There are a lot of Hollywood movies that are based on novels. Some have been great like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia. While some sucked big time. Just take for instance The Da Vinci Code. It was a blockbuster novel. It had a great premise, superb story, enough conspiracy theories to keep people's imagination moving, and lots of action. Of course, it was made into a movie - a movie that sucked. Can you think of other movies that are based on novels that sucked big time?
The movie adaptation of great literary sagas is a major challenge. Usually the results are positive, but there are cases in which the films are a pale imitation of the book. At this point I don't remember any particular example, perhaps because those movies were so bad that I forgot them. We have a recent example in "The Hunger Games". This is a case of a GOOD adaptation, but falls short of titles such as Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings. In many cases, the film surpasses history, but such examples of superlative quality are rare. This is a big dilemma for directors, producers and actors involved in a project like that, everyone takes a risk.
I had to search it up because I forgot, but The Golden Compass was one of the most disappointing novel adaptations I have seen. I know that turning a 300 or 400 page book into a 2 hour long film is no easy task, but as we've seen with Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and even The Hunger Games, it can be done. Honestly, though, I believe it really comes down to sticking to what the author wrote. When a book is put on the silver screen, fans expect it to be true to the original story, and so go only to be disappointed by unnecessary and detrimental changes. When a company thinks they can just take a book and have it magically turn into a blockbuster, then it is sure to fail, and it has been seen over and over again in films like Hoot, Eragon, and others, and it is frustrating as an avid reader to see what could have been good franchises fail due to the "just throw money at it" mentality where production companies will spend millions only to flop because they only invested money and just hoped it would turn out okay. If people want these types of movies to succeed, then there needs to be more effort on part of directors and producers to really be committed to a project and not just over hype it and do their jobs half heartedly.
I have read The Golden Compass and I liked every page of it. I was looking forward to watching the movie but somehow I missed it. Is it really that bad? If that's the case, I'm glad I wasn't able to view it. Lol.
Most books don't transfer well to movies. However I thought that both the Hunger Games and the Harry Potter series were done well. I didn't have a problem with DaVinci code either. I think there is a difference between a bad movie, and a movie that just wasn't as good as the book. All of those I thought were good movies, just none as good as the books.
I haven't read the book and I found the movie entertaining and adorable. I think it's much better when you haven't read the book, as I was kind of disappointed with Narnia because I've read that one. And I'm sure a lot of people found that entertaining as well, but I just couldn't enjoy it since I remember having a much fuller experience reading the book.
You have a very good point in this one mate. If you have read the book and watch the movie afterwards, there's a tendency to compare the two. You would be looking for scenes that were in the book that were deleted in the movie. Also, you would already know the story so you will no longer be surprised with the outcome. It's like watching a horror movie but you know where the scares will be. It's like watching a mystery but you already know what it is. That takes a little bit of fun out of it.
Just to add something different. Jaws the movie was actually for me better than the book, and I think that is rare. Godfather I would say was a tie. The movie The Hustler with Paul Newman was I think better than the book. Yeah that is going back a hell of a lot of years. I think the book and the movie of The Exorcist well I would say that was a draw. They were both impressive I think. Ryder13
I am not much into books but I am into comic books and I think it has the same impact when they make one title onto the big screen, it is a Major Epic FAIL! I dont know but for some serious comic book fanatics like me, if something in particular, like the story or characters doesnt seem fit to what we have read from the comic book, it just destroys everything. A good example of this were the Xmen movies. Iceman is one of the original Xmen but why is he so young on the movie.
