Go Back  DVD Talk Forum > Entertainment Discussions > Movie Talk
Reload this Page >

What are the best adaptations that are quite UNfaithful to the source material?

Movie Talk A Discussion area for everything movie related including films In The Theaters

What are the best adaptations that are quite UNfaithful to the source material?

Old 11-22-06, 01:00 PM
  #51  
Suspended
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,039
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
Best unfaithful adaptations:

2001: A Space Odyssey
The Birds


... both from very short, relatively unknown and undetailed short stories.

Worst unfaithful adaptations:

The Da Vinci Code

... from a highly-detailed novel millions of readers practically memorized;

and A Beautiful Mind, which forgot to mention that its hero, John Nash, was gay and that his schizophrenia had been aggravated by the government's persecution of homosexuals. Both these adaptations were by Akiva Goldsman, by the way, and both films were directed by Ron Howard.

Last edited by baracine; 11-22-06 at 01:19 PM.
Old 11-24-06, 07:56 AM
  #52  
DVD Talk Limited Edition
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: New York
Posts: 6,410
Likes: 0
Received 2 Likes on 2 Posts
The film Paper Moon, which was originally a book called Addie Pray, was much better paced overall. The film ends when Moses drops off Addie at the aunt's, then drives off. Addie races after his car and eventually catches up to him, and says, you still owe me two hunnred dollars!. The book, while good for 1/3, really slowed down towards the end, which went from Moses dropping Addie off, then Addie racing after the car, then going on another adventure - this time involving an old lady that Addie gets sweet on (not in the sexual way).

Another two examples of the films being superior:
1) The Poseiden Adventure (seems to have too many characters in the book, including the parents of 'Sis' and Robin, the two kids)

2) L.A. Confidential - nothing bad about it, per si, but I suppose the writing style was hard to get into.
Old 11-24-06, 08:05 AM
  #53  
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 8,970
Likes: 0
Received 237 Likes on 170 Posts
Originally Posted by Meglos
The Spy Who Loved Me
...and
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
OCTOPUSSY
(FROM) A VIEW TO A KILL
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
Old 11-25-06, 07:19 AM
  #54  
DVD Talk Godfather
 
Giantrobo's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 1999
Location: Gateway Cities/Harbor Region
Posts: 62,706
Received 1,566 Likes on 989 Posts
Originally Posted by Buttmunker

2) L.A. Confidential - nothing bad about it, per si, but I suppose the writing style was hard to get into.

I don't know, I liked both but of the many things that were changed or ignored in the movie was that the Mexican girl had much larger role in the book than just some random victim of rape. Also, Kim Basinger's role was minor in the book but much expaned in the movie. They pretty much made her a central character in the film but she wasn't. That always bothered me. But I guess they needed a pretty white face for a love interest.
Old 11-26-06, 12:33 AM
  #55  
DVD Talk Limited Edition
 
Join Date: Sep 1999
Posts: 6,264
Likes: 0
Received 11 Likes on 7 Posts
Originally Posted by baracine
The Da Vinci Code

... from a highly-detailed novel millions of readers practically memorized;
Maybe my memory is fuzzy, but I thought the film was as faithful as its two hour plus runtime would allow (I distinctly remember leaving the theater thinking I wish they would have departed from the book to make the movie move better)
Old 11-26-06, 12:52 AM
  #56  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 414
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
While I haven't read the book, the Criterion DVD for Rififi has an interview with Jules Dassin where he talks about changing several things for the movie and the author asking where his book was in comparison to the movie. All the changes seemed like they were definitely for the better and Dassin really transformed it into something spectacular.
Old 11-26-06, 10:23 AM
  #57  
DVD Talk Legend
 
Hokeyboy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL
Posts: 20,326
Received 631 Likes on 390 Posts
Originally Posted by baracine
Worst unfaithful adaptations:

The Da Vinci Code

... from a highly-detailed novel millions of readers practically memorized;
Umm... not that I'm the biggest fan of the novel, but it was a very faithful adaptation of the book. No major discrepancies, no plot changes, no major characters written out or minor characters beefed up. It was as faithful and slavish an adaptation as you could imagine.


Which was why it was so dreadful, but that's just my opinion.
Old 11-26-06, 10:45 AM
  #58  
Suspended
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,039
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
Originally Posted by Matt Millheiser
Umm... not that I'm the biggest fan of the novel, but it was a very faithful adaptation of the book. No major discrepancies, no plot changes, no major characters written out or minor characters beefed up. It was as faithful and slavish an adaptation as you could imagine.


Which was why it was so dreadful, but that's just my opinion.
I'm quoting myself from another thread. The people who didn't read the book found it boring because it appeared to be faithful to the book, i.e. too complicated. The people who had read the book found it unfaithful. Here's why:

I disagree. In this case, the book readers were the film's captive public and they were expecting a faithful adaptation in exchange for the extra money they shelled out at the box office. The changes made only confused them. There was absolutely no good reason:

(1) to change Sophie Neveu's backstory so much that at the end her character doesn't have the consolation and emotional closure of being reunited with people she knew and loved; and

(2) to make Commissaire Fache into a member of the Opus Dei who is also a pathologically violent, easily-misled chump.

