Biggest rape of a book.

[Mezz DeJé]

This is my humble attempt to bring the community together with a wacky conversation about something. So here it goes:

Have you ever seen a movie that was originally based on a book that you loved? But then the movie took a poor approach to the book and ended up with something that was either lacking or just plain stupid? I know i have

I will start the post by throwing in Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis. Even though the movie was not bad, it rushed and left many vital details out in the dark and made the characters relation in movie confusing because of loss ends that was not catched up with.

Now you join! :chug:

[mos667]

Resident Evil

...

The instruction manual?

[dfacto]

The Thirteenth Warrior, based on Eaters of the Dead, by M Crichton. Sure the book wasn't stellar, but the movie sucked.

[Aerythes]

Yeah, I remembered watching The 13th Warrior till the end, and then wondering what the whole point was.

[young paddy1]

Another Crichton Timeline, the book wasn't bad but the film was a giant flying turd.

[epiphany]

yeah 13th warrior kinda suck.....its utterly impossible for someone to suddenly speak another language in 1 night.

[N D Hill]

Frank Herbert's Dune.

Both the theatrical and SciFi channel versions suffered from severe creative, financial and acting neglect. I wish they had done nothing.

[WildSpruceMoose]

I thought he learned the language over a course of several nights shown by the drastic change in weather. Also I though the 13th warrior had some merit considering its lack of really big celebrities shows its smaller budget than most films. Since I've never read the book I suppose I have no idea what I'm talking about.

[N D Hill]

For the most part, I think making adaptations from literature is very much an uphill battle. Movies have to deliver a fairly consistant flow of plot development in a very short ammount of time. They do this mostly at the expence of character development. With books, the pace can be whatever the auther thinks it should be too. Sometimes you really want a really good sense of a time span and rather than a simple little segway (5 years later or something), you stay with the character durring that time.

The Lord of the Rings is a good example. In the book (after the lengthy prologue giving you a detailed history on hobbits), Frodo first meets gandalf for Bilbo's eleventy'first party which is also partly his as it's his 33'rd birthday. Gandalf tells him about the ring, blah blah blah, he has to leave the shire...So he builds himself a new house, sells Bagend, and doesn't even leave for Bree untill he's 50. Then he meets up with Tom Bombadil, the Barrow Wight, Farmer Maggot, etc. Eventually (miraculously) he gets there... Imagine the exodus of theater walkouts there would've been with our society's short attention span and a opening like that!

[Newbie]

I hate to add another Crichton book but the movie version of Rising Sun was piss poor. They got rid of the underlying racial squabbles completely

[N D Hill]

On that note, The Lost World was also terrible while the book was very good. Movie studios just need to leave Crichton alone it seems.

[dfacto]

Movie studios just need to leave Crichton alone it seems.

No, I think they just need to put some damn effort into it. Its not like his books instantly make a good movie, but that is how they treat it, and don't give them any real thought. Crichton has good stories, but the films don't reflect that.

[Presence]

You know what the one thing is I never really understood.

Books from films.

[sin]

they do it to make money

[Crash]

comics from film


comics to film that goes to comics again (like x-men the movie comic)

[Erik]

Chrichton mostly rips off other books, so he deserves to get ripped ;-) The 13th warrior was based on Beowulf, an ancient anglo-saxon story.

I vote for the Illiad, after having just seen Troy
And for Lord of the Rings-Return of the King. That was pure evil.
Of course Robin Hoodrince of Thieves and the Postman score pretty high too!

[paper slayer]

H.P Lovecraft, one author whos work has been butchered more often than not,
can't mention any specific films because the attempts have been many.

Those I've seen I don't remember much from except they weren't very good.

[N D Hill]

Who does Crichton rip off? I don't even see how Eaters of the Dead "rips off" Beowulf. Is it because they both have norse warriors or something? Other than that, I honestly can't see how one would draw that conclusion. they're completely different in everyway! His other works, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Sphere, and Congo, were excellent original books. He's the only author that I can think of who can take a fantastic scenario and makes it seem plausible. I'm sorry but no one who's read Crichton would say that he's a rip-off.

Everyone's entitled to their own oppinion unless they're bashing Crichton. Now look what you did! You got me all worked up!

[.cfb]

BATTLEFIELD EARTH!

Now there's an epic book.

Now there's a shitty ass movie.

Disclosure. (Among all the other Chricton books already mentioned)

[Erik]

heh Exo, okay you have a point.

I just wrote that after seeing Troy, a movie i looked forward to and regretted seeing. Not the right mood for objective criticism ;-)

I got to say that i really liked Sphere (the book). The Lost World however can't be an original story, since there is a really old black&white movie with the exact same story. Probably an even older book too then.

Anyway, even if he does (occasionaly) integrate existing stories, he does write them with a real good flavour and he also writes damn good originals.

I stick to my point about Beowulf though. It is a nice adaptation that places the myth in a more realistic setting that could be the origin. Except for the anachronistic Arab ;-)

E.

[N D Hill]

The Lost World was a 19'th century book written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes. In that story, explorers simply stuble on to a lost continent that has Dinosaurs. In Crichton's Jurassic Park sequel, it's about how, despite all of the genetically installed failsafes, the dinosaurs started to thrive and create their own equilibrium. The books are similar in that way as explorers are simply observing dinosaurs but one is given a very modern and scientific tone. And it revisits the whole "playing God" theme that the last book was centered on. And of course it wouldn't be Crichton if the dinosaurs didn't get pissed off and start killing people.

What I love about those books is that it really is 100% observation and comentary of ethics within scientific practice. The movies, the last two anyway, lacked that dialogue almost completely.

[jelanen]

The Musketeer! OMG, it was the worse film ever. It didn't even follow Dumas' classic tale. I love the Three Musketeers, it is one of my favorite books and to see it so... horrible like that, it almost made me want to cry. I like DISNEY'S version better then that one. *flop* It was all eye-candy, no story. They didn't even have one of the man baddies (Lady de Winter). *shakes her fist* I hate it when I wait for a movie and it turns out to be bad. Ugh!!!!

[tarwater]

I haven't read many books, but I really agree with .cfb. Battlefield Earth is an awesome book, which glued me to the pages, the movie however, doesn't even make a good paper weight. They're hardly even the same story.

[loken]

Largely the reason why the theatrical Dune sucked.. is because its suppose to be about 12 hours long uncut, heh.

Lynch had to trim it down to 2.5 hours. I duno how he thought it'd sell so long in the first place, but this is what I read in Franks bio, and told by his son in person..

Still, why the hell did Muad'dib make rain in the end?? Why??? Frank Herbert was on set, howd he let that slip by!?

Cant wait to see the sci-fi version of Emperor of Dune. ( )