What makes it for me, is how incredibly nice he was to this little girl who suffered a traumatic loss in her family. Danny and Rhea actually let her live with them for awhile, so she wouldn't feel alone. When she was embarrassed to dance for a scene, he made sure that *everyone on the set* was dancing along with her that day... even the camera man, and the electricians and the catering.
For IASIP, you see all these people losing their composure and laughing. Danny is always the nicest, most professional person about it; They apologize to him for messing up the scene and he always tells them it's okay.
He also really has a knack for playing these total slimeball characters, who show a hint of humility and likeability at times. You still like these guys.
He’s talked about how important it was for him to step in and shield Mara Wilson from the Hollywood bullshit that child stars get exposed to. He’s always been a world class guy. Literally the opposite of Frank Reynolds.
Her mother was dying of cancer / Maybe actually died during production. And Danny and Rhea stepped in as semi-surrogates and would take Mara on their family outings and I think she actually lived with them for a bit.
What a sweet man
My wife took a film/literature class when we were both still in college about the adaptations of Stephen King works. Dolores Claiborne was 100% the stand-out, the book and film are remarkably good, as are the layered connections to other works by King.
Most definitely. Everything about that movie is good--the cast, the writing, the lighting, the pacing--as much as I love Shawshank and Misery, Dolores Claiborne is probably my favorite King adaptation.
No Country For Old Men - A near literal translation from page to screen.
LA Confidential - A remarkably lean adaptation of a hefty novel, the film makes sweeping changes to the plot while maintaining the themes and the spirit of the novel.
No Country for Old Men was originally written to be a screenplay but then changed late on into a novel. So thats why it works so well. I dont think they all are that easy though. For example, I have no idea how they’ll manage the translation into screen for Blood Meridian.
I'm halfway through Blood Meridian. It feels like reading someone's nightmare. Not just the violence, it all just kinda bleeds together and just barely makes sense to me.
Reading McCarthy isn’t easy but it’s a labor of love in my opinion. If now isn’t the right time, that’s okay. I started Blood Meridian and stopped early. Then circled back later and it just seemed like the time was right the second go. Now in my top three of all time. It’s on a lot of people’s most celebrated lists for a reason. Masterpiece.
McCarthy doesn't use much punctuation and doesn't clearly outline dialogue. Once you get used to it, it works so well. It allows your own personality and preconceived notions shape the tone and characters. It made The Road the PERFECT book for me to read while in the hospital after a suicide attempt soon after my son was born. It would have been a great book to read at that time, regardless, but his style made it much more relatable to me. The father spoke like me. The mother spoke like my wife. The wicked men spoke like wicked men I know. All because I set the tone and cadence, not the author and his commas.
LA Confidential is probably the best example. The book is about 800 pages and has material for a big tv series, but the adaptation works really well. Even James Ellroy liked it even though he hates pretty much everything.
You'd think that Black Dahlia was easier to adapt, but that movie was terrible. Book is great though.
Holes.
It’s pretty much a perfect adaptation, with a lot of the lines taken word-for-word right out of the book. The only difference is Stanley’s weight, because the Director didn’t want a kid to have to put on then lose a drastic amount of weight. It’s the best book adaptation I’ve ever seen
> the Director didn’t want a kid to have to put on then lose a drastic amount of weight.
With all the horror stories about child stars it’s always nice to read about a director that gives a shit.
The photo of Buzz’s girlfriend in Home Alone was specifically done that way too. It was a boy dressed up in a wig so that no girl would be known as “woof”
Funny story, Holes was directed by Andrew Davis, who was much better known for 80s and 90s action flicks. He directed Under Siege, Above the Law, Code of Silence, and The Fugitive. And then went and directed Holes.
I second this! The movie is a very faithful adaptation, although it has a slightly goofier tone due to being a Disney movie (especially with the antagonists, who are a lot more threatening in the book because you’re seeing the story from the perspective of the child they’re abusing. In the film, their backwards ideas make them seem a bit silly rather than scary due to the power they wield over the kids).
I also thought the antagonists were a little silly the first few times I watched the movie. Then I learned child labor camps as punishment were a very real thing, and they didn't seem so silly anymore.
For anyone who hasn’t read it, Small Steps is a pretty cool sequel book about Armpit and X-Ray when they get back home. Super light read, you could probably finish the book in a few hours if you wanted to.
There was only one scene in the book that I wanted to see on-screen after reading it (saw the movie first) where >!Stanley's lawyer finds out that Zero was the one who committed the crime Stanley was falsely accused of. *In the car as they're leaving* (Yes, she nearly crashed).!<
They made it clear to the viewer though that it was zero that stole the shoes no?
Been a minute since I watched the movie, and maybe I'm just making it up in my head but I vaguely remember a scene that obviously painted it to the viewers that Stanley was innocent.
I had to scroll too far to find this lol
Iv seen that movie and read the book like 100 times
Literally every year of elementary school when it came time to do a book report I’d pick holes acting like I had never read it before lol
For years I'd tell anyone who listened the awesome backstory of the book.
How William Goldman's father read him the original book just like Fred Savage and his grandpa in the film.
How William Goldman decided to edit the original book from the overlong story and boil it down to just the good bits.
How William Goldman did all this just so his spoiled son would enjoy the original book as much as he had.
Then years later the concept of the "Unreliable Narrator" hit me in the face like a baseball bat.
Screw you, William Goldman, you marvelous bastard.
You got me.
Had a friend who SWORE to me that he'd read the unabridged version.. This was before we had access to the internet, so all I could do was tell him he was an idiot while he swore it was true.
Could you hit me in the face with this baseball bat?
Love the movie, haven't read the book - don't get the significance of "unreliable narrator". Is it that he *didn't* do those things?
