A Series of Unfortunate Events
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Can I reverse the headline of the thread? "A Walk to Remember", one of my all time favorite movies, read the book recently, wasn't half that good. It was basically the story of a foolish and sheepish boy and I didn't like it at all. I only forgive the book because of the ending pages that were somehow like the movie and pretty.

I just read V for Vendetta, and it was completely different than the movie. It had the same characters and a similar premise, but that's about it. That said, I still think the movie was great. I think they are both fantastic, just in different ways.

I liked Prince Caspian. But then again I hated the books, so I guess that makes sense.

Ha ha. I would've, but there were children in the room.

Heather wrote: "I know! I have a feeling if he was still alive, the movies would be a heck of a lot better. And seriously, who came up with the idea of putting Susan and Caspian together? Wtf?"

Ooo. Don't get me started. I cussed at the television when that happened.

I know! I have a feeling if he was still alive, the movies would be a heck of a lot better. And seriously, who came up with the idea of putting Susan and Caspian together? Wtf?

Heather wrote: "Twilight--I was absolutely appalled. I love the book, but the movie was atrocious.
Harry Potter--Again, love the books, but the movies...eh. They started okay, but as they go on, they just keep ge..."

I especially agree with you about the Narnia movies. I love the books so much and they did more then change a few scenes. So much is different about Prince Caspian I don't think they should have called it Prince Caspian. CS Lewis is spinning in his grave.

Twilight--I was absolutely appalled. I love the book, but the movie was atrocious.
Harry Potter--Again, love the books, but the movies...eh. They started okay, but as they go on, they just keep getting further and further off the mark.
V for Vendetta--Incredible movie by itself; terrible movie if you compare it to the graphic novel. The characters and the basic premise are the same, but that's about it.
The Chronicles of Narnia--Amazing books, mediocre movies. I have some issues about them changing what happened, adding stuff that didn't happen, leaving out details, etc. Same with Harry Potter.
Better than the book:
Bridge to Terabithia--This is the movie in which I totally fell in love with AnnaSophia Robb. Not exactly like the book, but still utterly amazing.
Anyway, just my opinions. Sorry if I sound like I'm ranting.

Emily wrote: "I don't think that all Pixar movies are the same at all."

They tend to juggle the same elements. For instance, they usually follow...

1) an anthropomorphized male car/rat/toy/ant/robot/fish/dog as he...

2) has father-son issues... (Nemo, Ratatouille, Incredibles, Up)

3) takes a long, possibly unintentional journey away from home... (all of them)

4) finds or becomes a mentor... (Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille, Up)

5) falls in love... (Cars, Wall-E, Ratatouille)

6) chases or is chased very fast... (all of them)

7) and learns the value of family (most of them).

And Pixar tends to use the same color-scheme, camera work, and "look" from movie-to-movie. The next Pixar movie isn't suddenly going to look like Russian Orthodox icons, Edward Gorey, 1920s Soviet Propaganda, or Art Deco, nor will it incorporate the colors from "Corpse Bride," nor will it use Terrence Malick voice-over or the God's-eye-view of Stanley Kubrick's camera, nor will it be one continuous shot like "Russian Ark" or use the rapid cutting of an Oliver Stone movie. All of which would be pretty neat-o.

Kiwiria, "man with short-term memory loss hunts his wife's killer" is Memento. Amazing movie.

I could be wrong on this, but I don't think he meant that they are literally the same story, but rather the structure of Pixar movies are fairly similar and there is "pre-awareness" that people will see a movie automatically because it's Pixar. I am among the group of people who will basically go to anything Pixar, because I think they have a great formula and have interesting stories that bridge the age gap.

Obviously there are generalizations used to make a point and it's meant to be completely picked apart, but overall the general idea of what Peter said was very helpful to me. There is a bit of a rut in the mainstream film world because of the safety net that pre-awareness in movies brings for studios that are trying to get through the recession like everyone else.

Granted, I've still enjoyed movies as of late, but definitely feel like what Peter had to say is very valid and valuable...so thank you.

