NationStates Jolt Archive

I was reading this thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=576367) and started thinking about the movies that are "based on" or "inspired by" books. Most are a disapointment to fans of the book, but some are just plain butchery. For example, Eragon, Starship Troopers, and Prince Caspian were terrible mockeries of the books. On the other hand, I thought that The Lord of The Rings did a decent job at transferring the books to movie form despite the changes they made. While I was somewhat disappointed, it didn't make me gag like the aforementioned three offenders.

What movies have you seen that either followed the book fairly well or were an absolute disappointment? I haven't read Harry Potter, and I haven't read or seen Twilight, for example, and I would like the insight of those who might be rabid fans of either.

The problem is that seldom does a movie adapted from a book meets the expectations. For example, La casa de los espíritus (The House of Spirits), by Isabel Allende. The book is amazing, the movie is mediocre.

The book had sucj rich iomagery. Oe of the most compelling characters is a girl with bluish/greenish hair, she's a ghost who has a lot to say on the written story. That character is absent in the movie. The compications of the story had to be too compressed for the screen and the main characters, who have so much depth in the book, in the movie they pale in comparison at best.

A Clockwork Orange pissed me off to no end had I watched the movie first I can honestly say I wouldn't of even attempted to read the book :mad:

I realize working things in like drugging a raping 2 young girls might of been a tad hard but its the ending that made the book for me.

yes I am always going to complain about this

Books.
Movies.
Games.

The three should rarely or never be ported to another of the three. For every Lord of the Rings movie, there are a dozen Superman 64s.

Eh, Starship Troopers was purposeful butchery. It sits on that thin, almost non-existent line where a good director can fool 90% of the audience into thinking the film they are watching is another empty, vapid story when it is in fact mocking the audience itself.

Books.
Movies.
Games.

The three should rarely or never be ported to another of the three. For every Lord of the Rings movie, there are a dozen Superman 64s.

Or you could get the most horrible beast of all. The Game of the Film of the Book. Example: Eragon. Film butchers Book and is rushed out as rubbish Game

Any Steven King Adaptation. You only need to waste 5 hours of your life watching it, instead of 8 hours reading it. So it's actually, on occasion, suspenseful.

Same with any Dickens - you avoid wading through endless descriptive narrative and get to the essence of the story in a film version, which is infinitely preferable.

Films can't cope with depth of plot without becoming a sprawling mess, but are great for weeding out all the needless fluff some authors think is a necessary part of a novel.

Books.
Movies.
Games.

The three should rarely or never be ported to another of the three. For every Lord of the Rings movie, there are a dozen Superman 64s.

There are a lot of copies of Superman games in the discount bin at the local hastings store. They can't move them at $10. And I hate the proliferation of Monopoly versions pased on anything and everything possible including movies.

BTW, poll added.

I have yet to find a film, based on a book I have read, that I did not enjoy on some level. True, they rarely hold completely true to the details of the book, but if they did, well, I suppose I'd just read the book again, wouldn't I? I enjoy new interpretations and I like to let the films and the book be separate things, not necessarily reflections of each other.

Literature and film are different media. Often what makes a book great can't be easily transferred to film.

I'd say that The Godfather and Gone With The Wind were better than the books they were based on. Their concepts worked better on the screen, I think. Some films, like A Clockwork Orange, are as good as the books, but only because they're changed significantly. LOTR falls in this category--I liked both the books and the movies, but for completely different reasons. No Country For Old Men, on the other hand, worked naturally as a movie, and wasn't changed much at all. Some books can't really be done well as movies--Huck Finn, for example, because of its narration.

A lot of the time, though, books are ruined by Hollywood because the producers/directors don't have the talent or inclination to keep the central ideas of the book while translating it to a visual format. I, Robot comes to mind.

Any Steven King Adaptation. You only need to waste 5 hours of your life watching it, instead of 8 hours reading it. So it's actually, on occasion, suspenseful.I can read a Stephen King book faster than I can watch the corresponding movie, and I can get it free from the library. So my standards actually tend to be higher with movies.
A Clockwork Orange pissed me off to no end had I watched the movie first I can honestly say I wouldn't of even attempted to read the bookI'm not sure what you're saying, but I feel like you must have missed the point of the book.

Literature and film are different media. Often what makes a book great can't be easily transferred to film.

I'd say that The Godfather and Gone With The Wind were better than the books they were based on. Their concepts worked better on the screen, I think. Some films, like A Clockwork Orange, are as good as the books, but only because they're changed significantly. LOTR falls in this category--I liked both the books and the movies, but for completely different reasons. No Country For Old Men, on the other hand, worked naturally as a movie, and wasn't changed much at all. Some books can't really be done well as movies--Huck Finn, for example, because of its narration.

A lot of the time, though, books are ruined by Hollywood because the producers/directors don't have the talent or inclination to keep the central ideas of the book while translating it to a visual format. I, Robot comes to mind.


Now, I thought I. Robot was actually pretty decent despite how it ignored almost everything Asimov except the three laws. It wasn't trying to be a book adaptation.

I think people are generally more positive about book adaptations when they haven't read the book. I think if you can keep the people who have only seen the movie happy then you are doing okay.

Generally though, novels are simply too long to be a comfortable fit for movies. Novellas and short stories usually work a lot better.

Generally though, novels are simply too long to be a comfortable fit for movies. Novellas and short stories usually work a lot better.

That must be because novellas and short stories have simpler plots. But I do agree with you.

The LOTR films were not, as films, bad at all. Excellent in fact; however, they bore precious little relation to the books, and less still when considered in light of the wider corpus of Tolkien material. I can appreciate all the divergences made from the book in either a cinematographic or commercial context, but all the same, I much prefer the books.

It depends really. Lord of the Rings was great, especially the extended editions.

I've seen some really awful book movies, too, though.

Holy hell, there are actual reasonable considered opinions about the dynamics of translating works from one medium to the other...what the hell am I supposed to do with all that righteous anger I had worked up over the responses I thought I'd see in this thread now?

Now, I thought I. Robot was actually pretty decent despite how it ignored almost everything Asimov except the three laws. It wasn't trying to be a book adaptation.

I know that, but it annoys me that they'd attach Asimov's name to it, just because they can. They could have just called it Will Smith Shoots Robots.

Books and movies are different mediums. Expecting one to accurately depict the other is absurd on many levels.
A Clockwork Orange, for instance, was a good movie, independent of the book.

Holy hell, there are actual reasonable considered opinions about the dynamics of translating works from one medium to the other...what the hell am I supposed to do with all that righteous anger I had worked up over the responses I thought I'd see in this thread now?

Donate it to the emotionally disabled?

Adaptations in general are tough to do well, whether it's from book to film, film to book, TV series to film, comic book to game to TV series to film to book to game to comic book to film to...whatever. The simple fact is that format matters to the telling of a story, and changing the format tends to require some pretty major changes to the story. The question is simply whether the people making those changes are good at it. Generally, one has to love the source material, but not TOO much. I freely admit I could not have made a good movie version of LOTR, because I would not have had the heart to cut a single moment from the books - but then, I also couldn't have made a good movie version of The Da Vinci Code, because I'd be desperately attempting to give the characters actual personalities, and rewriting the plot so that it wasn't utterly dumb - at which point I might as well just rename the damn movie. :tongue:

Off the top of my head, probably the single best adaptation I've seen was the Firth-Ehle version of Pride & Prejudice, which altered things just enough to make the story compelling on screen while still keeping the essentials entirely faithful to the book. Jackson's FOTR and ROTK were also excellent (I'll never forgive him for making impetuous Ents and turning Faramir into a brat in TTT, though).

I also find that generally, fans will forgive major plot changes much more easily than even minor character changes. I wish people working on adaptations would more often take that to heart. (I also wish filmmakers would trust in the intelligence and attention span of their audience more, and stop perpetually cutting the best speeches from the books every time they adapt anything, but I at least understand that one.)

I've seen some really awful book movies, too, though.

As have I. Every single Dracula movie springs to mind.

Holy hell, there are actual reasonable considered opinions about the dynamics of translating works from one medium to the other...what the hell am I supposed to do with all that righteous anger I had worked up over the responses I thought I'd see in this thread now?

write it down then make a movie out of it.
You get money, and you get to say your part. a win win situation i say.

Holy hell, there are actual reasonable considered opinions about the dynamics of translating works from one medium to the other...what the hell am I supposed to do with all that righteous anger I had worked up over the responses I thought I'd see in this thread now?

*ahem*

ZOMG filmmakers all suck for changing things! People adapting books to movies never put in the slightest effort, when it's perfectly obvious that all they need to do is keep things exactly the same! Also, why the hell wasn't Tom Bombadil in LOTR?! Wah!

Feel better now? :p

Adaptations in general are tough to do well, whether it's from book to film, film to book, TV series to film, comic book to game to TV series to film to book to game to comic book to film to...whatever. The simple fact is that format matters to the telling of a story, and changing the format tends to require some pretty major changes to the story. The question is simply whether the people making those changes are good at it. Generally, one has to love the source material, but not TOO much. I freely admit I could not have made a good movie version of LOTR, because I would not have had the heart to cut a single moment from the books - but then, I also couldn't have made a good movie version of The Da Vinci Code, because I'd be desperately attempting to give the characters actual personalities, and rewriting the plot so that it wasn't utterly dumb - at which point I might as well just rename the damn movie. :tongue: \

When I read The Da Vinci Code, I recall thinking, "Well, this is a terrible book, but I can see it being a decent movie."

Oh, another exceptionally good adaptation, though not from a book - the movie Chicago. It made some fairly significant changes to the plot and cut a fair amount of music, but it took absolutely perfect advantage of its medium while still clearly respecting its stage-show roots, so I didn't mind at all. Very few movie musicals get that balance right.

*ahem*

ZOMG filmmakers all suck for changing things! People adapting books to movies never put in the slightest effort, when it's perfectly obvious that all they need to do is keep things exactly the same! Also, why the hell wasn't Tom Bombadil in LOTR?! Wah!
My favorite part of the movie version of Fellowship was the complete absence of that singing jackass. God, how I hated him.

As have I. Every single Dracula movie springs to mind.

I've avoided seeing those, so far.

When I read The Da Vinci Code, I recall thinking, "Well, this is a terrible book, but I can see it being a decent movie."

I was mostly thinking, "Bahahahahahaha, this is the most hilariously shitty actual published book ever." Practically every page contained some gem of crappy writing to make me laugh out loud. :p

As have I. Every single Dracula movie springs to mind.

What about Nosferatu? Does that count?

My favorite part of the movie version of Fellowship was the complete absence of that singing jackass. God, how I hated him.

Bah, I love Tom Bombadil!

(I was entirely okay with him not being in the movie, though. It made me sad, but Jackson made the right call there.)

Actually, the last Dracula wasn't half bad; it at least put most of the action in the sequence and locations of Stoker's novel.

I'd also say that you can't call yourself a cinephile if you haven't seen both Bela Lugosi's tour de force in the original Universal movie, and Max Schreck's fantastic performance as Count Orlock in the silent Nosferatu.

As have I. Every single Dracula movie springs to mind.
Dracula 2000 was a classic of Western cinema.:mad:
Nah, but it was certainly fun.

And Lugosi's take on uncle Vlad was not only brilliant, but groundbreaking. How can you not love him?

I was mostly thinking, "Bahahahahahaha, this is the most hilariously shitty actual published book ever." Practically every page contained some gem of crappy writing to make me laugh out loud. :p

I didn't see the movie, since Roger Ebert wrote in his review something to the effect, "I am recovering from cancer, I should not have to watch this crap."

I'm more annoyed by Angels and Demons, since for years the Illuminati has been a great inside joke for me, and I play the Steve Jackson game all the time. Now everyone will assume that I'm referencing the movie. It's almost as bad as when a student brought up the movie Pearl Harbor in a military history class.

My favorite part of the movie version of Fellowship was the complete absence of that singing jackass. God, how I hated him.

Indeed. I always thought that was a rather weak, pointless part of the story.

Indeed. I always thought that was a rather weak, pointless part of the story.

It added nothing, merely created a link to other events in the milieu.

I didn't see the movie, since Roger Ebert wrote in his review something to the effect, "I am recovering from cancer, I should not have to watch this crap."

I'm more annoyed by Angels and Demons, since for years the Illuminati has been a great inside joke for me, and I play the Steve Jackson game all the time. Now everyone will assume that I'm referencing the movie. It's almost as bad as when a student brought up the movie Pearl Harbor in a military history class.

Oh god.... why????

Tora Tora Tora is a much better movie about the subject (though the special effects are obviously not as good).

Actually, the last Dracula wasn't half bad; it at least put most of the action in the sequence and locations of Stoker's novel.

