Yeay, my fave day of the week (as I work on a Weds & Thurs)! I'm enjoying GReads' TGIF blog hop so here we go again.
This week the question is: Book to Movie: Which book turn movie do you feel did the best adaptation? What about the worst?
I don't tend to watch films of books I've enjoyed, although I have seen all the LOTR ones and most of the Harry Potter ones. With both I drove my husband mad telling him I was sure they'd missed bits out or added bits in. I like reading because to an extent you use your imagination to picture the characters and places, and a film can present them in a completely different way to what you had visualised. I did quite like the film of Captain Corelli's Mandolin though, probably because the location was just gorgeous.
In the past week I have read and reviewed:
Catching the Eagle by Karen Charlton, historical fiction
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, my first foray into his books
I've almost finished another book, so the review for that will probably be up later. I've also been thinking about the challenges I set for myself this year and which I'm going to do next. Plus there's Christmas shopping to be done, not long now! I hope everyone is looking forward to the festive season. Have a great weekend,
TC x
7 comments:
Hands down the WORST book-to-movie adaptation was Richard Matheson's amazingly well-done supsense chiller story When Dreams May Come. Although I really like actor, Robin Williams, he was a terrible, terrible choice for casting this movie. The book was....amazing, so vivid, so suspenseful and absolutely chilling. The movie kind of fell flat. The casting of Williams was definitely not the movie's biggest problem. They changed the storyline and lost all of the magic for the sake of Hollywood glitter. Matheson was a masterful TV scriptwriter. He single-handedly wrote most of the chilling TV in the 50s (Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, Star Trek-Original Series) and even Stephen King attributes the founding of the thriller/chiller genre to Matheson. The movie adaptation of his vivid imagery was a travesty.
Another Matheson story adapted to the screen which did well (but isn't my pick for "best") was A Stir of Echoes which starred Kevin Bacon, not one of my favorite actors but I actually really liked him in this movie. The book was incredibly well-done in the suspenseful and scary-ghost-story ways and the movie visualized the parts of the book I couldn't picture, so together, they enhanced each other.
Interestingly enough, Robin Williams also starred in one of the best movie adaptations I've ever seen: Isaac Asimov's Bicentennial Man which seemed to drag on interminably in book form (I actually struggled to finish reading it!) but the movie brings me to tears everytime. It's one of those amazingly well-done characterizations that Asimov did for his Artificial People (ironic given the man, himself, was a pompous ass, sexist pig and vile human being, not to mention wife-beater and deadbeat dad who abandoned his teenaged children to run off with his mistress--it was the 70s but still no excuse). I'm always amazed when Asimov can write moving characters because I knew his kids and knew he was an unfeeling, self-centered jerk, but his robots--all of them--always seem to be sooooo human. I don't think it's an irony. I think Asimov was only able to see humanity in "people" he could control.I don't think anyone has ever quite done robots the way Asimov did--and it's no mistake his Three Laws are still today the de facto standard. They're introduced for the first time in Bicentennial Man. The movie's well-worth searching out (in the US it's on Netflix ;-)
-sry
-sry
Ooops, that was What Dreams May Come, not When. Sorry.
Yay - a kindred soul! I don't tend to watch the movie if I've read the book also and vice versa. Of course, there are a few exceptions!
See I liked LOTR because it gave me a visual. I think it actually made me enjoy the books more. But I'll agree most disappointing me...I nit pick too.
Webbiegrrl, I think Stir of Echos is the only one you mention I've seen but not read the book to compare.
Glad to hear I'm not alone in liking to either see the film or read the book and not even think about comparing.
I love the Harry Potter films, but like you would say what was left out/added in.
I saw Captain Corelli's a few years ago but think i was too young to appreciate it - I was bored. Haven't tried to read it.
Thanks for hopping by guys. Tanya, you are doing some really cool challenges!
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