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Thursday, August 14, 2014

Another Question

What's your favorite movie adaptation of a book (comics are ok too), and why?  Or, conversely, what's the worst?

I suppose my favorite movie adaptation is the Lord of the Rings series.  Even though, to be perfectly honest, they do stretch WAAAY too long.  I tried sitting through the extended edition more than one.  It was lovely to look at, but I kept falling asleep!

It was very pretty though.  And had Hugo Weaving in a tiara.

What?

7 Comments:

  • At August 14, 2014 8:39 AM, Blogger SallyP said…

    Oh...the six part 12 hour long A&E version of Pride & Prejudice with Jennifer Ealing and Colin Firth.

    So...so lovely.

    The movie with Kiera Knightly was just awful.

     
  • At August 15, 2014 4:56 PM, Blogger kalinara said…

    Was it Keira herself that was bad? Or was it poorly done in general?

     
  • At August 16, 2014 7:50 AM, Blogger SallyP said…

    She was okay...I guess. But the movie was very short, and they left out half of the good stuff, and seriously...Colin Firth IS Mr. Darcy!

     
  • At August 17, 2014 5:29 PM, Blogger ShellyS said…

    I can comment only about the books I've read, but my favorite adaptations are: Game of Thrones, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the Hunger Games books. The reason is the same for all three; they kept the essence of the original story while taking into account the differences of audiovideo media. They expanded and contracted the story and characters as needed.

     
  • At August 18, 2014 10:25 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    My go-to "better than the books" are Scott Pilgrim and Children of Men.

    I find sometimes, especially in the past few years, I can't even decide if an adaptation is good because they're made for the fans to fill in the blanks. "Oh, we only have two hours, so cut stuff the fans will remember, who cares if it leaves a giant hole? Non-fans aren't going anyway." Would I enjoy Game of Thrones as much if I didn't know who each of those same-y looking old white men were? Probably, but I'd be hella confused, always looking stuff up? (My husband didn't read the books yet but he's caught the show with me, and loves Tyrion but the rest of the time has no idea what's going on.)

    Basically, I can't tell if I like something for itself or because it's an adaptation.

     
  • At August 18, 2014 10:31 AM, Blogger ShellyS said…

    I usually prefer to read first, see the adaptation after, mostly because I hate knowing what's going to happen in a book, but with a movie or TV show, if I know what's coming, I can at least also enjoy the acting, the directing, the visuals, etc. But I started watching Game of Thrones having never read the books. I loved it, even though I was a bit confused by who some of the characters were. So after season 3, I read all 5 books. So I knew what was coming in season 4 and I still loved it, though some of the changes bothered me. What was fun was really seeing what was different between books and show. And both are great, well suited for their respective medium.

     
  • At August 22, 2014 12:10 PM, Blogger CalvinPitt said…

    Hmm, worst is probably "I, Robot". I mean, I like Will Smith killing robots with dual-wielded machine guns while jumping a motorcycle over Shia Lebeouf's head as much as the next fellow, but it's not really much to do with the actual book.

    Best, the Rocketeer, maybe. or To Have and Have Not. The latter isn't much more faithful than I, Robot, but Bogart and Bacall. Also, Walter Brennan.

     

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