# What's the most faithful adapation ever made? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 3, 2003, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604 "2003-12-03T00:21:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/1 "2003-12-03T00:21:03Z")
The Lord of the Rings seemed like it would be up for the title after the first movie, but I’ve noticed quite a bit of mouth-frothing from fans about the second. So anyone have some other nominations for most faithful adaption? Which may have nothing to do with the actual quality of the movie… I’m not asking for the best adaption. P.S. No plays. Too easy. ---
**Author:** ![Lucki\_Chaarms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lucki\_Chaarms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucki_Chaarms)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/2 "2003-12-03T00:24:13Z")
_Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ is pretty much a direct scene-for-scene adaptation of the book. LC ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/3 "2003-12-03T00:24:32Z")
_The Maltese Falcon_. It was “written” by buying a couple of cheap copies of the book, & taking a razor blade & slicing out passages & pasting them in a notebook. This notebook was the “first draft”. Sections that would not work on film were simply omitted, & a small ammount of suplimentary dialoge was added, as were stage directions, lighting, & camera angle notes. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/4 "2003-12-03T01:07:20Z")
**Greed** (the original, lost, 8-hour version, of course). Not only is every scene in the movie in the book, but single paragraphs of the book often led to several minutes of screen time. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/5 "2003-12-03T01:27:46Z")
_The Green Mile_ movie was pretty damn faithful to the book by Stephen King. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_of\_the\_CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58956e/32.png) [@Earl\_of\_the\_CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_of_the_CC)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/6 "2003-12-03T01:30:15Z")
The Godfather is only unfaithful where cuts had to be made for time. Interestingly, I think the book is great and the movie is really boring. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/7 "2003-12-03T01:34:15Z")
Silence of the Lambs. Boy, does that follow. ---
**Author:** ![Danalan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@Danalan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danalan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/8 "2003-12-03T01:46:16Z")
_ **The Princess Bride** _ was very faithful to the book. In fact, the book may have been just an expanded version of the script… Certainly in the copy I read the author commented on shopping it around in Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/9 "2003-12-03T02:00:45Z")
The Harry Potter movies are the closest to the source novels that I’m familiar with. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/10 "2003-12-03T03:01:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is pretty much a direct scene-for-scene adaptation of the book. I’ll second this. Like _The Godfather_, the only cuts were the ones made due to time, plus a little Tetris with a few of the dubbed monologues. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/11 "2003-12-03T03:17:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Danalan \* > \*\*_ **The Princess Bride** _ was very faithful to the book. In fact, the book may have been just an expanded version of the script… Certainly in the copy I read the author commented on shopping it around in Hollywood. \*\* Two things: the author and the screenwriter were the same person: celebrated Hollywood scribe William Goldman. Secondly, all of the authors comments in the novel were fictional. All of 'em. In fact, they’re part of the novel, meant as counterpoint to whimsical fairy tale portions of the book. Since they were almost entirely excised from the movie, and since they change the entire tone of the story so dramatically, I wouldn’t consider _Princess Bride_ to be an especially faithful adaption. A very, very _good_ adapation, but not necessarily faithful. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/12 "2003-12-03T03:27:31Z")
**Now, Voyager** was also nearly a scene-by-scene, line-for-line adaptation of Olive Higgins Prouty’s book. ---
**Author:** ![Wumpus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8c91f0/32.png) [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/13 "2003-12-03T03:30:26Z")
Another vote for the Maltese Falcon … though they still did manage to cut out one of my favorite parts of the book (Spade’s story about the man who went out for the paper and never came back.) A couple of hefty but not very interesting subplots were cut from The Godfather. And tons of stuff was added, like actually rounding out Sonny and Fredo’s characters. ---
**Author:** ![Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/14 "2003-12-03T03:51:44Z")
_Holes_ was pretty close to the book. I was pleasantly surprised. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/15 "2003-12-03T05:22:14Z")
_The Shawshank Redemption_ was very close to Stephen King’s story “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.” There were some differences, of course. Red was Irish in King’s story, for one. ---
**Author:** ![Rainbowthief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4bbf92/32.png) [@Rainbowthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rainbowthief)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/16 "2003-12-03T11:03:25Z")
David Cronenberg’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s “Crash” was very faithful in my opinion (I couldn’t believe he included the leg penetration scene), although a friend of mine insists it was not. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/17 "2003-12-03T11:17:03Z")
_Rosemary’s Baby_ is a very close adaption of Ira Levin’s novel. ---
**Author:** ![BrandyFine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrandyFine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandyFine)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/18 "2003-12-03T11:21:13Z")
I **completely** disagree on The Green Mile. It was good, but not faithful. Stand by Me, adapted from the novella The Body perhaps. Maybe even Shawshank, though Red wasn’t supposed to be black. Good topic. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/19 "2003-12-03T11:24:24Z")
The awesome TV version of _Brideshead Revisited_ was perfect. I was reading the book at the same time as I watched the series, and each scene, much of the VO narrative, and each line spoken, was word-for-word the same as the book the book. Either they were really lazy, or it’s such a well-written novel that nothing had to be changed to make it suitable for the screen (I opt for the latter). ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2003, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604/20 "2003-12-03T11:25:58Z")
quote]the same as the book the book. [/quote] 😕 I appear to have a spare “the book”. Anyone want it? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-faithful-adapation-ever-made/216604.md?page=2)