SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I just read Who Censored Roger Rabbit?. The Disney movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, had nothing to do with this story. The only overlap was the name of the characters. I enjoyed the book and the film but for different reasons. I remember The Queen of the Damned also had a horrible movie version that barely linked up with the written pages.

Have you found any other examples. Which ones do you recommend enjoying both versions, despite being completly different, and which do you have a specific preference? (I'm sure the book typically wins, but there's always the exeception *cough* The Last of the Mohicans).

So, you prefer we discuss looser adaptations, and not debate which are more faithful or true to the original, right?

Yes. I'm looking for stories that changed drastically from print to film/TV. Very loose adaptations. With Roger Rabbit this was due to changing the audience from adults to teens and preteens. Sometimes it's just to even the playing field to a casual viewer. Other times it's to save money. Not all roads lead to bad products, but they'll still keep fans of the books clamoring for a faithful adaption.

Hobbit.

*Shots fired*

Constantine/ Hellblazer. The Keanu Reeves movie is very loosely based on the comic story/character, but is a decent movie taken on its own.

Stardust - not my favorite Gaiman book, but I love the movie and think most of the changes are for the better.

Have to mention Starship Troopers. Heinlein's book was a classic YA novel in its day. The movie version was a horrible parody.

Seconding Stardust. The book is far weirder than the movie. This is not usually a bad thing, but the movie has a more enjoyable story for the most part. (I blame the princes.)

I know everyone may not agree with it because it hits all of the plot points but I feel like Matilda the movie is very different (and also better) than Matilda the book.

As for the Hobbit I second someone's opinion that what the movie makers were actually looking for was something along the lines of The Silmarillion. It has so much drama and very little accessibility and it would have made a really epic movie.

Dune (movie was weird and has a cult following) but Dune (the book) is really good

Game of Thrones (TV series) had far more sex than the books, left out tons of characters, but other than the rather rushed last season was pretty good. The books were good

Cloud Atlas.

Allison wrote: "Hobbit.


Which film?

Cheryl wrote: "Allison wrote: "Hobbit.


Which film?"

All of them! I like the movies though *ducks for cover*.

The Neverending Story is also a prime example! Greatly changed and only covers 1/3 of the book's plot (before the big plot twist and before anything that shows what the book was really about), reducing it to such a generic story. I loved the movie as little child, but the book is SO MUCH better and really worth reading.

Sticking to SFF:

I Am Legend, filmed three times, each different yet similar to the book. The Last Man on Earth (Vincent Price), The Omega Man (Charlton Heston), and I Am Legend (Will Smith). The first two are decent adaptations overall while the third is best forgotten because of its religious fundamentalism anti-science BS. Which is a shame because it is by far the scariest. The book isn’t great but it has a certain *something* that has given it staying power for 65 years.

Jurassic Park. The movie, for all its faults, is far superior. So much so that Crichton’s sequel was to the movie, not his book.

Who Goes There? was filmed as The Thing from Another World and then as The Thing. The story is scary as hell and really inventive for something written in the 1930s, managing to out-Lovecraft Lovecraft. Although the first film deviates significantly from the novella, it’s still really good, easily one of the best sci-fi films of the 1950s. John Carpenter’s version, however, is nearly perfect, managing to incorporate both the original story and the first adaptation, a feat still unequaled in cinema. I vastly prefer Carpenter’s version because it removes the Thing’s psychic abilities and turns it into a pure SF-Horror story. For my money it is the best SF-Horror film ever made.

The Shining book is different from the movie but for me it’s six of one, half-dozen of the other. Some things I prefer in the book (Scatman Crothers lives), while others I prefer in the film (the Overlook isn’t blown up).

Dune has been both terrible movie and tepid miniseries. The book is better. However, I have high hopes for the upcoming 2020 adaptation by Dennis Villanueve.

Speaking of Villanueve, the reason I’m excited for Dune is because his film Arrival was a masterclass in adapting the Ted Chiang short story “Stories of Your Life.” (Stories of Your Life and Others) Both are terrific, but I’m giving the nod to the film.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, filmed twice as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. For me this is a no-brainer: the Gene Wilder movie is best. It takes out the racism but keeps the dark humor while adding terrific songs. The Tim Burton movie tries to do what The Thing accomplished by honoring both book and original film, but fails badly.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has a movie which added some neat stuff, but for me the book is far superior. The film goes on too long and the child snatcher business is too dark. The book is just more pro-kid with the siblings having more agency and overall more fun.

Finally, every Disney animated film based on existing stories. Some are fine but for most I prefer the original tales.

John wrote: "Have to mention Starship Troopers. Heinlein's book was a classic YA novel in its day. The movie version was a horrible parody."

So true. Agree or disagree with Heinlein’s ideas, the book certainly has fodder for discussion about his alternative form of government. He also followed the technology of the powered combat suits to their logical conclusion, with each soldier essentially becoming a walking tank that had the firepower of a whole battalion, so they each fought on their own.