I'd also say that you can't call yourself a cinephile if you haven't seen both Bela Lugosi's tour de force in the original Universal movie, and Max Schreck's fantastic performance as Count Orlock in the silent Nosferatu.I also recommend the more recent Shadow of the Vampire, which is a darkly humorous take on the making of Nosferatu.

Bah, I love Tom Bombadil!

(I was entirely okay with him not being in the movie, though. It made me sad, but Jackson made the right call there.)

I recall he said something to the effect of "We didn't include Tom Bombadil because there was no way we could possibly pull that off"

I also recommend the more recent Shadow of the Vampire, which is a darkly humorous take on the making of Nosferatu.

Seen it. Utterly adored it.

But I can see why it's a niche film.

I also find that generally, fans will forgive major plot changes much more easily than even minor character changes. I wish people working on adaptations would more often take that to heart. (I also wish filmmakers would trust in the intelligence and attention span of their audience more, and stop perpetually cutting the best speeches from the books every time they adapt anything, but I at least understand that one.)

Oh yes, quite. People didn't really care about the deletion of the Barrow Wights from FOTR, but they would have been up in arms if Gandalf had not had a beard or a staff or really any changes at all to his character.

Similarly, if they made a live action Evangelion movie, which they keep talking about, they might cut out a lot of events and be okay, but if Rei is anything other than a creepy, seemingly emotionless girl with blue hair, people would be pissed.

Oh yes, quite. People didn't really care about the deletion of the Barrow Wights from FOTR, but they would have been up in arms if Gandalf had not had a beard or a staff or really any changes at all to his character.

Similarly, if they made a live action Evangelion movie, which they keep talking about, they might cut out a lot of events and be okay, but if Rei is anything other than a creepy, seemingly emotionless girl with blue hair, people would be pissed.

Indeed. I'm okay with Arwen doing Glorfindel's part, or missing the Barrow wights and Bombadil and Fatty Bolger and even the Scouring of the Shire (although I think Jackson made the wrong choice there, but it didn't upset me). I can deal with characters stealing each other's lines, with random elves at Helm's Deep, with Frodo looking too young and Pippin too old, even with stupid action sequences like skateboarding-Legolas - but when the Ents went and made a decision on the spur of the moment, I nearly yelled, "WHAT THE FUCK?! ENTS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!" in the middle of the theatre. You may really enjoy a plot point or a description, but you love a character, and when filmmakers screw around with that, that's when you get pissed off. :p

It added nothing, merely created a link to other events in the milieu.

I disagree. It's narrative function as a deus ex machina is undoubted, but all the same, Bombadil's disregard for the ring, and obvious yet unmilitaristic power, are an intruiging consideration within the wider context of the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

Jackson's film works excellently just as a self-contained "Lord of the Rings", and undeniably so. However, it is irreconcilable to the wider legendarium; despite being forged in Gondolin, for elves, Glamdring and Sting resemble human blades, which they clearly shouldn't. Moreover, portraying Elrond and Arwen as elven, not half-elven, denudes the world at large from the central theme of the half-elven children of Earandil. The absence of Durin from discussions in Moria also grates; having omitted the Dwarven realms in the Iron Hills and Lonely Mountain, to then do the same to Durin deprived the dwarves of any depth. Also, the absence of Glorfindel, who shouldn't be on middle earth, but is, and occupied Tolkien's imagination in his last days; that was simply stupid. Finally, removing Imrahil and the Gondorian provincial forces from the battle of the Pelanor fields; the swan knights of Dol Amroth would have made an excellent addition, and, as with the Dunedain, Elladan and Elrohir, would have fleshed out what was in truth a two-dimensional portrayal of the human realms.

And lastly, and most fucking irritatingly; the mysterious and utterly contrived elves at helm's deep. The only justifiable reason for their inclusion is to satiate immature elf fans otherwise upset by the absence of a large body of shiny armoured elves from the films. Pathetic.

I'm in the camp that says we should judge movies and books separately. A movie version of a story can be good, and the book version of a story can be good, but they can be completely different from each other, so long as the essence of the story is maintained. I do agree that, if you screw the story around too much, you may as well just retitle the whole thing. It pisses me off when movie makers use nothing from a book but its title -- like they're trying to ride the other writer's coattails, and use the success of his work to carry forward their story. It pisses me off when they do that with movie remakes, too.

My favorite part of the movie version of Fellowship was the complete absence of that singing jackass. God, how I hated him.
oh you only hate him because he brings the story to a screeching halt and is then never heard from again.

if tolkien had had a freaking editor we never would have been subjected to bombadil.

Some books no doubt translate better than others, but in the end it largely comes down to the tallent and vision of those making the movie. In general, though, I apreciate some respect for the original work and the author.

However, it is questionable to take this question on anything but a case by case basis.

oh you only hate him because he brings the story to a screeching halt and is then never heard from again.

if tolkien had had a freaking editor we never would have been subjected to bombadil.
And he sings. There is a reason why Tolkien was paid to write novels and Amanda Palmer is paid to write songs (this goes for every other fantasy novelist I've ever read too).

And he sings. There is a reason why Tolkien was paid to write novels and Amanda Palmer is paid to write songs (this goes for every other fantasy novelist I've ever read too).

With all due respect, Tolkien, the esteemed philologist and Anglo-Saxon expert, was not writing songs for a twenty-first century audiance, but rather for himself. Hence why Bombadil's cantations can seem abstruse, if not outrightly odd; they are founded in equally abstruse Anglo-Saxon verse.

I like Bombadil in the novel; he was sorely missed in a film that really did owe little to the wider Tolkien legendarium, and much to commercialism.

Starship Troopers ... terrible mockeries of the books

Yay.

On the other hand, I thought that The Lord of The Rings did a decent job at transferring the books to movie form despite the changes they made.

AIEEEE!!! BLASPHEMY!!! :mad:

Anyway, the Potter books are better than the movies, but the movies manage to keep quite in line with the text.

Anyway, other texts that have been butchered by moviemakers:
1984
Il nome della rosa
I, robot

Indeed. I'm okay with Arwen doing Glorfindel's part,

No way, that was one of the most horrendous errors in the movie. Arwen is a donna angelicata, if you recall from medieval literature (expecially from the sonnets of the Sicilian school). She is the kind of woman which knights love with amor cortese. The only thing such a woman can do are: singing (and she sings), weaving (and she weaves), be beautiful (and she is), and eventually get married (and she gets).

If you have an Arwen who rides into battle waving a sword, you got just a clone of Eowyn with pointy ears. The point is the sharp difference between the "angelic" elf-woman and the passionate human woman (Eowyn). As a matter of fact, in one of the first versions of LotR, Aragorn chose Eowyn.

With all due respect, Tolkien, the esteemed philologist and Anglo-Saxon expert, was not writing songs for a twenty-first century audiance, but rather for himself. Hence why Bombadil's cantations can seem abstruse, if not outrightly odd; they are founded in equally abstruse Anglo-Saxon verse.

I like Bombadil in the novel; he was sorely missed in a film that really did owe little to the wider Tolkien legendarium, and much to commercialism.
wasnt the movie long enough without adding in a section that would not advance the plot?

No way, that was one of the most horrendous errors in the movie. Arwen is a donna angelicata, if you recall from medieval literature (expecially from the sonnets of the Sicilian school). She is the kind of woman which knights love with amor cortese. The only thing such a woman can do are: singing (and she sings), weaving (and she weaves), be beautiful (and she is), and eventually get married (and she gets).

If you have an Arwen who rides into battle waving a sword, you got just a clone of Eowyn with pointy ears. The point is the sharp difference between the "angelic" elf-woman and the passionate human woman (Eowyn). As a matter of fact, in one of the first versions of LotR, Aragorn chose Eowyn.
it had to be done. tolkien didnt DO female characters and this was a way to give her a bit more screen time. and its better done with someone we know than a nameless elf that we will never see again.

what WOULD have been a horrible mistake was to have arwen show up at helm's deep with the elf army. AS THEY HAD PLANNED! the elf army was bad enough.

And he sings. There is a reason why Tolkien was paid to write novels and Amanda Palmer is paid to write songs (this goes for every other fantasy novelist I've ever read too).
i love tolkien but its only because i quickly realized that i didnt have to read the damned songs.

it had to be done. tolkien didnt DO female characters and this was a way to give her a bit more screen time. and its better done with someone we know than a nameless elf that we will never see again.

Bull. Tolkien's views on the place of women in society might have been influenced by the prevailing views of his times, but he was hardly without important female characters. And though Arwen's role is limitted to a symbollic one, and as a goal/source of inspiration for Aragorn, Eowyn and Galadriel take a very active role in the events of the book. And these three are just the most obvious examples.

The Shawshank Redemption is regarded as an exceptional movie, and most people aren't even aware it's based off a book.

I think that what often gets lost is that movies based on books frequently suck on their own merits, not merely in relation to the book they're based on. That is to say, most movies based on books would suck anyway, even if they had been original stories. Perhaps the effect is magnified when a great book is made into a lousy movie, but most of the time, it's not just a lost in translation effect; the movie is just genuinely bad.

Then there are the movies based on books that are taken apart by the fans of the book in a completely unfair way. Fans expecting a scene-by-scene recreation of their favorite book are always going to be disappointed that the movie doesn't match how they envisioned it in their head when first reading. I think this shows the most when you see fans that can't even agree on what deviations from the book are the most egregious.

Bull. Tolkien's views on the place of women in society might have been influenced by the prevailing views of his times, but he was hardly without important female characters. And though Arwen's role is limitted to a symbollic one, and as a goal/source of inspiration for Aragorn, Eowyn and Galadriel take a very active role in the events of the book. And these three are just the most obvious examples.
oh really

give me another one.

any other one.

I feel proud of myself that I've refrained so far from commenting on the LOTR discussion. :D Had to brag about it -- and laugh a bit, because it reminds me of a recent evening when a person in my knitting club, who is even more belligerently contentious than I am, declared that I hate the whole fantasy genre because I don't like Tolkien and that, therefore, it was clearly insanely masochistic of me to keep watching the movies over and over despite the fact that I think all three of them suck shit.

Now, she might be right that it's crazy of me to watch the movies, but she got the reason I do it all wrong. It's because I love the fantasy genre and I WANT to like the movies. I keep watching them in the vain hope that they'll someday magically become good. Hasn't happened yet.

Now, she might be right that it's crazy of me to watch the movies, but she got the reason I do it all wrong. It's because I love the fantasy genre and I WANT to like the movies. I keep watching them in the vain hope that they'll someday magically become good. Hasn't happened yet.

So you perform the same action repeatedly, hoping for a different outcome? There's a word for that, and I don't think it's masochist.

I feel proud of myself that I've refrained so far from commenting on the LOTR discussion. :D Had to brag about it -- and laugh a bit, because it reminds me of a recent evening when a person in my knitting club, who is even more belligerently contentious than I am, declared that I hate the whole fantasy genre because I don't like Tolkien and that, therefore, it was clearly insanely masochistic of me to keep watching the movies over and over despite the fact that I think all three of them suck shit.

Now, she might be right that it's crazy of me to watch the movies, but she got the reason I do it all wrong. It's because I love the fantasy genre and I WANT to like the movies. I keep watching them in the vain hope that they'll someday magically become good. Hasn't happened yet.
no thats crazy.

i love the movies and i dont watch them over and over again.

So you perform the same action repeatedly, hoping for a different outcome? There's a word for that, and I don't think it's masochist.
If you'll reread the original comment, you'll see that the word you're thinking of is there, too. In two forms. I'd rather be considered crazy for noticing too many details in a movie than considered sane for ignoring the obvious right in front of my face. :p

no thats crazy.

i love the movies and i dont watch them over and over again.
Well, to be entirely honest, there's a MST3K element to my LOTR viewing. There are other movies considered great classics that I don't give a single minute to because I think they suck so bad. The original movie of "Dune," for example.

EDIT: And I didn't say it wasn't crazy. I said the reason I engaged in that craziness wasn't based on a masochistic need to suffer.

it had to be done. tolkien didnt DO female characters and this was a way to give her a bit more screen time. and its better done with someone we know than a nameless elf that we will never see again.

what WOULD have been a horrible mistake was to have arwen show up at helm's deep with the elf army. AS THEY HAD PLANNED! the elf army was bad enough.

Tolkien was a Beowulf expert inventing a proto-Western mythology. So what if he didn't have strong feminist themes in his work? Hearing people accuse him of being sexist and racist gets tiresome.

oh really

give me another one.

any other one.

I'd say three in one book should be enough, though for more minor examples of female characters their is Bombadil's wife, as well as Beren's elvish wife in The Silmarilliion.

