As Ilona has mentioned we watched The Hogfather for the first time a few weeks ago. We both have read the book as we are huge Pratchett fans and sort of hoped that the girls would watch it with us. They endured it for a few moments, stoically I suppose, before pronouncing it boring. I half expected our oldest to quote Peter Griffin and denounce it as “shallow and pedantic.” We were disappointed, but also realized that as teens, they take things very literally and are as yet unable to appreciate the subtle social satire. They get sarcasm and parody (they love Meet the Spartans and Vampires Suck). It is just that they have not lived enough or been beaten up a bit by life to appreciate Pratchett’s wry humor. To get irony, I think, you have to have bad things happen and then be able to appreciate the humor of the situation. I tried to tell them about Small Gods, which I feel may be the best book about religion I have ever read. They could not get past the small god in question being a turtle or Disc World itself being on the backs of elephants standing atop a giant space-faring turtle.
When I was their age, I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and it appealed to my sense of the absurd in the same way that Monty Python did, but reading it in my twenties was different. There were elements of it that are slap-stick funny and absurd, and our kids get that and like it. But there is also a subtler, more nuanced parody underlining the narrative. The book makes fun of bureaucracy, and when you’re a teenager, you don’t even know what bureaucracy is or how frustrating dealing with it can be.
That is why I think Pratchett’s books are so great: on one level they are really funny stories with a motley cast of characters and hilarious hi-jinks, and yet he is such a gifted story teller that he is able to weave incredibly astute and wise political, social and even religious commentary into his books without ever being preachy or pretentious. And he does all of this without being condescending or dumbing it down for his audience. I know that he is undoubtedly a far more intelligent man than I will ever be, but I don’t ever feel stupid when I read his books, quite the opposite actually. His stuff actually makes me feel smarter, like Mr. Pratchett is sharing a great secret with me, and I am fortunate enough to get it.
I think what made the Hogfather film so great was that it was very close to the book and managed to not only convey the message but lost none of its charm. Not so the new Jack Black movie that seems only nominally based on Swift’s masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels. When I was a kid there was a beautiful animated version that mainly focused on his time among the Lilliputians. Sure they added some elements to appeal to children, but it is still the same basic story. Later as a young adult I read the novel and was moved by Gulliver’s inability to remain with his family. Yes, he loved his wife and children, missing them greatly when he was in a far flung land, but soon after finding himself home, he would invariably set back out to sea. For a child it is an amazing adventure story. Later you realize it is biting social commentary and a statement on human nature and behavior.
I must confess to having only seen the trailer in the theater and commercials for it on TV but am certain that at some point giant Jack/Gulliver breaks wind like a hurricane with hilarity ensuing. I’ve seen several of his movies and that’s what he does: he plays a fat clumsy, but good-hearted buffoon. Gulliver was none of those things: he was a tall, powerfully built sea captain, who was an experienced, competent navigator and who was good with his hands. He was brave and he had compassion and ethics. Judging by the trailer, this film has reduced him to a caricature.
Why do that to such a great book? My kids sadly did not even know that it was a novel written nearly three hundred years ago. I would not expect them to have read it at their age but I was a bit surprised that they had never even heard of it. Now all they now about it is that it’s about a funny fat dude that teaches little people how cut loose. They dismissed it as just another “Jack Black movie.” Jack Black, who is both intelligent and talented, for some reason persists in making those. Do the filmmakers think children are that stupid? Are audiences so ignorant that you have to fill the story with Kiss and Star Wars references for it to funny?
I know I am rambling and perilously close to being the old man on the porch who shakes his cane at the damn kids on his lawn but it’s our blog and I shall rant if I like. Feeling that I have lectured enough, I will step off of my soap box and ask if there is a particular book you long for a decent adaption of or even a film that you felt did a horrible disservice to the source material. Ilona for example would like very much for a re-make of Treasure Island.
The series I’ve always wanted to see in film was the Dragonriders of Pern, the original ones. These books I’ve been reading over 100,000 times since I was 11 and discovered them on my father’s bookshelves, and have read the binding off of the multi-book volumes at least a few times. Poor things are covered a few times in duct tape. ^_^ Ever since Jackson’s adaptation of LOTR I knew that it would be possible to have a true telling movie, but would have to be approached by an awesome director. Perhaps a mini-series. *sigh* I so wish…
And I agree that “The Princess Bride” is a better movie than a book. I have that entire movie memorized and can recite as soon as it’s on the screen, which makes it an excellent addition to my sewing rotation, since I don’t have to concentrate on the screen. And being the most historically accurate fencing battle (except for the swinging from bars stuff) in a movie. ^_^
I agree. Dragon Riders of Pern as a movie would be amazing. *longing sigh*
I was so excited to see a film adaptation of “A Princess of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1531911/ Then I saw it. My first thought was WTF? My second- Jeez Dejah Thoris looks like a porn star. Then I imdb’d it. Dejah Thoris was played by Traci Lords. >:(
Fortunately, I believe Disney bought the screen rights to it and is in the process of making another version. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401729/ and it appears that in this one, John Carter will be from the Civil War era (as in the book) instead of the Afghanistan War era (as in the sci-fi adaptation). I have the best of hopes for it.
