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Or does the director simply need passion for the material? LOTR, Interview with the Vampire, Harry Potter, even X-Men and Spiderman had directors that loved the material. Is it possible to make a good movie from a book if you don't have that connection.
I'm worried about Ender's Game as film.
Posts: 514 | Registered: May 2005
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The director of Xmen hadn't read any of the comics until he was approached about the movie. He said in an interview something to the effect of he called up a friend who was a big xmen fan and did nothing but read comics for a couple of days. Tough job, neh?
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Hugh Jackman had no familiarity either, and did much of the same thing. He said after reading comics for several days, he was shocked and appalled that the script didn't have a single "bub" anywhere in it.
He peppered them in liberally, and a few of them made it into the final cut of the film, thankfully.
In fact, I think it's better when actors *don't* have preconceived notions of characters... like Sam Jackson's desire to be in SW, when another actor could have done far better in the same part (I dunno, Lawrence Fishburn? Avery Brooks? Morgan Freeman?)
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Peter Jackson just proved to me that you can at least make a shadow of the books. I wouldn't say that he successfully put book to film.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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Dude, your name is cool, it's close to being jimsonweed, which is a plant I like.
More on topic, I haven't read the whole L of the R trilogy, but I love the feel of those movies and the amount of detail that went into them.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Don't be silly, Primal. I think that by every reasonable measure P.J. successfully adapted LotR. Does that mean that he was 100% faithful to the books? No! Does that mean that the films were better than the books? No! Does that even mean that EVERYONE who loves the books loved the films? No!
What it means is that he took the source material and converted it to a very good series of films which entertain and intrigue whether you're familiar with the books or not. The fact is that in their own right the LotR films are a lot better than most reasonable people expected them to be, and as far as the books go, they pleased more fans of Tolkiens works than I for one would have thought possible. The films were loved by critics and the general public alike. How many fantasy films win best picture? How many times has every film in a series been nominated? If they don't please you personally, well, you're entitled to your opinion. But it's stubborn to deny that they were successful adaptations.
However, none of this proves that ANY book can be converted to film. It just shows that those particular books could. In spite of the inherent challenges of adapting LotR (most notably the special effects issues and the complexity of Tolkiens world), the books had the elements of what makes an entertaining movie. On the other hand, a book like say, Frank Herbert's "GodEmperor of Dune", which is almost all talk, philosophy, and introspection, would present challenges which might not be so easily overcome (not that it was easy for P.J. and company).
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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neo, put the slather away. I believe my post was stated as opinion- not as fact. Unless the phrases "to me" and "I wouldn't say" are not specific enough for you.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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God protect us from a 'Wheel of Time' movie. My only beef with the Rings was the way the dead were brought to Minas Tirith, didn't make sense really did it? Still one less epic battle to depice to free the coastal area to aid Gondor.
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Having sat through a play adapted from a book of essays(!) by CS Lewis, I am convinced that some books shouldn't be made into plays/movies.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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The movies were good and entertaining in their own right, but they didn't hold a candle to the books. Even if Jackson hadn't gone and made some dumb changes to get a more blockbusterish effect, he couldn't have done the books justice. They're just too long and dense.
IMO, movies are more successful when they're based on short stories. It fits the genre better, I think.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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As I've written before: While there were good moments -- and excellent music, cinematography, CGI, and set design -- I think PeterJackson catered to his Dungeons&Dragons and slash&bash videogame side, and glossed over or skipped many of the most cogent points of The Lord of the Rings to film boring and often nonsensical battle scenes.
Adding: The extended length videos were considerably better, but LotR was not the "Aragon Show with Legolas&Gimli" that PeterJackson chose to film.
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To be honest, I think I would like to see Mr Card's The Memory of Earth be made into a film more than EG. I liked the EG book more but I think that The Memory of Earth (and subsequent Homecoming volumes) could be made into really great movies with a great story and great special effects too.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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The lack of Tom Bombadil in the movie LOTR still depresses me.
A wheel of time movie could be alright if they stuck to only the first book becuase they all kinda go down hill from their.
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe witch shall from now on be refered to as the LWW is coming out as a movie! Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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The lack of Tom Bombadil in the LotR movies was the best choice he could have made, though. Just READING about Tom Bombadil makes me want to slap the guy. But *shrug* IMMV
I have high hopes for LWW, too.
