Books Adapted for Films in which Changes were made to story and characters that you actually liked

BAYLOR said:
Bakshi wanted to do the whole trilogy but wasn't; able to, so he compressed three books into one movie .
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if I remember rightly, the Bakshi movie came out, adapting the first book and the second two appeared on TV as animated specials by a different production company (and not attempting to duplicate the style).
 
Toby Frost said:
This may not be a popular choice, but how about Starship Troopers? Personally, I thought the film was a better film than the novel was a novel, if that makes any sense.
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the movie started off as a serial numbers-filed-off spoof of the novel. a studio exec noticed the similarity, they bought the adaptation rights so that Heinlein wouldn't sue them and then made it into an official adaptation.
 
Star-child said:
The film I mentioned was animated by the same studio as Nausica.
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I was about to throw things at your avatar for this slander (on Nausicaa), but I thought I'd better check just in case, and it turns out you're right! I had no idea of this. Interesting fact.

Star-child said:
HIs film is of the first two books, and the problems with it are the animation and characterizations.
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The semi-psychadelic attack of the Black Riders at the ford was excellent, I thought. Better than the Jackson film. The rest not so much.

BAYLOR said:
I recall that this film was not in the theaters very long.
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Long enough for me to see it about seven times. (But I was eleven, and my critical faculties not entirely honed.)

Narkalui said:
It had butterfly wings
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Er, what? It had bat/dragon-type wings. (Or sort of -- the ribs come from the shoulder rather than being fingers from a "hand". Actually it looks pretty crap, I'll grant you. But not like a butterfly.)
 
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ryubysss said:
if I remember rightly, the Bakshi movie came out, adapting the first book and the second two appeared on TV as animated specials by a different production company (and not attempting to duplicate the style).
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That was back in the early to mid 1970's Rankin an Bass But they did The Hobbit and the Return of the King and that was it.
 
BAYLOR said:
That was back in the early to mid 1970's Rankin an Bass But they did The Hobbit and the Return of the King and that was it.
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Hobbit (Rankin Bass/Topcraft) - 1977.
Lord of the Rings (Bakshi) - 1978.
Return of the King (Rankin Bass/Topcraft) - 1980.

Rankin Bass altered the Return of the King story to make the first two books redundant, so it acts as a sequel to the hobbit and doesn't involve the Bakshi film.
 
Star-child said:
So, that doesn't make it not an adaptation. It is obviously based on may elements of DADOES.
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I know it doesn't make it not an adaptation. just, not as straightforward a one as a viewer would tend to assume.
 
Who Framed Roger Rabbit - changing the Toons from comic strip characters to Hollywood cartoon actors was the most obvious. Changing the villain to Judge Doom was brilliant. The book is terrible and even the author decided to follow the movie when he did a sequel.

JAWS--the book is pretty bad (but the Godfather is worse--terrible book). I did like the ending though-especially after hearing that a scuba tank could not explode like in the movie. I re-read the book this summer and assumed that Hooper had used a poison on the shark. There was an article on the 40th aniversary of the book discussing why someone preferred the book to movie--it highlighted the themes were more about human nature while the movie just presented the shark as some kind of demonic force (an organic Death Star).

Burn Witch Burn

The Devil Rides Out--the book was a tough read. Prefer the movie.


Planet of the Apes

The Legend of Hell House- Matheson removed his subplots like the "Florence Tanner soap opera actress" stuff.

The Day of the Jackal--the book is SO close to the movie-but they cut some minor things and added my favorite line:

"I'm enthralled by combine harvesters. In fact, I yearn to have one as a pet."
 
Logan's Run George Clayton John and William F Nolan. The book published in 1967 was a little dated by time of the 1976 film. They changed the story quite substantially and, though I like the book, I liked the film far better. For samples in the book you lived 21 year and then got put to sleep , In the film they moved it up to age of end of life to 30 and they added a greater post apocalyptic dimension to the story.
 
BAYLOR said:
Logan's Run George Clayton John and William F Nolan. The book published in 1967 was a little dated by time of the 1976 film. They changed the story quite substantially and, though I like the book, I liked the film far better. For samples in the book you lived 21 year and then got put to sleep , In the film they moved it up to age of end of life to 30 and they added a greater post apocalyptic dimension to the story.
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There...is...nooooo....sanctuary.......
 
KGeo777 said:
There...is...nooooo....sanctuary.......
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That was a great scene . The city computer blew a fuse because it couldn't accept Logan 5's testimony that Sanctuary didn't exist.
 
BAYLOR said:
I like the 1953 version of War of the Worlds even though it was a modern updating of Wells.
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I still think it is the best film of the book. There is the 2005 H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds I'd like to see one day.
 
CupofJoe said:
I still think it is the best film of the book. There is the 2005 H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds I'd like to see one day.
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Ray Harryhuasen did a stop motion test footage Martain sequence which was intoned for the 1953 film. The Martian looks pretty much like Wells described in the book.

I didn't initially like the 2005 film , and though I stilll have issues with the film it has grown in me a bit. I like the Triposd walking machines , that was more in line with the book. Also Gene Barry and Ann Robinson from the 1953 film both have a came in the 2005 film at the very end. I thought http was cool. :)
 
BAYLOR said:
I like the 1953 version of War of the Worlds even though it was a modern updating of Wells.
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My only reservation about the '53 version is that Wells had no truck with religion (see also, The Island of Dr. Moreau), while George Pal was quite religious and the ending of the movie reflects that.

Randy M.
 
tegeus-Cromis said:
Totally.
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I recently re-read Star Ship Troopers, and the opening is a action sequence, it is 1000 times better than any action sequence Verhoeven had in the film... Verhoeven totally ejected the action sequence that ended the novel for a more comic book version.
 
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