We ’ve all been there : a favored book is snapped up for adaptation , with a whole lot of potential behind it . But when it hits theatre , you walk out wishing that they ’d done everything otherwise .
It ’s often say that the book is always better than the movie , and there ’s a long chronicle of that being dependable , because Hollywood merely did n’t get what the book was about , or did any issue of other things awry .
But the pic variant of a Holy Writ is n’t always deficient : just look at Blade Runner , Minority Report , Children of Men , or Jurassic Park , with motion picture that rival or even surpass their source cloth . It ’s possible to get the book mightily , or to get a sound version of it .
For all the complaining that people make about Hollywood not green - lighting original projects , permit ’s face a realness : adaptations from books , reboots of old movies , and the general recycling of subject matter will continue . With that in mind , here ’s a twosome of film out there that we like Hollywood would go back and do over again , hopefully better than before .
This flick always precipitate into a making love - it - or - hate - it category . It ’s a picture that latch onto a couple of element from the novel in a somewhat close adaptation , but it ’s been decried for being over the top and pulpish . Depending on who you talk to , that ’s what the intent was .
irrespective of the intent , Starship Troopers is one of those novel that is just begging for a new take — one that give us the powerfulness armour described in Robert Heinlein ’s novel , while ease up us the action and excitement of war in infinite .
Back in 2004 , Lord of the Rings was in theaters and everyone was trying to jump on the heroic fantasy bandwagon , including the SciFi channel . The result was an fantastically poor adaption of A Wizard of Earthsea , which author Ursula K. Le Guin has publicly slammed :
A far outcry from the Earthsea I envisioned . When I look over the script , I realise the producers had no understanding of what the ledger are about and no interest in finding out . All they intended was to employ the name Earthsea , and some of the scenes from the books , in a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sexual practice and violence .
The show ’s screenwriter , Gavin Scott , recently noted that hehad very little contact with Le Guin , which could have help .
It ’s a ignominy , because Earthsea is one of the really great kit and caboodle of epic fantasy fiction . It ’s set in a wild world , and uses conjuring trick in a brilliant , philosophic way . If handle properly ( ie , not whitewashed ) , this could make for a great adaptation .
Along with the SciFi TV channel ’s Benjamin Rush to get in on the Lord of the Rings rush , New Line Cinema adjudicate to reduplicate Harry Potter ’s succeeder by adapting Philip Pullman ’s His Dark Materials trilogy . The event was a mixed one : the output cut down down on some of the more cogent , controversial material and went for straight up adventure . There was quite a bit to like here , such as the cast and visuals , but the film never quite lived up to the books .
luckily , ado - over is in ken , as the BBC is set to take on the novel as an eight - part miniseries . They ’ve been doing some secure thing with books — just calculate at their work with Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell .
Isaac Asimov ’s novelette The Bicentennial Man is a great record — it gain the Hugo Award in 1976 , and come after a automaton , Andrew Martin , as he works to become a human being .
The movie follows the report , but only just , and I have some nostalgic love for it , because it ’s a goofy ( but pretty awful ) motion-picture show . It ’s a celluloid that should have worked : Christopher Columbus directed it and it asterisk Robin Williams , Sam Neill , and Oliver Platt . The film was twist into a comedy that basically number to a whole bunch of pa jokes string together , and it just does n’t work .
We ’ve watch some really unbelievable movie about robotics lately : Her , Robot and Frank , and Ex Machina all amount to mind , and if someone go and redid the film in the same venous blood vessel ? It could be a really incredible flick .
Speaking of Robotics , another Asimov - derive work is I , Robot . There had been architectural plan to turn Asimov ’s ingathering of scant write up into a motion picture , write by none other than Harlan Ellison , but that never go anywhere . The claim and concepts were bond onto another film , Hardwired .
I , Robot shares very little with the stories , each of which play with the idea of how Asimov ’s Three Laws of Robotics could be subverted . It ’s hard to say precisely how a flick could be accommodate from such a divers radical of story , but it would be interesting to see Ellison ’s screenplay bring in to liveliness .
