What are some examples of adaptations veering from source material well?

[stokeriño]

Much as I love virtually every version of The Count of Monte Cristo (all of which, including the original book, have their flaws), it was especially a masterstroke for the anime adaptation 'Gankutsuou' to a) start in the middle of the story, and b) change the lead character from the Count to the naive kid Albert. You get the experience of unraveling a mystery and the tension really building, which aren't possible when you're led through everything from the beginning in the original and most other versions.

(True, the ending of the series is changed to slap on a lot more Classic Anime Bullshit, but even that's not as bad as some of the film versions that do whatever the fuck they feel like with the entire second half of the story.)

Another example that's just crossed my mind is Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr. Fox', which inevitably adds/changes so much to what is a very short book, but I love everything about it.

[Mick]

I really do enjoy the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film (I haven't seen Conan the Destroyer and I do not plan to. Ever.) I do know that Robert Howard made a whole massive fantasy world called Hyborea, that it's part of the Cthulhu mythos due to Howard and Lovecraft's friendship, and that the stories focused on Conan or Kull. I know there's enough of a divergence to make it a bit notable. But still, I like it. It's a good 'have a Coke and a pizza' quiet evening in movie. 

 

 

And I'm also throwing this out because it's not a bad one, Gettysburg itself is an adaptation of The Killer Angels. 

[Hobo]

On 08/10/2024 at 03:11, Hellraiser said:

Forrest Gump as well. I never read the original novel, but the consensus among those who did seems to be that the book is awful. They apparently cut a lot of crap when writing the screenplay for the movie adaptation including Forrest becoming an astronaut, being put in a flight alongside a orangutan which crashes somewhere in New Guinea resulting with him having to deal with a tribe of cannibals.

 

My understanding is the book is not quite as serious as the movie on the whole.

On 09/10/2024 at 16:31, Lint said:

In First Blood, aka Rambo, he only kills one person, and its by accident

In the novel First Blood, he's basically a murder machine who almost enjoys killing all the people who are coming after him

the sequels more than make up for that fact

Also, from what I understand, Jaws the novel isn't great.

[Mick]

I did read it and it's not really that great; Forrest isn't....Forrest per se, but is more like a savant, and his adventures are even dumber. Forrest spends time as a pro wrestler. Yes. Yes, that happens. And it's terrible. Forrest goes into space; Sadly, I can't say this is a parody of Apollo 13, what with Gary Sinise and whatnot, but it was just a bad book. 

As I said, Jaws was not a great novel, and honestly, Peter Benchley was a one track writer who only knew how to write about monster sea creatures that were...killing, but just misunderstood animals. The only good thing I'll say to Jaws is that it made me discover different words for different body parts, as well as certain aspects of human sexuality I was not aware of. 

[Hobo]

16 hours ago, Mick said:

I did read it and it's not really that great; Forrest isn't....Forrest per se, but is more like a savant, and his adventures are even dumber. Forrest spends time as a pro wrestler. Yes. Yes, that happens. And it's terrible. Forrest goes into space; Sadly, I can't say this is a parody of Apollo 13, what with Gary Sinise and whatnot, but it was just a bad book. 

As I said, Jaws was not a great novel, and honestly, Peter Benchley was a one track writer who only knew how to write about monster sea creatures that were...killing, but just misunderstood animals. The only good thing I'll say to Jaws is that it made me discover different words for different body parts, as well as certain aspects of human sexuality I was not aware of. 

Speaking of Jaws, Patrick Willems' video looking to try and see what the movie would've been like if the shark had worked using available shooting scripts is pretty interesting as an exercise in how films can evolve during the process of making them.

[Mick]

6 hours ago, Hobo said:

Speaking of Jaws, Patrick Willems' video looking to try and see what the movie would've been like if the shark had worked using available shooting scripts is pretty interesting as an exercise in how films can evolve during the process of making them.

 

The whole production was really just a nightmare from what I understand. 

[Hellraiser]

Hannibal (the sequel to Silence Of The Lambs) is another one. I don't like either the book nor the adaptation by Ridley Scott. Jodie Foster made the right decision to walk away from that mess. That being said, the script writers had the right idea to change the ending. In the book, Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter end up as a couple. I'm just going to quite the relevant section of the plot from Wikipedia. It should be pretty self-explanatory:
 

Spoiler

Lecter brings Starling to his home in Maryland and attends to her wounds. Over a lengthy period of time, using a regimen of psychotropic drugs, hypnosis and behavioral therapy, he attempts to help Starling heal from her childhood trauma and her pent-up anger at the injustices of the world. His therapy culminates in a session where he presents her with her father's exhumed skeleton, allowing her to confront the displaced anger and abandonment issues stemming from his murder. Soon after, Lecter captures Krendler with Margot Verger's help and proceeds to lobotomize him during a dinner in which he and Starling eat Krendler's prefrontal cortex before Lecter kills him. After the dinner, Starling confronts Lecter on his goal to replace her personality with that of his sister Mischa, asking him if there is a way for both of them to exist. She partially undresses and offers one of her breasts to Lecter. Lecter goes down on a knee before Starling, accepting her offer. The two become lovers and disappear together.

I also though that Mason's death in the movie (he gets eaten by a heard of hogs) was much more gruesome than in the novel where his lesbian bodybuilding sister who he abused as a child (another subplot they thankfully chose to omit in the movie) shoves one of his pet eels in his throat.

[Skummy]

On 13/10/2024 at 13:25, Hobo said:

Speaking of Jaws, Patrick Willems' video looking to try and see what the movie would've been like if the shark had worked using available shooting scripts is pretty interesting as an exercise in how films can evolve during the process of making them.

I was talking to a mate in the pub a couple of weeks ago about AI, and someone at the table next to us butted it with the usual, "yeah, but you're talking about AI now, not what AI will be capable of in five years time", and about how by then all the limitations will be ironed out, and you'll be able to just tell it to make whatever movie you wanted.

The example I pointed to then, and will probably continue to make whenever that argument comes up, is that an AI would never have made Jaws. Because everything that made that movie is great is born of having to adapt to the problems of making it, and of how it evolved through that process. That's true of every film, and pretty much any creative act, that it's shaped through the work and through the accidents and coincidences and everything else that takes place during that work, but never really as glaringly so as in Jaws.

[Hobo]

2 hours ago, Skummy said:

I was talking to a mate in the pub a couple of weeks ago about AI, and someone at the table next to us butted it with the usual, "yeah, but you're talking about AI now, not what AI will be capable of in five years time", and about how by then all the limitations will be ironed out, and you'll be able to just tell it to make whatever movie you wanted.

The example I pointed to then, and will probably continue to make whenever that argument comes up, is that an AI would never have made Jaws. Because everything that made that movie is great is born of having to adapt to the problems of making it, and of how it evolved through that process. That's true of every film, and pretty much any creative act, that it's shaped through the work and through the accidents and coincidences and everything else that takes place during that work, but never really as glaringly so as in Jaws.

There is also the problem that AI would generate a different shark every time and wind up taking more than it would to just film the thing for real.

[Skummy]

16 hours ago, Hobo said:

There is also the problem that AI would generate a different shark every time and wind up taking more than it would to just film the thing for real.

Oh for sure, the entire idea is unworkable. But I'm starting from the other guy's starting point of "in five years, it will be better", and assuming that many of those problems are ironed out, and it would still be shit.

[Colly]

Those rumours about Disney basically creating content by "fan" committee were bad enough, AI producing anything just kills the concept of art completely.

[Mick]

 

Pictured: Android destroying concept of art.