Yes, Tolkein wrote things besides Lord of the Rings.:)

Tolkien was a Beowulf expert inventing a proto-Western mythology. So what if he didn't have strong feminist themes in his work? Hearing people accuse him of being sexist and racist gets tiresome.
i didnt accuse him of being sexist, i said he doesnt DO female characters.

in modern movies we want to see some female characters. stretching arwens role is a way to do that.

besides, arwen is a horribly underdeveloped character who only exists to be the perfect love interest of aragorn.

I'd say three in one book should be enough, though for more minor examples of female characters their is Bombadil's wife, as well as Beren's elvish wife in The Silmarilliion.

Yes, Tolkein wrote things besides Lord of the Rings.:)
its a shame we arent talking about other tolkien works then.

and did you think that goldberry was an important character?...at least she got a few lines to say i suppose...thats better than rosie cotton got....

any others that you can think of? its as if middle earth had suffered some horrible plague that only killed women there are so few.

i didnt accuse him of being sexist, i said he doesnt DO female characters.

in modern movies we want to see some female characters. stretching arwens role is a way to do that.

besides, arwen is a horribly underdeveloped character who only exists to be the perfect love interest of aragorn.

Nor did you accuse him of being racist. It's just that I hear both of those every time I bring up LOTR at university.

At least you admit that changing Arwen's character would have been purely a marketing decision. Making artistic decisions based on what people "want to see" is a formula for rehashing the same drivel over and over again. But Jackson didn't go as far with it as he could have, and it ended up not departing from the book so much as filling in the gaps left by the narrative.

its a shame we arent talking about other tolkien works then.

and did you think that goldberry was an important character?...at least she got a few lines to say i suppose...thats better than rosie cotton got....

any others that you can think of? its as if middle earth had suffered some horrible plague that only killed women there are so few.

No, it's as if Tolkien patterned his story after the archetypes of Western mythology, which defined gender roles differently than we do today. There's no need to impose modern sensibilities onto everything.

Nor did you accuse him of being racist. It's just that I hear both of those every time I bring up LOTR at university.


Next time someone accuse Tolkein of being sexist, point out that is a female who kills the Dark Lord's chief general.

No, it's as if Tolkien patterned his story after the archetypes of Western mythology, which defined gender roles differently than we do today. There's no need to impose modern sensibilities onto everything.
says the man

i like female characters even if all they do is run the various homes of the various male characters.

Next time someone accuse Tolkein of being sexist, point out that is a female who kills the Dark Lord's chief general.
which is not to say that tolien ISNT sexist, but as a product of his time its not particularly fair to damn him with it.

Next time someone accuse Tolkein of being sexist, point out that is a female who kills the Dark Lord's chief general.

I take it you've never gotten into an argument with someone who gets grant money to find things to blame for perpetuating the white male power structure. They get quite good at it after a while.

I take it you've never gotten into an argument with someone who gets grant money to find things to blame for perpetuating the white male power structure. They get quite good at it after a while.

No, I tend to avoid those people.

Movies adapted from books have to cut and change things around. Sometimes it's good (LotR), Sometimes not (Seeker: Dark is Rising)

to have a movie exactly like the book would be boring. can you imagine if they left every scene and bit from the LotR books and put that in the movies? *shudder*

The only thing that really upsets me are books to the film inspired by a book which then, of course, doesn't have anything to do with the original book.

Movies adapted from books have to cut and change things around. Sometimes it's good (LotR), Sometimes not (Seeker: Dark is Rising)

to have a movie exactly like the book would be boring. can you imagine if they left every scene and bit from the LotR books and put that in the movies? *shudder*
i think it takes a real respect and understanding of the book to make a good movie out of it.

thats the only way you can change things around or leave them out entirely and still keep the essense of the story intact.

i think my favorite movie from a book is hitchcock's rebecca. it keeps the feeling of the poor nameless new mrs dewinter as she tries to fit into the place vacated by the late rebecca.

What about older movies & books? I've seen at least three film versions of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with varying adherence to the book. I recently read Around the World in 80 Days and found the differences between that book and the old movie with David Niven as Phileas Fogg rather interesting. Many things in that movie were added for the entertainment factor, while the book offerd a more structured, realistic, flowing tale.

I read The Count of Monte Cristo a few years before I saw the movie adaptation, and I thought that the movie did a fair job of maintaining the spirit of the story despite the usual changes.

And lastly, and most fucking irritatingly; the mysterious and utterly contrived elves at helm's deep. The only justifiable reason for their inclusion is to satiate immature elf fans otherwise upset by the absence of a large body of shiny armoured elves from the films. Pathetic.

Agreed. The LOTR movie was not without absurdly contrived plot points far beyond anything Tolkein would have tried.

I was quite disappointed with Prince Caspian - The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was rather faithful to the book, but Prince Caspian had to contrive a romance angle between Susan and Caspian, a rivalry between Caspian and Peter, and a botched attack on the castle that appeared nowhere in the book among many other sins. Such tripe.

If they make a Dawn Treader movie, I hope they do it right. I mean, how can they mess up a dragon?. . . *remembers Eragon*. . . Aw, crap. It's gonna suck.

No way, that was one of the most horrendous errors in the movie. Arwen is a donna angelicata, if you recall from medieval literature (expecially from the sonnets of the Sicilian school). She is the kind of woman which knights love with amor cortese. The only thing such a woman can do are: singing (and she sings), weaving (and she weaves), be beautiful (and she is), and eventually get married (and she gets).

If you have an Arwen who rides into battle waving a sword, you got just a clone of Eowyn with pointy ears. The point is the sharp difference between the "angelic" elf-woman and the passionate human woman (Eowyn). As a matter of fact, in one of the first versions of LotR, Aragorn chose Eowyn.

I agree and disagree - I do wish he'd kept Glorfindel there instead of Arwen, and I do agree that Arwen-as-warrior really isn't what Tolkien wrote, but the simple fact is that Arwen really wasn't written as a terribly interesting character, so even major alterations to her personality or actions just don't matter the way even a teensy change to Frodo or Sam or Gandalf or, y'know, any character anyone particularly cares about would. (Honestly, I also object much less to Arwen taking Glorfindel's Frodo-totin' job, and much more to the utterly weird flirtation-at-swordspoint between her and Aragorn at her first appearance. The former is really not so much warrior-Arwen as reasonably-competent-Arwen-protecting-someone-who-needs-protecting, and thus not a terribly offensive departure from the character as written for me, but the latter suggestion that she's both comparable to Aragorn in swordsmanship and that they're into kinky shit or something is just stupid.)

Also, on the "Tolkien didn't do women" argument, everyone is kinda right. By and large, he didn't, but not because of any terrible sexism - Eowyn's famous Moment of Crowning Awesomeness is itself enough to refute that, even if it is a total Macbeth ripoff - rather, because he was very deliberately writing mythology, a genre which is almost always about big, powerful kings and warriors and such. He subverts the genre enough by making the real heroes of the story a random, completely non-warlike nobleman (er...noblehobbit?) and his gardener. (Further, it's worth remembering that he began imagining the story while in the middle of fighting a war in an all-male army. Is it any wonder that when he was surrounded by brothers-in-arms, his story ended up mostly being about brothers-in-arms?)

What movies have you seen that either followed the book fairly well or were an absolute disappointment?
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is an excellent film. Great book, too. The best part, though, is probably the film's poster :

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Spy_cold.jpg

"Brace yourself for greatness" - damn right.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is an excellent film. Great book, too. The best part, though, is probably the film's poster :

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Spy_cold.jpg

"Brace yourself for greatness" - damn right.

That is one badass poster.

I'd like to see "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell made into a film.
I have yet to see a great version of Oprwell's "Animal Farm" or "1984".

I guess that the hard call is whether you try to be faithful to the original book, (as in the case of Lord of the Rings) or whether you use the book as a jumping off point for something really new and different.

it had to be done. tolkien didnt DO female characters and this was a way to give her a bit more screen time. and its better done with someone we know than a nameless elf that we will never see again
Tolkien did one of the best female characters ever! Eowyn for the win, anywhere and anytime!

:hail: all hail the shield-maiden of the Mark!



what WOULD have been a horrible mistake was to have arwen show up at helm's deep with the elf army. AS THEY HAD PLANNED! the elf army was bad enough.

Yeeech...

I'd like to see "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell made into a film.
I have yet to see a great version of Oprwell's "Animal Farm" or "1984".

I guess that the hard call is whether you try to be faithful to the original book, (as in the case of Lord of the Rings) or whether you use the book as a jumping off point for something really new and different.

You disliked the 1984 verson of 1984? I thought it had caught the hopelessness of the book quite well.

to have a movie exactly like the book would be boring. can you imagine if they left every scene and bit from the LotR books and put that in the movies? *shudder*

Yes, I can picture that, and it would be great. 24 to 30 hours, more or less. So what? I even saw all Heimat and Heimat 2.

There are other movies considered great classics that I don't give a single minute to because I think they suck so bad. The original movie of "Dune," for example.


Yeah. I always wondered why they made up that thing with the voice. A good set of actors, good scenographies and a huge budget totally wasted.

Yeah. I always wondered why they made up that thing with the voice. A good set of actors, good scenographies and a huge budget totally wasted.
Sting is not a good actor :tongue:

Sting is not a good actor :tongue:

Ok: but these one were good.

José Ferrer as Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV
Silvana Mangano as Reverend Mother Ramallo
Kenneth McMillan as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
Siân Phillips as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
Jürgen Prochnow as Duke Leto Atreides
Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck
Max von Sydow as Dr. Kynes

You disliked the 1984 verson of 1984? I thought it had caught the hopelessness of the book quite well.

The 1984 version of 1984 was pretty good and it was Richard Burton's last movie, but I didn't make me sick with terror. I felt too sympathetic to both Winston Smith and O'Brien.
V for Vendetta was better in some ways (until the end when it went a bit too Monty Python with the Multiple Guy Fawkes)

For a political thriller to operate on all levels you need to empathise with the protagonist and desperately want him to win through - then to feel completely crushed when he is betrayed - even if you know all along what the result is going to be.:(

Tolkien did one of the best female characters ever! Eowyn for the win, anywhere and anytime!

:hail: all hail the shield-maiden of the Mark!




Yeeech...
you over estimate her even though she is one of TOLKIENS best characters.

and, well, that is one.

there are no other well drawn female characters in lotr.

oh really

give me another one.

any other one.

Melian

Shelob was a female!
But I get Ashy's point. Most of the female characters in Lord of the Rings (the book) were pretty two-dimensional.
In fact Gollum was about the most complicated character.

The film gave the gals more pzazz

On the othjer hand Peter Carey's 'Bliss' was a fantastic adeptation of the book, infact one of those rare things when the film is better than the book.

Melian
who is this melian in lotr?

This is from Wikipedia Ashy.
I half read the Silmarillion (has ANYBODY finished it???):
Melian the Maia is a fictional character in the fantasy-world Middle-earth of the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. She appears in The Silmarillion, the epic poem The Lay of Leithian, The Children of Húrin, the Annals of Aman and the Grey Annals.

This is from Wikipedia Ashy.
I half read the Silmarillion (has ANYBODY finished it???):
Melian the Maia is a fictional character in the fantasy-world Middle-earth of the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. She appears in The Silmarillion, the epic poem The Lay of Leithian, The Children of Húrin, the Annals of Aman and the Grey Annals.
ive tried reading them. i didnt find that any character in the silmarillion was well drawn. its just not that kind of book.

It's almost as bad as when a student brought up the movie Pearl Harbor in a military history class.

I hope you smacked that idiot back to 1941.

Oh god.... why????

Tora Tora Tora is a much better movie about the subject (though the special effects are obviously not as good).

:P

TTT and it's famous invention of Yamamoto's "sleeping giant" quote...

The only thing that really upsets me are books to the film inspired by a book which then, of course, doesn't have anything to do with the original book.

The rare cases where it's pulled off well are well worth it. Apocalypse Now is still one of my favorite films, even though it bears only tangental resemblance to Heart of Darkness.

its a shame we arent talking about other tolkien works then.

and did you think that goldberry was an important character?...at least she got a few lines to say i suppose...thats better than rosie cotton got....

any others that you can think of? its as if middle earth had suffered some horrible plague that only killed women there are so few.

Try Galadriel; not that you'll have read the Silmarillion, but Galadriel is terrifyingly powerful. She is, Cirdan excepted, the only of the original quendi on middle earth, and, Cirdan included, the only of the calaquendi. She was a key protagonist in the noldorin revolt, and perspispacious enough to discern the true nature of Feanor, whoch no other elf was. In LOTR, she casts down Dol Guldur through her power alone.

Simply put, Galadriel, the Istari and Sauron excepted, is the most powerful entity on middle earth, and is regularly referred to as such.

In any case, why would Tolkien have written anything other than Celtic, Nordic and Saxon composite mythiology he sought? Female characters in Tolkien are consistent to Norse, Celtic and Saxon tradition, and since this was the basis of the legendarium, I take no issue with it.

This is from Wikipedia Ashy.
I half read the Silmarillion (has ANYBODY finished it???):
Melian the Maia is a fictional character in the fantasy-world Middle-earth of the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. She appears in The Silmarillion, the epic poem The Lay of Leithian, The Children of Húrin, the Annals of Aman and the Grey Annals.

I finished it. Not my favorite Tolkien book, although very informative.

This is from Wikipedia Ashy.
I half read the Silmarillion (has ANYBODY finished it???):
Melian the Maia is a fictional character in the fantasy-world Middle-earth of the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. She appears in The Silmarillion, the epic poem The Lay of Leithian, The Children of Húrin, the Annals of Aman and the Grey Annals.

Yes. It's not all that difficult if you're in a sufficiently depressed mood.

No, I tend to avoid those people.

Join the club. They don't really do Carolingian and early Byzantine history anyway.

Try Galadriel; not that you'll have read the Silmarillion, but Galadriel is terrifyingly powerful. She is, Cirdan excepted, the only of the original quendi on middle earth, and, Cirdan included, the only of the calaquendi. She was a key protagonist in the noldorin revolt, and perspispacious enough to discern the true nature of Feanor, whoch no other elf was. In LOTR, she casts down Dol Guldur through her power alone.

Simply put, Galadriel, the Istari and Sauron excepted, is the most powerful entity on middle earth, and is regularly referred to as such.

In any case, why would Tolkien have written anything other than Celtic, Nordic and Saxon composite mythiology he sought? Female characters in Tolkien are consistent to Norse, Celtic and Saxon tradition, and since this was the basis of the legendarium, I take no issue with it.
ya ya fine

she is still not a well drawn character in lotr. she has more personality than arwen does but she isnt given any particular depth. --not that she should have depth, she is a minor character.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is an excellent film. Great book, too. The best part, though, is probably the film's poster :

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Spy_cold.jpg

"Brace yourself for greatness" - damn right.

Minoriteeburg is right. That is one bad-ass poster. Nice. :D

The movie kicked-ass in a good way, too.

Ok: but these one were good.

José Ferrer as Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV
Silvana Mangano as Reverend Mother Ramallo
Kenneth McMillan as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
Siân Phillips as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
Jürgen Prochnow as Duke Leto Atreides
Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck
Max von Sydow as Dr. Kynes
All brilliant actors, all wasted on a horrible script, horrible cinematography, horrible sound, editing, effects, etc, etc, etc. Misusing that cast is just one of the things that movie did wrong.

On the othjer hand Peter Carey's 'Bliss' was a fantastic adeptation of the book, infact one of those rare things when the film is better than the book.
Neil Gaiman adapted the script for "Stardust" from his novel Stardust, and I thought he did better with the movie than the book, which really surprised me. The movie had much more content and depth than the book did, which though well written was kind of shallow and unsatisfying compared to some of his other stuff.

Compared to other adventure fantasy movies, "Stardust" might not rank in the top tier, but compared to the book I think it was an improvement.

ya ya fine

she is still not a well drawn character in lotr. she has more personality than arwen does but she isnt given any particular depth. --not that she should have depth, she is a minor character.

As well drawn as anybody not in the fellowship, and, in any case, you're presupposing that LOTR is intended to be read as a novel independant of the wider corpus of works, which it manifestly isn't, nor even as the primary work. Galadriel is devoted a whole section in unfinished tales, and, frankly, it's not my fault you don't know that.

The movie kicked-ass in a good way, too.
I was unaware of there being a bad way to kick ass . . .

Neil Gaiman adapted the script for "Stardust" from his novel Stardust, and I thought he did better with the movie than the book, which really surprised me. The movie had much more content and depth than the book did, which though well written was kind of shallow and unsatisfying compared to some of his other stuff.

Compared to other adventure fantasy movies, "Stardust" might not rank in the top tier, but compared to the book I think it was an improvement.

I agree. I read the book while I was a junior at uni. Comparing Stardust with the Sandman stories made me feel truly disappointed in Gaiman's work with Stardust. But when I saw the movie, I thought he did a fairly good job adapting it to the big screen. The character of the star even had far more depth than it did in the book. And I think that the portraying of the 3witches was brilliantly done.

Neil Gaiman adapted the script for "Stardust" from his novel Stardust, and I thought he did better with the movie than the book, which really surprised me. The movie had much more content and depth than the book did, which though well written was kind of shallow and unsatisfying compared to some of his other stuff.

Compared to other adventure fantasy movies, "Stardust" might not rank in the top tier, but compared to the book I think it was an improvement.

I have never read it nor seen it, would you recomend both then, neither, or just the film?

I have never read it nor seen it, would you recomend both then, neither, or just the film?

Read the book and then watch the film. That's the only way you can have a thorough picture of the work.

Yes, I can picture that, and it would be great. 24 to 30 hours, more or less. So what? I even saw all Heimat and Heimat 2. ah, but would others? remember, the ultimate point of movies is to make money.

I like female characters even if all they do is run the various homes of the various male characters. I also find more interest in the female characters. altho of late, I'm finding more interest in the female secondary character.

i think it takes a real respect and understanding of the book to make a good movie out of it.

thats the only way you can change things around or leave them out entirely and still keep the essense of the story intact.
yep. Peter Jackson cared for the books enough to even research the fate of the map from "the Hobbit".

Very few people who do such translations care about their work outside of 'the paycheck'.

I do Like his joke at the end of filming. he goes to his two scriptwriters and says. "I got the rights to Silmarillion..." and their immediate reply was "Oh HELL NO!!!" :p

I half read the Silmarillion (has ANYBODY finished it???)

read it through twice :cool:

*edit* and I submit this post as the most incorrect emoticon use ever

To be fair though, it works (or doesn't work) the other way round - books based on films have been universally dreadful in my admittedly limited experience.

To be fair though, it works (or doesn't work) the other way round - books based on films have been universally dreadful in my admittedly limited experience.

too true.

Oh yes, quite. People didn't really care about the deletion of the Barrow Wights from FOTR, but they would have been up in arms if Gandalf had not had a beard or a staff or really any changes at all to his character.

Similarly, if they made a live action Evangelion movie, which they keep talking about, they might cut out a lot of events and be okay, but if Rei is anything other than a creepy, seemingly emotionless girl with blue hair, people would be pissed.

Good point. The only real problem I had with LOTR was the way they changed Faramir's character.

In my experience movies from books are kind of a guessing game in that you never know what you will get.

Lord of the Rings was just awesome.

But when you compare it to something like Eragon... Damn that director didn't just make a mockery of the book. He tore out 1/4th of it, threw that small part in a blender pissed and shit all over it. Blended it all up, until it was somewhat non-linear and almost pure crap. Dumped it in a movie projector then charged $8 to see the result. Never have I seen a book destroyed so utterly on screen.

You just never know if you're going to be blown away or made nauseous. Enter theater at your own risk.

In my experience movies from books are kind of a guessing game in that you never know what you will get.

Lord of the Rings was just awesome.

But when you compare it to something like Eragon... Damn that director didn't just make a mockery of the book. He tore out 1/4th of it, threw that small part in a blender pissed and shit all over it. Blended it all up, until it was somewhat non-linear and almost pure crap. Dumped it in a movie projector then charged $8 to see the result. Never have I seen a book destroyed so utterly on screen.

You just never know if you're going to be blown away or made nauseous. Enter theater at your own risk.
so true.

i prefer to wait until i hear an opinion from someone i respect before i go see a movie made from a book i love. its so disappointing to have it ruin by a director who has no idea of what the book was about--like the original dune movie.

I have never read it nor seen it, would you recomend both then, neither, or just the film?
Tough one.

If you want to make a comparison, obviously, then both.

If you just want to be entertained, see the movie. Especially for Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert deNiro.

If you want to read a modern fairy tale, then the book is okay. Kind of a light counter weight to Angela Carter's heavyhandedness, imo, though both are good.

However, if you're looking for a Neil Gaiman story, I can't recommend the book. I read it after reading American Gods, which is brilliant, and the disappointment was pretty strong. I'd say see the movie of "Stardust" and read American Gods.

the 1952 version of Prisoner of Zenda was quite good and what about 78 Version of the Thirty nine steps

Tough one.

If you want to make a comparison, obviously, then both.

If you just want to be entertained, see the movie. Especially for Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert deNiro.

If you want to read a modern fairy tale, then the book is okay. Kind of a light counter weight to Angela Carter's heavyhandedness, imo, though both are good.

However, if you're looking for a Neil Gaiman story, I can't recommend the book. I read it after reading American Gods, which is brilliant, and the disappointment was pretty strong. I'd say see the movie of "Stardust" and read American Gods.

American Gods was good. I think out of all of his books, I probably enjoyed Asansai Boys the most. That said I've only read 3 of them so I'm not the greatest expert. (Neverwhere being 3rd.)

American Gods was good. I think out of all of his books, I probably enjoyed Asansai Boys the most. That said I've only read 3 of them so I'm not the greatest expert. (Neverwhere being 3rd.)
I haven't read Anansi Boys yet. I've read American Gods, Stardust, Neverwhere, and some parts of "Sandman."

I class American Gods as one of the best modern books I've read. I really could not find a single flaw in it. A very smart, beautiful, entertaining, and potentially deep story.

As I said, I was disappointed in Stardust. It was very well written and I really liked the way it handled the fairy reality -- in fact, I would be interested in getting some Tolkien fans' opinions of it -- but I felt the plot was barebones, the progression was too easy, and the characters were tantalizingly underdeveloped. The movie almost seemed to be a second draft of the story, as if it had matured in Gaiman's mind between the book and the screenplay.

I didn't like Neverwhere but not because of any flaws in the book. It was a very good book, I just didn't like the story that much. It was not as well constructed as American Gods, imo. Aside from my issues with its basic plot, I also quibble with how he handled the villain and the villain's fate.

Finally, I can't make a judgment about the story of "Sandman" because it was a graphic novel series, and I didn't like the art. For me, the art in a graphic novel is like the images in a movie -- it's kind of the point of it, and its carries all or most of the story for me. If I don't like the art, that's an insurmountable problem for me. I was so distracted by not liking the art like that I couldn't even follow the story.

Books to movies tend to have really issues - Catch-22 comes to mind.

On the other hand, Rod Serling did some amazing work with short stories in the Twilight Zone - To Serve Man and Its a Wonderful Life come to mind.

A Clockwork Orange pissed me off to no end had I watched the movie first I can honestly say I wouldn't of even attempted to read the book :mad:

I realize working things in like drugging a raping 2 young girls might of been a tad hard but its the ending that made the book for me.

yes I am always going to complain about this
how is the ending in the movie that much different from the book?
In the movie the treatment's been reversed and he's looking forward to being a droog again.
In the book the same happens, only there's an added footnote that after hospital he finds himself bored with being a droog and contemplates settling down, getting married & having kids who will be as droogish as he once was.

Is missing that footnote (which would have taken too much time to film and dragged & slowed the ending down way too much) out really alter the film so much it destroys the entire book's premise?

Is missing that footnote (which would have taken too much time to film and dragged & slowed the ending down way too much) out really alter the film so much it destroys the entire book's premise?
Yes.

its a shame we arent talking about other tolkien works then.

and did you think that goldberry was an important character?...at least she got a few lines to say i suppose...thats better than rosie cotton got....

any others that you can think of? its as if middle earth had suffered some horrible plague that only killed women there are so few.

As I said, these were just the main three, with Goldberry arguably being a fourth. Their are others with speaking roles, but not nessissarily well-develloped characters. And in refuting claims of Tolkien's sexism I believe it is relevant to reference his other works.

An interesting point that just occured to me is that most of Tolkien's prominant female characters are either elves (Arwen, Galadriel, Beren's wife who's name I cannot spell;)), or other powerful and mysterious beings (Goldberry, and Melian I believe was of the same race as Sauron and the Wizards). The obvious exception to this is of course Eowyn.

As I said, these were just the main three, with Goldberry arguably being a fourth. Their are others with speaking roles, but not nessissarily well-develloped characters. And in refuting claims of Tolkien's sexism I believe it is relevant to reference his other works.

An interesting point that just occured to me is that most of Tolkien's prominant female characters are either elves (Arwen, Galadriel, Beren's wife who's name I cannot spell;)), or other powerful and mysterious beings (Goldberry, and Melian I believe was of the same race as Sauron and the Wizards). The obvious exception to this is of course Eowyn.
If a person wanted to be a pest, they could point out that this could crash into, or at least rub up against, accusations of racism, or at least xenophobia, against Tolkien.