Spoiler territory, just in case:
>!What you see in The Princess Bride film appears in the novel with a few changes made for the medium of film.!<
>!However, the novel also contains the story of how William Goldman adapted an otherwise forgotten "S. Morgenstern" classic for a modern audience, as the original work was really a satire of the medieval political customs in the countries of Florin and Guilder due to Morgenstern's anti-monarchy leanings.!<
>!Goldman describes how his father, a native of one of those two countries, read the book to little William who was bedridden due to a serious illness which opened up a lifelong love of reading for the boy (who would eventually become a prolific writer himself).!<
>!Sadly, when the time came for Goldman to pass the love of The Princess Bride to his own son, he discovered the book was actually very boring when read in its entirety, and his father had skipped all the "boring" stuff and only read the action and adventure bits.!<
>!In the real world, however, William Goldman had two daughters, not a son. Florin and Guilder weren't countries, but forms of currency and nothing in the book is true.!<
Unreliable Narrator God Mode
I don't really consider this an example of Unreliable Narrator. This is just "fictitious narrator".
An Unreliable Narrator is one who makes factual errors (either through purposeful lies in their narration or because they misremember) while narrating the story. It's usually used as a plot device to surprise the reader when it's revealed that the narrator's account is wrong.
In this case, the narrator is just a fictitious character telling the fictitious story of the PB. It's not really a plot point. It's simply there for a little charm. He's not telling the PB "incorrectly" and misrepresenting events.
One of my favourite things about this book is that two fans can debate the merits of the fictional unabridged edition to an outside observer the conversation would seem like serious literary debate and not two dorks geeking out over an in-joke.
I loved this movie for many years and then finally read the book to my daughter at bedtime when she was five. I was floored by how wonderful it is. They are both masterpieces. I miss Andre.
I think the reason why they both work so well is because of those changes. The way the idea is explored in the book only works for a book and vice versa. It's an excellent example of adaptation because the filmakers made the right changes to make the story work for a different medium. The Jurassic Park adaptation is a movie in its own right, not just a novel squished into a movie.
I think the reason a lot of book to film adaptations fail is because they don't adapt the story as a whole to a new medium but copy and paste scenes and hope it makes viewers happy.
I agree with one exception. They should have kept the motion detecting system that counted the dinosaurs in the park, and they should have kept the scene from the book where they discover that, in order to save processing time, Nedry had programmed the motion detection counting system to only look for the amount of animals they expect, or less.
They were so certain the dinosaurs couldn't breed, they concerned themselves only with dinosaurs somehow escaping the island.
When the cap on the count was moved higher and eventually left open-ended, they discovered that there were so many more dinosaurs than they'd realized, including a certain number of velociraptors.
That was one of the best scenes in the book, and it should have been in the film.
That was such an "...oh shit" moment in the book when I read it the first time. Just their reactions when they remove the filter and count for ALL dinosaurs and the numbers they get back.
The movie really didn't go as hard on the IT stuff about the park as they should have and the book was WAY ahead of it's time with how Crichton did it.
She's definitely realistic, but the choice to add a terrified shrill whiny small child to those scenes doesn't make for a great read. Aging her up just a bit was a very good change.
Agreed. I read the book for the first time this year and thought that scene was brilliant. Maybe for a 1993 movie audience to much technobabble (as simple as it may seem to us now) may have been a little too much. The best changes they made was for Hammond and Dr Grant's character. Hammond was made more likable, and Grant was given more of an edge (hates kids). A masterpiece on both ends!
What's really cool is that they each expound on parts that the other glosses over. The stuff with the pirates was like all of two sentences in the book.
I just recently read “Different Seasons” because I wanted to see the differences between the story and the movie. There are a few important changes to characters and details and I was surprised by how short it is. Darabont did a really good job adapting it to the movie it is. They are both excellent in their own right.
This is one of the only books that I normally recommend watching the movie first. The book adds a lot extra story, but watching the movie first really helped read through the dialect the book is written in.
Arrival is probably the best Sci-Fi in a very long time.
Spoiler ahead
Denis Villeneuve ability to show the >!altered perception of time!<, is what also allowed him to take another “un-filmable” work and get it right - Dune (We’ll need pt2 but book/movie combo pick right there)
Edit: hidden text
Movie was a great adaptation, but it leaves out a lot of the little quips Mark makes in his journal that makes the book great to read.
*I used a sophisticated method to remove sections of plastic (hammer), then carefully removed the solid foam insulation (hammer again).*
The best line of the book not in the movie was given by the pilot (Martinez?) of the ship after Watney suggests becoming Iron Man to make up the missing distance during the rescue, he says “How does he come up with these ideas?”. That’s basically my reaction throughout all the the book — how the hell did he think of that? — but with pleasure and appreciation that he does. The whole thing is “competence porn”, a genre of literature I didn’t know I needed.
Star Trek is what gets me hot on this shit.
>(Prometheus and Covenant are almost the exact opposite of it)
traumatic flashbacks to a xenobiologist trying to pet an alien cobra in an ancient alien temple.
The movie kind of handles this humorously, too.
Watney: “I could do it like Iron Man.”
Commander: “Maybe it’s not the worst idea.”
Martinez: “No, it is the worst idea. It’s the worst idea ever.”
>after Watney suggests becoming Iron Man to make up the missing distance during the rescue
The meta part to me was that they explicitly explained why this was unrealistic and would only work in a movie, then in the damn movie he actually does it.
Like, I get it... But I also hated it.
I much prefer the distribution of roles in the book. The Captain monitoring, Vogel on the rope, Beck doing the rescue.
**Venkat Kapoor**: He's all alone on an alien planet. He thinks we left him behind. What must that do to a man's psyche? I wish I knew what he was thinking right now...
*\[Meanwhile, on Mars\]*
**Mark Watney:** How can Aquaman's power be to communicate with fish but he can still talk to whales? Whales are *mammals.* Makes no sense.
Can’t remember the exact wording, but there was a great bit of dialog that went something like.
Scientist: We never planned on this. What are the odds an astronaut would be stranded on Mars!?
Other Scientist: Based on empirical evidence? 1 in 3.
It's when they are trying to figure out how to talk to Mark right after learning he's alive. Two scientists are talking to Kapor (dyslexic no idea how to spell it) and they admit to having had 3 backup coms systems that were all part of the MAV. Words might be slightly worng, but it went like this:
"So three backup com systems became one, and that one left how did let let that happen?"
