Great Adaptations - Book To Films

[The Black Spot]

Nor here. I had to buy a region 1 copy from e-bay.

[Swatopluk]

I would probably import it from the UK anyway, if it were available. German editions of things like that tend to be not very good and quite expensive.

The DVD edition of Animal Farm (1955) costs more than double the UK price, e.g.
Btw, that's a good adaption too.

[Swatopluk]

I think that is the (bad) remake, not the original but I will check.
Edit: It's the 2000 remake. The original only used and Region 1

[Dr. Otis Lansa]

Sadly i havent seen any of those top 5.

A few people are probably going to laugh and/or roll their eyes, but the only one of my favorites that no one has mentioned here yet is Jurassic Park. Just the first one, though. They totally botched the second, and there wasn't even a third book.

Jurassic Park III? Saw it in a Philippines movie theater for $1 and still felt ripped off. Please tell me someone had chopped up and randomly rearranged the film (not a problem with other movies I saw there). All the dinosaur effects were apparently either clipped from the first two movies or done with hand puppets.

[OZ_Nick]

I vote for Kubrick's 2001 which strictly speaking is not based on a book at all but on a short story. The movie is almost completely unlike the story, but it conveys the central idea extremely well which IMHO is to pose the question "What if we were to find unequivocal evidence of extra terrestrial intelligence?" (Of course it begs the question of what we would do if we ever found evidence for terrestrial intelligence...)

On the ohter hand my greatest dissapointment was the TV mini series adaption of Shogun. It was excellently done right the way through, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, right up until the last few seconds when they changed the whole point of the story around 180 degrees! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!


Nick

[Swatopluk]

Could you explain that a bit further. I read the book after seeing the series and found the end to be practically taken word by word from the last page. Or are you referring to the last encounter between our hero and Omi? (I don't want to spoil it for those who don't know it yet).

[OZ_Nick]

POSSIBLLE SPOILER - be warned











Well, in the mini series at the end Toronaga-san is up on the hill observing the battle and he remains a friend of the Europeans.

In the book he thinks to himself that when he has finally been made Shogun with their aid he will then turn on to the real enemy - the Europeans and throw them out of Japan.

It was the final layer of the onion being peeled away and one of the themes of the book was the many layers to the personality of the Japanese war lords. You could never be sure when you have finally gotten to the real person. I felt that the TV makers had squibed the ending and completely removed the key point of the whole book.

Just MHO of course.

Nick

[Swatopluk]

It's some time that I have seen it, I remember it as being ambiguous on that topic. maybe I should check it again.

[OZ_Nick]

Yeah, its a while since I have seen it also. I just remember the bitter disapointment at how they had changed the ending. Apart from that (IMHO important) point the rest of the adaption was excellent and I thought that they had been very faithful to the book. A rarety as far as I can tell.

Nick

[Swatopluk]

I found it a nice touch that the non-US editions have no subtitles for the Japanese dialogue. The viewer is as clueless as the hero.

[mia primavera]

definitely Kubrick's 2001.
A Scanner Darkly
Jane Eyre (Zeffirelli's version, with Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt.)
Strayed (French film, directed by Andre Techine, based on Gilles Perrault's book The Boy With the Grey Eyes

[The Black Spot]

What about the John Hurt / Richard Burton version of 1984?

OK, some themes from the book were glossed over to keep the running time down, but the utter bleakness and hopelessness of the novel came over perfectly.

[Swatopluk]

I hate it that the BBC dropped their planned DVD edition of the original 1984 TV play (life) with Peter Cushing as Winston Smith (and Donald Pleasance as O'Brian, if I remember correctly).

[ChowMein]

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursurla K. Le Guin (sp) . The BBC production pretty much covered every word in what i consider a sci-fi masterpiece. Also the BBc/A&E production of Pride of and Predudice(sp) is superb ( I am unashamed to reveal that i loved a "chick flick" being secure with my masculinity).

[The Black Spot]

I hate it that the BBC dropped their planned DVD edition of the original 1984 TV play (life) with Peter Cushing as Winston Smith (and Donald Pleasance as O'Brian, if I remember correctly).

I saw this a year or so ago (a repeat on BBC3). The sets weren't great (it was more like a stageplay than anything else) but Cushing was perfect as Smith - just as I always imagined the character.

Here's a lowbrow one -- John Carpenter's "The Thing" was teriffic. A great adaptation of Campbell's "Who Goes There?"