When it comes to miserable movie adaptations , the most vulgar affair to hear when Max Brooks ’ World War Z is mentioned is “ peradventure they should have actually adapted the book . ” Aside from the deed , there ’s not much crossover with the author material . The motion-picture show follow one character through the zombie apocalypse , while the Word of God follows a whole bunch of individual report . Even Brooks noted that “ it ’s only World War Z in name only . ”
There ’s not likely to be any sort of do - over here — World War Z 2 is on its way . That ’s kind of a pity , because apparently the original handwriting written by J. Michael Straczynski was a slap-up adaptation of the novel .
The movie that made Alan Moore swear off Hollywood eternally : League of Extraordinary Gentlemen . Released in 2003 , this picture is a trainwreck from beginning to end . The film was significantly interchange from the original source material , and output and cast conflicts did n’t help . The picture show was critically pan , and it ’s since become a bit of a laughingstock .
From all report , there ’s actually areboot in the line , one that already appear to be much tightlipped to the root material . At this point , any reboot would likely be better .
Horns was an interesting moving-picture show . It was one of the first major role for Daniel Radcliffe when he stop Harry Potter , playing Ig , a man accused of killing his girlfriend . When he grows a pair of horns , people start telling him their darkest secrets .
The volume does follow the story closely , but takes on more of a whodunit narrative , the result of which did n’t quite employment . Wethought that the filmlacked the depth of the novel and was at long last too brightness level for its own goodness .
It would be hard to do this film over , because they get a stack of the atmosphere veracious , while the playacting was pretty decorous . Maybe a film with a stronger script that matched the intensity of the novel would overtake this one .
Ender ’s Game , despite the controversy over Orson Scott Card ’s political eyeshot , is one of the literary genre ’s best - known novels , and it was a film that was stick in development hell for decades . When the engineering to film the complicated battle room view became practical , the outcome was an adaptation that was clean close to the book , but that lack all of its intensity .
After watching it , I find like it was the best that we ’d ever get , but after so many years of waiting , it feel deflate . We never quite experience the chroma of the training and how Ender was utterly break by the end of it .
If we could get another interlingual rendition of this ? Stick with Ender ’s Game as a characters storey , rather than getting catch up in the CGI fest that the picture show ultimately became .
Like Starship Troopers , this one fall under the beloved - it - or - hate - it family . There was David Lynch ’s fantastic motion picture Dune from 1984 , and the 2000 SciFi miniseries Frank Herbert ’s Dune . Both are reasonably competent adaptation : They get the broad strokes of the story aright , but there ’s something about Herbert ’s novel that neither have really been able-bodied to becharm .
Dune is a really baffling leger to conform , because it ’s such a slow and copious story . Still , given the movement for slurred , dull novel to make their way onto television set , it would be interesting to see if an HBO - style , 10 episode time of year series would work for this .
H.G. Wells ’s War of the Worlds has been adapted a whole bunch of times over the years , but I ’m thinking of the 2005 Tom Cruise thriller . The movie shifted the write up to the mod Clarence Day and across the Atlantic to the American East coast . The moving-picture show is a decent alien invasion movie , with some connections back to the germ textile .
What would be really interesting to see ? The book has been adapted no less than 10 times , but there really has n’t been a full stop take on the book , one that contain some of the deeper implications that Wells stay put into the novel , such as England ’s Imperial inheritance and settlement . Even a modern take with alike themes would be interesting to watch .
Finally , there ’s the Hobbit ( all three of them ) . If Lord of the Rings was a good lesson in adjust a trilogy of novels , The Hobbit is a good lesson in what not to do . From the get go , it was an over - stuffed CGIfest that stretched what should have been a individual picture show into three , all while trying to connect the trilogy to its precursor .
fortuitously , there does n’t involve to be any reboot to make this best . There ’s a whole bunch offan editsout there that cut out the excess and pare the three films down into one . If there has to be a unexampled film ? Focus on the goddamned title fibre .
Obviously , everyone will have a slightly dissimilar take on what movies should be refashion , but what would you tote up ( or take off ) from this list ?
motion-picture show
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