The "foreign" women, the women of another "race," are allowed to be powerful and active, while that is extremely rare and generally discouraged by tradition among the "men."

It's not so much a prejudicial view that says that other "races" are bad, but rather that other "races" are different, strange, not like "us," and do things "we" don't do, and that takes anything that is considered too extreme, too risque, and assigns it to the "foreigners" rather than one's own group.

Now I'm not saying that Tolkien had such views personally. I don't know anything about the man. Maybe the only reason he did that was because he thought elf chicks were hot. But I do have to admit his stories have caused me to roll my eyes and harumph more than once.

Yes.
why?
It's stuck in as almost an afterthought, feels like Burgess thought of it a few days after finishing the book.
How is it soooo bad that in one medium it ends with him thinking about how much fun he's going to have being a droog again and in the other he does the same but upon doing so finds it boring.
I think the movie is better here, as it allows the viewer to imagine what will happen with Alex. The book spells it out laboriously making the ending leaden and anticlimatic.

Another great book-2-film adaption is Alan Moore's 'From Hell'.
(just kidding, It sucked scabby sweaty monkey balls: it was as a dreadful as his 'League of extraordinary gentlemen' film adaption)

I haven't read Anansi Boys yet. I've read American Gods, Stardust, Neverwhere, and some parts of "Sandman."

I class American Gods as one of the best modern books I've read. I really could not find a single flaw in it. A very smart, beautiful, entertaining, and potentially deep story.

As I said, I was disappointed in Stardust. It was very well written and I really liked the way it handled the fairy reality -- in fact, I would be interested in getting some Tolkien fans' opinions of it -- but I felt the plot was barebones, the progression was too easy, and the characters were tantalizingly underdeveloped. The movie almost seemed to be a second draft of the story, as if it had matured in Gaiman's mind between the book and the screenplay.

I didn't like Neverwhere but not because of any flaws in the book. It was a very good book, I just didn't like the story that much. It was not as well constructed as American Gods, imo. Aside from my issues with its basic plot, I also quibble with how he handled the villain and the villain's fate.

Finally, I can't make a judgment about the story of "Sandman" because it was a graphic novel series, and I didn't like the art. For me, the art in a graphic novel is like the images in a movie -- it's kind of the point of it, and its carries all or most of the story for me. If I don't like the art, that's an insurmountable problem for me. I was so distracted by not liking the art like that I couldn't even follow the story.

Anansi Boys is hilarious. I greatly enjoyed it.

I pretty much agree with you completely about Stardust, which means I really ought to go ahead and see the movie. :)

I liked Neverwhere, but only insofar as I like everything Gaiman writes. I think the plot is one of his weakest, but I do love the world he creates for it.

Out of curiosity, which parts of Sandman did you read? There's enough different artists with vastly different styles involved that you might find one book much more enjoyable than another. (I know I had the same sort of trouble with The Kindly Ones because I really hated the art in it, but I had much less trouble with, for example, Season of Mists.)

Beren's wife who's name I cannot spell;)

Luthien. ;)

A lot of the later Harry Potter movies left things hanging, and you had to fill them in with what you knew from the books. That's one thing that bothers me: when a movie leaves things unexplained or conflates characters (which can totally confuse some plot points) Great example: I read the book MASH, watched the movie MASH, watched the show even though they're totally different beasts. In the book there's a religious incompetent named Major Hobson who Hawkeye, Trapper, and Duke make fun of. They also make fun of the very incompetent Frank Burns (completely separate characters: fundie and arrogant ****) In the movie, they drop Major Hobson and give Frank the religious shtick. This makes Hawkeye and the gang look more like assholes to him than before. Of course, the actor's performance is also to blame (he's a great actor, but Frank Burns is not played in deadpan)


An example good adaptation is Forrest Gump. Despite the book and movie having very different flavors and going off into completely different directions, they manage to keep you interested until the end by being well written. I loved both and I couldn't pick which is better.

I love reading books of movies that nobody knows about.

Anansi Boys is hilarious. I greatly enjoyed it.

I pretty much agree with you completely about Stardust, which means I really ought to go ahead and see the movie. :)

I liked Neverwhere, but only insofar as I like everything Gaiman writes. I think the plot is one of his weakest, but I do love the world he creates for it.

Out of curiosity, which parts of Sandman did you read? There's enough different artists with vastly different styles involved that you might find one book much more enjoyable than another. (I know I had the same sort of trouble with The Kindly Ones because I really hated the art in it, but I had much less trouble with, for example, Season of Mists.)
I have no idea what parts of "Sandman" I read because all I remember is a bunch of muddy, over-inked illustrations by a whole bunch of artists, that bore no thematic or progressive relation to each other, so that they neither guided my mind nor my eye, nor actually supported or contributed to the story in any way at all. I just remember a muddled mish-mash of images that all blurred into each other, pretty much doing the same to all the emotions, actions and sections of the story as well, rendering the entire thing a bland, one-note drone. And I remember staring at that mess while the fangirl who lent the books to me went on and on about how deep and mythological it all was. And I remember thinking, "I wonder who told her all that stuff was in here, and I wonder how they got that idea in the first place."

Sorry to all the "Sandman" fans out there.

I have no idea what parts of "Sandman" I read because all I remember is a bunch of muddy, over-inked illustrations by a whole bunch of artists, that bore no thematic or progressive relation to each other, so that they neither guided my mind nor my eye, nor actually supported or contributed to the story in any way at all. I just remember a muddled mish-mash of images that all blurred into each other, pretty much doing the same to all the emotions, actions and sections of the story as well, rendering the entire thing a bland, one-note drone. And I remember staring at that mess while the fangirl who lent the books to me went on and on about how deep and mythological it all was. And I remember thinking, "I wonder who told her all that stuff was in here, and I wonder how they got that idea in the first place."

Sorry to all the "Sandman" fans out there.

Heh, I guess this is where it's for the best that I have no particular expertise when it comes to art, so I mostly just sorta tune it out and enjoy the story. :tongue:

I wonder what the current status of the project involving Terry Pratchett's "the Wee Free Men" is.

A lot of the later Harry Potter movies left things hanging, and you had to fill them in with what you knew from the books. That's one thing that bothers me: when a movie leaves things unexplained or conflates characters (which can totally confuse some plot points) (snip rest)


They hacked the third book to bits, as well as the fourth. With order of the phoenix they did alright, one thing the movies need more of its dobby. I mean his role is so crucial in all of the books but so far he's only been in the 2nd movie...what are they just going to bring him back in the last film just to meet his fate? fucking retarted I say.


An example good adaptation is Forrest Gump. Despite the book and movie having very different flavors and going off into completely different directions, they manage to keep you interested until the end by being well written. I loved both and I couldn't pick which is better.


The book was better, especially when gump goes into outer space, or when he plays the creature from the black lagoon. Classic.

Heh, I guess this is where it's for the best that I have no particular expertise when it comes to art, so I mostly just sorta tune it out and enjoy the story. :tongue:
Well, for me, it's kind of equivalent to bad cinematography in a movie. Like that shaky camera trick that some directors like to use to enhance action or simulate realism, as if the movie is being shot with a handheld camera like a reality show. That camera technique gives me motion sickness, and I find it very hard to focus on the story of a movie that is literally making me puke.

So... I guess my point is, if it's a visual medium, the visuals matter.

Well, for me, it's kind of equivalent to bad cinematography in a movie. Like that shaky camera trick that some directors like to use to enhance action or simulate realism, as if the movie is being shot with a handheld camera like a reality show. That camera technique gives me motion sickness, and I find it very hard to focus on the story of a movie that is literally making me puke.

So... I guess my point is, if it's a visual medium, the visuals matter.

Makes perfect sense to me. I think I'm just less artistically picky, and will genuinely not notice the art one way or another unless it is exceptionally good or bad. (This is rather my experience with cinematography, too - unless it's utter shit or Oscar-worthy, I basically have no opinion on it because I wasn't really paying attention. :p )

Makes perfect sense to me. I think I'm just less artistically picky, and will genuinely not notice the art one way or another unless it is exceptionally good or bad. (This is rather my experience with cinematography, too - unless it's utter shit or Oscar-worthy, I basically have no opinion on it because I wasn't really paying attention. :p )
I've noticed that among a lot of people I know -- there are the ones who can't not see the pictures and the ones who seem to be able to skip right over them. What I don't understand is what draws that latter group to graphic novels in the first place? I mean, if it's not the pictures? What would interest them in that genre as opposed to regular books?

Also, you just made half the movie industry cry.

I half read the Silmarillion (has ANYBODY finished it???)

*raises hand*

Not only finished it, but I think it's better than LOTR...the book reads more like a history text than a novel, but the scope of the tale is so vast that I enjoy it more each time I read it.

Well, for me, it's kind of equivalent to bad cinematography in a movie. Like that shaky camera trick that some directors like to use to enhance action or simulate realism, as if the movie is being shot with a handheld camera like a reality show. That camera technique gives me motion sickness, and I find it very hard to focus on the story of a movie that is literally making me puke.

So... I guess my point is, if it's a visual medium, the visuals matter.
I like the shaky camera technique when it's done well, done properly and done for the right reasons (off-hand, Lars von Trier movies do it well). I especially can't stand it when it's done to make the action 'more exciting'. It just makes me, like your good self, feel rather nauseous.

This is from Wikipedia Ashy.
I half read the Silmarillion (has ANYBODY finished it???):


*raises hand*
Yes. Took me 4 hours. In english. And I'm Italian.

Bravo maestro! I found that the problem with the Silmarillion was that it lacked most qualities that novels have. It lacked a central character and climaxes. Its characters were pretty one-dimensional. It was an epic history and, as such, would be very difficult to turn into a film - or a series of films. Perhaps George Lucas or Peter Jackson could. I guess the one advantage would be that because it's a sketchy outline, the film's script writer is under little pressure to remain faithful to Tolkein's depiction of characters and plot. A good scriptwriter could take it anywhere!

Bravo maestro! I found that the problem with the Silmarillion was that it lacked most qualities that novels have. It lacked a central character and climaxes. Its characters were pretty one-dimensional. It was an epic history and, as such, would be very difficult to turn into a film - or a series of films. Perhaps George Lucas or Peter Jackson could. I guess the one advantage would be that because it's a sketchy outline, the film's script writer is under little pressure to remain faithful to Tolkein's depiction of characters and plot. A good scriptwriter could take it anywhere!

I wonder if that might have been part of the purpose in writing it.

The horror writer H.P. Lovecraft invented a fantastical reality based in this world that included extra-dimensional beings, bizarre monsters, human-alien hybrids, journeys to other worlds, etc., as well as a set of real and fictional locations linked by a fictional history and family trees that were all detailed more or less in his stories. He actively encouraged other writers to use those background materials in the interest of creating a new sub-genre, in a way, within fantasy fiction. Many of his friends took him up on the invitation, and since his time, hundreds of writers have relied on the so-called "Lovecraft Mythos" to establish a recognizable reality for their stories in horror, fantasy and science fiction.

Whether Tolkien intended it or not, it seems to me that many writers since him have relied on the fantasy concepts and fictional beings he created to set the rules for how "high fantasy" is supposed to be written, using his books as reference in a way similar to the Lovecraft situation.

Personally, I wish that wasn't the case necessarily*, but it seems to me that it is. I'm not certain though if it is that kind of deliberate establishment of a "mythos" or if they're just immitating him because his books are successful. If it's the former, the Silmarillion could be seen as a reference text.


(EDIT: * I would much rather see more writers start from the point of cultural source materials, the way Guillermo Del Toro did with "Pan's Labyrinth," but that's because I find the real myths and folklore much more compelling and full of deeper characters than the Middle Earth constructs.)

The big problem in transferring books to movies is that the imagination has no budget restraints.

(EDIT: * I would much rather see more writers start from the point of cultural source materials, the way Guillermo Del Toro did with "Pan's Labyrinth," but that's because I find the real myths and folklore much more compelling and full of deeper characters than the Middle Earth constructs.)

Check "El espinazo del Diablo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Atmz8dFiQ)", also by Guillermo del Toro. I'm sure you'll enjoy it too.

Check "El espinazo del Diablo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Atmz8dFiQ)", also by Guillermo del Toro. I'm sure you'll enjoy it too.
I have that one on my list.

I have that one on my list.

I like it a lot, but "El laberinto del fauno" tops my list of del Toro films.

I was reading this thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=576367) and started thinking about the movies that are "based on" or "inspired by" books. Most are a disapointment to fans of the book, but some are just plain butchery. For example, Eragon, Starship Troopers, and Prince Caspian were terrible mockeries of the books. On the other hand, I thought that The Lord of The Rings did a decent job at transferring the books to movie form despite the changes they made. While I was somewhat disappointed, it didn't make me gag like the aforementioned three offenders.

