Sometimes both the source material and the movie suck, even with drastic changes. See: The Lost World.

The Lost World is an adaptation in name only (I assume you mean the Michael Crichton book). The book and the film were written at the same time, essentially so each one would be helped by the success of the other. Very little of Crichton's hurriedly-assembled cash-in was used in the final film, leaving the writers to cobble together what they had based on Crichton's outlines and fill in the rest - several scenes of the film are based on bits from Jurassic Park.

Now, The Lost World could have been amazing with a little more imagination and a little less desire to meet a release date. If one were looking for any artistic merit, which has to be at the heart of any good film, there's something to be said about the plot itself following money-hungry businessmen trying to replicate the original phenomenon's success as quickly as possible without any care or vision.

When adapting a book I feel it is essential to keep all key story points of the source material in tact. One thing many recent adaptations of popular teen fiction (Twilight saga, Hunger Games) has made is realizing that at least 60% of its audience will have already read the material, therefore they feel no need to make it appealing to those who haven't read.

I think the same mistake was made with the comic movie Watchmen, which I feel was made to where not only were readers the only group that would appreciate it, they also were most likely the only ones who knew what the hell was going on half the time.

I feel that in adapting comic books they should never try to follow any one story in particular. The one element that makes that kind of movie work IMO is if it stays true to the characters in the source material. The first two X-Men movies are a great example of this aspect.

Also, I thought both Lost World the book and movie were highly entertaining, but little more than fluff. In fact, after reading a lot of other work by Crichton including the original Jurassic Park I found Lost World to be so pulpy that I half expected Tarzan to show up and help the characters.

Not the spirit of Iron Man himself, but the character of the Mandarin. What was changed with Ra's al Ghul in Batman? Outside of his death and not including the Lazarus pit, his character and motivations seemed in line from my limited knowledge of him.

I agree with you on the feeling of entitlement to various properties, but at the end of the day I treat all the complaints and criticisms the same, whether its from a fan of the property or not. I don't put any more weight behind the complaints of someone who has a longer history with the property through various mediums. There were more legitimate complaints behind the Iron Man example, one i've trade to make in the Reviews thread, but people who disagreed with complaints about the movie just chalked it up to fan boy type complaints and "butt hurt," which was pretty humorous to me.

The Lazarus Pit is kind of a big thing to leave out, as he's supposed to be hundreds of years old and like, Arab.

I don't know enough about Mandarin to say that his (Killian) motivations were drastically different from the comics. I still say the fact that it was played for laughs is what was a sore spot for fans.

If you are adapting a book to a movie, then maintain WHY you are doing the adaptation. The details aren't as important - but the heart of the story is. Especially when those details are changed in the interest of time.

That's why I think the Harry Potter book/movies were so successful - they maintained that throughout.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(1972_film)

In the literary Solaris, Stanisław Lem describes science’s inadequacy in allowing humans to communicate with an alien life form, because certain forms, at least, of sentient extra-terrestrial life may operate well outside of human experience and understanding. In the cinematic Solaris, Tarkovsky concentrates upon Kelvin's feelings for his wife, Hari, and the impact of outer space exploration upon the human condition. Dr. Gibarian’s monologue [from the novel’s sixth chapter] is the highlight of the final library scene, wherein Snaut says, “We don’t need other worlds. We need mirrors”. Unlike the novel, which begins with psychologist Kris Kelvin's spaceflight, and occurs entirely on Solaris, the film shows Kelvin’s visit to his parents' house in the country before leaving Earth for Solaris. The contrast establishes the worlds in which he lives — a vibrantly living Earth versus an austere, closed-in space station orbiting the planet Solaris — demonstrating and questioning space exploration’s impact upon the human psyche.......

Although Stanisław Lem worked with Tarkovsky and Friedrich Gorenstein in developing the screenplay, Lem maintained that he "never really liked Tarkovsky’s version” of his novel. Tarkovsky wanted a film story based on the novel but artistically independent of its origin. However, Lem opposed any divergence of the screenplay from the novel. Tarkovsky claimed that Lem did not fully appreciate cinema and that he expected the film to merely illustrate the novel without creating an original cinematic piece. Tarkovsky’s film is about the inner lives of its scientists as human beings. Lem’s novel is about the conflicts of man’s condition in nature and the nature of man in the universe. For Tarkovsky, Lem's exposition of that existential conflict was the starting point for describing the inner lives of the characters.

As close as possible. I love the X-men movies, but one of the main things that bugged me, other than having members from different eras being together when it doesn't make sense, are that they didn't have the proper comic uniforms.

What. The. Fuck.

I love the novel of American Psycho. It's one of the most disturbing and claustrophobic books I've ever read. But I also love the movie, which heightens the satirical aspects in a way that works for film. The book as written would make a horrendous movie.

Personally, I'd say that American Psycho is the best film of the '00s. And if not singularly the best, then one of the best.