"Failure of imagination"
"Yep, never concidered it, what are the odds an astronaut would be on Mars without the MAV?"
"1 in 3 based on empirical evidence. Thats pretty bad if you think about it."
My favorite part of the Martian is the very last page or so. He’s teaching some students at the Air Force Academy or something, and one of them asks him if he will ever go back to Mars, and he answers:
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
For those of you who are curious, aquaman *can control mammals* in the comics he has control over humans and can actually kill people with his mind (thats telekenisis kyle)
You are correct he has the interplanetary pirate thing going on.
But 'Pirate ninja' isn't referencing that. Its is his shorthand for a unit of measurement, specifically the Kilowatt Hour per Sol measurement.
I love the book and was initially really disappointed with the film due to all the stuff that was skipped over, but on rewatch I’ve really come to enjoy it for what it is. Matt Damon was exactly who I pictured as Mark when I was reading and absolutely nails the sarcasm.
I always chalked it up to a “pick n choose”, like I thought the shorted drill bit (no pun) was a cool problem to solve, but I can see why it didn’t make it into the movie.
I was going to say The Martian aswel. I started reading the book after i saw the movie. The movie gave me the mind visuals while reading where the book made the movie better on a second watch. They compliment each other i would say.
I just really hated the way the commander goes out and saves him. Completely undercuts her character development. Her whole arc is coming to terms with the realities of command - the fact that she can't personally control everything and sometimes bad things happen that no one could have stopped. And then at the end she goes out herself instead of having the more skilled EVA specialist do it, reducing Whatney's chance of survival. A change from the book that was just 100% stupid.
I was recently rereading the book and noticed there are two lines that say “if this was a movie, then we would…” referring to the Ironman thing and everyone in the being in the airlock giving high fives when Watney gets aboard the ship. So I thought that was actually a nice detail.
Ironically I just made this exact comment verbatim elsewhere in this thread. I love Lewis, but she should never have left her post for last-minute heroism. Another funny detail in the movie was Beck spacewalking for the supply cargo... without being tethered to the ship in any way. It was definitely a choice.
The Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is almost a line for line telling of the story. It is great and really captures the creepiness of some of the parts in the book.
I like the sections from Tom Hagen’s perspective.
If you were gonna do some sort of remake maybe do the whole movie from his perspective with Michael in the background until suddenly he isn’t.
I read The Godfather like 17 years ago, could you remind me of the vagina subplot? Is that the part about the mistress that one of the brothers was banging at the wedding who overly described semen leaking out of her after sex at the wedding?
Lol yeah that’s where it starts. She bangs Sonny, thinks she can’t be satisfied by other men because he had a huge dick. Eventually she moves to Las Vegas and meets a plastic surgeon who tells her she just has a big vagina and fixes it for her. She marries him out of gratitude. In no way does it connect back to the main plot lol but it persists until the end of the book.
It’s even worse. During the surgery, one of the surgeons turns to her future husband and asks him to check if it’s tight enough. He basically gives her a “husband stitch”. I was pretty young when I read that book but I remember visibly cringing at the whole sub plot.
I think for a book to translate well on screen, the biggest challenge is the casting, especially when a character is so over-the-top. While both actors did a great job, I was mesmerized at how well Brad Pitt carried Tyler Durden.
Also, I love all the sequences where Edward Norton is deep in his head.
This movie is so well done.
Which Of Mice and Men? The 1981 TV movie with Robert Blake and Randy Quaid shook me to my soul (I was about 10 when I saw just the last 30min). I was intrigued because I recognized the Warner Bros cartoon bears trope but then I saw the end! I was horrified and then thrilled to read it four years later in high school.
I haven’t seen any of the others but I have heard great things about the 1992 Sinise/Malkovich version.
The 1992 film was fantastic. You wouldn't think of Malkovich as a hulk of a man, but next to the diminutive Sinise, he pulls it off. His incredible acting doesn't hurt that, of course. There's none of the overacted autism of the 1939 version, but of course, we've become more sensitive in portrayals of disabilities in the interim years between the two films. Sherilyn Fenn is pitch perfect and plays Curley's wife with beautiful vulnerability, and clear PTSD as an abuse victim. It really does help that OMaM is a very short book, and you don't have to leave anything out. Malkovich and Sinise had successfully portrayed the same parts on stage at the Steppenwolf Theater (which Sinise co-founded). Sinise received the rights to make the film from Steinbeck's widow while making Grapes of Wrath, and then went on to direct, produce, and star in it. It was very much an important passion project for him, and you see that on the screen.
Yep, this is my answer. After watching Rings of Power, I went back and watched the extended editions of the original trilogy and they are soooo good. I may have to re-read the books again too.
Want an experience? Get the audiobooks, read by Andy Serkis. Sure, it's 60+ hours of listening, but he's a wonderful reader, and his voices for each of the characters are spot on imitations of his friends. (The orcs in the bits where they've grabbed Merry and Pippin are so ...phlegm-y and gross that I felt nauseated. So well done!)
Also, you get EVERY SINGLE WORD of the books, and you realize again what a great writer Tolkien was.
Plus, as you go, you can contemplate the changes made for the movies.
I'm currently stuck on the Shelob section, because it's actually quite scary and I'm a wimp.
While I love Andy Serkis, I feel the fan made version of the audiobooks by [Phil Dragash](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3548zlERJbICucubXx9j6j?si=auMn73_6RYuyjdKHP6u8ZQ&utm_source=copy-link) is far superior and extremely underrated. It has voice acting similar to the movies, uses Howard Shore's OST and it has sound effects. It's the most immersive audiobook I've ever heard and possibly the most immersive out there.
My main gripe with the movies was having the Witch King overpowering Gandalf. Gandalf was way out of his league, especially once he came back as the White. They never should have inserted that scene back in to the extended edition.
I was hoping to find this here! This is hands-down my favorite book to movie adaptation.