The movie takes all the interesting political discourse and replaces it with straight fascism, both eliminates the power armor and marks the soldiers into utter idiots, while at the same time whitewashing the entire story. Johnny Rico is revealed to be Philippino in the book, quite a shock at the time. A modern version would make him gay, especially when the film came out. (No pun intended.)

Ready Player One.

The Shining. The novel was scary as all get out. But not having the CGI back then so much of what was frightening in the book couldn't be replicated onscreen. Also Kubrick's supernatural skepticism also leaned away from getting completely into the story in the same way that the book did. The onscreen version was not bad but it could have been better if they had had access to the CGI.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
The film has the same name, & a wall in Israel. Those are the only 2 similarities I noticed! :-O

Joelle wrote: "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
The film has the same name, & a wall in Israel. Those are the only 2 similarities I noticed! :-O"

number one reason i didn't go to see the movie after reading the reviews

Joelle wrote: "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
The film has the same name, & a wall in Israel. Those are the only 2 similarities I noticed! :-O"

That’s a good one. I think I blocked it out entirely.

Joelle wrote: "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
The film has the same name, & a wall in Israel. Those are the only 2 similarities I noticed! :-O"

The film was so frustrating... there are so many great stories in the book (for those who haven’t read it, it’s essentially a collection of zombie-themed short stories linked by a framing narrative about a journalist writing an oral history of the zombie war), almost any one of which could have made a decent film.

Instead they made up something new and far less compelling and then stuck the ‘World War Z’ name on it.

Yep, Stardust and Jurrasic Park are good examples, though I have yet to read Stardust as a book.
Also, Edge of Tomorrow is quite loose implementation of All You Need Is Kill.

Blade Runner is supposedly based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick, but they are drastically different and only share character names and the basic premise. I love them both equally well.

Other movies based on stories by Philip K. Dick were very different from the text that inspired them, like Minority Report and Total Recall.

I love both Howl's Moving Castle the book and the movie, even if they're very different and in the second half they diverge completely.

Instead The Dark Tower is one of the worst adaptations I've seen in recent years. Let's say that the only thing it shares with The Gunslinger (and sequels) are the names of some of the protagonists.

Practical Magic the movie and the book by Alice Hoffman. I love them both. They have the same characters but they’re different in a lot of ways. I was too scared to read the book just in case it ruined the movie for me. It didn’t.

World War Z is an excellent example of a bad adaption. I agree Omega Man is a good adaption albeit very different from I Am Legend.

Oh, The Seeker: The Dark is Rising from The Dark Is Rising. THEY SET IT IN AMERICA! I refuse to believe that the movie adaptation exists, TBH. It was a baffling change and I definitely prefer the book.

Disney has been mentioned but I have to specifically mention The Black Cauldron which was an attempt to mash together all five books of The Chronicles of Prydain and really nothing like the (second) book in the series that has the same name. That said, I still have a soft spot for it.

Phillip wrote: "World War Z is an excellent example of a bad adaption. I agree Omega Man is a good adaption albeit very different from I Am Legend."

The first film version, The Last Man On Earth, from 1964 with Vincent Price is the most faithful adaptation to the I Am Legend book

The film version of The Snows of Kilimanjaro changes the ending - actually exactly the opposite to what happens in the book, and ruins it

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz very different to the film, - it's not a dream, there are killer bees, and a giant spider and no rainbow for a start

Cujo the happy ending only happens in the film

The Poseidon Adventure big changes from the book, namely another group of survivors get out unscathed and if the main priest character had let his group go with them, they would have all made it too

The Children of Men - The book is EXCESSIVELY boring and narcissistic, and the movie actually took the best parts of it and made something decent out of it. I read the book after the movie, and besides the 'infertility causing extinction' concept and the character names, they might have been two completely different things.

Trike wrote: "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has a movie which added some neat stuff, but for me the book is far superior."

You beat me to it. This was the movie that taught me cynicism. My father used to read the book to me and my brother every Christmas. When the movie came out I was 10 years old and ecstatic it was coming to film … 20 min into the film and I was so pi55ed off I tried to get my parents to walk out on the film.

It turned me against movies based on films, an attitude which has mostly persisted the rest of my life.

Diane wrote: "Blade Runner is supposedly based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick, but they are drastically different and only share character names and the basic premise. I love them both..."

That's one of the few I can say I like both versions of … if we're talking about the "Final Cut" version of the film which was far superior to the original theatrical release.

However, there are actually a lot of core parts of the book in the movie. It's an interesting remake of the book, leaving out a lot of really cool ideas (Mercerism, mood organs, spoilery things like (view spoiler)[the android police station (hide spoiler)], etc.) and changing the main character's entire motivation and family situation … but somehow it seems to have remained true to the fundamental ideals of the book.

