It can also be a nightmare to see the printed words - words slaved over, fought for and won after battles with writer's block or missing muses - simply disappear because they lack importance to translate into the final moving picture product. OR, see that the finished product is so incomplete in what should have been included from the book that it resembles some cobbled together beautiful failure.
However...
there are some novels that converted to the big screen in such a fantastic way - despite what had to be cut - that left viewers in awe and many readers satisfied with the end result. One example is the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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This was a trilogy with such a huge cast of characters, depth of history, and mountains of backstory that it was seemingly impossible to imagine anyone or any people crafting proper scripts, gathering just the right actors and actresses, and a director with a big enough vision to pull this off, But it happened. You can check out various interviews of the cast here because, well, it's just awesome.
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I agree. There are some books that beg for the screen and all that wonderful imagery to come to life before your eyes!
ReplyDeleteYou know, I totally agree. Sometimes, you just can't wait to see how a book works out on the big or small screen.
DeleteOh yes! I've seen some horrible movies made from books I loved. Game of Thrones is one of the brilliant shows while the Sword of Truth was a horrible failure.
ReplyDeleteNow I have to see Sword of Truth to see how horrible it was lol!
DeleteI must admit I love to see books I enjoyed reading on the big screen. I'm a huge visual person, so I like to take what I watched and translate it while reading the book. Harry Potter was awesome for that because I could see the actors in the books as well as for LOTR, which I read after I saw the first movie. It goes the other way around too. Sometimes I'll watch a movie and think how awesome it'll be as a book.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm...not a lot of movies I've seen the other way around but that's an interesting take on it.
DeleteI can't watch books I have loved on the big screen. The images/the voices don't fit what my head has created. So no LOTR or Harry Potter for me. I have seen snippets of Harry Potter as my partner plays St Vitus dance with the channels and no, not for me.
ReplyDeleteI've heard some folks express the same sentiment so you're in good company :-)
DeleteDune was a huge failure as a movie. Way too big of a story for one movie. But I did enjoy LOTR and The HObbit movies.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen Dune and need to read all of Dune. But sorry to hear it was a failure.
DeleteOddly, I actually did enjoy the Dune movie, though I've never been able to read past the first book.
DeleteDune as a book was far better than the movie, and yet I found things to like in David Lynch's rendition... but there were some dire segments too. For me the TV version was far better. But I'll always be a Frank Herbert fan.
DeleteI know what you mean. I've never watched the movie in its entirety, but every time I come across it, I'm compelled to watch.
ReplyDeleteLOTR as a book totally captivated me and I thought it was impossible to do. Until I sat in a cinema watching Middle Earth come to life as I imagined it. (Peter Jackson version of course). But I always accept that a book will have far more than a movie can embrace in its limited running time. The art is catching the 'moments' like Magwitch in the churchyard in David Lean's Great Expectations.
ReplyDeleteIt has been a long time since I read the books, but I enjoyed the movie versions of the story. I think they did a great job with it.
ReplyDeleteI also liked the LOTR films. Despite variations, I think they caught the theme and spirit of the books. The 2012 adaptation of The Woman in Black is one of those rare cases in which the film version is much better than the book.
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