TheWorkingDead
Posts 236
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11/28/2007 12:35 PM
posted awhile ago
They Got it Wrong
The flipside to my argument for modifying source material is that sometimes, well, that just doesn't work. Everyone interprets what they read differently, and based on their own biases and experiences will obviously get varying meanings from the same book. This backfires, sometimes, and makes it very easy to completely miss the mark. I think, honestly, the list of 'bad' adaptations would be quite a bit longer than the list of 'good' adaptations. One of the worst I can think of would have to be Breakfast of Champions, based on the book by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who I rank as one of the best american novelists of our time, if not my own personal favorite. Robert Altman apparently wanted to film this book in the 70s, and I can only dream of what that movie would have been like. Altman's jumbled, cynical but humane sensibilities could have meshed perfectly with Vonnegut's bleakly humorous, but in the end compassionate writing style. Instead we had to wait until the late 90s, and got smirking Bruce Willis as the lead(I have nothing against Bruce Willis, but he's a bad fit for this film). To be fair, Vonnegut is almost unfilmable as written, and it amazes me that we have two good movies out there based on his works as it is(Slaughterhouse 5 & Mother Night). It's a tricky thing to capture, Vonnegut's tendency to jump forward and backward in time, throw in little asides, put himself into the story, tie in other books, and spend great passages ruminating on things that don't directly tie in to the action of the book. I thin it's a result of his background in journalism, but Vonnegut has a tendency to give away information about upcoming events in the story whole chapters before they happen, just as in journalism you always start your story with the biggest piece of information and then jump back to the beginning. Mother Night succeeded by sticking to a fairly linear style, with the flashbacks always proceeding forward. Keith Gordon kept some of the foreshadowing of the book, but made it more subtle, with camera shots that lingered meaningfully on a character while voice over continued the story. Breakfast of Champions, however, went in the opposite direction, trading subtlety and good taste for crass, in-your-face wackiness. Breakfast of Champions, the book, is hilarious, but also full of sadness. The chaos kept in check by the melancholy beneath the surface. The movie, however, seems more interested in the hilarity, and turns the events into a loud, unfunny cartoon. There's darkness, to be sure, as Willis contemplates suicide with a gun in his mouth, but the movie never really explores that. It's just another thing that happens, in between Nick Nolte's crossdressing car salesman and Omar Epps' over-eager suck up. And so, I've gone on long enough. What are some truly heinous films that have been made from your favorite books? I know there's got to be plenty.
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myrdynn
Posts 8
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12/2/2007 8:51 AM
posted awhile ago
Re:They Got it Wrong
The worst I've seen are:- Lawnmower Man, which is truly horrible. Stephen King's story was SO much better. Running Man, the movie wasn't too bad, but completely missed the dark desperation in King's story. (Yes, I'm a big SK fan!) Starship Troopers, I actually liked the movie, then I read the book and wondered why they cut all the social commentary for the movie. The book is better,
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TheWorkingDead
Posts 236
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12/2/2007 4:00 PM
posted awhile ago
Re:Re:They Got it Wrong
 myrdynn:The worst I've seen are:- Lawnmower Man, which is truly horrible. Stephen King's story was SO much better. Running Man, the movie wasn't too bad, but completely missed the dark desperation in King's story. (Yes, I'm a big SK fan!) Starship Troopers, I actually liked the movie, then I read the book and wondered why they cut all the social commentary for the movie. The book is better,
Lawnmower Man was awesome when I was... younger(don't remember the precise age), but it wasn't even based on that King story. He successfully sued to have his name removed from it. And I still like Starship Troopers, but then I haven't read the book. I can still see a bit of social commentary in the movie, although it's pretty blatant anti-fascism. I'm not sure what the stance of the book was.
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TheWorkingDead
Posts 236
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12/2/2007 8:12 PM
posted awhile ago
Re:Re:Re:Re:They Got it Wrong
Loosely? Man, I'll never understand how someone read that story and came up with that movie. Either it got passed from writer from writer until it was incredibly mangled(like a Hollywood version of "telephone"), or they slapped the "Stephen King" name on it just to get more press. The movie isn't horrible, but it certainly hasn't aged well at all. And the only connection I've been able to spot between story and movie is that the story mentions the character's remains being put in a bird bath, and while the police investigate one of Jobe's murders they mention the remains being put in the birdbath. A quick wikipedia search; Apparently the original movie was titled Cyber God, but when New Line had the rights to the Lawnmower Man story and added the title to get more press for the movie. Guess my second guess was closer to the money.
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