I'd still like to see someone do a movie closely following the book. A mini-series even. Just drop the whole "Blade Runner" thing and go with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

... Now that I think about it, it would be far easier to discuss the movies that got it right. The list, at least, would be much smaller!

Diane wrote: "Blade Runner is supposedly based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick, but they are drastically different and only share character names and the basic premise. I love them both..."

Maybe I should re-read the book. I read it as an adult and Blade Runner was my favourite childhood movie. I didn't realize the book was going to be so different and I think that coloured my experience.

Under the Skin. I enjoyed both, but was most impressed with the film adaptation. The film had even less explanation than the book, but it oozes mystery, looks amazing and the music score is incredible.

Arthur wrote: "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz very different to the film, - it's not a dream, there are killer bees, and a giant spider and no rainbow for a start"

Very true. The Wicked Witch is barely in it. Dorothy acted more like an assassin (quick and professional).

Arthur wrote: "Cujo the happy ending only happens in the film"

Boy did that one differ.

Giulia wrote: "Instead The Dark Tower is one of the worst adaptations I've seen in recent years. Let's say that the only thing it shares with The Gunslinger (and sequels) are the names of some of the protagonists."

YES. The "In Name Only" award absolutely HAS to go to "The Dark Tower". What an absolute shitfest.

How they possibly expected to fit 7 (and an addendum) books into one movie that was half the length of ONE of The Hobbit movies is mind-boggling.

As someone who is a massive fan of the books, read them dozens of times and have freaking tattoos dedicated to it, I was confused by what the hell was happening, and trying to explain it (and everything wrong with it) to my hubby who hadn't read it (and didn't much care) was painful beyond belief. God what a trainwreck that was.

I'm still salty over it. Second worst thing to come from 2017.

Eva wrote: "The Neverending Story is also a prime example! Greatly changed and only covers 1/3 of the book's plot (before the big plot twist and before anything that shows what the book was really about), reducing it to such a generic story. I loved the movie as little child, but the book is SO MUCH better and really worth reading. "


I agree about Neverending Story, but in the opposite order. I loved the movie as a kid (and adult), but found the book boring.

Penelope wrote: "The Shining. The novel was scary as all get out. But not having the CGI back then so much of what was frightening in the book couldn't be replicated onscreen. Also Kubrick's supernatural skepticism..."


The mini-series version of The Shining is a much more faithful adaptation and, imo, just a better show. (It even has the (view spoiler)[moving topiary animals (hide spoiler)], which is, for me, the creepiest part.)

Arthur wrote: "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz very different to the film, - it's not a dream, there are killer bees, and a giant spider and no rainbow for a start"


I was very underwhelmed with the book when I finally got around to reading it.

***

In the same vein, Wicked the book vs the musical. VERY different stories and a lot of people prefer the musical - though I haven't seen it yet, because I quite liked the book and wasn't sure I could be on the board for all the changes.

Trike wrote: "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, filmed twice as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. For me this is a no-brainer: the Gene Wilder movie is best. It takes out the racism but keeps the dark humor while adding terrific songs. The Tim Burton movie tries to do what The Thing accomplished by honoring both book and original film, but fails badly. "


I usually love Tim Burton and Johnny Depp - but that movie was a disaster. The only good part, for me, was the animatronic things at the beginning catching fire and being totally creepy.

Colleen, that's why I generally dislike seeing the movie ahead of the book.

Oh! I would also throw The Harry Potter series (minus the very first movie, MAYBE the 2nd) out there. From the 3rd movie on, it was really aggravating how different they were from the books. Some of the major plot points were hit, but for the most part, it's just bad.

Becky wrote: "Colleen, that's why I generally dislike seeing the movie ahead of the book."


There were a lot of things I've seen as movies that I didn't even realize were books until later - like the Neverending Story. But I'm honestly not sure I would've liked the book even if I had read it first.

That reminds me of another example, though:

The Magicians. Read the first book, kind of hated it - but I really enjoy the TV series.

People who loved the book hate the changes that the TV series made, but I, obviously, think they made some good changes - like not making me literally hate every single character.

Becky wrote: "Oh! I would also throw The Harry Potter series (minus the very first movie, MAYBE the 2nd) out there. From the 3rd movie on, it was really aggravating how different they were from the books. Some o..."


Every time I see the movies it just makes me want to reread the books to remind myself how it "really happened".

I think Phil was asking for things that are INCREDIBLY liberal with their interpretation of the book, not just bad adaptations. Is that right, Phil?

Allison wrote: "I think Phil was asking for things that are INCREDIBLY liberal with their interpretation of the book, not just bad adaptations. Is that right, Phil?"

Oh, yes, sorry, Phil!

Dark Tower still wins though. ;)

The Mist Even King admits that this one has a better ending than the novella