NationStates Jolt Archive

From the books they are originally based on?

I am currently watching The Beach for the first time - just because it's on TV and I am supposed to be writing a proposal for work but I can not be bothered right now!!!

Anyway:

I first read The Beach a good few years ago and have read it again a couple of times since and thought it was a fantastic read.

Watching the film, the "story-line" is completely different, why?

A good number of other books, for example Stephen King Green Mile and The Shining in addition Mauve Binchy Circle of friends, the books have been pretty much a completely different story line to the film.

Obviously excluding the general Outline/idea/arena for the book/film.

I am not sure if it just me that notices or the fact I am an avid reader, love reading and really enjoy following a story/book and using my mind to imagine characters and bringing the book to life in my mind .....

What do you think/What are your views, and what have been the best books you have ever read? :)

Because movies are generally about 90mins long.

I can think of a couple of possiblereasons
1 the person writing the script for the movie is usually not the author of the book.
2 time, movies are 1 to 2 hours Books however can go on for as long, or as short, as the author wants. Maybe the books plot was to long for a movie and that promped some changes.

Movies are generally made to entertain people with very short attention spans.

That said, often movies based on books will cause people to go out and read the book when they normally would not otherwise have. I'm all for anything that gets people to read more.

I could write a 6 page article about the issue but for several reasons I'll keep it very short.
The director has an idea about the book which he turns into film. That idea can be very different than your idea of the same book.
Maybe he read a different version of the book (Kubrick/Clockwork Orange)
Already pointed out: cinema and literature are two different art forms. do you hear people complaining that the Laocoon sculptures do not express the originality of the ancient stories?
Could you follow a film where there's about 4 times more characters but no reasoning why they behave like they do
etc

Adaptation is a tricky art (one explored in the movie of the same name...but that's not what I'm going to talk about...)

Film and books are very different mediums. A book has the luxury of meandering about, being very internal, and of laying the signifigance of things at your feet. If a book tells you about something, you know it's important. In a film it might just be part of the mise en scene and you'll totally miss it.

What motivates and moves a book forward might not work on the screen. What works in prose doesn't always translate.

You have to remember you're not watching a translation-they are not filming a book 'Word for Word' per se. (there is a theater company by that name that does just that). It is an interpretation, and that is subject to the views of the interpreter who may have a different read on the book than you or the author or someone else does.

Sometimes a filmmaker just likes the idea and not what the author did with it. I'm not coming down on either side of that-it's just what happens. Kubric practically made his career out of interprating books.

They usually have to be,essentially,re-written for screen.so some parts can become altered in some ways.to put transfer book as they are to film jst wouldn't work.look at lord of the rings for example:it's over 9 hours long and even still big chunks of the book have been left out,eg tom bombadil.

i wish they could have out him in,tom bombadil is so cool[/offtopic]

Starship Troopers was also thorougly butchered

Not much to add except they did a horrible job adapting Timeline(Micheal Crichton) to film.

That said, often movies based on books will cause people to go out and read the book when they normally would not otherwise have. I'm all for anything that gets people to read more.

Could not agree with you more of I tried! :)

So I guess it's a case, in a way, that the *Director/script writer* has read/enjoed the book and the film is his/her interpretation of it, but, with a good view/understanding of the movie going public....... :confused:

Oh thank goodness it's over, that film, was painful :eek:

Do androids dream of electric sheep?/Bladerunner, is an example of a story that gets better in the movies, mostly because the book was weird as crap....

Total Recall is an extremely funny difference, if it wasn't for the movie being good, I'd love to see the short story put on screen directly for the WTH reactions.

Starship Troopers was also thorougly butchered Certainly, but that was the intention of Paul Verhoeven. Instead of endorsing the novel's themes of militarism, benevolent fascist governance and romantic heroism, he satirised the heck out of them. I'm not saying that the novel was bad or wrong, it was neither. It was refreshing, however, to see a director take an entirely innovative approach to a written work.

Everything else has been mentioned, so Ill mention the one thing that hasn't. Books can directly describe to you the character's thoughts and feelings, movies must find some other way to show those to you. For example, in the book The Two Towers, the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen is already quite obvious because of the way it is written. In the movie, they added an entire scene where Aragorn falls off a cliff and Arwen believes him dead in order to emphasize the relationship between them.

Not much to add except they did a horrible job adapting Timeline(Micheal Crichton) to film.

Hehe, Timeline is possibly one of the worst films i have ever seen. Its totally awful, by halfway through i just didnt care what happened to the characters. And the plot 'twists' just made my laugh, like when the archeologist shares the secret of Greek Fire despite the fact no-one knows how it was made. 'Night arrows' my arse.

what about all those comic book movies that were just crap, like the phantom and the fantastic 4

:headbang: they pissed me off, they were so much worse than the comics

i wish they could have out him in,tom bombadil is so cool[/offtopic]

Ho Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadil-o
By water, wood and hill
By the reed and the willow
By fire, sun and moon
Hearken now and hear us
Come Tom Bombadil
For our need is near us!

Hehe. I just remembered the words and decided to post them. Of course I got these from the game, so they might be different. But I plan on reading the books once I finish 'The Hobbit'. ;)

Movies are generally made to entertain people with very short attention spans.

That said, often movies based on books will cause people to go out and read the book when they normally would not otherwise have. I'm all for anything that gets people to read more.

Watching the movie MALCOLM X got me to go out and read the biography by Alex Haley. After reading the Biography, however I found that the movie misrepresents what was in the book on several occasions.

You will love this article so much:

"I, Robot" in a Nutshell (http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=i_robot)

I hate what books become when they're made into movies, for the most part.

The addition of Arwen in the LoTR movies was utter bs and made me want to cry. Arwen isn't that too important in the books (from the standpoint of the company all together, admittedly she's important to Aragon/the elves) and they have her tied to the fate of the land?! :headbang: