Hey I kept thinking about this concept this morning so I decided we should make it into a list. We have all had the disappointment of reading a great book, getting excited about it being turned into movie, 6 months later we wait in line for the popcorn, simply to be let down by something that loosely resembles the paper turner that we just read. For example I am a huge Michael Crichton fan and when he was asked/paid to write a sequel to Jurassic Park, I was very excited. I enjoyed the book as much if not more than the first and was very excited about the movie. I remember being a bit nervous about it since the first movie ended very different from the first book, yet he adapted the second book so it could match either ending, however I didn't expect what I got. I am not going to it into the horrible detail I will simply state: My favorite MAIN character from the book evidentially wasn't important enough to be in the movie.
So lets make a list. Mine is The Lost World by Michael Crichton. Also please note, there will be many different classifications for this list. Here are some examples:
Movies that forget to include the plot.
Books that were suspenseful yet the suspense doesn't translate to the movie or a mystery that gives up the mystery before has built up enough to be excited. (Da Vinci Code)
Movies that create action scenes our of thin air. (War of the Worlds, I personally haven't read it but I have reliable source that tell me this is true.)
Great Sci Fi, Doesn't translate in 2 hours.
Last, the person that can name a great movie that was a terrible book gets 5 brownie points. (Don't forget if you get 25 brownie points the newest member of the book club is required to bake you brownies.)
Bad book to movie translation: The Power of One. Phenomenal book, horrible movie.
ReplyDeleteBetter movie than book: Beowulf. Trust me. For every reason books are usually better than movies is why Beowulf the movie is better than the book.
I saw the movie first and afterwords was so excited to read the book only to be very disappointed. There is actually a spin-off book called Grendel which is pretty good and also better than Beowulf.
Bad book to movie translation: John Grishman's The Last Juror. While I think many of JG's books are formulaic, The Last Juror was compelling and had interesting twists. Despite my respect for John Cusack, the screenplay did not do the book justice.
ReplyDeleteI did not see Beowulf because I had already read the book and had no desire to experience that sublime boredom yet again--maybe I will check out the movie.
Better movie than book: Great expectations. And the movie was actually not good at all. I am talking about the one with Gwyneth Paltrow in the late 1990s. That is how much I disliked the book.