book and a movie

[pagebypage]

I did a search and couldn't find a thread on this. I'm looking for suggestions for books/short stories where a movie made from it differs significantly from the book, either in plot or characters. Books that have sections deleted in order to make the movie a decent length would not apply.

Examples would be:

Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame and the 1939 film of the same name;
Wyndham's Day of the Triffids and the 1962 film of the same name;
Bates short story, Farewell to the Master and both versions of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

All genres are appreciated. Only caveat I ask is that they are easy for me to find living here in Hooterville and please don't point out why they are different.

A little hobby of mine but I've quickly run out of ideas.

thanks

[Currer Bell]

Well...
The Leonardo di Caprio version of Romeo and Juliet versus Shakespeare's original.
Phantom of the Opera: Lon Chaney silent film versus Andrew Lloyd Webber musical versus Gaston Leroux's book.

I know there are more, but I can't think of any at the moment...Sorry.

[Shea]

The Count of Monte Cristo and that most recent version of it. I can't remember any names (I'm bad about that) but the first guy that played Dumbledore played the priest in this one. Anyway, I won't point out differences, as you requested, but just to say that I had to think of these as two completely different stories, otherwise, I'd get upset! lol

[mortalterror]

Bladerunner is significantly different from Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep?. The 1951 Howard Hawks film The Thing From Another World is supposed to be quite a bit different from Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr..

Personally, I like to see remakes of movies and figure out what they changed. For instance, Kurosawa's Yojimbo becomes Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, becomes Hill's Last Man Standing, becomes Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django. It's amusing to track a story as it originates in Japan, traveling to Italy, then America, and finally back to Japan.

[Thespian1975]

The Running Man - Stephen King (Bachman) and the horrible arnie film of hte same name.

[sixsmith]

"There will be blood" based on Upton Sinclair's "Oil!
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" based on Fitzgerald's short story of the same name.

[phoenix151]

It's funny - you never know what you're going to get.
Clan of the Cave Bear - similar, but the movie was terrible!
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - the movie was slightly different, but it was wonderful!

The movie adaption I have heard the most grumbling about though is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

There are also those movies that outshine the book, like Phillip K. Dick's Minority report.

Finally, there are those pleasant surprises when film producers add stuff - like the war elephants in the last battle of Tolkien's Return of the King.

[Mark F.]

Both "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" and "Apocalypse Now" are free adaptations of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness".

"Eyes Wide Shut" and Schnitzler's "Dream Story".

[General Urko]

Here's a few more for you:

Henry IV - My Own Private Idaho
Macbeth - Throne of Blood
King Lear - Ran
The Odyssey - O Brother Where Art Thou
The Killers (Hemingway short story) - the '60s movie version with John Cassavetes and Ronald Reagan

[manolia]

This version of "The count of Monte Cristo" :sick: :sick:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245844/
I wanted to punch the screenplay writer.

And this version of "Crime and punishment".
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096056/
It is a modern day adaptation and i found it awful as well.

If you see the ratings, people seem to like them so perhaps it was just me.

[kelby_lake]

2008 film of Brideshead Revisited. A travesty.

[pagebypage]

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. This should keep me happy for a while but anyone else, please feel free to continue the list.

[Kiaroula]

Bram Stoker, Dracula - and the horrible film from Francis Ford Coppola.

[bazarov]

Thomas Harris - Hannibal, and that movie with Anthony Hopkins
Nicholas Evans - The Horse Whisperer; movie with Robert Redford

What happens in Hunchback from 1939?

[pagebypage]

Thomas Harris - Hannibal, and that movie with Anthony Hopkins
Nicholas Evans - The Horse Whisperer; movie with Robert Redford

What happens in Hunchback from 1939?

In the movie she is rescued by Quasimodo. Things didn't work out so well in the book. I saw the movie as a youth so I was taken a bit aback when I read the novel. That pretty much started me on the little hobby--how far will a director/script writer go to meet some other film criteria. (I have to surmise the real ending was considered too depressing for Americans to handle--or at least part with money.)

[PoeticPassions]

The book is called "The Orchid Thief" by Susan Orlean, and the movie is ADAPTATION (a terrific film written by Charlie Kaufman)... it is a really interesting movie about the whole process of adaptation and uses Orlean's book as a way of commenting on originality, adaptation, etc. It's a movie within a movie really.

Also there is another version of Hemingway's "THE KILLERS", (the movie is titled the same) made in 1946 with Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster. Obviously, since Hemingway's story is so short, the film decided to adapt the story in the first 10 minutes or so, and then do a completely different spin on it....(i.e. make up the rest of it)

[pagebypage]

The book is called "The Orchid Thief" by Susan Orlean, and the movie is ADAPTATION (a terrific film written by Charlie Kaufman)... it is a really interesting movie about the whole process of adaptation and uses Orlean's book as a way of commenting on originality, adaptation, etc. It's a movie within a movie really.

Also there is another version of Hemingway's "THE KILLERS", (the movie is titled the same) made in 1946 with Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster. Obviously, since Hemingway's story is so short, the film decided to adapt the story in the first 10 minutes or so, and then do a completely different spin on it....(i.e. make up the rest of it)

I saw ADAPTATION. Great flick. I forgot the credits cited a novel. Thanks for the tip. Definitely on the list.

