films that are better than the books they are based on

pwd wrote: »

The Lord of the Rings trilogy

The Lord of the Rings wasn't based on a book. To say so is to do a disservice to the book on which it purports to be based.

It simply helped itself liberally and unabashedly to content from a textual work its creators utterly failed to understand.

The Peter Jackson trilogy is, in just about every way possible, utterly trivial and inferior to the saga Tolkien wrought. It is a banalization of Tolkien's work on an unforgivable scale.

There isn't one thing wrong, not one thing wrong, with Tolkien's work. There is not a feature of the work you can name which, supplied with the correct context, there isn't a damn good reason it was written that way.

The largest injustice about the adaptation is the damage it has done in the form of preconception to the experience of the written work. Many people have come to read Tolkien after they see the film, and, expecting things there that they should not, hold the book inferior on completely inappropriate criteria with respect to the intentions and achievements of the written work. It supplies completely the wrong hermeneutic for successful appraisal and appreciation of the book.

Whereas, even on the basis of the proper hermeneutic for appreciation and appraisal of the cinematic adaptation - that is, as an epic cinematic trilogy with mass appeal, which observes the formulaic generic staples - Jackson's trilogy falls rather short of the mark, with some very obvious integral flaws that have nothing to do with how it was adapted.

I cannot think of a more lauded, more successful artistic failure in cinematic history than Jackson's trilogy.

Pigman II wrote: »

Clockwork Orange, Jurassic Park.

Yes, to the first. Yes, actually to most of Kubrick's adaptations, although I can't say I've read Barry Lindon.

I'm not sure about the second one there though. JP was among Crichton's better novels, imo.

What about Lawrence of Arabia? Anyone read the TH Lawrence autobiog it's based on?

American Pyscho.

I adore both the book and the film, but seeing Christian Bale bring Patrick Bateman to the big screen was just so amazing. It enhanced my enjoyment of the book, imagining Bale as Bateman being able to put a voice and a face to this amazing character.

I think I prefer the film simply because for me it made re-reading the book even more enjoyable.

The Godfather. The book is fairly average, the film is a cinematic masterpiece.

Valmont wrote: »

My issues with that god damn saga were Legolas' gayness (really he was too camp),

He was one of the biggest disappointments for me. It wasn't just that he was too camp. He seemed the most innocent and youngest of the bunch, when he is actually in the region of thousands of years old, and many references to this are made in the book, where he is a youthful character who is wise and mysterious, and mutely intimidating. Bloom's Legolas was the village idiot. He constantly looks slightly confused about what's going on, never seems to have anything useful to say, and is little more than the witless foil to Gimli's comic relief. I still wince at many of his inclusions in the film, which range from skating down a staircase in the middle of a battle on the back of a shield of armour, somehow deriving from the colour of the morning sky that blood was spilled the previous evening (!!) and completely missing the patently obvious (and really foolish) plan made at Gondor to create a last minute diversion by riding to Morannon. His sole purpose in that scene is to sum up the simplex dialogue for anyone stupid enough not to have copped on already that the remaning members of the fellowship are going to create "a diversion!!!"

Gimli being a joke,

Yes. Such a sad, tiresome, cliched approach, and such a miserably wasteful misuse of Rhys-Davies, whose lovely RSC accent would have been entirely more appropriate for Gimli. Gimli's character is far more grim in Tolkien, and far more deserving of respect - an insight into the ancient culture of the dwarves, rather than being a funny little man with a Scottish accent (oh, that's just so genre fantasy. How knowing!).

Elijah Wood being wayyyyyy to moany,

Another f*ck up. The transformation is from an eloquent, earnest man of letters in the book - a young gentleman cast far out of his depth but bearing up by dint of resolve and good solid virtue - to a wide-eyed, petulant little ignoramus with neat line in unintentionally condescending high-mindedness when he talks to his "friend" Sam. Oh, how I wanted to claw his useless, weepy wretched eyes out.

and that god awful scene we all try to forget "No man can kill me!" chick - " I am no man". I still cringe when I think of it. Goodness the saga was god awful.

It was certainly badly handled. Especially because of the fact that we already knew who she was. I missed Dernhelm, and the dialogue from that scene.

Tolkien wrote:

Merry crawled on all fours like a dazed beast, and such a horror was on him that he was blind and sick.
"King's man! King's man!" his heart cried within him. "You must stay by him. As a father you shall be to me, you said." But his will made no answer and his body shook. He dared not open his eyes or look up.
Then out of the blackness in his mind he thought that he heard Dernhelm speaking; yet now the voice seemed strange, recalling some other voice that he had known.
"Become, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"
A cold voice answered: "Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
A sword rang as it was drawn. "Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may."
"Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!"
Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

This scene, of course, and the story behind it, alludes liberally to Elizabethan imagery and literary allusion, in particular the Spenserian story of Britomart in the Faerie Queen, whose suit of armour hides the fact of her femininity.

One thing I really sorely missed from this scene was the dying speech of Theoden. "A grim morn and a glad day, and a golden sunset."

I could write ( have written ) thousands of words on what was wrong with this adaptation. Highlights include the sabotage of the character of Aragorn so as to make him a hillman with a lineage, rather than the true King in exile. The spoiling of the narratival pacing and structure of the Fellowship of the Ring, the insertion of superfluous new material at the expense of integral book content (Aragorn's wet dreams or the unabridged Council of Elrond? I know which one I would have chosen. I would have chosen the one that got that fat faced b*tch out of the movie as much as possible.), the completely misjudged casting (tbf, not completely, though. Ian Holm, Ian McKellen and Bernard Hill were perfect, imo, and Andy Serkhis did a good job with a bad script) the utter failure of the Frodo-Sam relationship, the failure to appreciate the themes of classical epic and tragic heroism latent in the book, and the feudal mythology of chivalry, kingship and Christian virtue, the insertion of wildly disparate and inappropriate thematic content, the reduction of the plot to bare allegory, when that is the mode of literary endeavour Tolkien most looked down upon, etc etc etc.

They spoiled it completely.

Jaws is one.

Id half agree on Jurassic Park. Some parts were better, some not as good.

mwnger wrote: »

I got three words for you: Tom f*cking Bombadil.

Excuse me for pointing this out, but just indicating a character from the book doesn't really specify what is you find wrong with the book. Am I to understand that you didn't like this character? Where lies the flaw, precisely, in your opinion?

genericgoon wrote: »

The Godfather. The book is fairly average, the film is a cinematic masterpiece.

Read the Godfather while I was on holidays last year, best book I've ever read along with Iceman Richard Kuklinsky. Not taking anything away from the film which was amazing but the book is far above average.

Dave147 wrote: »

Read the Godfather while I was on holidays last year, best book I've ever read along with Iceman Richard Kuklinsky. Not taking anything away from the film which was amazing but the book is far above average.

I was probably was a bit harsh on it. However, I still think the film is a far better version of the story and relative to other works in their respective mediums and genres, the film is far greater.