Films that do/don't live up to the Book or Screenplay

Merkin

I'm always invariably disappointed by a film adaptation of a book as I find one's own imagination to be better. Not entirely sure why, I just think it's probably impossible to capture all the nuances and subtleties that you'll find in literature.

In my experience there are a few films which have done a really good job at portraying the book and what it stands for. Atonement by Ian McEwan is an amazing story and I think the film was pretty outstanding too, particularly the vile character played by a young Saoirse Ronan.

Ken Kesey' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is another amazing book and film (who doesn't love Jack?) and Bernhard Schlink's The Reader was very sympathetically portrayed in the film with Kate Winslet (even though the sight of her face makes me want to smack her across the chops).

What films have you seen that have done a great book justice?

FatherLen

lotr

JonSnuuu

Not a film, but I think Game of Thrones is a great adaptation of the books!

force eleven

Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - more so the English version.

Sergeant

The film adaptation of No Country for Old Men manages to capture the pace and sense of menace in the book.

DUNE

--Kaiser--

Film adaptations almost never live up to the book.
One notable exception is Fight Club. Good book, great movie

Das Kitty

Blade Runner is better than the source material, IMO.

Then again all they really keep from the book is the world it's set in, so I'm not sure that counts.

Agree on Fight Club. (I read Fight Club on a plane, fun!)

Daith

LA Confidential.

There's a lot of plot lines in the book but the films managed to focus just on the three main characters and it still delivers. It evoked the noir of LA perfectly and Spacey, Pearce and Crowe were fantastic.

Witness Black Dahila for how not to do an adapation.

Festy

American Psycho


Though it's one of my favourite films I have to say movie is tame compared to the book.

osarusan

Hate to compare them as the medium is so different, and interacts so differently with the reader/viewer. But Never Let Me Go stood out as a crap film made of a good book (although admittedly difficult to make a visual thing).

SEPT 23 1989

Congo

great book joke of a film

desertcircus

As an adaptation (and as a film), Wanted is a near-perfect failure. The graphic novel is sardonic, vicious, savagely unpleasant, hilarious and completely black-hearted, and the film is an utterly pointless action romp.

I Am Legend deserves a special mention, for getting so much right and falling at the last hurdle.

Hande hoche!

I am legend comes to mind.

conorhal

Jaws is a dreadful, pulpy, stupid novel, Spielberg's movie however is a masterpiece, he actually has pretty good form for this, his criminally underrated adaption of J.G. Ballard's 'Empire of the Sun' manages to capture the tone and content of the novel perfectly.


Liev Schrieber's adaption of 'Everything is Illuminated' takes an unfilmable book and choses to strip it down to it's most potent narrative with a great degree of success that makes it a perfect companion to a really great book.

Recently I was pretty underwhelmed by 'Life of Pi' and 'The Hobbit'

syklops

I think it might be easier/quicker to just come up with the movies that surpassed the book. The movies which didn't live up to the book are going to be too many to count.

While many of the Harry Potters are worthy of the award The Deathly Hallows Part One: The one in the tent and Part Two: The one not in the tent, were very disappointing for me, as it was the book I enjoyed the most of the series.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo(English version). If you've read the book and seen the original you will know that some artistic license was used and IMO there was no need for it. While it was good, and Daniel Craig was very good as Kalle Blomkvist, the Swedish version remained truer to the original work, IMO.

Captain Coreeli's Mandolin was an excellent book, one of my favourites, but the move was terrible. The book is written in a similar style to Intermission, or love actually, where you have a number of short-ish stories which all come together, but the movie ignored that and focussed on Captain Corelli and the daughter.

In terms of movies which did surpass the book, The Green Mile would be one for me. I saw and loved the movie and then went out and got the book and for me it lacked the impact that the movie had. Maybe if I had seen them the other way around it would have been different.

Boo2112

The Harry Potter series would have been the first book I read to see adapted. I remember being so disappointed that I think I've only seen three of the films, gave up after that.

Watched dear John recently and the movie changed the ending and absolutely ruined it for me.

Nobody is ever going to picture the exact same thing as everyone else when they read a book though, which is pretty cool, and I think that imagination is a million times better than a film.

YbFocus

Jarhead - The film was a disgrace.

Daith

Oh and of course The Godfather. Pulpy novel (though not a bad book) to great film.

Outkast_IRE

Jurrasic Park 2 The lost world.

Found the book excellent and the film poor enough , in comparison to the first movie/book.

Captain Farrell

Twilight.

The books are shít, and so are the films. The perfect adaptations, you could say....

syklops

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

Jurrasic Park 2 The lost world.

Found the book excellent and the film poor enough , in comparison to the first movie/book.

Im the other way around, I found the book poor(annoying children!) and the movie great. Goes to show we are all different.