What movies have you seen that either followed the book fairly well or were an absolute disappointment? I haven't read Harry Potter, and I haven't read or seen Twilight, for example, and I would like the insight of those who might be rabid fans of either.

I read Harry Potter, and enjoyed them, and I cannot stomach the movies. I didn't care for the LotR movies, even though I read the books after I watched the films (a retroactive dislike) even though LotR was one of the best adaptations I've seen. I like the movie I Am Legend, though that is largely due to the changes they did make. I've also read the book, and I enjoyed both, but the movie is a better movie than the book is a book (if you understand me). I hope and pray that they do not make a Wheel of Time movie, or miniseries, or trilogy, or primetime show, or represent in any form of visual media. I've heard of vague plans to make WoT into a movie/trilogy, but the way I look at is that LotR got 3 hours of film for every 400 pages, so 9 hours of film for a 1200 page novel. After the last Wot novel is released there will be eleven novels ~800-1000 pgs, and a twelfth novel about three times as long. And LotR was still skimpily covered, WoT would need almost a trilogy per book.

Generally I oppose movies made from books, and I answered that I hate all of them, even though there is the occasionally acceptable movie.

there have been some very good movies derived from or inspired by, books. i think the concept of "adopting" a story from one media to another is problimatic though.

books and visually oriented media each have distinct advantages and disadvantages as modes of story telling.

in a written (or spoken) story, the storyteller can TELL you what a charicter is thinking, that they're not saying it out loud, and why they're not.

this is often difficult to near imposible, depending on the context in a visual media.

likewise, now that we have computer tecniques to readily do it with, a visual presentation all but puts you IN the world, context, setting the story takes place in, something the written or spoken work can only imply and leaves up to the mind of the audience to perceive internally as they will.

so i think the best way to see a movie that was based on a book is to not have read the book and reguard the movie as an entirely seperate entitiy. one that tells a perhapse parallel, though by no means identical story.

of course if you've already read the book, then it takes something of an act of will not to expect the same things of the movie as what you've personally experienced of it by reading.

movies have a couple of other limitations too. that is having to do with length of time people are willing to sit through it in one setting (movies on recorded medium for home viewing overcome this limitation of course, but if they were made to be shown publicly to begin with they carry it none the less).

stories told in writing have no such limitations, although story telling by spoken word does of course.

I've noticed that among a lot of people I know -- there are the ones who can't not see the pictures and the ones who seem to be able to skip right over them. What I don't understand is what draws that latter group to graphic novels in the first place? I mean, if it's not the pictures? What would interest them in that genre as opposed to regular books?

Also, you just made half the movie industry cry.

Hehe.

To be honest, I don't have much interest in graphic novels, but I have an interest in compelling stories regardless of the medium. I never picked up a graphic novel before Sandman, and if Sandman had been told in ordinary novel form, I would have liked it at least as much.

Oddly enough, I'm not a particular Philistine, either - I quite like the visual arts, am a halfway decent photographer (of the artsy playing-around-in-the-darkroom variety, not the "everybody stand in front of Mount Rushmore and smile!" variety), visit museums regularly, and have the sort of artistic taste that generally agrees with people who actually know what they're talking about. I just notice the story more.

I like the movie I Am Legend, though that is largely due to the changes they did make. I've also read the book, and I enjoyed both, but the movie is a better movie than the book is a book (if you understand me).

.....
Most horrible thing I've ever read on the internet, and this includes articles about fat men clubbing orphans to death with the last surviving baby-seals.

They hacked the third book to bits, as well as the fourth. With order of the phoenix they did alright, one thing the movies need more of its dobby. I mean his role is so crucial in all of the books but so far he's only been in the 2nd movie...what are they just going to bring him back in the last film just to meet his fate? fucking retarted I say.

Yeah, true, it'll be a WTF if you didn't read the books. The bad thing about the Harry Potter movies is that you have to fill in the gaps with stuff from the books. I think the only proper way to do Harry Potter would be a miniseries, cause it's a pretty epic-length tale.

The book was better, especially when gump goes into outer space, or when he plays the creature from the black lagoon. Classic.

I loved a lot of the book things cause they were hilarious. Movie less hilarious, but still very engaging (I sat quiet through the whole thing. And I never do that.) I think I like the movie cause I saw the movie first.

I haven't read Anansi Boys yet. I've read American Gods, Stardust, Neverwhere, and some parts of "Sandman."


I class American Gods as one of the best modern books I've read. I really could not find a single flaw in it. A very smart, beautiful, entertaining, and potentially deep story.
Yeah, I don't think Asansai Boys has as much literature merit as American Gods does. I think thats partly because the scope is smaller. I liked it mostly because it had a very strong ending and some very nice passages of writting.
I think I may read American Gods again. I think its one of those books I'll enjoy even more the 2nd time through.

As I said, I was disappointed in Stardust. It was very well written and I really liked the way it handled the fairy reality -- in fact, I would be interested in getting some Tolkien fans' opinions of it -- but I felt the plot was barebones, the progression was too easy, and the characters were tantalizingly underdeveloped. The movie almost seemed to be a second draft of the story, as if it had matured in Gaiman's mind between the book and the screenplay.
I've seen the movie and I enjoyed it. I don't think it was an ground-breaking movie but it was well done and a decent story. That said it included a running montage with stirring classical music in the background. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

I didn't like Neverwhere but not because of any flaws in the book. It was a very good book, I just didn't like the story that much. It was not as well constructed as American Gods, imo. Aside from my issues with its basic plot, I also quibble with how he handled the villain and the villain's fate.
Yeah, I'm not too sure about what I think about Neverwhere. I thought it was a good book and there were passages where the writting style really gripped me. I read neverwhere in fits and starts as well so it seems a little disjointed to me.
Finally, I can't make a judgment about the story of "Sandman" because it was a graphic novel series, and I didn't like the art. For me, the art in a graphic novel is like the images in a movie -- it's kind of the point of it, and its carries all or most of the story for me. If I don't like the art, that's an insurmountable problem for me. I was so distracted by not liking the art like that I couldn't even follow the story.
I've never really read many graphic novels. There wasn't really anywhere to buy them (or comic books either) so I never really got into them.

I hope and pray that they do not make a Wheel of Time movie, or miniseries, or trilogy, or primetime show, or represent in any form of visual media. I've heard of vague plans to make WoT into a movie/trilogy, but the way I look at is that LotR got 3 hours of film for every 400 pages, so 9 hours of film for a 1200 page novel. After the last Wot novel is released there will be eleven novels ~800-1000 pgs, and a twelfth novel about three times as long. And LotR was still skimpily covered, WoT would need almost a trilogy per book.
I doubt it. WOT is full of easily cut out crap. Jordan was incapable of succinct writing. He'd spend 3 pages describing a room when 'opulent' would have sufficed. Also he had pages and pages of meandering internal dialogue that added nothing to the story + whole novels based around Rand sulking and brooding and doing nothing cause he "doesn't want a woman to die for him" (though is quite happy to send thousands of men off to be slaughtered needlessly when sending both armies in + all his trained Asha'man would have meant certain victory and only a few dead on his side). Then cut out the laboriously repetitive bits designed to hammer home just what's happening, and the bits where everyone gets miffy at each other cause they won't tell each other what they know (there's a good couple of books worth there alone!)
Cut all that and heavily edit the rest and you'd go from the laborious, leaden, almost 10,000 pages already written down to a tight, well-paced and readable couple of thousand pages. If that.

If a person wanted to be a pest, they could point out that this could crash into, or at least rub up against, accusations of racism, or at least xenophobia, against Tolkien.

You're really reaching. Here's why:

The "foreign" women, the women of another "race," are allowed to be powerful and active, while that is extremely rare and generally discouraged by tradition among the "men."

Elves are generally portrayed as an enlightened people. If they grant their women more equality, I'd say that's a possitive reflection on Tolkien, and not an example of xenophobia.

It's not so much a prejudicial view that says that other "races" are bad, but rather that other "races" are different, strange, not like "us," and do things "we" don't do, and that takes anything that is considered too extreme, too risque, and assigns it to the "foreigners" rather than one's own group.

While one could perhaps criticize Tolkien for having "racial cultures"(despite some subtle differences between each group of elves and dwarves, for example), he hardly was in the habit of assigning every negative or bizzar charicteristic to these other races. With the exception of Sauron's creatures, most negative charicteristics seemed to be most strongly pressent in humans. As for other cultures being different and exotic, well, yeah. That's why they're distinct cultures.;)

Now I'm not saying that Tolkien had such views personally. I don't know anything about the man. Maybe the only reason he did that was because he thought elf chicks were hot. But I do have to admit his stories have caused me to roll my eyes and harumph more than once.

Well Tolkien's view on race, women, and religion are probably somewhat a product of the prejudices of his times. But its not as clear cut as one might think, bearing in mind that Tolkien did have prominant and/or complex female characters both elvish and human, and interracial relationships (admitedly Elves were still white), and that he was deliberately writing an old-fasioned epic drawing on the mythological traditions of cultures we would probably consider backwards.

.....
Most horrible thing I've ever read on the internet, and this includes articles about fat men clubbing orphans to death with the last surviving baby-seals.
And the fat men being naked hairy sweaty fat men with greasy pendulous bollocks and scabby genitals.

You're really reaching. Here's why:

Rather than tease you for being a big, serious, pedantic Tolkein fan, I'll just tell you straight up before answering your post that I was teasing in my earlier post. :p

Elves are generally portrayed as an enlightened people. If they grant their women more equality, I'd say that's a possitive reflection on Tolkien, and not an example of xenophobia.
Foreign enlightened people who grant their women more equality. Foreign people who are not human. Non-human people who do something humans don't do. Foreign + not human = okay to let the womenfolk have power because, hell, you never know what those crazy foreigners get up to; shit, they're not even human.

Get it?

It's the classic trick of fobbing off anything that could be remotely controversial in one's own culture on the culture of an outside group.

While one could perhaps criticize Tolkien for having "racial cultures"(despite some subtle differences between each group of elves and dwarves, for example), he hardly was in the habit of assigning every negative or bizzar charicteristic to these other races. With the exception of Sauron's creatures, most negative charicteristics seemed to be most strongly pressent in humans. As for other cultures being different and exotic, well, yeah. That's why they're distinct cultures.;)
All distinct along racial lines, too.

And I never said he was favoring humans as better than everyone else.

Well Tolkien's view on race, women, and religion are probably somewhat a product of the prejudices of his times. But its not as clear cut as one might think, bearing in mind that Tolkien did have prominant and/or complex female characters both elvish and human, and interracial relationships (admitedly Elves were still white), and that he was deliberately writing an old-fasioned epic drawing on the mythological traditions of cultures we would probably consider backwards.
Uh-huh. Which does not actually counter this particular criticism, does it? If you'll notice, I never said that Tolkein himself was a sexist or a racist or a xenophobe. I only that such accusation have been made against him, which they have. And I also said such elements can be said to exist in his stories, which you seem to agree with.

For loyalty to the source material, The Three Musketeers/Four Musketeers (together they make the Dumas classic) was great. The Soviet-made version of War and Peace was magnificent. The upcoming Watchmen (http://watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com/) seems like the first time a film will be true to, and properly capture the essence of, one of Alan Moore's works, which is important, because he writes the only comic books (graphic novels) I enjoy. The film Barry Lyndon deviates often from its source, but like Dr. Strangelove, it is the better for it.

Scaramouche, as a film, was disappointing.

The Soviet-made version of War and Peace was magnificent.

o.O So was it magnificent in that it was faithful to the material, and thereby long, boring, over-rated and rarely seen all the way through? =p

I'd say three in one book should be enough, though for more minor examples of female characters their is Bombadil's wife, as well as Beren's elvish wife in The Silmarilliion.

Yes, Tolkein wrote things besides Lord of the Rings.:)

Actually, yes, Luthien would be a rather good example. She beats Morgoth, who is basically the ultimate evil in Tolkien's Universe, and does it with style.

Melian

Also reasonable.

This is from Wikipedia Ashy.
I half read the Silmarillion (has ANYBODY finished it???):
Melian the Maia is a fictional character in the fantasy-world Middle-earth of the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. She appears in The Silmarillion, the epic poem The Lay of Leithian, The Children of Húrin, the Annals of Aman and the Grey Annals.

Yep, several times. And Unfinished Tales. I have the Lays of Beleriand on my Christmas list, as I rather enjoy Tolkien's poetry.

Which is really my biggest complaint with the films --- they cut the singing. All through the books, when tales are told, when men are mourned, when the foe is brought to battle, songs are sung. It really lifts it out of 'yet another long-winded fantasy novel' status, and into this picture of a coherent and ancient world.

