Film and TV Adaptations

[Solitaire1]

A recent small screen adaption that I enjoyed is "Justice League - The Flashpoint Paradox," an animated movie based on the miniseries "The Flashpoint Paradox." In 75 minutes they managed to create an excellent and basically faithful adaption of the original story.

Due to space limitations they weren't able contain everything that was in the original story (which was a major event in DC Comics that led to a soft reboot of the entire DC Universe), but they were able to touch on the most important points in the story. This included some fairly shocking moments from the original story, where characters like Aquaman, and Wonder Woman are far different from the common public perception of the characters.

As far as adaptions I'd like to see:

- The Myth Adventures series begun by Robert Asprin: I think this would work best as a movie series.

- The first part of Robotech, The Macross Saga: More of an adaption of the series of novels rather than the anime series, since the novels contain information that wasn't included in the original anime that added much to the story.

- Faze 1 Fazers: Based on a mid-1980s comic book, published by AC Comics, of the same name. Features a group of young people who gain super powers after being exposed to meteor. The series dealt with some of the emotional ramifications of gaining superpowers (one character names himself "NonMan" because he doesn't consider himself human anymore).

[steven522]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

A recent small screen adaption that I enjoyed is "Justice League - The Flashpoint Paradox," an animated movie based on the miniseries "The Flashpoint Paradox." In 75 minutes they managed to create an excellent and basically faithful adaption of the original story.

One thing DC seems to do pretty well is adapt comics to animated movies. I saw Flashpoint and also thought it was a faithful adaptation of the main storyline.

The Batman Year One adaptation was pretty good along with the Dark Night Returns 1 and 2 adaptations. However, I do prefer the comic events that are more self-contained and the graphic novel one-shots over most of the continuing storylines so that may be why I enjoy the "movies" done this way...

[Nabodita]

Personally, I thnk books should be made into TV series not movies. Imagine how much of the original detail in the book could be retained if you got 13 epsodes worth of time vis-a-vis 1-2 hours for a movie?

The worst adaptation ever, IMO, was Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Perhaps the best would be LOTR and Gone With The Wind.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Nabodita

Personally, I thnk books should be made into TV series not movies. Imagine how much of the original detail in the book could be retained if you got 13 epsodes worth of time vis-a-vis 1-2 hours for a movie?

The worst adaptation ever, IMO, was Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Perhaps the best would be LOTR and Gone With The Wind.

Another good adaption was "Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events." The movie adapted the first three books in the series and they did a good job of translating them to the large screen.

I agree with you that most books would be better adapted as a TV series rather than as a movie. A TV series would allow the creative team the time needed to tell the story.

In a reverse of the topic, what I've also noticed is that a book based on a TV series/movie is often better that the source itself. An example of this is "Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan." While the movie was great, the book was even better by adding details that were not in the movie (such as Saavik being half-vulcan and half-romulan).

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by Nabodita

Personally, I thnk books should be made into TV series not movies. Imagine how much of the original detail in the book could be retained if you got 13 epsodes worth of time vis-a-vis 1-2 hours for a movie?

The worst adaptation ever, IMO, was Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Perhaps the best would be LOTR and Gone With The Wind.

Yeah. I actually enjoy the Game of Thrones show more than the books. Of course, mystery series translate very well into television series but I would like to see more fantasy series made into television series.

[Nabodita]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Yeah. I actually enjoy the Game of Thrones show more than the books. Of course, mystery series translate very well into television series but I would like to see more fantasy series made into television series.

Oh I agree! Oh I agree!

There's this book by Kelley Armstrong called Bitten. It's the first part of a thirteen-parter called Women Of The Otherworld. It's actually YA / Urban Fantasy and not Epic Fantasy like Game of Thrones. I found the books pretty good. Unfortunately, the TV series adaptation of Bitten is terrible. 6 episodes have aired so far and I've already given up on the series although I know I'll be compelled to watch the whole thing.

Originally Posted by Soitaire1

In a reverse of the topic, what I've also noticed is that a book based on a TV series/movie is often better that the source itself. An example of this is "Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan." While the movie was great, the book was even better by adding details that were not in the movie (such as Saavik being half-vulcan and half-romulan).