Emily wrote: "I don't think that all Pixar movies are the same at all."
No, I wondered about that one as well. I think there's been a lot of variety there lately.

The two best examples from recent years are "man with short-term memory loss hunts his wife's killer" and "detectives investigate murders based on seven deadly sins."
The second one is easy enough, but can somebody help me figure out the first one? Originally I thought The Fugitive but AFAIR there's no short-term memory loss in that one.

I don't think that all Pixar movies are the same at all.

Bianca wrote: "I think the problem here is that people have run out of original ideas for movies, so they get a book, buy the rights and then do whatever they please."

The big selling point for megabudget movies used to be the "high concept movie." A high concept was a movie that can be summed up in a single sentence. The two best examples from recent years are "man with short-term memory loss hunts his wife's killer" and "detectives investigate murders based on seven deadly sins." If you couldn't sum up your megabudget movie in one sentence, no one gave you your megabudget.

But the "high concept" has been replaced by something even shorter than a one-sentence description: "pre-awareness."

EVERY big-budget movie for at least the past 3 summers has been based on something that the average moviegoer "has heard of before:" books, comics, video games, toys, TV shows, historical figures/events, Disney rides, other movies, Will Smith, or Pixar.

(Yes, Will Smith and Pixar are forms of pre-awareness, because every Will Smith sci-fi movie is basically the same and every Pixar movie is basically the same. Tom Cruise used to be able to do that, but he seems to have fallen from that pedestal.)

Some summer movies are actually conglomerations of lesser forms of pre-awareness. Angelina Jolie can't open a summer movie by herself, but Angelina Jolie + a lesser comic book makes "Wanted." John Dillinger + Johnny Depp got "Public Enemies" a July release; either one by himself couldn't do it.

Next summer, every poster for "Inception" won't just say "Leonardo DiCaptrio" but will have the words "From the Director of THE DARK KNIGHT" on it as well, because "The Dark Knight" is the second-highest grossing film of all time.

The movie "Julie + Julia" is DOUBLE pre-awareness: it's a movie marketed by pre-awareness for a book, which itself was marketed by pre-awareness for someone who was already famous.

It's not that people can't think of any new ideas, it's that new ideas - which might take 60 seconds for a viewer to figure out - can't compete with ideas which audiences already understood BEFORE they even knew the movie existed!

^^My stepson was so excited to see the movie adaptation of Eragon, and soooooo bitterly disappointed by it. I have never read the book but did see the movie, which was quite lame all on its own.

The Duchess was an extemely superficial adaptation of Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire. Then again I should've known since it starred Keira Knightly whose main talents seem to be extreme thinness and staring soulfully off into space.

And I completely agree with Eragon being a craptastic film, I remember reading Eragon when it first came out and liking it and then I went to watch the film and it was so bad that now I can't even remember why I liked the book and I'm too scared to go back and read it, or any of the other books in the series.

I think the problem here is that people have run out of original ideas for movies, so they get a book, buy the rights and then do whatever they please. There have been soooo many movies out recently that are based on books and let's be honest most of them have been terrible.

The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, The Notebook, Twilight, The Time Traveller's Wife.

Kat- I'm not really a die hard Potter fan. I just hate it when a book works very well, or when a created world works very well I should say, and then the movie people get their hands on it and undermine all the reasons that it works. I guarantee I will be just as angry after Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs comes out for the same reason.

I had a hard time overcoming the changes to the characters' appearance. Claire was so often described as having long, red hair that I was expecting something more like Botticell's Birth of Venus. Gomez was supposed to be blonde. Niffenegger so carefully spent words describing how certain people and things looked, I was disappointed in the movie.

I agree. I was so mad about Claire's hair being wrong, because in the book her hair is a lot like mine, and it was one of the first books I read where my hair type was described so often as being beautiful.
Also, Gomez was blond, and Alba should have looked more like Henry.
But really, that movie sucked. And they completely destroyed the ending.
Grr.

