Amph From Books To Movies: Good Idea Or Not?

When we read sci-fi and fantasy, we get to share in the creation of a whole world - providing the images to go with the author's imagination. We can read a book over the course of a few days or even hours, or take our time with the story, we can pick the background music, and, well, you get the idea.

What with the recent crop of fantasy books being translated into the very different medium of film, I thought it would be interesting to hear opinions about what does and doesn't work in the movies. What parts of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or Chronicles of Narnia did the filmmakers get just right in your opinion? What did they mangle or even just leave on the cutting room floor, and which is worse?

Even more interesting, which of your favorite books haven't been filmed, and what would you think if they were?

 

My biggest problems with Films from fantasy books is that they are always long books, and they always have to leave stuff out. Often stuff i really enjoyed in the books. I would love to see an Animorph movie, and i would love to see Song of Fire and Ice movies as well, but i think they are just too complicated and long to do anything with in movies. Possibly mini series, but probably not that either.

But i still love the movies immensely. I love being able to just sit back and get lost in that book world for a brief time as opposed to rereading all the books in the series again

 

Actually given the number of books in the series, I think Animorphs would work better as a TV series - NOT MADE BY NICKOLDEON!

Maybe a company like Sci - Fi or the like?

 

Long books are a bargain for money. If a trilogy, the fastest you'll see is a year per book, and what's the rush to reach the back page? You'll still pay the same $20 paperback for 400 pages as you would 800 or 1000.

I was considerably annoyed when I wanted more Erikson books and they were 25 instead of 20. But the quality was there to the Selkath gills and what's 3 dollars more when you're getting 1000 page books. It's a bargain, really.

Same for Storm of Swords. Americans have one book, we got two 600 pagers. After the CRIMINALLY miniscule print of book 2, I was glad the font was much larger. I paid twice the money, but again, it was quality and ease of reading factors in.

 

I think a Song of Ice and Fire could work as an entire television series.

Like, one season is A Game of Thones. The next is Clash of Kings, and so on and so forth. There's too much stuff in those books to condense down into a movie. Consider that Lord of the Rings is about as long as an individual Song of Ice and Fire books, and it took three very long (but excellent) films to make that, and they still had to cut a lot of stuff out. If they were to make a movie out of A Song of Ice and Fire, there'd be like 20 movies. A tv series or even just a miniseries, I think that could work though. There's a lot of stuff in these books that have the potential to be really great cinematic scenes, like the death of Robb Stark in A Storm of Swords. That would be an amazing scene.

 

Book to movie ideas are okay, but more often than not, the book is still better. The little details in books that don't quite make it to screen are usually not important for the plot, but add depth to character.

I would like to see an Animorph movie, too. Since there are so many books, I think a trilogy would be needed (at the very least). Even then, though, a lot would be left out.

 

Not. They leave too much out because of time issues--Harry Potter, for example. And Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was just weird . . .

However, I would see the movies based off of Sara Douglass's or Terry Goodkind's books. And Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series would be a great TV show, if they made every bookd or two into a season.

 

I remember dreaming of a movie version of LotR when I'd read the books as a kid. I wanted everyone to get to enjoy what I could see in my minds eye. Overall, I'd say Fellowship did that, and did it very well. Ican't say the same for the rest of the trilogy. Sometimes books just beg to be remade into film, and sometimes people who have no business messing with a good thing, mess with it anyway. It's a hard choice. There are always compromises when it comes to film whereas everything is possible in a book.

 

I almost always read the book first, I feel like I have to because then I have my own vision first, not the movie producers/directors. That said, I find that I am not usually dissapointed in the movies. As far as HP goes, I hve been consistently blown away by the dead on actor choices for all fo the various roles, and I can not wait to see who is cast for OOP as far as new characters in that book go.

I think that CON has beenmade into a fabulous movie and I see that the book series has made it into the bestseller list, which is great.

The sould exception I can think of is Stephen King horror novels. As far as his more sci fi stuff goes, I have liked those. I love Shawshank and Green Mile is my favorite movie of his. however, I thought that IT was a work of sheer horror genius and I despise the tv movie. I find that with most of his books...I love the book and then am less than enamored with the movie. I am thinking that maybe his stuff just does not translate well onto film because the scariest thing is always what you, yourself , come up with.

 

I think "Ice and Fire" and "The Dark Tower" would make great mini-series, but not feature films. Too long. Movies wouldn't do them justice.

I'd say "The Dark Tower" is...sort of likely. They're going into comic book terroritory, I guess it can't be long till a TV series or movie goes into production. "Ice and Fire" possibly, judging George R R Martins experience with script writing and Hollywood. But I'd rather have him finish the damn series first

 

And Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was just weird . . .

I rather liked it It was random and crazy, and reasonably captured the feel of the book, imo.

