fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2662 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2662 ⌋

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Notes:

Sorry about the lateness, work's been keeping me late recently.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think TV MASH was better than either book or movie MASH.

Lord of the Rings was different in cinema. Not better just different.

Since we had a Titus Andronicus secret, I think Taymor did a reasonably good job patching together the rough parts with costume and cinematography porn.

"Not better just different" sums up my feelings about a lot of film adaptations of books I like. I'm not a book purist but I don't often like the movie better than the book. More often I think that the changes they made worked well for the adaptation to a visual medium. It's not about the movie being better but about it making changes to use its form to its advantage.

I need to find that Vonnegut interview where he commented on an opera based on one of his novels with something like, "Of course it's different, otherwise it wouldn't be worth shit." Sticking too close to the source material is often a big mistake, unless it's an author who writes with the movie deal in mind like King or Chrichton at the peak of their popularity.

Let me know if you do find it; it sounds interesting. I completely agree with this.

Sticking too close to the source material is often a big mistake, unless it's an author who writes with the movie deal in mind like King or Chrichton at the peak of their popularity.

I often want to tell book purists exactly this. Many novels are not written with a movie or television show in mind and when you adapt to another media there most often will have to be changes because there are things that can be done in books that just can't be done in other media (or would take an insane budget to be done.)

The changes are sometimes better, sometimes worse, but mostly they're just different and there's not always a reason to like one over the other.

I enjoy the differences sometimes too, it gives me something new to look forward to rather then just seeing something I had already read.

Yes, novels and cinema are two very different forms of storytelling. If I remember right, the novel discussed was Slaughterhouse-Five, which lampshades its non-linear narrative and autobiographical insert right in the first chapter. There are dramatic ways of doing this, but they look and sound a bit different from what Vonnegut does.

I often want to tell book purists exactly this. Many novels are not written with a movie or television show in mind [...]

I particularly want to hit Tolkien purists over the head with this. The books would have made for monumentally boring movies if made exactly like the books.

Even for Big Name Authors like King or Chrichton, differences end up occurring in the movie versions.

For Chrichton at least, Jurassic Park was a very dry, scientific-sounding book with very little about interpersonal relationships between the characters. I think the movie for it fits into this thread's subject for me, because the interpersonal relationships - such as the obvious one between Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) in the first movie - made the movie less dry than the book was.

Agreed on Lord of the Rings. I love the hell out of the book version, I'd consider it to be my all-time favourite book, but the movies are amazing and I completely understand if people would rather watch them than read it - they're much easier to get in to, and the pacing is a fair bit better. They're both fantastic for what they are - a fantastic book and a fantastic movie trilogy.

(Shame the Hobbit movies aren't nearly as good, though, although I do like the dwarves actually having personalities in the movies!)

And definitely agreed on MASH. After watching the entire series, I tried reading the book and just... couldn't. Hell, even the later seasons feel very very different to the earliest seasons, and I like the later ones when Alda had a lot more creative control much better. It started out as comedy, okay, sure. By the end, it was one of the best wartime series ever put on TV.

[ SECRET POST #2662 ]

Re: Have you ever liked a movie/tv show better then the book it's based on?

Re: Have you ever liked a movie/tv show better then the book it's based on?

Re: Have you ever liked a movie/tv show better then the book it's based on?

Re: Have you ever liked a movie/tv show better then the book it's based on?

Re: Have you ever liked a movie/tv show better then the book it's based on?

Re: Have you ever liked a movie/tv show better then the book it's based on?

Re: Have you ever liked a movie/tv show better then the book it's based on?

Re: Have you ever liked a movie/tv show better then the book it's based on?

Re: Have you ever liked a movie/tv show better then the book it's based on?