Though it's has not been released yet, the movie adaptation of Wings by Aprilynne Pike will really suck. Why? because Miley Cyrus is set to ruin...er... "star" in the film as the main protagonist. My problem is not just the watered-down tweeny stuff post-2000's Disney will throw in there, it's the fact the Cyrus' are using this opportunity as an advantage to get more money than they already get. This is not good. Sorry I love Wings but, I will not give any of my or my parents hard earned money to this Cyrus atrocity. >=[

On the flip side, the Harry Potter movies are adapted very well I must say. I'm not too persnickety about it, they have made amazing movies in all the time there suppressed into. But the die-hard fans drive me bonkers. Ironic, a little.

I realize there may be a thread around here dedicated to the Harry Potter series, but this is movie specific. I just saw Half-blood Prince last night and I hated it. Hated it!!! Not only did the film adaptation mess with the plot lines more than previous films, they actually created a scene that negates Rowling's concept of the way magic works and screws up plot elements that happen in the next book. And what was up with that horrible anti-climactic let down of an ending?? (Spoilers !!) Snape kills Dumbledore and Harry just stands there, not because he's been jinxed, as in the book, but because suddenly he's a spineless wimp who doesn't act to save his friends? And then Snape and the death eaters just casually walk out of Hogwarts and go on their merry way?? No fighting? Its like the movie knew how bad it was and gave up trying. How does the most traumatic scene in any of the series become boring!! When people read the end of this book they cried and went into shock. Little kids needed grief counselling!! The movie took this same scene and sucked the life out of it. I started checking my watch and thinking about what I was going to do when I left the theater. Grr. Argh. *gnashes teeth and throws things around the room*

They absolutely killed Eragon and Inkheart when they were turned into movies. Those are two bocks I really like, but the movies sucked!

I loved it so much. I had read the book before i saw the movie, and when I saw it I remember feeling all the time that I've seen this all sometime before, maybe in another life.

The BBC series was a classic

Forooz wrote: "Talking of A Little Princess, there was a British TV series of The Secret Garden and it was great. Great book, great series. "

I haven't seen the BBC series, but I'll look for it. The American movie adaptation (also mid 1990s) was horrible. They tried to create a love story between characters who were supposed to be 10 and 12. It was a little creepy...

I just watched Brideshead Revisited and was not impressed.

Heather wrote: "I also saw an image of the actor playing Gomez during an interview with Rachel McAdams and noticed that the casting was iffy."
I had a hard time overcoming the changes to the characters' appearance. Claire was so often described as having long, red hair that I was expecting something more like Botticell's Birth of Venus. Gomez was supposed to be blonde. Niffenegger so carefully spent words describing how certain people and things looked, I was disappointed in the movie.

Talking of A Little Princess, there was a British TV series of The Secret Garden and it was great. Great book, great series.

The 1990s version of A Little Princessthat moved the setting to America, made Becky black and turned the story into a diatribe against racism and child abuse. I prefer the Shirley Temple version even to this one. And the Shirley Temple version had little relationship to the original book. At least it was a decent movie.

Emily, I thought The Time Traveler's Wife might have been bad. It is, after all, a 500+ page book with a complex timeline that had to be compressed into a 70 minute movie. I also saw an image of the actor playing Gomez during an interview with Rachel McAdams and noticed that the casting was iffy.

Unbearable Lightness of Being- Incredible book- good movie.

Time Traveller's Wife.
Dear sweet goodness that movie was terrible. I liked the book alright, but the movie was embarrassingly bad.
Don't see it. Save the money for something worthwhile.

But I loved the Leonardo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet. I cried for about an hour afterward. It was so well done and so emotional.

George wrote: "Bonfire of the vanities. Miscast, misdirected and missed the point. Great book. Lousy movie. "

I thought the book was great. I thought the movie was okay, but it was too different from the book.

The ultimate movie slaughter, in my opinion, was Eragon. My son loved the book. I really liked the book. It wasn't original, but it was entertaining. I took my son to see the movie and he kept slapping his forehead because they changed everything and even made it so the second book couldn't be turned into a sequel.

