From a book to a movie. The good and the bad.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

I don't know yet how it will come out, but the trailers for Watchmen make it look like they absolutely nailed the book. Of course, given the incredible depth of layers in the original graphic novel, "nailed" is a relative term, and I heard they rewrote the ending, but it's the movie adaptation I've been waiting for most eagerly since The Fellowship of the Ring.

The world will look up and shout "Save us!"... And I'll whisper "No."

[Kathy Li]

I'm actually dreading Watchmen. It looks like they got it visually faithful, but given the emphasis of the trailer on Big Action/Effects Moments, and the fact that comic is SO not about that ... (sigh). Not to mention that page count to screen time... an awful lot of the comic is going to be missing.

I was at Comic-Con when Alan Moore told us about writing those scripts for Dave Gibbons. Each issue's script was an inch thick, single-spaced typed. I really really doubt the movie's going to be putting in all that detail. And they seem to have cast most of the roles with an eye towards the young heroes, and not to their older counterparts.

I just remember the trainwreck that was From Hell. The only movie adaptation of Alan Moore I've been able to enjoy is V for Vendetta, so I'm keeping my expectations low. This is the guy who directed 300. The screenwriter of The Scorpion King.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

One of the most vivid moments in Watchmen to me is the Rorschach origin chapter. I don't know if I should be praying for them to get it right, or to leave it out altogether. :-(

[Septimus]

Earagon was a terrible movie.
golden compass was pretty good the books were way better.
harry potter used to be good movies but i didn't like the 5th one
prince caspian of the narnian series was AMAZING
twilght was o...k...
iron man ruled. batman rocked.
for some reason batman was way better than i thought it would be.

[Kathy Li]

Ok, I haven't read the books at all, so I'm curious if anybody has any opinion on how well/badly Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth books have been adapted for the tv show, Legend of the Seeker. I'm enjoying the show mostly because I used to watch Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena:Warrior Princess, and this is the same production company, so you get some amazing New Zealand scenery, folks who actually understand why we like fantasy, and folks of Maori extraction in the backup cast.

I'm enjoying the show, but that's probably because I haven't read the books.

I'm sure, if GRRM's "Song of Ice and Fire" makes it past the pilot stage at HBO, though, that I'll be in the disgruntled-booklover-group. I really can't see ASoIaF being done, even on an HBO tv budget. The number of locations and costumes/armor for that huge a cast is gonna require some serious amounts of dough.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Oh, that's what that is? Huh. I read the first couple of Goodkind books, but they stopped holding my interest. I felt like they sprawled too much.

The episodes are up on Hulu.com -- I'll have to give them a try.

[Kathy Li]

Well, from what I've gathered, while it's a fun show, it's not a good adaptation.

I do have to say, however, that the first season of True Blood was a pretty fine adaptation of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books (or rather, the first book, Dead Until Dark, rather neatly became the first series, just Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter more or less became series 1 of Dexter). But those are TV-MA series, and I probably shouldn't talk about them, here.

[bookgirl]

I'm excited to see Inkheart, but a little worried. I thought it was a great book and the previews look exciting, but I think that they've changed a lot of the story. I'm probably going to take my little cousins to see it, they're 7 and 9, I think they'd like it. Is there anyone here who is planning on seeing it?

[Zirsta]

I am sooo definitely going to see Inkheart! I'll probably like it even if they mess up the plot and stuff in the book to movie process, because the ideas in the book are so enthralling anyways. Only, I haven't seen any previews for it, so I can't tell if they screwed anything really important... I hope they haven't, because if they did, then...

I did see the pictures of the cast on Cornelia Funke's website, and I think they did a decent job. The only things that bother me are that Meggie is being played by a girl who I think is too young. The book does say she's 12, but the girl they have looks like she's 10 or 11. Besides, I imagined Meggie to be a bit older than what the book says, maybe more like 13. Also, the actor who is Farid is too old. Farid, I believe, is mentioned as being around 14. I think. That or 15. Somewhere in there... With that age difference, there's no way that they'll be able to include the romance in Inkspell between them!

[daine23]

I thought the Golden compass suked partly because they RUIND it and because naow my little sister makes me give her a piggy back ride ( crawl oround on your hands and knee's) so she can be Lyra on Iork!

my avitar is the aliteomiter because I loved the books and thare is'nt rely anny piks of the old one.

[fernie]

yeah

i havent read the golden compass book but i didnt like the movie either as for ink heart me too i think they really changed it because i read all three of the books in the series

[daine23]

I relly want to see Inkhart but if they did ruin it like you say, forget it!
I HATE it how evry director totally ruins evry book!
it's no fair!!!!!!!!
sorry I just had a bunch of chocolat
but I do fell that way.

[Wiccangixie]

I don't that Inkheart will be ruined, in fact it looks like they may have actually TRIED to follow up on the book. I loved how they did Harry Potter, but I hated Twilight as a movie, mainly becuas eit didn't give Bella and Edward any time for there relationship to develop. Stardust was incredible! They did a good job with that, and I actually liked A Series of Unfortunate Events.

[Kathy Li]

I think my favorite thing about the Inkheart movie is that Cornelia Funke wrote Inkheart envisioning Brendan Fraser as Mo. It's not like Bob Hoskins was in The Thief Lord (not that Jim Carter's bad, but she obviously wrote it with Bob Hoskins in mind, judging from the dedication).

Stardust for me was an eh, since it was soooo different from the book, and quite a bit dumber and more obvious. And nothing will ever look as good as a Charles Vess painting.

I loved the way they translated A Series of Unfortunate Events in so very many ways. The "Happy Little Elf" opening. The "No, really, this is the only only one we're doing" the end, and the class way they conflated the first three books into a single story. I loved the railroad scene which was wholly original to the film, and how it fit in perfectly with the tone of the books. And the casting of Jude Law as Lemony Snicket was the cherry on the top. That's how an adaptation should be done: adding to the original.

I'm curious to see what happens with Coraline. It's very clear that it's going to be vastly different from the book. But it's Harry Selick and the Laika crew, so you know it's in good hands.

[Daylily]

I hope that Coraline goes well too.

One of my favorite book adaptations are actually two movies-The Night Watch and The Day Watch

Each book in the trilogy contained tree separate stories-the last of which tied up the previous eight.
Because that would take too much time and money too do, they took the first two stories from the first book and made them each into seperate movies. I thought that each character was utterly brilliant, and my favorite part was when Tiger Cub [the shape-shifting magician] didn't die

Another brilliant movie was The Shadow in the North, book by Phillip Pullman

ttfn
DayLily