A good question to put to Jean Reno in the extras would have been: «Monsieur Reno, how does it feel to have been contractually obligated to play a part that demeans and makes hateful the sympathetic character you had been signed on to play on the basis of the book's success, especially considering that Dan Brown wrote the character with you in mind?»

Here is Bézu's part as it was written in the book ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezu_Fache ):

Spoiler:
Fache is a captain in the Direction centrale de la police judiciaire (DCPJ), the French criminal investigation police. Tough, canny and persistent, he is in charge of the investigation of Louvre Museum curator Jacques Saunière's murder in the Louvre. From the message left by the dead curator, he is convinced the murderer is Harvard professor Robert Langdon, whom he summons to the Louvre in order to extract a confession. He tries to make Langdon show hints of being the murderer, but is thwarted in his early attempt by Sophie Neveu, who knows Langdon to be innocent and surreptitiously notifies Langdon that he is in fact the prime suspect.

He then starts pursuing Langdon doggedly in the belief that letting him get away would be career suicide. However, after contact with Opus Dei leader Bishop Manuel Aringarosa about the murder of Sister Sandrine Bieil, he realizes that he made a big mistake – it was not Langdon who killed Saunière, but Aringarosa's trusted albino monk Silas, who killed the four top members of the Priory of Sion (including Saunière) under the instruction of a mysterious person called The Teacher.

Fache tries to track down Sophie and Langdon and tell them they are no longer suspects, but the two did not know and even fled to London with Langdon's friend Sir Leigh Teabing. Fache follows desperately but doesn't succeed. Unknown to all of them is that Teabing is actually the Teacher. He has a final confrontation with Langdon and Sophie at Westminster Abbey and threatens to kill them, but Fache arrives later and successfully arrests Teabing.

Fache later visits the hospitalized Bishop Aringarosa, shot by Silas accidentally after arriving in London. He sees Lieutenant Jérôme Collet on television, and is relieved that Collet did not reveal his mistake and even hints that Fache purposely framed Langdon and Sophie as a ruse to find out the real killer.


After reading and liking the book which depicted a well-meaning, good-hearted and competent police commissionner struggling against impossible odds and racing against the clock to get his facts straight, I didn't go to the movies expecting to see the adventures of a one-dimensional, sadistic, heartless, proto-Nazi, benighted, blundering French policeman who is also a gullible religious fanatic.

Bottom line: Howard and his screenwriter don't understand fiction, they don't understand reality and they don't understand films. They only understand making and breaking deals.
Old 11-26-06, 10:52 AM
  #59  
DVD Talk Legend
 
Hokeyboy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL
Posts: 20,326
Received 631 Likes on 390 Posts
Originally Posted by baracine
I'm quoting myself from another thread. The people who didn't read the book found it boring because it appeared to be faithful to the book, i.e. too complicated. The people who had read the book found it unfaithful. Here's why:
Like the movie wasn't long enough!

I still don't think those omissions result in an "unfaithful" adaptation. And Sophie's lack of "happy resolution" -- again, it's not something that bores heavily into the plot and, quite frankly, was a really pointless plot point to begin with.

Now compare DaVinci Code's "unfaithfulness" to that of, say, LESS THAN ZERO or THE SCARLET LETTER...
Old 11-26-06, 10:58 AM
  #60  
Suspended
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,039
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
Originally Posted by Matt Millheiser
Like the movie wasn't long enough!

I still don't think those omissions result in an "unfaithful" adaptation. And Sophie's lack of "happy resolution" -- again, it's not something that bores heavily into the plot and, quite frankly, was a really pointless plot point to begin with.
The whole subject of the book was Sophie's bloodline and it's been changed out of prudery.
Spoiler:
In the book, her grandfather is a descendant of Christ who must live hidden and separated from his wife (Sophie's grandmother) and his grandson (Sophie's brother) in order to save their lives from the forces who want them to disappear. In the end, Sophie is reunited with her grandmother and her brother. She learns to accept the fact that her grandfather's participation in a sex ritual - which so shocked her, she stopped seeing him for years - was part of his religion and that, besides that, his partner was her own grandmother who only saw him on those rare occasions.

In the film, her grandfather is not her grandfather (!) but only her adoptive guardian, for the sole reason that, in the book, she has seen her grandfather participate in a sex ritual and Akiva Goldsman and Ron Howard found it shocking a descendant of Christ could have a sex life. Period. Thereby ignoring the fact that you can't have a bloodline without someone or other doing the nasty every once in a while... Very mature, Opie!


To be fair, the only version of Victor Hugo's "Notre-Dame de Paris" ("The Hunchback of Notre-Dame") which respects the sad ending
Spoiler:
(the hunchback and Esmeralda die and their skeletons are found entertwined together years later in a basement of the church)
is the French version from the fifties.

Oh, and the Prince from "The Little Mermaid" did get to "kiss the girl" in the book
Spoiler:
but unfortunately, it was another girl and the mermaid stayed celibate and became a spirit of the air after renouncing to kill the Prince and his bride in exchange for gaining her voice back when she had the chance.

Last edited by baracine; 11-26-06 at 11:38 AM.

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service - Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information -

Copyright © 2023 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.