Risselada
Posts 1368
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12/14/2007 12:14 PM
posted awhile ago
They changed the ending
In movie adaptations they so often change the ending? Is this always a crime? It seems like nine times out of ten people hate the ending when it's different from the source material. So why do they do it?? One of my favorite books since I was young has been Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. I remember reading the book in an entire sitting when I was a young adolesecent. It's short and simple, and although I won't deny that parts of the plot are a bit shakey or uncertain if you truely examine it, it's probably the best flat out mystery book I've ever read (although I haven't read many so I'm not saying there couldn't be better ones). Anyways, with any novel the whole thing must be great for it to be a great novel overall, but especially with a mystery novel the ending is of course essential because you will look back on everything in a new light. Well I just saw the original movie adaptation of this book released in 1945 and directed by René Clair. The ending is rather different, and there are a few other weird changes. But what I found out is that it's actually based on the play version which was written or approved by Christie as well. The new ending is more of the "happy" ending which I guess she thought was more appropriate in a time where WWII had just ended. Well it's just reeeeally hard to judge a movie in this situation. How would I have liked it if I hadn't been already anticipating a certain ending? Hard to say. But upon reflection I did mostly enjoy it. Walter Huston is always fantastic. I can't give too many more complaints without revealing essential portions of the plot, but I'm disappointed to find out that even subsequent film and TV adaptations have kept the happier ending from what I read. So what do you think? Was there ever a movie adaptation of a source where the ending was changed for the better?
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TheWorkingDead
Posts 238
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12/15/2007 2:00 AM
posted awhile ago
Re:They changed the ending
It appears that there were some errors in your post, that are the result of some glitch in spout. Does anyone else notice this? When I look at your post in the discussion thread, there are sentence fragments that are mysteriously missing, but now that i'm replying, I can see the entire post as you wrote it. I think much of the 'altered ending' phenomena is due to wanting to surprise the audience, which is hard to do when most of them have read the book. You're right, most of the time that doesn't work, but sometimes it does. Two examples come to mind; The Mist and Hannibal. The movie version of The Mist changes a few things, but is almost exactly what I envisioned when I read the novella. What small changes there were I actually thought worked great, and although they worked well in the book, would have distracted from the 'message' of the filmed version. Right up until the end. The end of the book is fine, but is one of those Stephen King cop-outs, a vague non-ending that he uses a lot. But the movie's ending is very straightforward, very definite. And I loved it. I won't ruin it here, but I think, after a bit of deliberation on my part, that the ending of the movie clarifies and magnifies the core themes of the movie. I also prefer the movie version of Hannibal to the book version, although part of that may be that a time waster of a movie is less offensive than a time waster of a novel, which eats up much more of your life. There are two things that Hannibal the film changed from the novel; the backstory explaining why Hannibal eats people, which was very on-the-nose. Maybe it made him more sympathetic, but it also made him significantly less mysterious and frightening. And then that ending. I will be giving spoilers here, so if you don't want to know the ending(s), stop reading now. The end of the book has Lecter kidnapping Clarice and brainwashing her until at the very end they're off in some foreign land, loving, living, killing and eating, all while she's his mindless love slave. Horrible! Everything about Lecter showed that he was attracted to Clarice for her independence and intelligence, and he took all that away by brainwashing her. Plus, brainwashing?! This is not the Thomas Harris I loved reading through Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. The movie bypasses that, by having it end at the showdown where he cuts off his own hand, leaving the 'romance' between them unrequited. For those two changes alone I prefer the movie.
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