Book vs. Film:

[fuzzy_slippers]

*LBell waves at her fellow book nerd fuzzy_slippers and apologizes for bailing on her in the GoT spoilers thread*

Too many books, too many movies, not enough time...I'm still trying to wake up (long story) so I'll post a few here.

Since Stephen King has been mentioned: IMHO only a few of his books and stories have successfully translated well to film. Keep in mind he has a huge bibliography so "a few" is still quite a bit by most standards. So aside from The Shining and Shawshank Redemption, I thought Stand by Me, Misery, and the first Carrie (with Sissy Spacek) were pretty good films. On the miniseries side, I thought It was done pretty well but I wouldn't mind seeing remakes of both The Stand and The Langoliers. Sadly, I can think of several films (off the top of my head: Pet Sematary, Apt Pupil, and The Mist, among others) that they need to just erase from living memory and do again, they were that bad.

I too am an old lady and I agree about all but one (Queen) of the miniseries fuzzy mentioned. When I had Thorn Birds on VHS I used to take a long weekend about every other year or so and watch it. Pretty sure all of these are online somewhere; think I may be due for another watch. As books, both The Thorn Birds and Shogun surprised me with how good they were.

I made a point of reading LoTR before the movies came out and as far as I'm concerned the movies were much better. Then again (as my white male friend told me) 1) I didn't grow up with it and 2) being a girl, of course I was going to be bored by all the detail about battles, which takes up most of books 2 and 3.

Re Stieg Larssen: Having now read 2 of the 3 books, seen 2 of the 3 Swedish movies, and the one American movie, I find them all to be good in their own way. Sorry, I heart Daniel Craig...but I did think Noomi Rapace (?) was a better Lisbeth than Rooney Mara.

fuzzy, you and I are going to have to agree to disagree about Watership Down. Unless there's another version I don't know about...that's another movie they definitely need to do over.

One more and I'm going to stop: Bridges of Madison County was far and away a much better movie...Clint Eastwood earned my respect for his treatment by boiling the story down to the bare esssentials.

Hey Homeslice. I aint mad about GoT. Mad that we got to put up with Joffrey for one more season, but I get why.

But why don't you like the movie Watership Down?

[LBellatrix]

But why don't you like the movie Watership Down?

The animation was bad even by that era's standards. Also the story went too fast...I felt it was dumbed-down to appeal to kids (despite the Efrafa fight scenes). I don't know if you ever look at Oscar-nominated animated shorts but they really push the envelope in terms of animation as art. I would love someone to do a really sensitive, artistic treatment.

I'm prejudiced, though: I was assigned this book in 7th grade English and I've been in love with it ever since. I feel the same way about Beloved (the book) but when Oprah made it into a movie I was like, you can't make this into a good movie but I'll give you credit for trying...

Funny story: I recently met a black man who'd published his first book and he was saying how parts of it were autobiographical; for example, his protagonist (a black man) loved Watership Down (the book). And sadly I already knew he (the writer) was married but if he hadn't been I would have asked him out right then and there... I can count on one hand the number of black folks who know about Watership Down, much less like it, much less LOVE it.

[fuzzy_slippers]

I loved this book, too! I think the tv show Watership Down was horrid, but the movie was good. At the time, the big animated movies came from Sanrio and RankinBass. They're both too cute for this kind of story. I think Don Bluth might have gotten the look right, but the mood wrong. The biggest disappointment was that all the El-ahrairah stories were cut out. So the scenes got kind of repetitive. Everyone's like "We're in trouble! What now, Hazel?" As a kid, I thought the stories were the best. Now, it's not the events of the tales, but that the characters belong to a society that values oral tradition; trading and learning from legends. And when a character tells a story about El-ahrairah, it's like they're talking about their own relationship with their God. I liked the animation because it was kind of dull: not a whole lot of movement, natural colors, regular light. Life-like. And then Fiver's visions of doom were really ugly. I thought that fit. And if there was more of El-ahrairah, then there would have been more of the flowing, dreamy animation with the Shadow.

But then, I loved Plague Dogs.

[Savantrice]

Agree on Watership Down movie...I enjoyed it, and the book.

Two that havent been mentioned:
C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.....was obsessed with the books in primary school. Saw an early Lion, Witch, Wardrobe movie and was sorely disappointed because it did not do justice to how I imagined the books. Was very excited and pleased when I saw the most recent iterations of the series on silver screen.

one I'm still waiting to see done well: Frank Herbert's Dune! Classic book, one of my favorites. I saw a bit of the movie made a few decades ago and hated it. Still waiting for someone to tackle it and do it well.

Oh, and two series that havent been adapted to film but would probably go over well: Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (loooove this)...and Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's series (salacious enough to sell...would have to be rated R)...
I'll stop now

[tjolims]

^The Kushiel Series would have to be rated X!! Those are some sexy sexy envelope pushing books!

They've done Dune twice. The second time was better, but still...

Okay, I have a much longer response to this but so far...

The film of Never Let Me Go was MUCH better than the book, IMO, even though they were virtually identical in content.

I saw World War Z in the cinema after having read only a quarter of the book. So far, the book is much much better...the story is more interesting.

[LBellatrix]

Two that havent been mentioned:
C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.....was obsessed with the books in primary school. Saw an early Lion, Witch, Wardrobe movie and was sorely disappointed because it did not do justice to how I imagined the books. Was very excited and pleased when I saw the most recent iterations of the series on silver screen.

one I'm still waiting to see done well: Frank Herbert's Dune! Classic book, one of my favorites. I saw a bit of the movie made a few decades ago and hated it. Still waiting for someone to tackle it and do it well.

Re Narnia: I STILL haven't seen the other two movies and I'm mad because they represent my favorite books in the series. I gotta see Reepicheep!

Re Dune: You know, the more I think about it, the more I believe that both treatments I've seen (the David Lynch movie and the Syfy series) had good bits in them. Did either of them do full justice to the book? Not in my opinion, no.

Back to Stieg Larssen for a bit: I'm currently listening to the audiobook of book 3 and MAN I'm not feeling it AT ALL. I may just jump right on past it and watch the third Swedish movie...