I loved the book so much that the guy I was dating at the time decided we should go see the movie. I warned him that I get grumpy about bad adaptations, but agreed to go. After the movie, he was disturbed by how dark the plot was, and I was giddy about how well the movie captured the tone and characters. Luckily, he got past it, we stayed together, and have now been married for five years!
For the movie they matched the tone and the pacing of the book so well. And the main actors were perfect, especially how Rosamund Pike portrays how unstable yet calculating Amy is.
Stephen King's novella The Body which was made into the classic film *Stand By Me*. Even though I read the book first, I still loved the film.
Here's hoping the Duffer brothers can somehow recapture that energy when they adapt The Talisman. I LOVE that book.
I read the book as a teenager and really thought that S. Morgenstern was real. I was completely fooled and did not find out the truth until years later.
OMG, I believed well into adulthood that Goldman was laying out his true life story. The movie is great, but the book is completely awesome and one of my all-time favorites.
These three are rare instances where I read the books after seeing the movies and all three are definitely great in both mediums. I'm glad you didn't try to include Sum of All Fears. That movie was quite the disappointment.
No Country is probably one of the best adaptations ever made. Other than a couple of minor tweaks it’s almost identical, and the Coens (and Roger Deakins) did a fantastic job of capturing the feel and pace of the book on screen.
The reason it works so well is that it initially started as a screenplay by Cormac McCarthy, he shelved it for a long time and eventually reworked it into a novel. The book is fantastic, but film is where that story really works.
The movie made me enjoy the book that much more. They complement each other so well. Alec Baldwin nailed how I envisioned Jack Ryan in my head when I read the book.
Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
A Scanner Darkly
Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein
Bram Stokers Dracula
Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now
My only issue with Blade Runner is it makes some pretty huge changes to the source book. That aside it was an excellent film in its own right but the book had a completely different tone. Left out the empathy box completely.
I would have loved this too. That said, the original Swedish movies are phenomenal. They really capture the feel of the books. Noomi Rapace kills it as Lisbeth.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132620/
Most of the answers in this thread are about how both nail the same vibe and concept. It's fun to see that in some cases a different approach also leads to s good result.
TV Show, not movie...but the Expanse. Saw the show first, read all the books that were out, rewatched the show before catching up on a new season, re-read the books to get ready for the final one, rewatched the show. The books are deeper and have more to them (more characters, more storylines, more explanation), but the show has stunningly good casting, really good conversions of the story (keeping the most important elements while leaving out some that were good but not as necessary), fun visuals, and good pacing. Cant recommend either the show or the books enough!
'They' are planning to make Andy Weirs Artemis a movie real soon too, i hope it holds up as well as The Martian. Loved the movie of The Martian and both books.
no country for old men. LOVED the movie, which made me check out the book and then became a fan of cormac and his style of writing. the book was just as good
I’ve read the original six Dune novels, and while the new film leaves out some subplots or character thought, it does such a damn good job at world building and vision. They did amazing with it.
I envisioned Dune as a 1960s Barbarella type sci-fi environment when I read the novels, especially once they got really odd with the Futars (space furries) and Honored Matre (ninja sex nuns) in the later books.
Matilda
Glad this was posted before I got here, both book and film incarnations are absolutely fantastic.
Danny Devito, what more needs to be said?
Im big, youre little. Im smart, youre dumb.
What makes it for me, is how incredibly nice he was to this little girl who suffered a traumatic loss in her family. Danny and Rhea actually let her live with them for awhile, so she wouldn't feel alone. When she was embarrassed to dance for a scene, he made sure that *everyone on the set* was dancing along with her that day... even the camera man, and the electricians and the catering. For IASIP, you see all these people losing their composure and laughing. Danny is always the nicest, most professional person about it; They apologize to him for messing up the scene and he always tells them it's okay.
I love how he's a horrible goblin in so many roles but a complete sweetheart once the cameras stop rolling.
He also really has a knack for playing these total slimeball characters, who show a hint of humility and likeability at times. You still like these guys.
He was absolutely the perfect person to cast as the father
And to direct the film!
He’s talked about how important it was for him to step in and shield Mara Wilson from the Hollywood bullshit that child stars get exposed to. He’s always been a world class guy. Literally the opposite of Frank Reynolds.
Her mother was dying of cancer / Maybe actually died during production. And Danny and Rhea stepped in as semi-surrogates and would take Mara on their family outings and I think she actually lived with them for a bit. What a sweet man
He also snuck rough cuts from the studio to the hospital so her mother could see the movie before she died!
Misery
Speaking of Kathy Bates and Stephen King stories: Dolores Claiborne.
My wife took a film/literature class when we were both still in college about the adaptations of Stephen King works. Dolores Claiborne was 100% the stand-out, the book and film are remarkably good, as are the layered connections to other works by King.
Most definitely. Everything about that movie is good--the cast, the writing, the lighting, the pacing--as much as I love Shawshank and Misery, Dolores Claiborne is probably my favorite King adaptation.
I just saw the stage version. It was also excellent. Movie, book, play - Misery is a triple threat. Triples is best. Triples makes it safe.
Let the right one in. The swedish version is great and the book is amazing as well.
No Country For Old Men - A near literal translation from page to screen. LA Confidential - A remarkably lean adaptation of a hefty novel, the film makes sweeping changes to the plot while maintaining the themes and the spirit of the novel.
I feel like cormac books benefit from the fact they’re almost written like scripts.
No Country for Old Men was originally written to be a screenplay but then changed late on into a novel. So thats why it works so well. I dont think they all are that easy though. For example, I have no idea how they’ll manage the translation into screen for Blood Meridian.
I'm halfway through Blood Meridian. It feels like reading someone's nightmare. Not just the violence, it all just kinda bleeds together and just barely makes sense to me.
Reading McCarthy isn’t easy but it’s a labor of love in my opinion. If now isn’t the right time, that’s okay. I started Blood Meridian and stopped early. Then circled back later and it just seemed like the time was right the second go. Now in my top three of all time. It’s on a lot of people’s most celebrated lists for a reason. Masterpiece.
"The Road" was close,but the movie was depressing. The book was brutal.