And most of it is damn beautiful, such as the lament for Boromir that Aragorn and Legolas sing.


Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass grows
The West Wind comes walking, and about the walls it goes.
'What news from the West, O wandering wind, do you bring to me tonight?
Have you seen Boromir the Tall by moon or by starlight?'
'I saw him ride over seven streams, over waters wide and grey;
I saw him walk in empty lands, until he passed away
Into the shadows of the North. I saw him then no more.
The North Wind may have heard the horn of the son of Denethor.'
'O Boromir! From the high walls westward I looked afar,
But you came not from the empty lands where no men are.'

From the mouths of the Sea the South Wind flies, from the sandhills and the stones;
The wailing of the gulls it bears, and at the gate it moans.
'What news from the South, O sighing wind, do you bring to me at eve?
Where now is Boromir the fair? He tarries and I grieve.'
'Ask not of me where he doth dwell --- so many bones there lie
On the white shores and the dark shores under the stormy sky;
So many have passed down Anduin to find the flowing Sea.
Ask of the North Wind news of them the North Wind sends to me!'
'O Boromir! Beyond the gate the seaward road runs south,
But you came not with the wailing gulls from the grey sea's mouth.'

From the Gate of Kings the North Wind rides, and past the roaring falls;
And clear and cold about the tower its loud horn calls.
'What news from the North, O mighty wind, do you bring to me today?
What news of Boromir the Bold? For he is long away.'
'Beneath Amon Hen I heard his cry. There many foes he fought.
His cloven shield, his broken sword, they to the water brought.
His head so proud, his face so fair, his limbs they laid to rest;
And Rauros, golden Rauros-falls, bore him upon its breast.'
'O Boromir! The Tower of Gaurd shall ever northward gaze
To Rauros, golden Rauros-falls, until the end of days.'


Beautiful verse, perfect sendoff, and they cut it without a second thought. It kills the mood of LOTR, and turns it into yet another fantasy movie, with fancy elves and comical dwarves, as opposed to Tolkien's ancient elves, in long decline from their glorious past, and grim dwarves, fell and sturdy and haunted by doom.

[/soapbox]

Actually, yes, Luthien would be a rather good example. She beats Morgoth, who is basically the ultimate evil in Tolkien's Universe, and does it with style.



Also reasonable.



Yep, several times. And Unfinished Tales. I have the Lays of Beleriand on my Christmas list, as I rather enjoy Tolkien's poetry.

Which is really my biggest complaint with the films --- they cut the singing. All through the books, when tales are told, when men are mourned, when the foe is brought to battle, songs are sung. It really lifts it out of 'yet another long-winded fantasy novel' status, and into this picture of a coherent and ancient world.

And most of it is damn beautiful, such as the lament for Boromir that Aragorn and Legolas sing.



Beautiful verse, perfect sendoff, and they cut it without a second thought. It kills the mood of LOTR, and turns it into yet another fantasy movie, with fancy elves and comical dwarves, as opposed to Tolkien's ancient elves, in long decline from their glorious past, and grim dwarves, fell and sturdy and haunted by doom.

[/soapbox]

Heh. As a musician, I was actually really, really glad they cut almost all the singing. It never would have lived up to my imaginings.

You know, a lot of nerds like LOTR for the alphabets, the poems, the histories etc. But the thing that really sucks in most readers is the epic tale where heroes walk through the shadows and face their deepest fears - and watch what happens to those who give in to fears and temptations. I think that the extra layers of languages and songs are really icing on the cake.
It's a delicious cake but nobody loves everything about LOTR and nobody could contain it all in a film - or even a trilogy of films.
Who out there is a nerd who gets off on the LOTR trimmings?
(sheepishly puts up half a hand)

You know, a lot of nerds like LOTR for the alphabets, the poems, the histories etc. But the thing that really sucks in most readers is the epic tale where heroes walk through the shadows and face their deepest fears - and watch what happens to those who give in to fears and temptations. I think that the extra layers of languages and songs are really icing on the cake.
It's a delicious cake but nobody loves everything about LOTR and nobody could contain it all in a film - or even a trilogy of films.
Who out there is a nerd who gets off on the LOTR trimmings?
(sheepishly puts up half a hand)

I find the trimmings the best part of LOTR, because it simply isn't Tolkien's most epic and grand tale. It's a relatively conventional happy story, but set in a fantastically deep and broad universe, and as such works well to introduce people to the legendarium.

Tolkien said that there were three main tales in his body of work: The Fall of Gondolin, The Children of Hurin, and Beren and Luthien. He never really finished any of them, but each one is (IMO) a much more interesting and compelling story than LOTR. And that's why the cool parts of LOTR are the songs and the languages, the histories; those are the connections with this vast and epic body of work that he had also written.

You know, a lot of nerds like LOTR for the alphabets, the poems, the histories etc. But the thing that really sucks in most readers is the epic tale where heroes walk through the shadows and face their deepest fears - and watch what happens to those who give in to fears and temptations. I think that the extra layers of languages and songs are really icing on the cake.
It's a delicious cake but nobody loves everything about LOTR and nobody could contain it all in a film - or even a trilogy of films.
Who out there is a nerd who gets off on the LOTR trimmings?
(sheepishly puts up half a hand)
i think of them as treats that you pick up later. they detract from the first reading of LOTR because they do not advance the story. but if you love the story and the world tolkien created, they are great treats to come back to on the second (or 10th) reading because they add so much depth to the experience.

and no i dont like ALL the trimmings. the whole elf language thing is just too too nerdy for me.

Eh, Starship Troopers was purposeful butchery. It sits on that thin, almost non-existent line where a good director can fool 90% of the audience into thinking the film they are watching is another empty, vapid story when it is in fact mocking the audience itself.

Indeed. Myself and a friend sat there in the cinema, cheering for the aliens. People looked puzzled.

I half read the Silmarillion (has ANYBODY finished it???)

About three times... And I'm planning on reading all of JRRT works in chronological order this time. So a fourth time is on it's way.

Snip... Perhaps George Lucas or Peter Jackson could. Snip...

Please... NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Neither... Please...

Snip...
I like the movie I Am Legend, though that is largely due to the changes they did make. I've also read the book, and I enjoyed both, but the movie is a better movie than the book is a book (if you understand me).
Snap...

You are talking about the one with Charston Heston I hope...

Indeed. Myself and a friend sat there in the cinema, cheering for the aliens. People looked puzzled.
I disliked Starship Troopers for several reasons, but I did get the strong feeling from it that the filmmakers hated the story they were telling, and its fans. My biggest objection to the movie was that the satire wasn't sharp enough, because I thought a lot of people didn't get that they were being set up, as an audience.

o.O So was it magnificent in that it was faithful to the material, and thereby long, boring, over-rated and rarely seen all the way through? =p

It was magnificent because it had incredible acting, was utterly historically accurate, and cost over half-a-billion dollars to make (in the sixties!). The whole six-and-a-half-hours piece is worth buying just to see the cavalry charge at Austerlitz; the Soviet army was used for extras in battle scenes, which means 100,000 extras in Napoleonic uniform.

you know, a lot of nerds like lotr for the alphabets, the poems, the histories etc. But the thing that really sucks in most readers is the epic tale where heroes walk through the shadows and face their deepest fears - and watch what happens to those who give in to fears and temptations. I think that the extra layers of languages and songs are really icing on the cake.
It's a delicious cake but nobody loves everything about lotr and nobody could contain it all in a film - or even a trilogy of films.
Who out there is a nerd who gets off on the lotr trimmings?
(sheepishly puts up half a hand)

Ring of the Nibelung > LOTR

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I find the trimmings the best part of LOTR, because it simply isn't Tolkien's most epic and grand tale. It's a relatively conventional happy story, but set in a fantastically deep and broad universe, and as such works well to introduce people to the legendarium.

I'm not sure its just a "happy story". Yes, for the most part the good guys win and everything works out, but their's a certain bitter-sweetness to the end, in that many ancient wonders are slowly fading away as the elves are leaving Middle Earth forever. By Tolkien's own admission, LOTR is, at least in part, the story of the end of the "old days" that form the "more epic" tales you prefer. As for conventional, that's probably due largely to Tolkein being obsessively imitated by those who came after, but that's not his fault.;)

I agree though, that one of the strengths of LOTR is the depth and detail Tolkien was able to put into his world, by drawing on all his knowledge of the history of Western language and mythology.

Tolkien said that there were three main tales in his body of work: The Fall of Gondolin, The Children of Hurin, and Beren and Luthien. He never really finished any of them, but each one is (IMO) a much more interesting and compelling story than LOTR. And that's why the cool parts of LOTR are the songs and the languages, the histories; those are the connections with this vast and epic body of work that he had also written.

I personally find the story of LOTR very compelling. Its draws on very old traditions, true, but their's something deeply inspirational and moving to people about the story of a group of ordinary people (the hobbits) facing impossible odds and ultimately prevailing. This I feel is at the coar of LOTR's success. As long as people feel hopeless and wonder if they can overcome the threats and challenges of the World, LOTR will probably retain a deep and widespread appeal.

Also, Lord of the Rings draws deeply on the various traditions that make up the basis of Western mythology, creating almost a sense that Tolkein took all of Western mythology and distilled it, then gave its various traditions a common universe and retold it to the modern world.

Well, perhaps I exagerate somewhat. Tolkien's work has its flaws, its moments of silliness or disbelief, its dated ideas, and its ommissions (Tolkien himself criticized it by saying that it should have been longer). But while much of this is probably subjective, I thought I should speak up in LOTR's defense. Personally I prefer it to The Sillmarillion, which I found somewhat dull and straining of suspension of disbelief. Of course, it may just take a while to get in to it. So, for that matter, does Lord of the Rings. :)

Incidentally, I love how every book thread here seems to turn into an LOTR discussion. :)

I'm not sure its just a "happy story". Yes, for the most part the good guys win and everything works out, but their's a certain bitter-sweetness to the end, in that many ancient wonders are slowly fading away as the elves are leaving Middle Earth forever. By Tolkien's own admission, LOTR is, at least in part, the story of the end of the "old days" that form the "more epic" tales you prefer. As for conventional, that's probably due largely to Tolkein being obsessively imitated by those who came after, but that's not his fault.;)

I agree though, that one of the strengths of LOTR is the depth and detail Tolkien was able to put into his world, by drawing on all his knowledge of the history of Western language and mythology.

"Happy" is a relative term here. Compare it with The Children Of Hurin (henceforth TCOH). In LOTR, the end is the triumph of good over evil, and the destruction of the main enemy. In TCOH, the main enemy is killed, and this is promptly followed by the suicide of the two main characters, and the deaths of several more. In the end, the true bad guy's plans are achieved.

Yes, it is a story of loss, or more precisely of change and of fading ('I pass the test,' Galadriel said 'I shall diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'). But it is fundamentally a tale cast in a very different mould to the tales of the Elder days. And even as a story of change and fading, it pales next to the marring of Arda at its creation, or the death of the Trees, or the destruction of Numenor.


I personally find the story of LOTR very compelling. Its draws on very old traditions, true, but their's something deeply inspirational and moving to people about the story of a group of ordinary people (the hobbits) facing impossible odds and ultimately prevailing. This I feel is at the coar of LOTR's success. As long as people feel hopeless and wonder if they can overcome the threats and challenges of the World, LOTR will probably retain a deep and widespread appeal.

Also, Lord of the Rings draws deeply on the various traditions that make up the basis of Western mythology, creating almost a sense that Tolkein took all of Western mythology and distilled it, then gave its various traditions a common universe and retold it to the modern world.

Oh yes, it's a very compelling story, and a very well told one. But to me it is one which lacks the richness and the scale of TCOH or the tale of Beren and Luthien, with deeds of daring, heroic feats, terrible battles, doomed love, and inevitable ending. Which is also probably why they will never have as much widespread appeal --- a book in which all the good guys end up dying is never likely to be a hit.

Tolkien was explicitly working on a legendarium, and he was very well versed in western mythology, particularly Anglo Saxon and Norse, so it comes as no surprise that his universe feels somewhat like a distilled version of Western mythology.


Well, perhaps I exagerate somewhat. Tolkien's work has its flaws, its moments of silliness or disbelief, its dated ideas, and its ommissions (Tolkien himself criticized it by saying that it should have been longer). But while much of this is probably subjective, I thought I should speak up in LOTR's defense. Personally I prefer it to The Sillmarillion, which I found somewhat dull and straining of suspension of disbelief. Of course, it may just take a while to get in to it. So, for that matter, does Lord of the Rings. :)

Incidentally, I love how every book thread here seems to turn into an LOTR discussion. :)

That's because the Silmarillion is not a tale in the way that LOTR is. The Silmarillion is a history, a collection of bits of drafts pulled together to provide a coherent history of the First Age. LOTR is comparable in scope to TCOH, which also deals with events following a few characters, over a few years, not events following a cast of hundreds, over the course of thousands of years.

