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On movies made from books qualifying as failed cinema... - 9/19/2014 4:31:04 PM   
MercTech


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Status: offline 		The discussion on Heinlein mentioned thinking the movie "Starship Troopers" was a comedy.... not relating to the book at all is more like it.

Now, Poul Anderson's "The High Crusade" is a fantastic fun novel.
http://www.amazon.com/The-High-Crusade-Poul-Anderson/dp/1439133778

But, the movie version ranks up there with "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" for movies that are so bad they are hilarious.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110024/

The reviewers call the movie "Monty Pythonesque" but it is more like Monty Python written by frat boys on acid... wait, that was Animal House.

< Message edited by MercTech -- 9/19/2014 4:32:03 PM >
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RE: On movies made from books qualifying as failed cine... - 9/19/2014 4:46:15 PM   
dcnovice


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My perverse brain keeps thinking of movies that were better than the book.

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it's never enough to keep up.

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INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

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RE: On movies made from books qualifying as failed cine... - 9/19/2014 4:48:20 PM   
RockaRolla


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From: South Florida
Status: offline 		I, Robot drew from a number of Asimov's works but flopped. The adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 made me angry. If we're including short stories, Bradbury's Frost and Fire got got a short adaptation in Quest, but it's a loose adaptation at best.

Whether these are widespread views or my own biases due to these being my favorite authors, I don't know.

But I'm going to include a non-literary example here as the worst movie adaptation I've ever seen: Aeon Flux. The animated series was an amazing mix of the bizarre and dark. The movie made it more upbeat, lost the nonsensical elements, completely drifted from the original plot, and tried to keep Charlize Theron as naked as possible to make up for it. (It didn't work.)

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RE: On movies made from books qualifying as failed cine... - 9/19/2014 5:20:08 PM   
Gauge


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quote:

ORIGINAL: RockaRolla
and tried to keep Charlize Theron as naked as possible to make up for it. (It didn't work.)


For you.

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I'm wearing my chicken suit and humming La Marseillaise.

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RE: On movies made from books qualifying as failed cine... - 9/19/2014 5:51:26 PM   
RockaRolla


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gauge


quote:

ORIGINAL: RockaRolla
and tried to keep Charlize Theron as naked as possible to make up for it. (It didn't work.)


For you.

Hey, I like half-naked females as much as the next non-straight girl, but at least I've got my own to look at if needed!

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RE: On movies made from books qualifying as failed cine... - 9/19/2014 7:11:04 PM   
FelineRanger


Posts: 658
Joined: 9/4/2012
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quote:

ORIGINAL: RockaRolla

I, Robot drew from a number of Asimov's works but flopped. The adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 made me angry. If we're including short stories, Bradbury's Frost and Fire got got a short adaptation in Quest, but it's a loose adaptation at best.

Whether these are widespread views or my own biases due to these being my favorite authors, I don't know.

But I'm going to include a non-literary example here as the worst movie adaptation I've ever seen: Aeon Flux. The animated series was an amazing mix of the bizarre and dark. The movie made it more upbeat, lost the nonsensical elements, completely drifted from the original plot, and tried to keep Charlize Theron as naked as possible to make up for it. (It didn't work.)


I, Robot flopped so badly because the book was actually an examination of human dilemmas through the machines who faced said dilemmas without guidance from previous generations. The movie lost that aspect in favor of something that kinda sorta more resembled the stories surrounding R. Daneel Olivaw. The short-lived TV series Almost Human was actually closer to some of what Asimov wrote.

If you have the DVD for Aeon Flux, listen to the directors' commentary. It's a fascinating cross between post-mortem and whining about how studio interference undercut the movie. Basically, everything that stayed closer to the source material came from the scriptwriters and directors. Everything that strayed from the source material and, therefore, didn't work was the direct result of notes from studio execs. Some time ago I asked JMS, creator of Babylon 5, about that and got a far more extensive answer than I expected.

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RE: On movies made from books qualifying as failed cine... - 9/19/2014 7:58:08 PM   
njlauren


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Status: offline 		Most of the movies made of Michael Crichton's novels, with the exception of the Andromeda Strain (ok, and maybe Jurassic Park to a certain extent) were bad. Andromeda was fantastic, but movies like Sphere and Congo and the book "Disclosure" were really disappointing. Timeline could have made a good movie, but it like was was pretty bad.

It is really sad when you like a book, anticipate the movie, and it turns out to be crap. On the other hand, the series they have done of Diana Galbadon's "Outlander" series is fantastic, they are hitting a home run with it:)

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RE: On movies made from books qualifying as failed cine... - 9/19/2014 10:44:51 PM   
DomKen


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quote:

ORIGINAL: MercTech

The discussion on Heinlein mentioned thinking the movie "Starship Troopers" was a comedy.... not relating to the book at all is more like it.

There is an essay by someone associated with the production of Puppet Masters describing how it went so terribly wrong. I assume much the same thing happened to Troopers.
http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/rossio.html

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RE: On movies made from books qualifying as failed cine... - 9/21/2014 12:28:05 PM   
MercTech


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Joined: 7/4/2006
Status: offline 		I do know that Robert Heinlein refused to sell script rights to any of his books after the experience of what they did to Destination Moon in the 1050s. After his death, some script rights were sold by his estate but there was no monitoring of what was done to his work for a screen treatment.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0374423/

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