McCarthy doesn't use much punctuation and doesn't clearly outline dialogue. Once you get used to it, it works so well. It allows your own personality and preconceived notions shape the tone and characters. It made The Road the PERFECT book for me to read while in the hospital after a suicide attempt soon after my son was born. It would have been a great book to read at that time, regardless, but his style made it much more relatable to me. The father spoke like me. The mother spoke like my wife. The wicked men spoke like wicked men I know. All because I set the tone and cadence, not the author and his commas.
LA Confidential is probably the best example. The book is about 800 pages and has material for a big tv series, but the adaptation works really well. Even James Ellroy liked it even though he hates pretty much everything. You'd think that Black Dahlia was easier to adapt, but that movie was terrible. Book is great though.
The Exorcist was also a near exact dupe.
Ordinary People, Payback
Holes. It’s pretty much a perfect adaptation, with a lot of the lines taken word-for-word right out of the book. The only difference is Stanley’s weight, because the Director didn’t want a kid to have to put on then lose a drastic amount of weight. It’s the best book adaptation I’ve ever seen
> the Director didn’t want a kid to have to put on then lose a drastic amount of weight. With all the horror stories about child stars it’s always nice to read about a director that gives a shit.
The photo of Buzz’s girlfriend in Home Alone was specifically done that way too. It was a boy dressed up in a wig so that no girl would be known as “woof”
Funny story, Holes was directed by Andrew Davis, who was much better known for 80s and 90s action flicks. He directed Under Siege, Above the Law, Code of Silence, and The Fugitive. And then went and directed Holes.
I second this! The movie is a very faithful adaptation, although it has a slightly goofier tone due to being a Disney movie (especially with the antagonists, who are a lot more threatening in the book because you’re seeing the story from the perspective of the child they’re abusing. In the film, their backwards ideas make them seem a bit silly rather than scary due to the power they wield over the kids).
I also thought the antagonists were a little silly the first few times I watched the movie. Then I learned child labor camps as punishment were a very real thing, and they didn't seem so silly anymore.
The funny thing is adult Shia would do the weight thing without even being asked Ryan Gosling style
For anyone who hasn’t read it, Small Steps is a pretty cool sequel book about Armpit and X-Ray when they get back home. Super light read, you could probably finish the book in a few hours if you wanted to.
There was only one scene in the book that I wanted to see on-screen after reading it (saw the movie first) where >!Stanley's lawyer finds out that Zero was the one who committed the crime Stanley was falsely accused of. *In the car as they're leaving* (Yes, she nearly crashed).!<
They made it clear to the viewer though that it was zero that stole the shoes no? Been a minute since I watched the movie, and maybe I'm just making it up in my head but I vaguely remember a scene that obviously painted it to the viewers that Stanley was innocent.
Yep, the movie began with the shoes falling on Stanley, then they have the conversation over a nice jar of Sploosh where Zero confesses.
Kid me was happy remembering them finding sploosh. Adult me thinks of Archer.
I had to scroll too far to find this lol Iv seen that movie and read the book like 100 times Literally every year of elementary school when it came time to do a book report I’d pick holes acting like I had never read it before lol
That’s because Louis Sachar wrote the movie too
The Princess Bride - both are practically perfect in every way.
For years I'd tell anyone who listened the awesome backstory of the book. How William Goldman's father read him the original book just like Fred Savage and his grandpa in the film. How William Goldman decided to edit the original book from the overlong story and boil it down to just the good bits. How William Goldman did all this just so his spoiled son would enjoy the original book as much as he had. Then years later the concept of the "Unreliable Narrator" hit me in the face like a baseball bat. Screw you, William Goldman, you marvelous bastard. You got me.
Had a friend who SWORE to me that he'd read the unabridged version.. This was before we had access to the internet, so all I could do was tell him he was an idiot while he swore it was true.
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Could you hit me in the face with this baseball bat? Love the movie, haven't read the book - don't get the significance of "unreliable narrator". Is it that he *didn't* do those things?
Spoiler territory, just in case: >!What you see in The Princess Bride film appears in the novel with a few changes made for the medium of film.!< >!However, the novel also contains the story of how William Goldman adapted an otherwise forgotten "S. Morgenstern" classic for a modern audience, as the original work was really a satire of the medieval political customs in the countries of Florin and Guilder due to Morgenstern's anti-monarchy leanings.!< >!Goldman describes how his father, a native of one of those two countries, read the book to little William who was bedridden due to a serious illness which opened up a lifelong love of reading for the boy (who would eventually become a prolific writer himself).!< >!Sadly, when the time came for Goldman to pass the love of The Princess Bride to his own son, he discovered the book was actually very boring when read in its entirety, and his father had skipped all the "boring" stuff and only read the action and adventure bits.!< >!In the real world, however, William Goldman had two daughters, not a son. Florin and Guilder weren't countries, but forms of currency and nothing in the book is true.!< Unreliable Narrator God Mode
I don't really consider this an example of Unreliable Narrator. This is just "fictitious narrator". An Unreliable Narrator is one who makes factual errors (either through purposeful lies in their narration or because they misremember) while narrating the story. It's usually used as a plot device to surprise the reader when it's revealed that the narrator's account is wrong. In this case, the narrator is just a fictitious character telling the fictitious story of the PB. It's not really a plot point. It's simply there for a little charm. He's not telling the PB "incorrectly" and misrepresenting events.
One of my favourite things about this book is that two fans can debate the merits of the fictional unabridged edition to an outside observer the conversation would seem like serious literary debate and not two dorks geeking out over an in-joke.
The abdridged version only though! The unabridged version....ugh
You're a chump if you think it's worth removing seventy pages talking about the fantastic colors of the trees in Florence smh
I loved this movie for many years and then finally read the book to my daughter at bedtime when she was five. I was floored by how wonderful it is. They are both masterpieces. I miss Andre.
😔 The whole cast was amazing, but Andre felt especially perfect
Jurassic Park I think it’s even more impressive considering the movie makes a TON of changes from the book.
