film rights, part II
I have to admit when I wrote my post about film rights, I was thinking about it entirely from the writer’s point of view, and not the point of view of the reader/viewer.
The #1 response to my previous post was this – people hate it when a favorite book gets mangled in a film adaptation. Like, really hate it.
This is a common problem, I think. I suspect a lot of people who make films and TV shows have this urge to “fix” or “improve” the things they adapt, but that defeats the point of making the adaptation! Something essential always gets mangled in the process.
It’s like buying the rights to make a pizza, but in your “adaptation” of the pizza, you’re going to leave out the crust, the cheese, and the topping.
That’s not a pizza, that’s a bowl of lukewarm tomato paste!
I think the only movie I ever saw that improved on the book was GOLDFINGER, but that’s definitely a rare occurrence.
-JM
My impression is that film and TV adaptations are often changed in pursuit of “mass appeal”. Studios won’t spend the budget to attract the 1000 rabid fans. But if they think they can water things down to the point where they can attract lukewarm or non-fans they are more likely to spend.
Unfortunately, what the studios think is appealing is often not appealing at all. Hence the long history of adaptation duds.
Yes – it’s definitely a better idea to appeal strongly to a smaller niche market than to try and water things down to reach the mass market.
#1 example of this is Starship Troopers, which was possibly a perfectly serviceable sci-fi film in its own right; sadly when watching it I couldn’t get past the way it took the original Heinlein novel, threw away the underlying theme, abandoned the whole plot, vomited over the few characters it didn’t delete entirely and then trampled whatever was left of the book into a twisted, unrecognisable, bloody paste.
In short, the adaptation does not meet with my unqualified approval. That’s the sort of thing you should avoid (although if you can manage to be alive when your books are adapted I’m sure you’ll have a better chance than he did). n book. chucked out the underlying message, abandoned the entire plot, mangled the few characters it didn’t delete entirely and then trampled whatever was left into a twisted, unrecongizable paste.xxxxxx
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… I wondered where that lot went. Off the bottom of the text box, I guess. Can’t edit it either.
Yeah, I saw that movie, and thought it was thoroughly mediocre.
The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite movies. I cannot read Dumas….Tried. Can’t. Dude GET OUT OF THE HARBOR. Cough. The original Three Musketeers is another example of Dumas being shown up by a movie. The Lord of the Rings movies are good adaptations. Where Eagles Dare, The Guns of Navarone and Jaws are all classic movies adapted from books. To Kill a Mockingbird is a great movie, it isn’t as good as the book, but it is a good film.
Classics due better as adaptations than modern literature. That includes the 20 Marvel Comic heroes movies that are out, all of which are based on comics first written half a century ago. Though I suppose those are very pop culture-y now. Everything old is new again. Jurassic Park is a good film, though the book is better to me, it isn’t because the movie is bad, which the movie Starship Troopers IS.
I, Robot is an awesome movie chock full of symbolism……and it is so loosely based on Asimov’s book it really shouldn’t be called I, Robot. Silence of the Lambs is worth watching, harsh but worth watching. Apocalypse Now is basically a shot for shot remake of Heart of Darkness, I like it. The remake of Alice and Wonderland was easier to watch than it was to read Lewis Carroll, although a lot of that is probably that I don’t know British history.
Casablanca was based off a novella. The Maltese Falcon was a book. Bogart is epic in both. Gone with the Wind is a classic movie AND book. The Wizard of OZ fits in there too. Forrest Gump, The Shining, Planet of the Apes…….do you guys really not like any of these movies?
Irony……I don’t watch T.V. At all.
OK Let me add something. I’m not saying there aren’t really bad adaptations. Dune, Starship Troopers, and Eragon all spring to mind. THAT being said a lot of good movies are made from books, because they make their points in different ways. Trying to force a movie to be a book is impossible. A good movie takes the cognizant points of a book and tells them in its own way.
I suppose book adapations are like anything else – they can be done well, or less well.
Actually, I think Maltese Falcon improved on the book slightly.
Die Hard was better than the book to me read it in detention once cant remember the name of it but it doesn’t take much to please me. Give me some action and I’m on board lol. If you read something and it really resonates with you and they turn it into a movie you probably won’t like whatever they do unless they follow the source material to the letter and even then you’ll find something wrong with it. That can be fun tho because sometimes you find one that you can enjoy either by how bad it is or how good it is.