The lord of the rings.
Read the Books a while before the Movies where published and got all hyped up when they hit the cinemas. Now, if you hype you always get disappointed but this was a capital D. Half the narrative missing, characters accordingly shallowed down, scenes overblown on the epicness so they become ridiculous – just one non-interactive hack and slay computer game trailer…
Oh well they said it could not be a movie and proved the theory correct. Lets call it a contribution to science :/
I was disappointed too. I kept looking for characters I had loved, but wait– they didn’t rate high enough to make the movie adaptation? Really? Sad, sad day. And I did LIKE the movie but only as a stand alone. Grr. I have learned that if I like the books I probably won’t care for the movie unless I can set aside my own ideas of what the characters should look, sound, and act like. Blegh.
Cyteen would be great to see on film. Awesome book, great characters, the only problem would be the age progression, since the book runs from before the main character was born, all the way to when she is a teenager.
Actually, it would really make a great miniseries or TV show – if done right, it could rival Battlestar Galactica (the new version).
I would LOVE to see Meljean Brook’s “Here There Be Monsters” (from the “Burning Up” anthology) made into a movie. Steampunk with a lot of fantastical machines. I might even go into a movie theater for that one.
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I’m sure there are lots, but currently I am re-reading The Paladin by C.J. Cheryl. It is set in a fantasy long ago China. I would love to see it made into a movie. Horses. Sword fighting. A unique love story, with two characters you will never forget.
Impossible odds. A unique love story, with two characters you will never forget. Like Terry Pratchett says, if there is only one chance in a million, it is very likely to happen. I adore Terry Pratchett.
P.S. If you have never read The Last Hero (illustrated), do yourself a favor and find a copy. The pictures are gorgeous and the story is one of his best.
I have a love/hate relationship with books turned movies. Very few of them ever live up to the sheer greatness of the books. And I just wish that wasn’t the case, because I hate being one of those people who always say, “the book was better”.
It also seems that young adult or children’s books become exceptionally bad movies.
One more, I won’t call the movie “craptacular”, because it was okay. “I AM LEGEND” was a great story and the changes they made to the movie didn’t really add to the story.
I tell people who’ve seen the movie how the book ended and they all think that would have been a much better ending.
It’s weird but I would love for a movie adaptation of Alison Croggon’s Pellinor Series. I really love those books.
Ted Danson will always be my Gulliver. I love love love the miniseries. I watched it so many times as a kid, it really holds a special place in my heart.
As for Jack Black…High Fidelity seems so long ago.
“Why do that to such a great book?!” has to be one of the most widely-used phrases of book-lovers the world over. If you want to talk craptacular, though, surely a hot contender for the title has to be the hatchet job Walden Media committed on The Dark of Rising. Why on earth a fundamentalist Christian organisation would buy up the rights to a novel based very firmly on pagan beliefs and ideology I cannot imagine but they did. And then they bent over backwards to remove all the pagan elements, shoe-horn in a Christian sub-text and carve up the plot until all that was left was wafer-thin slices of meaningless blah.
Either they really didn’t get the point of it all or they understood exactly what they were doing and acted with malice aforethought. Either way, it sucked. The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper was most of my best-loved reads as a kid and I still re-read them occasionally now because they stand the test of time so well. I mean, how on earth could you make any adaptation of The Dark is Rising without Hawkin in it? And don’t even get me started on what they did to Merlin and Herne …
Anyway (takes deep, calming breaths): like Gordon with the shonky re-make of Gulliver’s Travels (which, by the way, I too baulked at) seeing the trailer was enough to make me realise that if I went to see the movie itself, I would be foaming at the mouth -if not storming out of the cinema- within minutes. So why put myself through it? I was very, very glad when it was universally slated but it makes me sad, too, because a decent adaptation (one that did the book justice) would have been sublime.
Oh, and if you liked The Hogfather, try Going Postal!
Okay, I’ve just read through the earlier messages and realised The Dark is Rising travesty has been dealt with at length already. Cough. Probably should’ve checked before I went off on my rant. But it’s cool how many folk on this site like/love and read the same authors. I mean, sure, that’s why we’re here but everything from Terry P through Robin McKinley to (early, for me) Anne McCaffrey … I mean wow: are we clones or just kindred spirits?
Mwahahaha, ERAGON!!! My best friend and me were torn between crying and laughing our asses off about six minutes into the movie. SO hilarious and sad that they make Eragon seem like such an imbecile… And Arya is a blonde!!!