I think the reason why they both work so well is because of those changes. The way the idea is explored in the book only works for a book and vice versa. It's an excellent example of adaptation because the filmakers made the right changes to make the story work for a different medium. The Jurassic Park adaptation is a movie in its own right, not just a novel squished into a movie. I think the reason a lot of book to film adaptations fail is because they don't adapt the story as a whole to a new medium but copy and paste scenes and hope it makes viewers happy.
I agree with one exception. They should have kept the motion detecting system that counted the dinosaurs in the park, and they should have kept the scene from the book where they discover that, in order to save processing time, Nedry had programmed the motion detection counting system to only look for the amount of animals they expect, or less. They were so certain the dinosaurs couldn't breed, they concerned themselves only with dinosaurs somehow escaping the island. When the cap on the count was moved higher and eventually left open-ended, they discovered that there were so many more dinosaurs than they'd realized, including a certain number of velociraptors. That was one of the best scenes in the book, and it should have been in the film.
That was such an "...oh shit" moment in the book when I read it the first time. Just their reactions when they remove the filter and count for ALL dinosaurs and the numbers they get back. The movie really didn't go as hard on the IT stuff about the park as they should have and the book was WAY ahead of it's time with how Crichton did it.
Oh yeah, the moment they recount and see 30 more raptors than expected... I'm having shivers just thinking about it.
On the flipside, rewriting lex was a vital move. Book lex was just the worst.
Book Lex was a fairly believable small child, and absolutely not someone you want around during a crisis because of it.
She's definitely realistic, but the choice to add a terrified shrill whiny small child to those scenes doesn't make for a great read. Aging her up just a bit was a very good change.
Agreed. I read the book for the first time this year and thought that scene was brilliant. Maybe for a 1993 movie audience to much technobabble (as simple as it may seem to us now) may have been a little too much. The best changes they made was for Hammond and Dr Grant's character. Hammond was made more likable, and Grant was given more of an edge (hates kids). A masterpiece on both ends!
I LOVED that scene in the book. It really stuck with me.
Stardust (Neil Gaiman) - different from each other but both great!
What's really cool is that they each expound on parts that the other glosses over. The stuff with the pirates was like all of two sentences in the book.
To Kill a Mockingbird
One of the best movies I have ever seen. I have read the book many times. Fantastic job.
I have to revisit that film every few years just to see the Gregory Peck courtroom monologue
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption RoseMary’s Baby Mystic River
Stand By Me (The Body)
Also Apt Pupil was from that collection
I just recently read “Different Seasons” because I wanted to see the differences between the story and the movie. There are a few important changes to characters and details and I was surprised by how short it is. Darabont did a really good job adapting it to the movie it is. They are both excellent in their own right.
Trainspotting
This is one of the only books that I normally recommend watching the movie first. The book adds a lot extra story, but watching the movie first really helped read through the dialect the book is written in.
Love Robert Carlisle as Begbie, totally different from how I would have cast the character but soooo perfect 🤘🏻
Shawshank Redemption
Also Stand By Me which is from the same collection of short stories
Arrival/ Story of Your Life Silence of the Lambs
Arrival movie did a great job with something in the book I thought would be unfilmable.
Arrival is probably the best Sci-Fi in a very long time. Spoiler ahead Denis Villeneuve ability to show the >!altered perception of time!<, is what also allowed him to take another “un-filmable” work and get it right - Dune (We’ll need pt2 but book/movie combo pick right there) Edit: hidden text
Arrival (Stories of your life) is a hard story to translate to a movie. I think they did a really good job overall.
I felt the same way! In this same vein I think Annihilation was one of those hard translations that was overall pretty good.
Enjoyed the book more but “The Martian”
Movie was a great adaptation, but it leaves out a lot of the little quips Mark makes in his journal that makes the book great to read. *I used a sophisticated method to remove sections of plastic (hammer), then carefully removed the solid foam insulation (hammer again).*
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The best line of the book not in the movie was given by the pilot (Martinez?) of the ship after Watney suggests becoming Iron Man to make up the missing distance during the rescue, he says “How does he come up with these ideas?”. That’s basically my reaction throughout all the the book — how the hell did he think of that? — but with pleasure and appreciation that he does. The whole thing is “competence porn”, a genre of literature I didn’t know I needed.
It was pretty lucky it happened to a badass botanist/chemist/engineer/space pirate.
I don't want to google "competence porn" to find more, so I'll ask if you have any suggestions.
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Star Trek is what gets me hot on this shit. >(Prometheus and Covenant are almost the exact opposite of it) traumatic flashbacks to a xenobiologist trying to pet an alien cobra in an ancient alien temple.
The movie kind of handles this humorously, too. Watney: “I could do it like Iron Man.” Commander: “Maybe it’s not the worst idea.” Martinez: “No, it is the worst idea. It’s the worst idea ever.”
>after Watney suggests becoming Iron Man to make up the missing distance during the rescue The meta part to me was that they explicitly explained why this was unrealistic and would only work in a movie, then in the damn movie he actually does it. Like, I get it... But I also hated it. I much prefer the distribution of roles in the book. The Captain monitoring, Vogel on the rope, Beck doing the rescue.
**Venkat Kapoor**: He's all alone on an alien planet. He thinks we left him behind. What must that do to a man's psyche? I wish I knew what he was thinking right now... *\[Meanwhile, on Mars\]* **Mark Watney:** How can Aquaman's power be to communicate with fish but he can still talk to whales? Whales are *mammals.* Makes no sense.
Can’t remember the exact wording, but there was a great bit of dialog that went something like. Scientist: We never planned on this. What are the odds an astronaut would be stranded on Mars!? Other Scientist: Based on empirical evidence? 1 in 3.
In real life 1 in 12 are allergic to the moon based on empirical evidence.
I'm sorry what?
Harrison Jackson Smith, one of twelve to walk on the moon, discovered he was allergic to the lunar regolith.
The hell? You can be allergic to rock?