 

I didn't like how much they changed it from the book--like Trillian wasn't with Arthur in the books, but she ended up with him in the movie. The movie didn't really capture the brilliance of Douglas Adams.

 

Or it could just be that they made PG-rated, made-for-TV versions of R-rated, grand-in-scope books with poor adaptation writing, poor directing, and an all-around lack of respect for the source material.

M. Scott

 

I'm very much a fence-sitter here. Some are great. LOTR rarely disappoints, and I don't think Middle-Earth could've been evoked better, though some of the battles drag. But LOTR and LOTR the movies are pretty much one when I think of them. On the other hand, I like The Silmarillion more than LOTR and I don't think that could be put on film. It just has the wrong feel to it - too mythical, too wide in the amount of time and the numbers of characters it covers.

Some are just really good, like the Harry Potter films. I agree with whoever said that the casting is always spot-on (see, that's what comes of only picking British actors ) and overall they're great entertainment. In this case I don't find it hard to separate book and movie in my mind - the two things are so different. There's HP the movie, and there's HP the extended edition with more jokes and better detail (also known as the book).

Some are kind of okay, and I think Narnia comes in here. It was a pretty average film, adapted from a pretty good book. Slight disappointment there.

I can't think of any SF&F adaptations I personally've seen that were truly awful. Mind you, I don't see that many. However, nothing by Terry Pratchett will or could ever work as a movie. Too much of the uniqueness and the humour of those books is tied in with their being books. The narrating voice will talk to the reader, comment, joke, reference, make irrelevant sidetracks (Pratchett's footnotes . . .) and generally give the story a sparkle that you couldn't have on film.

 

Wow, what a great discussion I figured you guys would have some insightful thoughts on the subject.

droideka27, it bugs me that they have to leave out things that happened in the books, too. But it's interesting that the movies can become, for you, the book's "lite version" that doesn't take as long to get into.

I'm liking Andalite-Bandit's idea of making an entire series of books into a television series, but it would be a tradeoff as far as production values - though with cable, a lot of things seem to be possible.

Ah, NYCitygurl, the fundamentalist No books to movies! Do you have the willpower not to watch adaptations, though?

P_K, I can understand your daydreaming about LOTR movies. I always wanted to direct His Dark Materials. Looks like somebody beat us to it, eh?

Other than that, it seems like we've got kind of a consensus on LOTR - that it was well-made, but some of the set piece battles were too drawn out. I wonder if this has to do with the era in which Jackson made the movies and our sensibilities today? Or has it got more to do with the medium of filmmaking - what works on film, and what doesn't?

 

Ah, NYCitygurl, the fundamentalist No books to movies! Do you have the willpower not to watch adaptations, though?


No, I have no willpower anywhere or about anything Watched HHGttG, watched Dune, watched LOTR . . .

And as for the battles, I think it's because in a three hour long movie, people can only take so much of monsters being cu down with swords before they go, 'Okay, next, please.' It just gets to be sort of repetitve.

 

I would tend to agree... although I'm always more interested in the characters and plot than the action/fights. Besides, what better movie is there than the one you make in your head when you read a good book?

And, yes, HHGTG was a very strange movie... *shudder*... it's not that it was exactly bad, but... uh... I couldn't stand the opening dolphin number. It just didn't work for me, I was waiting for it to end. The rest of it worked a bit better, I think

 

It's dicey, but then it's always dicey, whether you're adapting fantasy books or not.

Quite simply, a few book to film adaptations will be great, a very, very few will be better than the books, some will be as good and a great, great, great majority will be awful.

It's the way of the world.

 

I love book adaptations...if they're done right. Sometimes it is difficult to picture it in your mind and you need a visual right in front of you. You won't get the same effect as you do reading, but people prefer the visual over reading or vice versa.

 

Exactly. And I had that stupid dolphin song stuck in my head all summer

 

I never, ever want to see any of the Shannara books made into movies. That would be a very bad idea.

 

I heard the dolphin number on the soundtrack and I instantly decided that I would not be watching this movie anytime soon.

 

So of all the adaptations out there, which are very good and which are the ones to avoid?

 

it depends on what books are being adapted to the big screen. Jurassic Park was good although i'd like to see something darker and closer to the books

 

I'm sure this sounds awfully ambitious, but I'm an aspiring screenwrighter and filmmaker. The Tower is my all time dream project. I intend to make that series into seven movies (the only way to do it justice) and I will do it right. You just wait and see. Someday, you'll go see "THE GUNSLINGER" at the theater and you'll think: "The guy who made this movie replied to my online post once, back when I thought this couldn't be done."

I'll be sure to put my online handle "inkpenavanger" somewhere in the credits so you'll know that it was me.

Wish me luck.