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  #31  
Old 10-26-2020, 02:37 PM
frankmcr frankmcr is offline
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The movie version of Treasure of the Sierra Madre is better than the book.
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  #32  
Old 10-26-2020, 02:43 PM
ghostnote ghostnote is offline
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Book, mostly. Example: Peter Jackson mutilated Tolkien's The Hobbit. He added characters, changed situations, had certain characters doing things that other characters actually did in the book, etc. And made a ton of money doing it.
On the other hand, I thought the Jaws movie was better than the book, and that movie also changed some major things. Jaws also made a ton of money - so it's possible to edit original content and still turn a profit.
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  #33  
Old 10-26-2020, 03:03 PM
bfm612 bfm612 is offline
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I didn't grasp the terrible background behind Ei's 'minder' Hakan from both the film versions - the book made it clearer and you understand more why he did what he did.
I get that, and I can't say you're wrong. I think I just didn't need the backstory fully or even partially filled for the movie to make a strong impact. Said another way, I don't think the lack of a backstory for Hakan hurt the movie at all. It made it even more intriguing.

What I love about this book/movie relationship is that sometimes a book can be great or it can be just okay, but end up being great source material for so many interpretations with varying degrees of success. Look at Cape Fear, which was a good book (The Executioners) that spawned a good movie in 1962, and then an outstanding (IMHO), superstylized movie again in 1991. Of the three, Scorsese's is my favorite piece, but I thank the book for this piece of art that keeps on giving.
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  #34  
Old 10-26-2020, 07:41 PM
buddyhu buddyhu is offline
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If it is fiction, or an actor’s portrayal of a famous person or important events, I prefer the book. If it deals with actual people and film of actual events, I almost alway prefer a movie. Nothing like watching someone, hearing their inflections and pauses, listening to how they use their voice to emphasize facets of their communication To really understand their communication and their intent and their person. IMO.
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  #35  
Old 10-26-2020, 08:20 PM
Brucebubs Brucebubs is offline
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Here's a controversial one ... Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher.

He had the attitude but not the altitude.
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  #36  
Old 10-26-2020, 08:39 PM
bfm612 bfm612 is offline
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Originally Posted by Brucebubs View Post
Here's a controversial one ... Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher.

He had the attitude but not the altitude.
Counterpoint: Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.
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  #37  
Old 10-26-2020, 09:51 PM
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tinnitus tinnitus is offline
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A book normally projects far more detail than the same movie, compelling editors and directors to take some artistic license to get the job done in 90-180 minutes. Even cranking along at 1.25x speed, it takes 7-8 hours to blow through most of the downloadable audiobooks I listen to on my phone.

Two Tom Wolfe offerings, The Bonfire of the Vanities (fiction) and The Right Stuff (non-fiction) both present extremely well as books and movies. So did Ken Kesey's epic novels, Sometimes a Great Notion, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Having read, watched and listened to all of them at least twice apiece, I enjoy the added insight of the written word, AND the excellent actors in all four movies providing specific faces to put on people when I revisit the books (not to mention the actual astronauts I idolized in Life magazine as a kid).

Last edited by tinnitus; 10-27-2020 at 03:00 PM.
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  #38  
Old 10-27-2020, 06:58 AM
Neil K Walk Neil K Walk is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghostnote View Post
Book, mostly. Example: Peter Jackson mutilated Tolkien's The Hobbit. He added characters, changed situations, had certain characters doing things that other characters actually did in the book, etc. And made a ton of money doing it.
On the other hand, I thought the Jaws movie was better than the book, and that movie also changed some major things. Jaws also made a ton of money - so it's possible to edit original content and still turn a profit.
To be perfectly honest, in many ways the Tolkien books seemed to lose focus and some things were "tidied up" by Jackson in the screenplays in ways that made the story more coherent. I personally feel that Jackson tidied up a lot of nonsense in the Lord of the Rings trilogy but agree that when it came to the Hobbit he added a lot more nonsense and stretched it out a bit too much in places. To be honest though, he added stuff that was "left out" of the book but which tied into Lord of the Rings - though I hate that it essentially turned it all into a prequel for a much superior work.
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  #39  
Old 10-27-2020, 08:18 AM
Dru Edwards Dru Edwards is offline
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I'm thinking that many people watch movies not realizing that they were actually books.
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  #40  
Old 10-27-2020, 10:06 AM
ghostnote ghostnote is offline
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Originally Posted by Neil K Walk View Post
To be honest though, he added stuff that was "left out" of the book but which tied into Lord of the Rings - though I hate that it essentially turned it all into a prequel for a much superior work.
I think you're giving Jackson a little too much benefit of the doubt. When he did the Hobbit movies, he'd already done the LOTR films, so he already had all of the audience metrics in hand. He knew which characters were popular with the public, and he put some of them into a story where they never were. And really: a love affair between a dwarf and an elf? Tolkien the scholarly language professor was probably rolling over in his grave.
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  #41  
Old 10-27-2020, 03:03 PM
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I'm thinking that many people watch movies not realizing that they were actually books.
True dat. And a great many movies popular with young people wouldn't merit a comic or even a pamphlet.
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  #42  
Old 10-27-2020, 06:15 PM
Earl49 Earl49 is offline
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Books, almost always. The movie in my head that the author paints with words is usually much better than what ends up on screen. And the movie often takes liberties with characters and plots beyond what the author intended. For example, I loved Frank Herbert's Dune books a lot, but hated the movie and won't bother seeing the upcoming remake.

For this and other reasons, I am not a big movie guy.... I see maybe one first- run move a year, and perhaps two as second run at the cheapo cinema a few months later.
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  #43  
Old 10-28-2020, 08:07 AM
RustyAxe RustyAxe is offline
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Always the book first. I want to know what it was that prompted a screen writer to turn it into a movie. Many books, however great to read, don't translate well on the screen. No real character development, and way too much expository dialog. For instance, if I'd seen "The Hunt for Red October" on the screen, I probably would not have read the book. Thankfully I was a Clancy fan long before the movie. And today's "Jack Ryan" series is a travesty.
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  #44  
Old 10-28-2020, 08:25 AM
bfm612 bfm612 is offline
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I just think these are very different media with each offering something pretty different and each with its own failure depending on the person in charge, so I just don't think I should probably say a book is always better. They're really complementary. Just like books can, movies can really bring a lot of subtlety and subjectivity. Movies rely a lot on images and don't even need dialogue. I think actors and directors can say a lot with an image, a look here, a pause in the dialogue there, a gesture here, etc., that you can't accomplish in a book or wouldn't have the same effect.
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  #45  
Old 10-28-2020, 09:07 AM
Bikewer Bikewer is offline
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Agree with bfm612 above...

I generally think of them as two different mediums and often they don’t translate well. Films must be compressed compared to a novel... Just the nature of the beast. Then elements of money and adaptation and the director’s “vision” come into play.
Some stories seem to be made for the visual spectacle.... “Lawrence of Arabia”... Kurosawa’s “Ran” (essentially King Lear...) for instance.

Sometimes it doesn’t work. I frequently point out two recent films that diverged so far from the novel as to be unrecognizable...
“Annihilation”, an adaptation of Jeff VanDerVeer’s novel, and “Under the Skin” from Michel Faber’s novel.

As stand-alone films they were both perhaps artsy and tried to say something, but it certainly wasn’t what the novelist was saying.
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