The Backwards Man

Watership Down, even though it's an animation, captures the emotion of the book excellently

D-FENS

The Lawnmower Man movie was, well, watchable, when I was about 15 anyway.
But when I read the original story, I really wish they’d been more faithful to it, would have been interesting viewing to say the least
Pure lunacy, how on earth they got that film from that story is beyond me…

"The Lawnmower Man" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the May 1975 issue of Cavalier, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.
Plot summary

It's summer and Harold Parkette is in need of a new lawnmower and boy to help. The summer before, a neighbor's cat was accidentally killed when another neighbor's dog chased the feline under the mower. Harold has been putting off hiring new help for the summer, but when he sees an ad for a mowing service he calls. A van reading "Pastoral Greenery" soon pulls up to Parkette's home. The man working for the service is shown the overgrown back lawn and is hired. Harold is enjoying a rest as he reads the paper, when he hears the lawnmower outside. Startled, he races to the back porch and sees the lawnmower running by itself and the naked lawnmower man following it and eating the grass. Harold faints.
When Harold revives, the lawnmower man explains that his behavior grants substantial benefits, and that he makes sacrificial victims of customers who can't appreciate the process. Parkette, though unnerved, allows the lawnmower man to return to work. As soon as the man is out of sight, Harold desperately calls the police, but is interrupted by the lawnmower man. The lawnmower man briefly chases Harold with the lawnmower before brutally slaughtering him.
When the police arrive, they conclude that Parkette was murdered by a schizophrenic sex maniac. As they leave, the scent of freshly cut grass hangs strongly in the air.

Duckworth_Luas

Calendar Girls. Terrible film, terrible calendar, both have aged badly!

elefant

Boo2112 wrote: »

The Harry Potter series would have been the first book I read to see adapted. I remember being so disappointed that I think I've only seen three of the films, gave up after that.

Agree. I thought the films were muck. Stopped bothering with them after the 4th one.

gramar

Roddy Doyle's - The Van. I was very let down by the film.
The Godfather on the other hand is a great screen adaption of the book.

ibarelycare

The title of this thread is confusing! Pick one or the other OP!!!



The Shawshank Redemption is an amazing adaptation of Stephen King's novella. Stand By Me (from the same collection of novellas) is also a brilliant movie that lives up to the story. So many adaptations of his stories are awful. (I'm waiting for someone to mention The Shining as a good movie...personally I hated Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the story).


I have to say Trainspotting too. Movie was better than the book IMO.

Frank Black

In terms of movies which were better than the source novel, Jaws was the first one that popped into my head.
You could argue that Kubrick improved both Clockwork Orange and The Shining, though I really like both books as well.
The Shawshank Redemption always seems to poll well whenever a Best Movies list is compiled - personally I don't have much time for the film and prefer the book.

Talib Fiasco

Fight Club definitely stands out. One of my favourite books and my favourite movie.

The Hunger Games is a good read too and I liked the movie alot as well.

ibarelycare

ibarelycare wrote: »

(I'm waiting for someone to mention The Shining as a good movie...personally I hated Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the story).

Frank Black wrote: »

In terms of movies which were better than the source novel, Jaws was the first one that popped into my head.
You could argue that Kubrick improved both Clockwork Orange and The Shining, though I really like both books as well.
The Shawshank Redemption always seems to poll well whenever a Best Movies list is compiled - personally I don't have much time for the film and prefer the book.

Well look at that, only had to wait a few seconds

ibarelycare

TheComeUp wrote: »

Fight Club definitely stands out. One of my favourite books and my favourite movie.

The Hunger Games is a good read too and I liked the movie alot as well.

Just read the Hunger Games books, and much prefer the movie, but that's mainly down to the poor writing in the books.

AnonoBoy

Films?

I don't watch films. They're the work of the devil.

If I want moving pictures I'll turn to my shelf full of flip-books, thank you very much.

syklops

gramar wrote: »

Roddy Doyle's - The Van. I was very let down by the film.
The Godfather on the other hand is a great screen adaption of the book.

Part of the problem with the Barrytown trilogy's trip to the cinema is while the books were a trilogy involving the same family, they were all different families in the movies so there was less continuity.

hidinginthebush

ibarelycare wrote: »

Just read the Hunger Games books, and much prefer the movie, but that's mainly down to the poor writing in the books.

I'm the complete opposite. While I thought the books were poorly written, they were enjoyable, I though the film was terrible.

syklops

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Films?

I don't watch films. They're the work of the devil.

But you said you laughed at Law Abiding Citizen. Is Law Abiding Citizen the only movie you have ever seen?

AnonoBoy

syklops wrote: »

But you said you laughed at Law Abiding Citizen. Is Law Abiding Citizen the only movie you have ever seen?

Sssshhh.... you.