I think the point is that great/good books that are considered 'unfilmable' CAN be made into great movies. It just isn't easy, is all. I loved the LotR books and I loved the movies, too, but they are different things.
L.A. Confidential was supposed to be another book supposedly untranslatable to film, and that one was fairly successful. It was all in the screenplay, though.
Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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The movies changed some very important things to be what they were. According to Tolkien himself, The Scouring of the Shire was the single most important chapter of the film, the main reason for the books in the first place, and PJ didn't even film it.
Also he made some serious changes in the movies that left HUGE plot holes.
I enjoyed the movies, very much so, but they are NOT even close to the books. They don't really even tell the same story.
I think that a lot of what you see nom in movies had to wait until the CGI could handle it. LWW is a prime example. . .how else could they portray Aslan as anything other than pitiful? As the Tech improved, more of these types of movies were made.
What about the Philip Pullman "His Dark Materials" trilogy. I heard that the director dropped out. These could be awesome if done correctly.
Posts: 514 | Registered: May 2005
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Yes, I hated the loss of the Scouring, too. But movies and books will always be two different things, and I love 'em both. The Scouring makes the books, to me, but the movies still worked without it.
Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Primal, sorry if I went on a bit of a rant. I just meant that considering that no film can please everyone (especially when we're talking about adaptations of one of the best loved works of fiction of the 20th century), P.J.'s films managed to succeed remarkably well, and I don't just mean at the box office. I understand that you personally weren't impressed by them, and that's fine.
As for my personal opinion. As much as it upsets some fans, I think that leaving out Tom and the Scouring were very obvious and logical choices. Frankly, I think that Tolkien should have left Tom out of the book. He serves no purpose that justifies the number of pages devoted to him. So as far as I'm concerned Jackson actually improved the story in that respect. As for the scouring, it was a very good part of the book, but for a movie, I don't think it works very well to have a huge climax after 9 hours (more like 11 hours for the extended editions), and then have another crisis pop up for the last 30 minutes or so. Even as it is, one of the major criticism about RotK (the movie) is that too much happens after the Ring is destroyed. Fans of the book realize that Jackson is simply wrapping up as much of the material from the book as he can, but as far as movies go, the pacing is a bit awkward because of it. So I think that Jackson at least deserves some credit for managing to walk a thin line between what die-hard Tolkien fans wanted and what the average movie-goer wants. That's what adapting literature to film is all about. Tolkien gave us books that have been the standard which fantasy literature has been measured against for the last half century, and Jackson gave us films that are now the standard for big screen fantasy epics as well.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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The main flavor of the books was a lot more folklorish because of the frequent poetry and song. Not including any of that (except the one little song by Pippin) make the movies, IMHO, an entirely different work altogether.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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quote: Not including any of that (except the one little song by Pippin) make the movies, IMHO, an entirely different work altogether.
Well, that's the point, isn't? Books are never movies, and movies are never really books, either. Like a painting and a stained glass window of the same subject, they are still different media.
Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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The scene where Frodo looks into the mirror of Galadriel and sees the Shire in flames and what not is supposed to be Jackson's homage to the Scouring of the Shire.
Would I call the movies a successful adaptation of the books? Yes. But successful still doesn't mean good. I think they were okay, and fun to watch. But there was too much left out, added in, and changed to really make me think they were good adaptations. Some things were changed for seemingly no reason. Why was the army of the dead brought to Minas Tirith? They could have left in the scene where the army of the dead captures the Umbar fleet and takes men from the southern fiefs back up. That was one of my biggest bones to pick.
Though nothing made me more angry than the missing Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, one of my favorite characters. It would have been a sweet scene to see him riding into Minas Tirith with his knights of Numenorean blood.
I think in the future the movies will be remade, and hopefully much better than they were this time. My argument has little to do with the actors, the way it was made, my argument is entirely with the content. Other than that, PJ did a masterful job.
I think The Hobbit will be a fantastic movie.
I'd love to see a Shadowrun movie made based off of the Wolf and Raven short stories of Michael A. Stackpole. (Does anyone else who has read that and Star Wars books by Stackpole think that Corran Horn and Wolfgang Kies are basically the same character but with slightly altered details?)
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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