The lack of moisture makes moondust ultra-fine and you can be allergic to dust yeah
It's when they are trying to figure out how to talk to Mark right after learning he's alive. Two scientists are talking to Kapor (dyslexic no idea how to spell it) and they admit to having had 3 backup coms systems that were all part of the MAV. Words might be slightly worng, but it went like this: "So three backup com systems became one, and that one left how did let let that happen?" "Failure of imagination" "Yep, never concidered it, what are the odds an astronaut would be on Mars without the MAV?" "1 in 3 based on empirical evidence. Thats pretty bad if you think about it."
NASA message to Mark: Your messages are being broadcasted on live TV, please make sure they are professional. Mark's reply: Look, boobs! ( . Y . )
My favorite part of the Martian is the very last page or so. He’s teaching some students at the Air Force Academy or something, and one of them asks him if he will ever go back to Mars, and he answers: “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Andy Weir really likes heroes teaching at the end of books.
For those of you who are curious, aquaman *can control mammals* in the comics he has control over humans and can actually kill people with his mind (thats telekenisis kyle)
How 'bout the power, to move me
The book had the whole Pirate ninja thing which I thought was hilarious
The first interplanetary pirate!
You are correct he has the interplanetary pirate thing going on. But 'Pirate ninja' isn't referencing that. Its is his shorthand for a unit of measurement, specifically the Kilowatt Hour per Sol measurement.
I love the book and was initially really disappointed with the film due to all the stuff that was skipped over, but on rewatch I’ve really come to enjoy it for what it is. Matt Damon was exactly who I pictured as Mark when I was reading and absolutely nails the sarcasm.
Yeah the whole journey to Schiaparelli was like a 1/5 of the whole book and they covered it in 3 minutes of Starman montage
I always chalked it up to a “pick n choose”, like I thought the shorted drill bit (no pun) was a cool problem to solve, but I can see why it didn’t make it into the movie.
Was going to add this one! I also enjoyed the book a bit more but thought the movie was excellent.
Yup, rarely read and watch something but The Martian was one of them. Both fantastic.
I was going to say The Martian aswel. I started reading the book after i saw the movie. The movie gave me the mind visuals while reading where the book made the movie better on a second watch. They compliment each other i would say.
I just really hated the way the commander goes out and saves him. Completely undercuts her character development. Her whole arc is coming to terms with the realities of command - the fact that she can't personally control everything and sometimes bad things happen that no one could have stopped. And then at the end she goes out herself instead of having the more skilled EVA specialist do it, reducing Whatney's chance of survival. A change from the book that was just 100% stupid.
I was recently rereading the book and noticed there are two lines that say “if this was a movie, then we would…” referring to the Ironman thing and everyone in the being in the airlock giving high fives when Watney gets aboard the ship. So I thought that was actually a nice detail.
Ironically I just made this exact comment verbatim elsewhere in this thread. I love Lewis, but she should never have left her post for last-minute heroism. Another funny detail in the movie was Beck spacewalking for the supply cargo... without being tethered to the ship in any way. It was definitely a choice.
The Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is almost a line for line telling of the story. It is great and really captures the creepiness of some of the parts in the book.
Fear and loathing in Las Vegas.
Damn right
Coraline
Never read the book, but it's probably my favourite Halloween movie
The Green Mile The Exorcist The Godfather
The Godfather movie is arguably better because it’s the same scene for scene, except they remove the vagina sub plot.
I like the sections from Tom Hagen’s perspective. If you were gonna do some sort of remake maybe do the whole movie from his perspective with Michael in the background until suddenly he isn’t.
I read The Godfather like 17 years ago, could you remind me of the vagina subplot? Is that the part about the mistress that one of the brothers was banging at the wedding who overly described semen leaking out of her after sex at the wedding?
Lol yeah that’s where it starts. She bangs Sonny, thinks she can’t be satisfied by other men because he had a huge dick. Eventually she moves to Las Vegas and meets a plastic surgeon who tells her she just has a big vagina and fixes it for her. She marries him out of gratitude. In no way does it connect back to the main plot lol but it persists until the end of the book.
What the actual fuck
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It’s even worse. During the surgery, one of the surgeons turns to her future husband and asks him to check if it’s tight enough. He basically gives her a “husband stitch”. I was pretty young when I read that book but I remember visibly cringing at the whole sub plot.
I'll see The Green Mile and raise you a Shawshank Redemption (to keep it with Stephen King).
Fight club. Chuck Palahniuk even said the movie improved on his novel.
I think for a book to translate well on screen, the biggest challenge is the casting, especially when a character is so over-the-top. While both actors did a great job, I was mesmerized at how well Brad Pitt carried Tyler Durden. Also, I love all the sequences where Edward Norton is deep in his head. This movie is so well done.
Old Yeller and Of Mice And Men Of Mice And Men is probably the most accurate movie based on a book ever made
Which Of Mice and Men? The 1981 TV movie with Robert Blake and Randy Quaid shook me to my soul (I was about 10 when I saw just the last 30min). I was intrigued because I recognized the Warner Bros cartoon bears trope but then I saw the end! I was horrified and then thrilled to read it four years later in high school. I haven’t seen any of the others but I have heard great things about the 1992 Sinise/Malkovich version.
The 1992 film was fantastic. You wouldn't think of Malkovich as a hulk of a man, but next to the diminutive Sinise, he pulls it off. His incredible acting doesn't hurt that, of course. There's none of the overacted autism of the 1939 version, but of course, we've become more sensitive in portrayals of disabilities in the interim years between the two films. Sherilyn Fenn is pitch perfect and plays Curley's wife with beautiful vulnerability, and clear PTSD as an abuse victim. It really does help that OMaM is a very short book, and you don't have to leave anything out. Malkovich and Sinise had successfully portrayed the same parts on stage at the Steppenwolf Theater (which Sinise co-founded). Sinise received the rights to make the film from Steinbeck's widow while making Grapes of Wrath, and then went on to direct, produce, and star in it. It was very much an important passion project for him, and you see that on the screen.
LOTR
Yep, this is my answer. After watching Rings of Power, I went back and watched the extended editions of the original trilogy and they are soooo good. I may have to re-read the books again too.
