Quote:
Originally Posted by ZodWallop
I like to look at The Shining where Kubrick took only the bare bones of King's story. You could watch the movie and read the book and have two very different experiences. I don't feel that either form of the story is clearly superior. They are both powerful works in their own way.
(There is the TV miniseries version of The Shining that is much closer to King's book and it was something of a failure, but I blame that on the director. Mick Garris has a long history of adapting King's works and none of his adaptations are really spectacular.)
Over the years I've come to believe that a movie adaptation of a book shouldn't try to slavishly follow the source. Jaws, Dune and Bladerunner all deviate from their source, but all work as movies (to me).
There is a limit to how far you can split, but I'm not sure where that line is. The Will Smith I, Robot was an okay movie, but it felt like a slap in the face to Asimov. I'm not really sure why they kept the Asimov connection. Making it wholly original probably would have helped the movie. It's not like there's been blockbuster Asimov adaptations.
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I never really thought that much about the changes to Jaws, probably because I saw the movie before I read the book. Same with Bladerunner, I liked the original movie a lot more than the book. Didn't care much for the movie version of Dune.
For the most part, I don't think that Asimov's material works well in the movies. There are a whole slew of movies where the best way to put it is "suggested by ...." rather than "from ..."