True. I think the Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister books surpassed the series.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Nabodita

The worst adaptation ever, IMO, was Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.

Clearly you have not seen "The Seeker", an "adaptation" of The Dark Is Rising. It was an appalling movie in its own right, but its disrespect for the source material was astounding.

[Nabodita]

Originally Posted by meeera

Clearly you have not seen "The Seeker", an "adaptation" of The Dark Is Rising. It was an appalling movie in its own right, but its disrespect for the source material was astounding.

Ehh. I have that movie... just haven't gotten around to watching it yet. And now I don't think I will. I quite liked the books!

[Dngrsone]

I saw Hunt for Red October and liked it enough (despite having a Baldwin in it) to read the book, but it didn't take long for me to see that the Jack Ryan character was (maybe not intentionally, but still) built around Harrison Ford.

I was not thrilled to hear that Tom Cruise would play Lestat, though he did a passable job... I would have rather seen a young Rutger Hauer in that part, with long, luxurious blond hair.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

I saw [b]Hunt for Red October[/i] and liked it enough (despite having a Baldwin in it) to read the book, but it didn't take long for me to see that the Jack Ryan character was (maybe not intentionally, but still) built around Harrison Ford.

I was not thrilled to hear that Tom Cruise would play Lestat, though he did a passable job... I would have rather seen a young Rutger Hauer in that part, with long, luxurious blond hair.

Oooooh. A young Rutger Hauer! Perfect!

[peachiekene]

A TV adaptation that I greatly disliked was Legend of the Seeker from The Sword of Truth. *ack*
-This bothered me when it first came out, but I've since cooled on my opinion of the book series so I don't really care too much.
The only people I know who genuinely liked the series were people who didn't realize it was a book series. I think they would have been much better off just not even being an adaptation and been it's own show. Some of the changes they did were really weird and didn't make sense at all.

Perhaps the best would be LOTR and Gone With The Wind.

Seconding. I actually like a lot of the changes Selznick did to GWTW. (I have the 4 disc DVD set of it, where they went into detail. Love this movie too much.)

I really liked Atonement as well. Though I watched the movie then read the book.

I feel Stardust should be mentioned as I think the movie was a lot more fun.

[Lin2412]

Originally Posted by owly

I thought the "Bridget Jones Diary" film was MUCH better than the book. An upcoming adaption to watch-out for the "Outlander" Starz i making a TV-series based on the first book in the series by Diana Gabaldon and most of the main characters are now cast http://www.starz.com/originals/outlander

You've got a great point with the Bridget Jones Diary. I still find it surprising when movies are better than the books, because it makes me think that in a way our imagination/perception must've been second rate (lol)

I used to think, no way in hell can a movie surpass my expectations and my own book image. But there's Bridget Jones Diary. Also, there's Silver Linings Playbook. I only watched the movie for Cooper and Lawrence because I found the book mediocre at best, but the movie was great-- it was better.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, THANK YOU FOR THE LINK, SEE I'M TYPING IN CAPS WITH GRATITUDE AND LOVE BECAUSE OUTLANDER.

(oh my god. It may not be as good as the book but still oh my god. Thanks for the good news!)

[Cyberman tM]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

1) Do you have any adaptations that you particularly like/despise?

Despise: those movies that are said to be based on Asimov novels.

Like: Screamers. I thought it was quite good adaption of the story. Missing the main revelation in the ending, of course, but that was to be expected.
(Of course, I saw the movie first, that may have helped :-)

Also, I thought that in Spider-Man the portrait of Doc Ock was mostly good. His motivation was rubbish, but the actor was fitting, IMO.

[Dngrsone]

Andromeda Strain... the movie was much better than the book, IMO.

[Lin2412]

Can Sherlock be included? Or is it a line that must not be drawn, because with great respects to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I simply rather found the BBC Sherlock modern adaptation more... close to the heart.

I've read and liked the books, jumped up and down for looking over its hard copies, but the TV Adaptation from BBC is simply extraordinarily making me biased to lean on to the series more.