybody capable of understanding the oath of Federal Service is able to enlist and thereby obtain political power.[12] Macleod states that Heinlein’s books are consistently liberal, but cover a spectrum from democratic to elitist forms of liberalism, Starship Troopers being on the latter end of the spectrum.[2] It has been argued that Heinlein’s militarism is more libertarian than fascist, and that this trend is also present in Heinlein’s other popular books of the period, such as Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
*
I didnt read anything that rejected “democratic and egalitarian ideas” at all, just that you had to serve before you got to vote- and many didnt want the bother of serving and voting. The book seems very egalitarian to me. Yes, those in the miliarty tend to glorfiy military servise, which is to be expected.
I missed this one when it first appeared. Gotta severely disagree with it. Much as I love the Ioan Gryffud Hornblower TV movies, it’s despite their divergences from the books, rather than because of them. I accept their changes to make things more condensed and in giving you a larger cast of continuing characters, and in giving Hornblower more people to talk to and the freedom to talk to them – if they were strictly by the Forester book the series would consist of a LOT of voiceovers as Forester’s brooding, introspective , intentionally reticent character spent all of his time talking to himself in his head. But they also changed too many things that made Hornblower do things even more blatantly against the rules than the books ever did. Hornblower skated close to the edge, but was careful to stay on this side of the Right.
And he’s wrong, because we’re talking about the society in the book, not what he retconned about it later, or about what he possibly intended but failed to actually put into the book. This essay does a good job of pointing out that the claim that “Federal Service” in the book is 95% non-military: https://www.nitrosyncretic.com/pdfs/nature_of_fedsvc_1996.pdf
Rather pointedly, the essay I linked makes it clear that this is a retcon inconsistent with the book as written. The essay provides multiple quotes (from the book, not from non-book sources) to back this, and goes into detail, I’ll put one here to make the point:
The society is explicitly and clearly anti-democratic, as it clearly completely rejects the idea of universal suffrage. You either join the military or don’t get to vote.
You don’t remember the scene of the ‘society speaks’ character sneering with open contempt at the idea of a physically handicapped person wanting to serve so that he could get the franchise?
To be honest, I do not fully appreciate that because I didn’t read the books.
Oh, I tried. I read one as a child, and after I watched the first few episodes I was so looking forward to reading the books, but no. They were so tedious. And I like Dickens.
Well, YMMV and De Gustibus non Disputandum est, but “tedious” is not among the words I would use to describe the Hornblower novels, or any of Forester’s books*. I find that I easily fall into reading them and can devour them in no time. That’s also been the experience of friends who have read them, but maybe that’s just because of who I hang out with.
*Well, except for The Age of Fighting Sail. That’s Forester’s non-fiction account of the War of 1812, which I’ve never been able to finish. Tedious, it is.
You know multiple people who enjoy his writing? Now you’ve got me convinced that I’m confusing two different authors.
Big Fish by Daniel Wallace
I think I saw the Tim Burton movie several years ago, and wasn’t super impressed (I think the plot didn’t make much sense). But then I saw Big Fish the Musical this past fall at a local community theater, and it was a delight. Charming and whimsical, with lots of fun music to listen to, and dancing to watch.
And I then attempted to read the book and watched the movie-- armed with a clearer understanding of the plot, the movie was great fun. Different choices were made for various bits( really, almost everything was different, down to the name of the wife character), but it was also charming and whimsical, and visually delightful.
But the book didn’t strike me as nearly as charming and whimsical. I was disappointed, and didn’t finish it.
the oved one
I suspect you mean the 1948 Evelyn Waugh novel The Loved One and the 1965 film made from it. I never read the one nor saw the other (although I liked the Charles Addams cartoon on the copy of one paperback edition).
But…
If you’re gonna post here you should (besides proofing your post to make sure you got it right*) tell us WHY you think the movie’s better than the book. Don’t just throw a name out there. Especially if it’s missing key elements.
*like I’m a good one to complain about that.
The Mad Magazine version had the shark keel over in shock at the unreality of Hooper surviving. “That, not even a shark could swallow!”
But, the Jack Black version of the scene is excellent!
Maybe you are thinking of Patrick O brian?