I dunno but I think I’d even go watch the second movie (if they ever made one) with my friend, just for craps sake. I mean I’m not the fan anymore I was a few years ago (when the wrongness of that movie really bothered me) so now we’d just laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh…..
And what I want made into a movie?? Only one answer: The FEVER series by Karen Marie Moning. That would be the most awesome thing E.V.E.R. Only two more days until SHADOWFEVER!!! yay
i understand what youre talking about, i read the book and i absolutely loved it and then my grandmother got me the movie, and i was like are you kidding, saohira flies off into the sky a baby and comes back a fully grown dragon who communicates with a middle aged woman voice, i dont think so.
I’d have to say the movie that comes to mind {out of the million that have been translated from book to movie badly} is Tuck Everlasting. What a beautiful book, then what do they do in the movie? Make Winnie 16 instead of 12 so they could make it more of the lurve story. OMG!! Changes the entire premise of the book you idiots!!
I read yesterday the writers & directors of the US movie version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo have CHANGED the ending {and altered Blomkvist character} to make it more INTERESTING? Someone need to strangle those egos!!
And now for a change, a movie that was better than the book. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. OMG, the book rattled on and on in a disorganized mess. And being a true recounting didn’t excuse it. The movie edited and combined characters into something interesting.
I don’t agree Princess Bride was better movie OR book. I see them as different entities.
I loved the movie, “The King and I” until I actually read the book, “Anna and the King of Siam”. I could no longer, having read the book, enjoy the movie on the same level.
I think “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is one of the few movie adaptations I love just as much as the book.
I also keep meaning to read “Tarzan” to see if I enjoy it as much as the movie.
If you like lotr try The 1981 BBC radio play Adapted by Brian Sibley, stars Ian Holm, Michael Hordern, Robert Stephens, John Le Mesurier and Peter Woodthorpe.
We had to read Tqarzan for my freshman English lang class. I was surprised by how much I did NOT enjoy the original novel in comparison to movie adaptations. Mostly because I despised Jane. The novel version of Tarzan was much better than any movie adaptations, but I couldn’t get over how much I didn’t like Jane.
But that’s my own personal bias, If I can’t relate too, empathize with, or flat out don’t like the lead female of a book, tv show, or movie, then I lose all interest.
As a librarian, I host a Movie/Book Club. The library provides multiple copies of a book and then we screen the movie and discuss the differences between the stories.
Good Adaption: The Blind Side; Playing the Enemy that was made into the movie Invictus; A River Runs Through It.
Good Discussion: Marley & Me; Dracula the original book and the black and white film; Bourne Identity (Book & movie have the same character names.)
I have heard rumors about The Help and I desperately want that to be an awesome movie.
A book I’ve always wanted to see as a movie is The Dark Angel by Meredith Ann Pierce. Genereally speaking I’m more of a fantasy than a sci-fi person, but this book did a wonderful job combining the elements of the two; it’s an enchanting book that would lend itself wonderfully to the silver screen.
But the onw remake I would love to see is White Fang. The movie edition that’s out is ok, especially given how difficult it must be to work with the animals (especially how much dogfighting is in the book) but it fell short in several areas. It bipassed most of White Fang’s puppyhood and the interactions with his mother, as well as stopping the movie before it reached its ending; instead of going to California and earning his place among his new household, he and his owner decide to stay in Alaska. It’s a sweet ending, but it misses out on him finally earning a place after years of torment (besides, the movie ending cuts out the puppies; who doesn’t want puppies?).
I would love to see the Modesty Blaise series made into a decent film (I don’t count the campy ridiculous 60′s version). A modernised serious film version of the books would be awesome. To me as a young girl, she was a female James Bond with a much more interesting, shady past.
I was berated once by a pro feminist fantasy author for saying that the Blaise books were one of my favourite series. She was appalled that I could like a series that promoted such an ‘objectifying male fantasy of women’. For me however Modesty was the first heroine I read about who stood up for herself and others, and fought back using both her wits and her training.
The close, unbreakable bond of her friendship with Willie Garvin, the almost fatherly friendship that grew between her and Sir Gerald Tarrent throughout the books, and her habit of championing the causes of the various waifs and strays that she stumbled over – these are all things I would like to see portrayed well on film, as well as some amazing ass-kicking action of course
The only ‘adaption’ of a classic I’ve really liked was the Muppet’s Christmas Carol. Yeah, they played with the source material but they kept all the pertinent plot points and really maintained the absurd feel of the original.
The worst movie adaption EVER would have to have been the crap-tastic The Dark is Rising movie. The screenwriter even admitted to not having read the book!
There are so many beloved books/series that I wish I could experience onscreen. But, like many here, I have grave misgivings how most of them would be handled.