What I say in one forum is not to be referenced in another. Especially when I'm making a joke.

desertcircus

desertcircus wrote: »

As an adaptation (and as a film), Wanted is a near-perfect failure. The graphic novel is sardonic, vicious, savagely unpleasant, hilarious and completely black-hearted, and the film is an utterly pointless action romp.

I Am Legend deserves a special mention, for getting so much right and falling at the last hurdle.

The movie adaptation of I Am Legend didn't get anything right from the book. Yes, Will Smith was relatively good, but so many things about it were wrong.

Children of Men is an example of a movie that was far better than the source material. While the book had an interesting story, it was just badly written and largely boring for the most part. Remember reading once that the director heard the story behind the book but refused to read it as it would ruin his vision - and it worked.

Next Friday I'm going to go see World War Z. I'm a huge fan of the book - have my own copy signed by the author, have listened to the audiobook, and love anything to do with zombies. I'm not expecting the movie to be anything like the book - the author himself has come out and said it has only the name in common, but I'm not expecting it to be a bad movie. I like Brad Pitt and there's going to be millions of effin' zombies on screen at once!!

One of the only examples I can think of right now of a good book making a good movie was The Green Mile.

Merkin

ibarelycare wrote: »

The title of this thread is confusing! Pick one or the other OP!!!

Lol, no way! I'm genuinely interested in hearing about films that have surpassed or matched a great book as well as films that have been a huge disappointment so I can make note to avoid them!

Funny you say that about The Shining as I thought the film was amazing, another one of my favourites!

D-FENS

ibarelycare wrote: »

(I'm waiting for someone to mention The Shining as a good movie...personally I hated Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the story).

Ah here, leave it out!

ibarelycare

Merkin wrote: »

Lol, no way! I'm genuinely interested in hearing about films that have surpassed or matched a great book as well as films that have been a huge disappointment so I can make note to avoid them!

Fair enough

Merkin wrote: »

Funny you say that about The Shining as I thought the film was amazing, another one of my favourites!

Yeah I know, I'm in the vast minority. I read the book before I ever saw the film. Stand-alone, it's a great movie, but I think it's a bad adaptation. I don't think it captures just how insane Jack is going. I'd other issues as well but it's been a few years since I've read or watched, so I can't really remember!

goose2005

Harry Potter is weird, the good books (1-4) made crap movies, but the crap books (5-7) made good movies. I think as the books went along Rowling lost enthusiasm (and editors were afraid to correct her), while as the films went along the actors learned to act and the writers didn't stick so slavishly to the books.

TPD

I'd agree with the 'good adaptation' consensus for the green mile, shawshank redemption, trainspotting, cuckoos nest.

A bad adaptation that I've seen recently is 'On The Road'. Really didn't capture anything of the book IMO.

I think films will always have a hard time getting books right, as they can't really do a first person perspective very well.

ibarelycare

goose2005 wrote: »

Harry Potter is weird, the good books (1-4) made crap movies, but the crap books (5-7) made good movies. I think as the books went along Rowling lost enthusiasm (and editors were afraid to correct her), while as the films went along the actors learned to act and the writers didn't stick so slavishly to the books.

I don't agree that books 5-7 were bad, but the last 4 movies (books 5, 6, 7 pt I & II) were brilliant. But those books were a lot more grown up than the first 3 and way darker so that's why they could do so much more with the movies.

Green&Red

I think one flew over the cuckoos nest is probably the worst film ever made, or maybe just the biggest disappointment, in particular the amazing character of chief in the book is a non entity in the film

Pfff I say

long range shooter

Deep troath

steddyeddy

In the name off the rose is a brilliant book and although the movie isn't a patch one the book its still a bloody good film!

karma_

Jaws, film is slightly better than the book.

rule of thumb in my experience though is that the books are almost always superior.

gramar

I remember reading The Chamber by John Grisham and thinking that Gene Hackman would be perfect for the Sam Cayhall role. Lo and behold he was cast for the part but the film was as dull as dishwater.

Pretzill

Cormac McCarty's the Road was a better book than the film - one where your own imagination sees better pictures. I read The Exorcist as a teen and it scared the bejaypers out of me didn't see the film until much later and thought it wasn't a bit scary. I'd say Godfather a better film than book great cast. Philip Pullman's first in the trilogy of His Dark Materials was an awful adaptation -

af_thefragile

American Psycho.
Love the film. Don't think I'ld be too keen on reading a book full of snuff porn...

The Watchmen.
It was good to see how well the film followed the comic right up until the end when they dumbed the film down. Also was amazing how closely the film actors matched the comicbook characters.

The Great Gatsby.
The film followed the main story very well although missed out a bit on the depth the book gave to the characters and the overall themes of the book.
And also f*cking Jay-Z!!! Ruined the whole film...

Lord of the Rings.
Didn't read the books but loved the visuals of the film. Peter Jackson did an amazing job directing it!