And don't get me wrong, I love LOTR. I just think that much of his work that most people write off as boring or arcane, and the aspects of LOTR that most people brush over as irrelevant and uninteresting, are the real gems of Tolkien's works.

My real disappointment with the movies, then, is that they have removed many of these aspects. Once they are gone, all that is left is a reasonably generic fantasy story. One that is well told, and on a very epic scale, but still one that is simply a quest against evil. They pulled it out of it's context as a refighting in miniature of the endless battle in Tolkien's world, as merely one strand and one tale from a much larger tapestry or book, one that extended back to the very creation, and across the entire world.

Incidentally, I love how every book thread here seems to turn into an LOTR discussion. :)
It's because the internets are infested with you nerds. :p

Honestly, you'd think it was the only fantasy adventure story ever written. :rolleyes: It really, really wasn't.

I disliked Starship Troopers for several reasons, but I did get the strong feeling from it that the filmmakers hated the story they were telling, and its fans. My biggest objection to the movie was that the satire wasn't sharp enough, because I thought a lot of people didn't get that they were being set up, as an audience.

I agree it was hardly Swiftian satire, but I wouldn't say it was hard to spot.

"The Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today!"
[Has no legs.]

I was commenting on the stupidity of its audience more than anything. I saw it in a theater in Vermont, and maybe it's just that it drew in all the militiamen and constitutionalists from the hills, but I was surrounded by people who came out yelling "RAWR" with enthusiasm over that thing and a few other people feeling very uncomfortable and moving away from those movie-fans as fast as possible.

Considering the number of peole I personal observed not getting the joke, I wish the joke had been even more pointed, so that those of us who would get it would have felt more comfortable pointing and laughing at the others in the audience, instead of feeling like we needed to hide.

It was magnificent because it had incredible acting, was utterly historically accurate, and cost over half-a-billion dollars to make (in the sixties!). The whole six-and-a-half-hours piece is worth buying just to see the cavalry charge at Austerlitz; the Soviet army was used for extras in battle scene, which means 100,000 extras in Napoleonic uniform.

Ah, well now I very much am interested. In all honesty, War and Peace always struck me as a story I would very much enjoy watching on television but could just not get into past the first couple hundred pages. It's always been one of those books where when I have nothing else to read I'm like, "Hey, I should finish this finally." At which point I read the first 600 or so pages for the 80th time and then put it down when another book catches my fancy.

Are English subs readily available or is this one I'ma hafta scour the internet for?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ec/Whats_Opera_Doc_still.png

Pff. Spear and magic helmet.

Are English subs readily available or is this one I'ma hafta scour the internet for?

Readily.

Pff. Spear and magic helmet.

And those will kill da wabbit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDwDo_hTs2Q).

Honestly, you'd think it was the only fantasy adventure story ever written. :rolleyes: It really, really wasn't.

Cugel the Clever "owns" Frodo.

It's because the internets are infested with you nerds. :p

Honestly, you'd think it was the only fantasy adventure story ever written. :rolleyes: It really, really wasn't.

I'm a very big fan of The Wizard of Earthsea, but tend to read more SF than fantasy adventure. The fantasy I do read is often of the satirical flavour (read: Pratchett).

How about Enid Blyton's "The Magic Faraway Tree" as an R- rated adult fantasy.
The characters are great!
There's "Dame Slap" (self-explanatory really - I think that Enid might have been pretty kinky)
There is also Dick (Is there a chapter called "Dick is very greedy"?
And don't even get me started on "Fannie".

Now, switching to Noddy, there is the story about when Noddy takes three gollywogs in his little Noddy taxi into the dark woods and they carjack his cab .....AND STEAL HIS TROUSERS!!!!

So, I saw almost all of Twilight on Friday. It's pretty meh. Are the books that boring or does it fail on the basis of being a "Based on the book by...." movie?

It's because the internets are infested with you nerds. :p

Honestly, you'd think it was the only fantasy adventure story ever written. :rolleyes: It really, really wasn't.

By no means the only. Mearly the best.;)

Honestly, I have never, ever read anything that comes close. If you can recomend another work of fantasy that is comparable in its depth, please do.

By the way, does The Dark Knight count as a book-to-film adaptation (albeit comic books)? Because if so, it kicks ass. :)

By the way, does The Dark Knight count as a book-to-film adaptation (albeit comic books)? Because if so, it kicks ass. :)

I don't think so. (About it counting. It totally kicks ass). Comics translate to screen much better than books.

I don't think so. (About it counting. It totally kicks ass). Comics translate to screen much better than books.

Well a comic book is still a book, right? ;)

God I hope I get The Dark Knight for Christmas. :)

*ahem*

ZOMG filmmakers all suck for changing things! People adapting books to movies never put in the slightest effort, when it's perfectly obvious that all they need to do is keep things exactly the same! Also, why the hell wasn't Tom Bombadil in LOTR?! Wah!

Feel better now? :p

No, really, Tom Bombadil was awesome... He deserved a spot. But I forgive them, because no actor alive could be as awesome as Tom, except Sean Connery, and well... I don't really need to explain that.:tongue:

By no means the only. Mearly the best.;)

Honestly, I have never, ever read anything that comes close. If you can recomend another work of fantasy that is comparable in its depth, please do.
Well, with the caveat that what you might be calling Tolkien's "depth", I would call his droning longwindedness... let me think...

Well, there's the Odyssey. That was a pretty profound tour of a fantastical world.

Jason and the Argonauts has various versions floating around, some better than others (both books and movies).

Beowulf is generally reckoned to be pretty deep, though the book (poem) is better than any of the movie versions.

If you like something a little more modern, the Earthsea books are fairly good.

I'm a bigger fan though of Michael Moorcock's Elric books.

And if you want a really modern, really deep presentation of a fantasy reality, there's good old Neil Gaiman and his American Gods, in which the fantasy world is the one we live in now.

But my all-time favorite fantasy adventure in the ren faire style is Orlando Furioso written during the very early Renaissance but set in the Middle Ages, during Charlemagne's reign. It is one terrific story. It presents us with a globe trotting journey through an exotic world full of chivalrous heroes and dastardly villains, warring armies, wizards, dragons, warrior maidens (even tougher than Eowyn), talking horses, spears and magic helmets, a romantic damsel (way sexier and nowhere near as passive as Arwen). Whereas LOTR merely included poems and songs, the entire body of Orlando Furioso is a poem meant to be sung -- all 4000+/- stanzas of it. However, although there are some evil creatures, there are no elves or dwarves, and in that world "orc" means dragon (and it does have one of those). On the plus side, though, it has a shitload more sex, violence and humor than LOTR, and there's even a trip to the moon on the back of a griffon. Tolkein never tried that trick, did he?

I would so love to see a big budget movie of Orlando Furioso. It would a blast. :D

The Golen Compass was a pretty good film and there are variousJapanese anime that work.

Caspian wasn't that bad. At least films of Narnia don't have C.S. Lewis's gratuitous remarks about modern parenting and vegetarians - where he comes across as the childless mysoginist he was.

Well, with the caveat that what you might be calling Tolkien's "depth", I would call his droning longwindedness... let me think...

Well, there's the Odyssey. That was a pretty profound tour of a fantastical world.

Jason and the Argonauts has various versions floating around, some better than others (both books and movies).


I haven't read originals of either of these, but the versions I have read are pretty good.


Beowulf is generally reckoned to be pretty deep, though the book (poem) is better than any of the movie versions.


Remember that Tolkien's work is very heavily influenced by Norse and Anglo Saxon mythology, particularly Beowulf. Strong aspects of it come through in The Hobbit, and to a lesser extent in The Children of Hurin


If you like something a little more modern, the Earthsea books are fairly good.

I'm a bigger fan though of Michael Moorcock's Elric books.


Earthsea is good, so I'll put Moorcock on the list. I've had independent recommendations for some of his steampunk stuff, so that bodes well.


And if you want a really modern, really deep presentation of a fantasy reality, there's good old Neil Gaiman and his American Gods, in which the fantasy world is the one we live in now.


Yes, yes, yes. That is just a fucking awesome book. As is most stuff by Neil Gaiman, really. Neverwhere was a fantastic world, and some of the pieces in Smoke and Mirrors are really cool.

Have you heard they're doing Coraline as a movie, for release next year?


But my all-time favorite fantasy adventure in the ren faire style is Orlando Furioso written during the very early Renaissance but set in the Middle Ages, during Charlemagne's reign. It is one terrific story. It presents us with a globe trotting journey through an exotic world full of chivalrous heroes and dastardly villains, warring armies, wizards, dragons, warrior maidens (even tougher than Eowyn), talking horses, spears and magic helmets, a romantic damsel (way sexier and nowhere near as passive as Arwen). Whereas LOTR merely included poems and songs, the entire body of Orlando Furioso is a poem meant to be sung -- all 4000+/- stanzas of it. However, although there are some evil creatures, there are no elves or dwarves, and in that world "orc" means dragon (and it does have one of those). On the plus side, though, it has a shitload more sex, violence and humor than LOTR, and there's even a trip to the moon on the back of a griffon. Tolkein never tried that trick, did he?

I would so love to see a big budget movie of Orlando Furioso. It would a blast. :D

I recall you singing its praises every time we have a book thread. I presume it wasn't originally in English, so would you care to recommend a particular version?

I haven't read originals of either of these, but the versions I have read are pretty good.
I haven't read the originals either, not being fluent in ancient Greek.

Remember that Tolkien's work is very heavily influenced by Norse and Anglo Saxon mythology, particularly Beowulf. Strong aspects of it come through in The Hobbit, and to a lesser extent in The Children of Hurin
Strong aspects of a swipe showing in his books does not make a writer good, necessarily. I dislike Tolkein for his own choices as a writer, and the knowledge of the sources he was inspired by does not make up for what I see as his particular flaws.

Earthsea is good, so I'll put Moorcock on the list. I've had independent recommendations for some of his steampunk stuff, so that bodes well.
I picked up the Elric books purely at random while looking for a fantasy story that wasn't Tolkein. I haven't actually read much else of his, though I'm planning to read the Gerry Cornelius stories next.

The Elric books are dark and edgy and kind of sad, have more tragedy and more really scary sections. They are not so strongly based on any European type of mythology, but have elements of lost worlds beliefs, such as Atlantis lore, as well as a strong theme of older races of beings fading from power to be supplanted by up and coming new races, with just the suggestion that the older races are not necessarily human and the new races are definitely human. Rather than tell a story of a whole world, though, Moorcock focuses his story very personally on just one person -- Elric of Melnibone -- who just happens to be a major player in the downfall of one power structure, opening the way for a new one. But his interests are personal and remain personal through all the stories. I find that kind of story structure much more interesting.


Yes, yes, yes. That is just a fucking awesome book. As is most stuff by Neil Gaiman, really. Neverwhere was a fantastic world, and some of the pieces in Smoke and Mirrors are really cool.

Have you heard they're doing Coraline as a movie, for release next year?
I'll look forward to it.

I recall you singing its praises every time we have a book thread. I presume it wasn't originally in English, so would you care to recommend a particular version?
You can read it online, if you like: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/615

Amazon offers a prose translation from Oxford Classics: http://www.amazon.com/Orlando-Furioso-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0192836773

I'm not a huge fan of prose versions of poems, and this one doesn't seem less academic-y than a verse translation would be, so... use your judgment.

The verse translation I have is by a Barbara Reynolds, published by Penguin Classics, in two volumes. ISBN 0 14 044.311 8; ISBN 0 14 044 310 X

But it's quite old. I haven't checked to see if it's still in print.

And I was mistaken. The author, Ariosto, is actully late medieval, rather than early renaissance. So, this is from the ren faire horse's mouth, as it were.

I'd like to see a movie of Sir Walter Scott's "Waverley" - about an Englishman caught up in the doomed highland rising of 1745

I have seen a few good adaptations of Sherlock Holmes to film.

A lot of compromise is required just because of the difference in genres. Frequently, what works in a book won't work on screen and vice versa. But the compromises can and should be made without destroying the actual story. Memoirs of A Geisha did this well. LOTR was also a decent adaptation. Most of them don't succeed, however.

What I really find objectionable are screen biographies that bear absolutely no relation to the actual life of the person. For every Sunrise at Campobello, you get 10 like Girl in White (Biopic of Dr. Emily Dunning).

Well a comic book is still a book, right? ;)

If it is on "Time Magazine's 100 best novels since 1927" it is.

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