Sci fi, fantasy, YA:
–Already mentioned Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books (particularly the Protector of the Small series)
–Janny Wurtz and Raymond Feist’s Empire Trilogy
–RM Meluch’s Tour of the Merrimack series
–Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books
–Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days
–Joy Chant’s Red Moon, Black Mountain (one of my absolute favorite childhood books)
Mystery:
–Minette Waters’s The Shape of Snakes
Other:
–Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove’s Household Gods (this may actually belong in the sci fi/fantasy section–and I’m sure if it were made into a movie they’d mostly emphasize the time travel element)
–Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series (altho I can’t imagine this being anything but a total disappointment)
Bad Adaptation:
I love Fay Weldon, so was thrilled when I heard they were making a movie of The Life and Loves of a She-Devil. (The Brits had done a TV mini-series years before which included a very young Christian Bale in the cast.) The result was one of the worst movies ever. There’s not enough bleach in the world to remove the stain of that movie from my soul/brain.
Good Adaptations:
Any Stephen King novel/short story. Seriously, I don’t enjoy reading King at all, but the movies turn out great–Carrie, Green Mile, Misery, Dolores Claiborne, The Shawshank Redemption (!), and even the new Haven TV series.
Please Don’t Ever Make These Books into Movies:
Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy. These would be butchered by a film version.
Oh, and speaking of Christian Bale, I wanted to mention another good adaptation. I enjoyed Jim Ballard’s Empire of the Sun, and the movie version was one of my favorite movies. Beautifully done.
Did you ever see Treasure Planet? It was like a really fun animated Treasure Island in space.
Yea, I thought that was a nice little animated gem. Different enough that it didnt mess with the Treasure Island story itself.
When I first watched Hogfather, I was really amazed. I haven’t expected such a good movie adaptation. Lots of Pratchetp’s humor lies in the descriptions and puns, so I have guessed, that the lines will be exaggerated. I was glad that the people of Sky 1 proved me wrong.
I highly recommend also the TV-adaptation of Going Postal. Really nice Vetinari, Angua and Moist von Lipwig there.
After being forced to watch three different versions of Treasure Island in 8th grade (not counting the Muppet version…) I was horrified to discover that we had to write a comparison/contrast paper on the movies- without reading the book!!! (This was for an English class!!! There aren’t enough bad words in my vocabulary to come close to how I feel about that.) I refused, read the book and then ripped the movies apart because it seems like all the movies made Long John Silver the main character, even though the book is focused on Jim’s struggle as he realizes that sometimes it’s difficult to see black and white in a world of grey, but that he also had to take a stand for what he believed to be right.
One more thing- there was a black and white version of Treasure Island that somehow managed to work Shirley Temple in as a supporting character- all I can say is “Well, bless my soul!” it was the absolute worst thing ever done!!! I doubt even Jack Black could ruin Treasure Island that badly!!! (Actually, Jack could possibly make a great Long John Silver- if he could handle the depth of the character!)
I absolutely loathe all of the Harry Potter movies. They did such an injustice to the books that i can’t think of them without getting angry. What a waste of good story telling, especially since many of the changes that were made were unnecessary and irrelevant. I would have much preferred a longer more accurate movie, especially since many of the actors were excellent representatives of the characters.
A book that would make a great movie (if it were honored properly) would be: The Child Thief by Brom, which also has amazing illustrations at the start of each chapter to help set the tone and full colored illustrations of the key characters. I love the dark twisty world Brom built from his interpretation of the original Peter Pan story. With today’s technology it could be very visually arresting and the story itself is a beautifully dark commentary about life.
I’d love to see the Dark Lord of Derkholm and Sunshine made into good movies.
Books are generally large spaces where thoughts and emotions and many relationships and people can be explored. Although they’re set out in a linear fashion, they’re not really. I can stop and think and fantasize anytime, skipping forward and back.
A film on the other hand is 90-120 minutes where everything has to be explained visually with little to no inner dialog with no pauses. It doesn’t have the space to take time to explore things, but it does have the immediacy for action.
So to me, books and films are different animals. Although they can be translated back and forth, it’s like translating a story between fishes and monkeys. They’re just different.
LOL I am assuming your referring to Robin McKinley’s “Sunshine” and I agree, loved that book, a very unique writing style and characterization that would make a wonderful movie, if they had a good director, script writer, and cast…
But then as you were pointing out movies are very different than books as a medium, there was a time when they did not have the set lengths to the degree they do today, (I am thinking Dune as I write that, was longer than 2 hours if memory serves) and as I point out to my kids, when you read a book your mind is the movie theater, director, script writer, and cast, editor, everything, when they make a movie someone else is deciding how to interpret the book, ergo, making up your mind for you. Though a movie is nice in that you can sit (or cuddle, laugh, point out details) and share the experience, there is that, LOL.
As much as I love a great movie, there is no substitute for a good book!