GOOD BOOK, BAD MOVIE!

defcon6000 said:

Half-Blood Prince on the other hand - bleh! Where the hell was the plot??? All I saw was hormonal teenagers crying over who gets who. Yeah, they kept the whole finding out Tom Riddles past, but it was interspersed with the teenage drama (which I don't remember it being so obvious in the book), also that wasn't the main plot, the main plot was figuring out who the half-blood prince was. And no awesome fight at the end with the deatheaters! The only redeemable thing I see in the film is watching Tom Felton in his sexy black suit.

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I think you need to give the book another gander . It's my favorite of the books, as well, and I've read it at least 5-6 times. The "Half-Blood Prince" subplot, much like in the movie, is hardly in the book. Hermione is more adamant about finding it out, but that's in the background and hardly part of the plot. The book actually IS hugely a romantic comedy of sorts with the darkness of the memories sprinkled in. But yeah, the majority of the book is all the romance stuff.

And that makes sense. The biggest theme of the series is love and how love is the strongest magic. Harry needed to focus on these relationships and have his penultimate story deal with love and friendship before the final, dark, death-filled journey that is Deathly Hallows.

But yeah, if you had to put the plot of HBP into 3 tiers, it would be "romance" at the top tier, "memories" at the second tier, and "Half-Blood Prince" on the bottom tier.

I actually really preferred The Andromeda Strain movie to the book. Why?

Mostly cause the dart guns were turned into FREAKIN LASER BEAMS!

If I like a book, I often avoid the movie. It's hard to make a good movie from a good book. For this reason, I've never seen Memoirs of a Geisha or The Time Traveler's Wife.

I was persuaded to see the movie version of The Golden Compass. Argh! OTOH, the movie version of Girl with a Pearl Earring was excellent, maybe because it's such a visual novel.

But in general, I think the best book-to-movie adaptations come from books that weren't that good (Jaws) or from short stories (Brokeback Mountain).

autumnleaf said:

I was persuaded to see the movie version of The Golden Compass. Argh!

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Yeah... that one started out well, if I remember correctly. But then after about 15 minutes, it starts falling apart. Things become choppy... and then they completely switch the second and third acts of the book. I just found it bizarre why they would place the third act in the middle and the second act at the end. And it was obvious they switched it after the fact (they filmed it to be in order), because in the third act of the movie (which was originally supposed to be in the middle), they start planning stuff that's already happened. And then in the second act (which should have been at the end), they reference stuff that hasn't happened yet.

And then they removed the ending (which I know they filmed, because it was heavily shown in the trailers).

I think it is much easier to talk about the good movies adapted from books. Because there are a lot less of those.

ceramiccoconut said:

I think you need to give the book another gander . It's my favorite of the books, as well, and I've read it at least 5-6 times. The "Half-Blood Prince" subplot, much like in the movie, is hardly in the book. Hermione is more adamant about finding it out, but that's in the background and hardly part of the plot. The book actually IS hugely a romantic comedy of sorts with the darkness of the memories sprinkled in. But yeah, the majority of the book is all the romance stuff.

And that makes sense. The biggest theme of the series is love and how love is the strongest magic. Harry needed to focus on these relationships and have his penultimate story deal with love and friendship before the final, dark, death-filled journey that is Deathly Hallows.

But yeah, if you had to put the plot of HBP into 3 tiers, it would be "romance" at the top tier, "memories" at the second tier, and "Half-Blood Prince" on the bottom tier.

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Well there's love and then there's teenage drama, and all I saw in this movie was teenage drama. Yeah sure, Harry and Ginnie's relationship was cute, but they were just finally coming around to their feelings. And even in the book I didn't quite understand where Harry got these feelings for her, maybe because she has boobs now. *shrugs*
I think the mystery of the Half-Blood Prince, which is what the book is named after so it's expected to to be the more important aspects of the story, was a bigger plot, although in a subtle way. If Harry had never gotten help from the HBP he would never have been able to impress Prof. Slurghorn, thus would have never gotten the potion that helped to save his friends in the end, nor would he have gotten that memory that Dumbledore needed so badly. What major piece of the plot did Harry and Ginnie's relationship fill?
Maybe I'm bias against romance, I don't normally read romance...ever. But I didn't see any of the teenage angst/relationships doing anything for the story other than draw it out.

defcon6000 said:

Well there's love and then there's teenage drama, and all I saw in this movie was teenage drama. Yeah sure, Harry and Ginnie's relationship was cute, but they were just finally coming around to their feelings. And even in the book I didn't quite understand where Harry got these feelings for her, maybe because she has boobs now. *shrugs*

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I didn't understand their relationship either, and I never understood Ginnys personality. To me she is a blank page, but maybe that would change if I read the books again.

