The graphic novel, "American Splendor", was brillantly done in film.

"The Kite Runner" was given a Hollywood clean up to the point it lost it's emotional impact.

Why is anything by Jane Austen seen as a must for filmakers to try and recreate?

Weaver

weaver wrote:Why is anything by Jane Austen seen as a must for filmakers to try and recreate?

Some Austen films are good... but it's basically the same question as why Jane Austen is seen as a literary heroine... I'm sorry if I'm offending any hard-core Austen fans, but basically it's girl loves boy, in comes trouble, and in the end girl marries boy. I mean, after you've read Pride & Prejudice you only need a brief description of the characters in Sense & Sensibility and their relation in one sentence and you can lay out the entire plot. Willoughby is so extremely similar to Wickham, Fanny Dashwood is similar to Caroline Bingley etc. Although Emma was refreshing.
But I think she's regarded so high literary because she gaves us an idea about independent women and men who like them for who they are. It was a bit of her ideal world, I guess, strong-headed women marrying rich men.
And I think that's where the enchantment lies. It's a romantic plot based in the past. That always does well with the audience.

The Harry Potter movies, after the second one. You know, when they started switching around directors, and the original Dumbledore died. :[


Oh, as for Austen movies... they're making a TV mini-series/movie based on "pride and prejudice and zombies." hopefully it'll be good. -knocks on wood-


As for book-based movies that haven't disappointed.. Definitely Watchmen and Angels and Demons. Watchmen was just amazing, and I like the Angels and Demons movie more than the book... Probably because ewan mcgregor is in it, tee hee.

I am refusing to see The Time Traveler's Wife, because I don't want it ruined for me. I loved it too much. The majority of the Harry Potter movies are mediocre in my opinion, with the exception of Prisoner of Azkaban. That was beautiful. I love the books. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is a great story, but the movie was atrocious. I thought Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer was done justice by Sean Penn. Sad story. The original movies of Anne of Green Gables were well done, but the crap they made up for the later part was just that, made up. Completely fell away from original stories. Just a few that I could think of.

The first version of The Haunting of Hill House was very good. The second one was terrible.

I very much liked the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird". Besides that, all other movies fall short of the books. To me the narrator is an important part of the book and movies rarely have a narrator.

wilde wrote:The Harry Potter movies, after the second one. You know, when they started switching around directors, and the original Dumbledore died. :[

I completely agree with you on the Harry Potter movies. They lost it for me after the third movie.

I was also extremely disappointed by "Secret Life of Bees", "The DaVinci Code" (liked "Angels and Demons" though), "Eragon", "My Sister's Keeper", and "Earthsea Miniseries".

I'd like the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird better than the book.

I hope the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland is good.

PrincessCricket wrote:I hope the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland is good.

I'm also looking forward to the Alice in Wonderland movie. Because I'm living in Germany I'll have to wait a bit longer until I can see it, but I'm really excited. I believe, it'll be kind of queer as the book itself is really confusing (in a positive way) and if you add Tim Burton to an already confusing book, something 'double-queer' will possibly be created. =)

I think, like all movies, some are good and some are bad. It is difficult for film-makers and actors who have never met you to bring to life the things you envisioned in your mind, that's true... which will always make it hard for movies to compare to beloved books.

Movies I think did well as their book counterparts (or better!):
Fight Club was a lot better as a movie, in my opinion. It took the cookie dough of good that was the novel and turned it into something a lot more cohesive.
I really liked the first Anne of Green Gables movie. It really brought Anne to life and she was pretty much exactly as described in the books.
The Last Unicorn was very true to the original book it was based on, with only minor alterations of timeline and such.
The Lord of the Rings movies were infinitely superior to the books IMO. I just wished they'd fixed the terrible ending of the trilogy as well.

Movies that were worse:
War of the Worlds shouldn't even have been called that. The only things I recall being the same as the book were the way the aliens looked, and their Achilles heel.
I didn't think Watchmen conveyed the meaning of the comic. While I think it was fun and stylized, it pretty much ignored the idea that the "heroes" were just ordinary people who fought in an ordinary way (but with a dorky costume on).

I'm sure there are people who would argue with the various movies I've put in one category or another (I see someone liked Watchmen) but that is part of the point... it's individual taste and how well something compares to your envisioning. Also, often I think the film-makers involved get their own idea of what they want the final product to be, leading to large deviations from the original story that will always drive die-hard fans crazy. Usually the movies I like the least are the ones that deviate the most.

Personally I often avoid watching movies if I haven't seen the book first because I worry the movie will "ruin" the book for me. I guess part of what I like is making up my own mind. Also, I know if I see the movie first, it becomes much more unlikely I will read the book because I already know most of it.

As a side thought: I think when people see the movie and THEN read the book, they are more inclined to like the movie. Not always of course, but more often.