Books to Movies
I have such mixed feelings about turning books into movies and television shows. We’re currently watching Umbrella Academy with the ChickieNob, so she keeps asking how it’s different from the comic. And it is massively different from the comic, but it doesn’t bother me in the least. I love it. The show is so well done.
And I am beyond excited for Good Omens, even though I suspect it will be nothing like the book. How could it? It takes hours upon hours to get through that thing and the details and bit characters are the best part. You know they’re going to trim it for television, but I want to watch it anyway.
And then there is the Handmaid’s Tale. They changed some things in the Handmaid’s Tale. I could not get over how they changed the Handmaid’s Tale, and I refused to watch beyond the first season. That is where the book ends; I don’t want to see the story continue. Maybe I’m missing out and the second season was fantastic. But I can’t bring myself to watch it.
And I haven’t been able to closely look at the cast of the Magicians much less watch a single episode. I was excited when I first heard that it was being turned into a show, but I love those books so much. If the Quentin and Alice in my head don’t match the Quentin and Alice on the screen, it will break my heart and mess with the way I visualize the story when I read it. So I didn’t give it a chance.
So zero rhyme or reason for why I’ll watch one adaptation and not another.
What do you think has been done well? And what has gone really really wrong?
6 comments
I think the Harry Potter movies were done about as well as anything could be. I haven’t quite finished American Gods (season 1), but it seemed like a pretty good retelling of the book. But I found the book a bit dense and hard to follow sometimes, so probably any kind of distillation was going to work for me.
Pretty much every Stephen King novel has been pretty dismal (except The Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption – apparently prison stories are translatable). I’m generally not a fan of book into movie, but I’ll see them all anyway! Apparently, I enjoy disappointment?
I can’t say I enjoyed Season 2 of Handmaid’s Tale, but I can tell you it made me think and think and think, and I recommend that people watch it for that reason.
I watched Game of Thrones first, and then read a couple of the books. I really liked doing in in that order, through I’m not sure it would have worked in reverse.
I typically don’t like movies made from books. They can feel so watered down.
I am kind of mixed on this…sometimes the movie feels, as Lori said above, watered down. I felt this way about The Devil Wears Prada. The book was fantastic, and then I saw the movie and was beyond disappointed. The book was so much better. The people who praised the movie obviously didn’t read the book first. I think they did a huge disservice to Meryl Streep, because the book version of her character was larger than life and she could have absolutely played that part as written instead of the cartoonish version the movie portrayed.
But then there was Perks of Being a Wallflower, and that movie was extremely well done and stayed true to the book, which I also read first.
And I did not read He’s Just Not That Into You, and I wasn’t sure how they would turn this self-help book into a movie, but I think they did a fantastic job with it, since I am imagining the book would read like most other self-help books.
Someone mentioned it above, but I am curious what you think of the Harry Potter films compared to the books.
Some movie/TV adaptations are better or worse than others. I was very nervous about season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale, going beyond the material in the book. There are a few things I didn’t like (like, how many times can June/Offred ALMOST get out of Gilead??) but overall, it was just so well done & so thought provoking, I would recommend it. I actually liked the movie version of “Crazy Rich Asians” better than the book. I enjoyed the book overall, but I found the conspicuous consumption, snobbery, etc., off-putting. Somehow it was easier to take on screen vs on the page. 😉
Just remembered another one…I used to be a big fan of Chelsea Handler and thought her books were absolutely wild and hilarious. Several years ago now there was a short-lived TV series based on her called Are You There Chelsea. Since her books were definitely MA I didn’t know how it would translate on network TV. It turns out she didn’t want to play herself so she played her sister, and between having to censor the heck out of it and having her not play herself, it was really terrible.
Two other things that I thought were pretty well done was the Emmy Rosum Phantom of The Opera and the Michelle Pfiffer A MidSummer Nights Dream. Both are my very favorite stories, and I hold them to a very high standard to begin with, but I have watched these over and over again because they are so good.
I was recently so dissapointed by Miss Pergrine’s and in the past, me and the kids thought Percy Jackson was poorly done. However I have to agree Harry Potter was amazing and Narnia was well done too. PS I love children’s lit so that is my main point of reference.