I would have prefered Harry to get together with Luna Lovegood. She is intelligent and sweet with a very particular personality. Or maybe he could get together with Hermione or Cho Chang. But never mind, now I'm digressing from the subject of the thread.

xitomatl said:

The problem with translating a book for film, in my eyes is two fold:

1. You have to do a lot of chopping and speeding up. A LOT. So, no matter how well this may be done, you're still missing out on usually some deeper issues and themes.

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The problem isn't in clipping content, its an embedded fear of the editing techniques that would convey deep meaning, quickly. Music videos use this sort of editing a lot, and can convey amazingly deep messages in three minutes or less.

I'd argue that the film version of Watchmen conveyed the themes and issues in the book with the perfect amount of depth. I'd even say that the movie's plot was better. They had good writing, and they weren't afraid to adapt the story to its format. The result was an instant classic.

Camilla Delvalle said:

I would have prefered Harry to get together with Luna Lovegood. She is intelligent and sweet with a very particular personality.

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Threadjack!

I actually agree. While as the last two books were written, I totally understood why Harry got together with Ginny (she was actually quite the spitfire--which until she relaxed didn't show around Harry), my own reaction to Luna was that here was the girl for the hero. Not only was she simply delightful, she had a very positive affect on Harry every time they interacted. She was also strong, startlingly so, and being the SO of HP would pretty much require that.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled thread...

Here's an interesting case for discussion--Blade Runner. Compare it to the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and frankly the differences are profound. One was clearly little more than a seed from which the other grew.

Similar case: Apocalypse Now and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Satori1977 said:

I think it is much easier to talk about the good movies adapted from books. Because there are a lot less of those.

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The movie adaptation of Firefox (w/ Clint Eastwood) is exactly scene for scene like the book. They are the same level of good or badness.

Camilla Delvalle said:

I would have prefered Harry to get together with Luna Lovegood. She is intelligent and sweet with a very particular personality. Or maybe he could get together with Hermione or Cho Chang. But never mind, now I'm digressing from the subject of the thread.

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DavidZahir said:

Threadjack!

I actually agree. While as the last two books were written, I totally understood why Harry got together with Ginny (she was actually quite the spitfire--which until she relaxed didn't show around Harry), my own reaction to Luna was that here was the girl for the hero. Not only was she simply delightful, she had a very positive affect on Harry every time they interacted. She was also strong, startlingly so, and being the SO of HP would pretty much require that.

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Haha, I SO agree! Especially after seeing the movies I wanted Harry to pair up with Luna. I like her strangeness and how she believed him about seeing those creatures when no one else did. I think she compliments him better than Ginnie; Luna bringing out the softer side of Harry.

DavidZahir said:

We now return you to our regularly scheduled thread...

Here's an interesting case for discussion--Blade Runner. Compare it to the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and frankly the differences are profound. One was clearly little more than a seed from which the other grew.

Click to expand...

I like the differences between Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? They both have their moral story to tell, using the same background and characters, it's like an alternate universe. Of course the book goes much deeper, which I don't think would have been translatable on the big screen, so they had to go another route, but I love both stories. I'm sure if I had disliked the movie I would be saying the novel was better, but they're both adapted to their respectable mediums.

The thing I loved about Ginny and Harry is that he started thinking of her in flattering verbs and adjectives long before actually acknowledging that he was attracted to her. It's sneaky and delightful! Luna ends up marrying into the Scamander family, which is awesome, and I think she and Harry are too different to be partners in the way he and Ginny are anyways.
/threadjack

I stopped The Golden Compass twelve minutes in. I just couldn't do it.

The Odyssey-- the version with Bernadette Peters, bless her-- featured Penelope telling Telemachus that Odysseus was manly because he didn't cry. What. I guess you can chalk it up to changing cultural norms, but it wasn't just inaccurate but contradictory to the source material.

I don't mind it as a film, but as an Austen adaptation, the Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley is dreck. The historical inaccuracy is cringe-worthy, they bungled the portrait scene, and they generally cut the cleverness, humor, and social intent of the original novel in favor of treating it like a Bronte work. Sigh.

I'll second Jurassic Park and The Lost World.

Both novels were wonderful, but the movies hacked them apart - the Lost World, especially. They nixed two entire characters from the movie - one of which was the entire reason they went to Site B in the first place. Plus a lot of the awesome dinosaur scenes were cut (pack of Velociraptors chasing a Jeep along a cliffside road, anyone?)