As far as the original question goes, it depends on the book, and the film. I do think that if changes are made, there should be very definite story/theme/character reasons why. Too many movies make changes because they think it will satisfy a certain demographic, and that's not a reason to make a change.

FWIW, one of the best adaptations of a popular novel into a successful movie I have seen was of John Grisham's A Time to Kill. It kept all that was important, and left out the stuff that wouldn't have helped it. My only gripe was

I recently watched this film for the first time (never read the novel) and while I enjoyed it as decent mainstream fluff, that same scene bugged the hell out of me too. One of the most over the top, "Just no...trials do NOT work like that!" moments since Henry Fonda's automatic mistrial granting antics in 12 Angry Men (such an amazing film otherwise that I can look past it, but it is REALLY egregious what Fonda's character does in that film).

It made sense in the movies, didn't it?
And then they would have looked foolish.

It depends on how the changes are made any why they are made. Are they done for the sake of the movie's format or clarity, and does that change significantly take away from the story's intent?

For example, moving the Shelob scene from being a cliffhanger ending of The Two Towers to being later in Return of the King. That was done because otherwise Frodo wouldn't appear in the final movie until the last leg. That would just be odd for a movie format, plus with casting and such, and what's released in trailers, it would be a surprise to nobody that Frodo would have survived his apparrent death.


A double-edged sword is when movies try to be fully faithful to their source material, and split a single book into multiple movies (Deathly Hallows, Breaking Dawn, The Hobbit). While it's commendable to do this, I can't bring myself to watch a movie based on a third of a book. I really don't want to see The Hobbit until all three movies are out. The budget might be an issue, but these really do scream that they need to be miniseries. The first season of Dexter was based on a book, and it could have easily been made into a shorter movie instead. Can you imagine how awesome it would be if Harry Potter had instead been released as a seperate BBC series for each book?

I was hoping BBC would do this for the Patrick O'Brian Jack Aubrey books. They did it for the Sharpe's and Hornblower books. There's so much unfilmed material there, it seems like they would be eager to pursue it instead of remaking Dickens and Austen novels for the 35th time. Maybe it's too costly for a government-funded network?

Wolverine: "You guys actually go outside in these things?"
Cyclops: "What would you prefer? Yellow spandex?"

The traditional comic costumes would look fucking retarded in live action. Wolverine would have looked like a Burt Ward as Robin level of retarded.

Bingo. Even if you disagree with changing the costumes, at least they made that change for a reason, and with that gag they even acknowledged it to the audience. It's possible to keep the costumes if done right but it's just another risk.

Do you like Huey Lewis & the News?

I love the story behind the screenplay of Rosemary's Baby. Polanski had the rights to adapt Levin's novel, but was still new enough in the business that he didn't know he was allowed to make changes to the source material. With only a few minor exceptions, you can sit with the book in front of you and watch as the movie follows along with it. There are even scene breaks where chapters end.

It worked fine for Spider-Man and the Avengers.

I think it would have been silly to have Hugh Jackman prance around in the yellow costume. Not sure about the others.

What? Green Goblin in the movie was completely different from the comic. Doc Ock didn't wear his green spandex suit either. Spidey wore spandex, but that was because he got his suit from the wrestling gig he did, and wrestlers do wear spandex. Plus Spidey is a 15 year old nerdy kid. Nerdy kids don't usually have the greatest fashion sense.

The Avengers all wore similar looking suits to their comic counterparts, but they were also quite different too. Captain America for instance didn't actually have wings on his helmet. They were painted on instead. Thor also looked different. Hawkeye was the most radical departure and looked almost nothing like his comic counterpart who wore purple spandex. Iron Man and Hulk looked the closest to their comic counterparts, and that's because a big metal suit looks good in live action anyway and Hulk doesn't really have a costume anyway.

I liked all the Potter movies but really enjoy the first 2 the most. They most closely follow the book. I think the story is the most important element in the movie and is far more important than technical ability. Even though Prisoner of Azkaban was a great technical achievement I think it lost alot by ignoring the origins of The Marauders Map. Something like that bothers me more than the supposed plodding and unimaginative style of Chris Columbus.

I'm sure it would have been stylized in some way. The brown costume might have looked better.

What do you mean what? Spider-Man looked just like his comic book counterpart, and all the Avengers pretty much wore a costume that maintained the spirit of the costume from the comics with relatively minor changes. Yeah, Hawkeye's typical comic costume was ridiculous, and in his new series costume resembles the movie, so its not that bad. Complaining about wings on Captain America is silly given the rest of his costume is easy to identify the character.

Obviously not everything translates perfectly, but to generically say that "The traditional comic costumes would look fucking retarded in live action" is flat out wrong, and there are plenty of examples that show it.

Comic book movies vary. For Avengers, it worked. For X-Men, it wouldn't have worked, unless the movie was set in the 1980s.

As a non comic book fan of Iron Man I wondered why a middle eastern villain was named the Mandarin. It seems to have upset the fans while being a WTF? to me.

More on topic, as said before, it should keep the spirit.