Do you watch and like book adaptations?

[JSWolf]

The movie Planet of the Apes came from the book and was quite good and a success as it spawned 4 more movies and a short lived TV series.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

Mostly, though, my problem with movies of books is that really good book series are often a huge letdown in the translation and often don't get past a single movie because of poor audience response.

*cough* Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World *cough*

The film in fact was pretty good and was nominated/awarded for various prizes, but it was mostly based on a middle book in the series and did only fair box office. So that was the end of that.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I like good movie/TV adaptations of books. To be clear: I'm not using "good" in the sense that the movie clings fervently to every aspect of its written counterpart. I'm fine with movie adaptions that stray dramatically from the canon of the books. I tend to compartmentalize them from each other. If I'm entertained and the movie is consistent within in its own framework of reference, then I'm probably going to like it. No bad movie or TV show has ever succeeded in ruining a book I enjoyed. They're separate endeavors.

This is basically my take too. I need to think of them as separate entities, then I'm ok. If I go in expecting a 1:1 translation I'm always disappointed.

One example is the Jason Bourne series. I really enjoyed the first three Matt Damon movies (haven't seen the others) and I really enjoyed the first 2-3 books. They really are not comparable though. Some of the same names, some of the same major beats, but nothing more than that.

[JSWolf]

The Reacher series on Amazon Prime is quite good and so is the book series.

[DrNefario]

If it's a book I think I might want to read, then I will put off watching the film/series until I've read it.

It's fairly rare for an adaptation to live up to my favourite books. Even something like The Prestige is not quite there, for me, despite being decent in its own right.

But there are plenty of things that I am not that interested in reading that have made excellent TV. Slow Horses and Magpie/Moonflower Murders, for instance. Sometimes they will send me back to the source material, but in the case of Slow Horses I think that might end up ruining the TV version.

Sometimes the TV version is different enough that I can enjoy it without worrying too much about the source material. Wheel of Time, for example. Not popular with the fandom, but I have enjoyed it. You can't really be sure what's going to end up being a spoiler, even then, so I do still try to read the books first. I didn't watch the movie versoin of Annihilation until I'd read the whole trilogy, even though it's not a close adaptation. And the (not great) Ghibli versoin of Earthsea contains quite a major spoiler even though it's the loosest of loose adaptations.

And sometimes the books aren't all that great in the first place, and the adaptations are better. Sometimes you feel the books are pitches for movies.

[Gormagon]

I guess I watched more movie adaptations of books first than I read books before seeing a movie adaptation. Actually, I seldom read the books after seeing a movie. The Thin Man was an exception - I bought the book quite a while after seeing the movie. Another book I read after seeing a movie based on it: Dracula (of the many movie versions I prefer Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens, which is based in some way on the novel).

Other movies based on books that I watched: The Story of Temple Drake, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931; again with Miriam Hopkins), The Wizard of Oz (saw it once, which was more than enough and I really don't want the book), Lost Horizon (1937; at least I downloaded the book recently to read it sometime), Frankenstein (1931), Topper (1937), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), The Invisible Man (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), Stella Dallas (1937), The Match King (1932), Skyscraper Souls (1932), Lady for a Day (1933) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (the last two are based on short stories, does that count as "book"?). Most of these movies I enjoyed watching, some of them I watched more than once (The Thin Man is a movie I can watch every year before Christmas). The one movie I don't really enjoyed was The Wizard of Oz, I loathe Mrs. Garland and all the singing stuff. At least there are some memorable quotes from this movie, but that's about it.

There are certainly much more movie adaptions of novels I have seen. And don't get me started on movies based on plays.

There's one book that I read before seeing the movie: Fahrenheit 451. The movie by Truffaut has to be his worst movie (at least the worst Truffaut movie I have seen).

As you may have noticed I really don't watch much movies in colour or recently made movies ("recently" covering the time frame from circa 1970 until today).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

There are certainly much more movie adaptions of novels I have seen. And don't get me started on movies based on plays.

Some movies that comes to mind based on plays that are really good are Les Misérables, Fiddler on the Roof, Little Shop of Horrors, 12 Angry Men, Noises Off, A Few Good Men, Doubt, Barefoot in the Park, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Casablanca, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and My Fair Lady.

While the plays were good, the movies are as good or better.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Some movies that comes to mind based on plays that are really good are Les Misérables, Fiddler on the Roof, Little Shop of Horrors, 12 Angry Men, Noises Off, A Few Good Men, Doubt, Barefoot in the Park, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Casablanca, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and My Fair Lady.

While the plays were good, the movies are as good or better.

Another good adaptation from a play was the 1940 movie The Shop Around the Corner. It stared Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan,
Apache

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Apache

Another good adaptation from a play was the 1940 movie The Shop Around the Corner. It stared Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan,
Apache

And the good remake You've Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

[Drybonz]

Generally, I find film adaptations to be terrible, although there are some exceptions. I always avoid watching the movie until I have read the book. When I read I tend to imagine the events and characters in my head, and if I have seen the film it interferes with that, injecting movie images into my imagination, and ruining the book for me.

[issybird]

Invoking film adaptations of books as comparable to film adaptations of plays is like comparing asparagus to celery. A play is already constructed for dramatic presentation and is dialogue heavy. Adapting books requires a lot more heavy lifting and significant cuts. And while there's nothing wrong with reading plays, I like it myself, plays are meant to be seen. Like movies.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Some movies that comes to mind based on plays that are really good are Les Misérables, Fiddler on the Roof, Little Shop of Horrors, 12 Angry Men, Noises Off, A Few Good Men, Doubt, Barefoot in the Park, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Casablanca, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and My Fair Lady.

While the plays were good, the movies are as good or better.

I've gotta ask: what are you basing "as good or better" on? There's only the one film, but there could be umpteen stage presentations. Some will be better than others. In regard to Sweeney Todd, are you comparing the film to the original Broadway production with Angela Lansbury? I saw it, and there's no comparison. And comparing Fiddlers is comparing Zero Mostel to Topol. That's just absurd. On the other hand, I suspect Topol is better than the local high school senior. What's your standard for comparison?

I'll grant you Casablanca as the play hadn't been produced, but that's a low bar.

[PeterT]

I've enjoyed both film and book versions, purely because I accept them as separate interpretations of a work.

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[Freeshadow]

a 1:1 adaptation is Bertoluccis "The last Emperor"

[tch65721]

My favorite adaptations that spring immediately to mind were miniseries. I really enjoyed Shogun (1980) back in the day. The miniseries format gave it enough time to tell the story properly. Another good one was Lonesome Dove. Loved the book and I thought the miniseries casting was perfect.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

Invoking film adaptations of books as comparable to film adaptations of plays is like comparing asparagus to celery. A play is already constructed for dramatic presentation and is dialogue heavy. Adapting books requires a lot more heavy lifting and significant cuts. And while there's nothing wrong with reading plays, I like it myself, plays are meant to be seen. Like movies.



I've gotta ask: what are you basing "as good or better" on? There's only the one film, but there could be umpteen stage presentations. Some will be better than others. In regard to Sweeney Todd, are you comparing the film to the original Broadway production with Angela Lansbury? I saw it, and there's no comparison. And comparing Fiddlers is comparing Zero Mostel to Topol. That's just absurd. On the other hand, I suspect Topol is better than the local high school senior. What's your standard for comparison?

I'll grant you Casablanca as the play hadn't been produced, but that's a low bar.

Fiddler on the Roof the movie is very good. I find Topol to be better then Zero Mostel. It's close though.

As for Sweeny Todd, yes I did get that one wrong. But the rest, not at all.