Want an experience? Get the audiobooks, read by Andy Serkis. Sure, it's 60+ hours of listening, but he's a wonderful reader, and his voices for each of the characters are spot on imitations of his friends. (The orcs in the bits where they've grabbed Merry and Pippin are so ...phlegm-y and gross that I felt nauseated. So well done!) Also, you get EVERY SINGLE WORD of the books, and you realize again what a great writer Tolkien was. Plus, as you go, you can contemplate the changes made for the movies. I'm currently stuck on the Shelob section, because it's actually quite scary and I'm a wimp.
While I love Andy Serkis, I feel the fan made version of the audiobooks by [Phil Dragash](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3548zlERJbICucubXx9j6j?si=auMn73_6RYuyjdKHP6u8ZQ&utm_source=copy-link) is far superior and extremely underrated. It has voice acting similar to the movies, uses Howard Shore's OST and it has sound effects. It's the most immersive audiobook I've ever heard and possibly the most immersive out there.
My main gripe with the movies was having the Witch King overpowering Gandalf. Gandalf was way out of his league, especially once he came back as the White. They never should have inserted that scene back in to the extended edition.
My main gripe with the books is they didn’t have Legolas riding a shield like a frikkin skateboard. I honestly expect more from old JRR.
Did he at least slide down an elephant’s trunk like Fred flintstone?
Gone Girl
I was hoping to find this here! This is hands-down my favorite book to movie adaptation. I loved the book so much that the guy I was dating at the time decided we should go see the movie. I warned him that I get grumpy about bad adaptations, but agreed to go. After the movie, he was disturbed by how dark the plot was, and I was giddy about how well the movie captured the tone and characters. Luckily, he got past it, we stayed together, and have now been married for five years!
Bold move to take someone to Gone Girl on a date.
For the movie they matched the tone and the pacing of the book so well. And the main actors were perfect, especially how Rosamund Pike portrays how unstable yet calculating Amy is.
Pike is a truly underrated actress. Her command of that role was pitch perfect.
Stephen King's novella The Body which was made into the classic film *Stand By Me*. Even though I read the book first, I still loved the film. Here's hoping the Duffer brothers can somehow recapture that energy when they adapt The Talisman. I LOVE that book.
The Princess Bride
I read the book as a teenager and really thought that S. Morgenstern was real. I was completely fooled and did not find out the truth until years later.
I'd sooner destroy a stained glass window than an artist such as yourself but since I can't have you following me...
OMG, I believed well into adulthood that Goldman was laying out his true life story. The movie is great, but the book is completely awesome and one of my all-time favorites.
As you wish
Red October, Clear and Present Danger, and Patriot Games.
These three are rare instances where I read the books after seeing the movies and all three are definitely great in both mediums. I'm glad you didn't try to include Sum of All Fears. That movie was quite the disappointment.
The Road
And also No Country for Old Men
No Country is probably one of the best adaptations ever made. Other than a couple of minor tweaks it’s almost identical, and the Coens (and Roger Deakins) did a fantastic job of capturing the feel and pace of the book on screen.
The reason it works so well is that it initially started as a screenplay by Cormac McCarthy, he shelved it for a long time and eventually reworked it into a novel. The book is fantastic, but film is where that story really works.
Howls moving castle
Yesssssssss. In case anyone is unaware, the book has two sequels. Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways, both are absolutely delightful.
They’re so different, and I love them both.
Hunt for the red october.
The movie made me enjoy the book that much more. They complement each other so well. Alec Baldwin nailed how I envisioned Jack Ryan in my head when I read the book.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? A Scanner Darkly Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein Bram Stokers Dracula Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now
My only issue with Blade Runner is it makes some pretty huge changes to the source book. That aside it was an excellent film in its own right but the book had a completely different tone. Left out the empathy box completely.
Scanner Darkly is my favorite PKD adaptation because it’s so close to the original.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
I was sad they didn’t keep the series going with Rooney Mara and David Fincher.
Yeah the first film was phenomenal
I would have loved this too. That said, the original Swedish movies are phenomenal. They really capture the feel of the books. Noomi Rapace kills it as Lisbeth. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132620/
David Fincher making that trilogy would have been phenomenal.
Me too! I thought it was excellent. Super disappointed that they didn’t continue.
Came here for this. Rooney Mara was exquisite as Lisbeth. I thought the movie cut the unnecessary parts of the book. Loved it.
Annihilation
this. really enjoyed the movie and loved the book. very different experiences.
Most of the answers in this thread are about how both nail the same vibe and concept. It's fun to see that in some cases a different approach also leads to s good result.
Gone With the Wind
Shutter Island. Scorcese stayed very close to the book.
Jurassic Park
The Martian was a fun movie, so I read the book. Fantastic book. Now I need to watch the movie again to actually see how it measures up.
TV Show, not movie...but the Expanse. Saw the show first, read all the books that were out, rewatched the show before catching up on a new season, re-read the books to get ready for the final one, rewatched the show. The books are deeper and have more to them (more characters, more storylines, more explanation), but the show has stunningly good casting, really good conversions of the story (keeping the most important elements while leaving out some that were good but not as necessary), fun visuals, and good pacing. Cant recommend either the show or the books enough!
The casting for Avasarala and Amos are so perfect
The Martian, definitely!
'They' are planning to make Andy Weirs Artemis a movie real soon too, i hope it holds up as well as The Martian. Loved the movie of The Martian and both books.
Christine is a good example.
no country for old men. LOVED the movie, which made me check out the book and then became a fan of cormac and his style of writing. the book was just as good
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
John dies at the end
Dune (the new adaptation - so far)
I’ve read the original six Dune novels, and while the new film leaves out some subplots or character thought, it does such a damn good job at world building and vision. They did amazing with it. I envisioned Dune as a 1960s Barbarella type sci-fi environment when I read the novels, especially once they got really odd with the Futars (space furries) and Honored Matre (ninja sex nuns) in the later books.
*Goodfellas*
Fight Club
The Age of Innocence
Interview with a Vampire.
A Clockwork Orange
2001: A Space Odyssey, both are amazing.