Oh, wait! I take it back about Eragon being the ultimate movie slaughter. It might tie with Beloved as worst adaptation.

Bonfire of the vanities. Miscast, misdirected and missed the point. Great book. Lousy movie.

Tom wrote: "The only problem with Jeremy Brett's Holmes is that he is entirely too old for the part. Holmes should be closer to 30 than 60."

it's in the third series that he's near 60. in the first and second series he is very much younger.

Kiwiria wrote: ""Anne of Green Gables - the Continued Story" is horrid. It doesn't even pretend t..."

they said they had to do this because the date of the first movie was some years later that the date of the first book. but that sounds so silly to me! they HADN'T mentioned a date! just knew it themselves. it's all silly. and a 45-year-old woman playing the role of a 25-year-old was horrible.

Erica wrote: "I have to say, and I will probably be shot for saying this, but I really liked the Claire Danes/Leo DiCaprio version of Romeo & Juliet. It was really handled very interestingly. It kept the beauty ..."


that movie was ART.

Scotty wrote: "“Starship Troopers” – Robert Heinlein.
I thought the book was great but I absolutely hated the movie. I hope someone makes another version that sticks to the book..."

Exactly! the movie was totally disgusting!

and the other movie i hated was "girl with a pearl earing". it seems the whole point of making this movie is Scarlet Johanson's lips! it is just a mechanical replay of some of the scenes of the book, with no heat and no depth. the book is bubbling with thought and psychology, but the movie is just empty...

Dennis wrote: "While the Lord of the Rings movies did an admirable job of compressing the books into movie-length movies, I hate them with an eternal fury because I think they totally missed the point. ..."

SO SO SO OH SOOO TRUE!!!! and the Two Towers was the worst of all because it had absolutely no resemblance to the book! oh so true about the love between friends.
there was that disgusting weakness of Frodo too that kept giving up to the power of the ring and Sam had to hold his hand every time, while in the book this only happened near the end when he had weakened. one has to ask if Frodo is this weak what was Gandolf thinking when he chose him???

Rindis wrote: "My favorite adaptations (though it wasn't to the big screen) are the Jeremy Brett versions of the Sherlock Holmes stories..."


Jeremy Brett is a FANTASTIC Holmes! he is priceless!

"Who'll Stop The Rain" is a competent but superficial adaptation of "Dog Soldiers" by Robert Stone but "WUSA" is a horrendous evisceration of Stone's first novel,"A Hall of Mirrors"...usually I find that trashy(but fun)Popular Fiction,like "The Godfather",make better source material for movies than Great Novels or stories...though a serious exception would be "The Dead" by John Huston from the Joyce story...perfect adaptation of a perfect story...

the age of innocence -- great book, disappointing movie. Felt no chemistry between the guy (actor I forget) and Michelle Pfeiffer. She seemed a bit tarty, somehow. I had envisioned someone not at all flashy, but with great depth.

But House of Mirth by Wharton, also, was a great movie. Gillian Anderson is one of the great unappreciated actresses of all time. Come to think of it, she'd have made a better Madame Olenska (In Age of Innocence) than Michelle Pfeiffer.

The Ruins, by Scott Smith.

Good book, bad movie.

i disliked all the movie adaptations of harry potter after the 3rd. I agree with the wizards in muggle clothes thing, in anoyed me too.

has anyone seen the movie inkheart? the book was tolerable, but the movie both missed the point, and sucked. So did city of ember, actually.

Twilight. Sucked. Too. Much. To. Bear.

The one that I really hated was the movie adaptation of Dragons of Autumn Twilight. They tried to squish all three books into one one and a half hour movie. It also drove me nuts that they also completely warped the plot.

Ella Enchanted and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Ohh, how they COMPLETELY messed that movie up.

I also hate how in the Harry Potter movies, the actors who play wizards/witches seem to be spending more and more time in muggle clothing as the series progresses.. I mean.. they're supposed to wear robes! o.o

Just a minor pet peeve of mine!

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
I loved the book and was really excited for the movie because I love the Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jena Malone...but it just didn't translate.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115633/