[PabloQ]

Jaws - Peter Benchley

[Wilde woman]

Beowulf - the 2007 CGI adaptation is quite different from the original story. In a bad way.

[assya88]

Emma by Jane Austen.
Tess of the D'Urberville by Thomas Hardy.

They are both nice,but i enjoyed Tess more,both the book and the movie !! :)

[itsinfinite]

I suppose it isn't technically literature, but...
V for Vendetta vs the graphic novel

[The Comedian]

I suppose it isn't technically literature, but...
V for Vendetta vs the graphic novel

Blasphemy! V for Vendetta is most certainly literature.

Good choice, by the way.

:)

I'll add that I like both the film and the novella "A River Runs Through It" almost equally, which I can't say about many such pairings.

[pagebypage]

Blasphemy! V for Vendetta is most certainly literature.

Good choice, by the way.

:)

I'll add that I like both the film and the novella "A River Runs Through It" almost equally, which I can't say about many such pairings.

I read and watched both of these but the story and the film pretty much were the same except in quality, I suppose. I'm surprised you liked the novella, Comedian. I thought it was one of the most poorly written things I ever read. The beautiful nuggets of the movie's narration was all the novella had and these were scattered haphazardly within the text.

[*Classic*Charm*]

White Oleander...not lit, but a novel I enjoyed at least. I loved the film before I read the book, though there are some significant differences.

[kiki1982]

I third The Count of Monte Cristo, 2002! Absolutely ghastly screenplay. More than half-way the film they were still stuck in that prison! And they changed the story-line to blackmail from Napoleon's side. How ignorant can you get! At the ending Mondego/Morcerf has a duel with Dantès/Monte Cristo to get back Mercédès... Did they read the book or what? Seems that the writers just took theme and went their own way.

I second the last Brideshead revisited-version. They made Julia and Charles fall in love in Venice, 'because Venice is the city of love'.

The Man in the Iron Mask with DiCaprio, Depardieu and Malcovic (?) in the 90s. How amazingly American that was! D'Artagnan the father of the twins. Dumas turns over in his grave, or rather revolves.

Apparently the 90s version of Sense and Sesibility (with Hugh Grant I think) had a different ending (Willoughby marries Marianne?). I don't know a lot about it, but I know that one because the whole of my class made a book review based on the film (the book was too difficult because ths was in Belgium for the English class). The film had been on the ight before. The teacher had a lot of fun watching it and correcting the book reviews afterwards. :D

The version of Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightly. Although the scenery is absolutely beautiful I found that they totally went off their trolley with the nightly visit of Lady Catherine and the really proposal of Darcy at dawn. The poor man had been thinking all night... (puke)

I think, if it counts, that in general, all the musical versions can be counted... Other than that, I'll come back when I have more on it...

[WICKES]

The best adaptation of a book I have ever seen is the BBC series of Brideshead Revisited- a genuine masterpiece. The recent film version is pathetic by comparison

The adaptation of Robert Graves' I Claudius with Derek Jacobi is almost as good

[The Comedian]

I read and watched both of these but the story and the film pretty much were the same except in quality, I suppose. I'm surprised you liked the novella, Comedian. I thought it was one of the most poorly written things I ever read. The beautiful nuggets of the movie's narration was all the novella had and these were scattered haphazardly within the text.

To be honest, it's been a while since I last read Maclean's novella -- say 15 years. But I remember liking it a lot: of course, I had a lot of reasons to want to like it that didn't have to do with the writing quality:

1. I'm a fly fisherman
2. I'm from the Rocky Mountains
3. Intense nostalgia stemming heavily from reasons 1 & 2

:)

[hoope]

Twilight for Stephanie Meyer
Oliver Twist for Charles Dickens
The Dead Zone for Stephan King its was made into a TV series.

[pagebypage]

To be honest, it's been a while since I last read Maclean's novella -- say 15 years. But I remember liking it a lot: of course, I had a lot of reasons to want to like it that didn't have to do with the writing quality:

1. I'm a fly fisherman
2. I'm from the Rocky Mountains
3. Intense nostalgia stemming heavily from reasons 1 & 2

:)

It just surprised me, that's all Comedian. I noted that you and I are both Walden lovers and all the your other posts where we read the same books we tended to agree. I was just wondering if it was me.

[kiki1982]

The best adaptation of a book I have ever seen is the BBC series of Brideshead Revisited- a genuine masterpiece. The recent film version is pathetic by comparison

The adaptation of Robert Graves' I Claudius with Derek Jacobi is almost as good

BR was by ITV (commercial channels), but it was a true masterpiece! I watched it before I read the book and it was truly masterful.

I, Claudius was by the BBC, 1976. (just for the thread)

I the UK ITV seems known for its costume dramas of good quality... Surprisingly the BBC runs after them. I have to say, there has been nothing from the BBC I cannot comment on.

ITV's latest Lost In Austen is truly fantastic! An original take on Pride and Prejudice, but it takes nothing away from that, it adds. Unique.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles of 2008 had been reduced to the sad little tale of a sad little girl. The scenery as absolutely wonderful, but the rest... It seems like the writers did not get what Hardy was about and just thought it was Greek tragedy or something...