Never read a book after watching the movie...

[birdguy 3,943]

Aye Lassie, ya mean woman.  Ya told me about the book, and that's the truth!

After telling you about the movie Tunes of Glory the other day Sue went and saw it.  Then she told me she was going to read the book.  I aways follow her recommendations and/or suggestions so I ordered the book for my Nook.

But I'm two chapters into it and somewhat disappointed.

The charm of reading a book is imagining the settings as you read it and forming the characters in your mind.  But after having seen the movie that has already been done for you.  It's almost like watching the movie twice.

Aye!  Ya mean woman.  But I still luv ya anyway, and that's the truth!

Noel

Edited May 8, 2021 by birdguy

[Jude Bradley 659]

Agreed.

 

[Luis Hernandez 566]

Usually I tend to do the opposite: I tend to avoid the movie after reading the book. Almost always I end up disappointed.

[Chock 17,769]

Best one I ever heard in relation to this, was Tom Clancy on the DVD commentary for a film adaptation of one of his books, when he introduced himself with: 'Hi I'm Tom Clancy, author of the book they ignored'.

[goates 576]

13 minutes ago, Chock said:

Best one I ever heard in relation to this, was Tom Clancy on the DVD commentary for a film adaptation of one of his books, when he introduced himself with: 'Hi I'm Tom Clancy, author of the book they ignored'.

That definitely applies to the new Without Remorse movie. Beyond a very vague similarity in the plot and some names, the movie has nothing to do with the book.

[Chock 17,769]

The only thing without remorse about that new movie, is the vicious editing and re-writing which went on to end up with a screenplay which bears hardly any resemblance to the original book. And that's particularly bizarre for a Clancy adaptation; normally his books are pretty much a dream come true for production designers, since he goes into microscopic detail on things.

In literary terms, that doesn't always make his books flow well in terms of pace, where the lengthy descriptions in text can slow the tempo as you read - nobody ever 'picks up a gun' in a Clancy book, they 'pick up a SIG Sauer P365 High-Capacity Micro-Compact, chambered for 9×19mm parabellum, with a ten-round polymer magazine' lol - but as a guide to accurately making movies on subjects where technical advice is paramount if you want authenticity, you couldn't ask for a better author as a source for that.

[Mallard 195]

I did enjoy "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" after seeing "Blade Runner" first. One didn't have much to do with the other, but both were good in their own way. Same goes for "The English Patient"...

Cheers

Mallard

[birdguy 3,943]

The movie Tunes of Glory is dead on with the book so far except for the fact that Alec Guiness doesn't play the bagpipes in one paragraph.  So far the movie is a faithful representation.  I'll let you know more when I finish it.

Noel

1 hour ago, Chock said:

subjects where technical advice is paramount if you want authenticity,

Many times the technical advisor will will the director that is wrong and the director will tell him/her, "We will do it my way anyway."

Noel

[birdguy 3,943]

1 hour ago, Luis Hernandez said:

Usually I tend to do the opposite: I tend to avoid the movie after reading the book. Almost always I end up disappointed.

I have not been disappointed in the movies I've seen of Michener, Clavell, or McMurtry books I have read.

Noel 

[SKEWR 364]

I agree with OP, mostly. There are some great adaptions and some not so great.

Brief examples:

IT: Loved the book, the movies (thankfully) missed a few explicit parts, but also missed the feeling of the book somewhere.

Hunt for Red October: Pretty good IMO

Game of Thrones (Series): My brutal honesty: The sheer amount of detail given to flags and to characters who were going to die soon was incredibly boring. In that regard, the series was an improvement. However, the series omits a character which I was curious to see, lowers the amount of magic and dials up most sex scenes. (Don't get me wrong, there is sex in the book, one part in particular was gross, but IMO was not as much as depicted in the series)

The Boys (Amazon series): Barely a passing resemblance to the source comic book. It's almost a different story with some of the same characters.

Infinity War (Infinity Gauntlet): Compared to the source material from the comic books, it was an almost different story.

Harry Potter books: IMO, one of the best and most accurate (not 100% accurate mind you) book to movie translations For me, the descriptions in the books translated almost 1 for 1 with the movie.

 

[Chock 17,769]

2 hours ago, birdguy said:

Many times the technical advisor will will the director that is wrong and the director will tell him/her, "We will do it my way anyway."

Sometimes that can be a good thing, sometimes bad; both can be true even with the same person on occasion. for example:

Director Ridley Scott insisted there be smoke around the Nostromo model spaceship as it descended onto LV-426 despite protestations of several people saying: 'there's no atmosphere in space', to which Scott simply replied 'well there is now mate'. He was definitely right from an artistry over realism standpoint on that score for making a visually impressive movie (which ironically enough, does have a great atmosphere), but  unfortunately the esteem in which he is held for having been behind several classics including Aliens, now frequently works against him.

I've worked with quite a few well known movie people, but never with Ridley Scott, however, I have trained several film-makers who have worked with him, most of whom were either editors, directors or VFX people, and every one of them told me the same thing about that experience if we got on the subject of working with people good and bad: It is very much 'it's my way or the highway' with Ridley Scott. This leads to people on set and in production meetings being reticent about speaking up, even when something very obviously sucks or is nonsensical. You only have to look at the more recent Alien movies, Prometheus and Covenant to see that's true. They might look good visually, but they're absolutely dreadful films in every other respect and it's obvious that people have been afraid to speak up when on set and simply say: 'excuse me Ridley, but this is utter cack'.

There's no excuse for this either. With Alien, Scott was a director exercising some creative control over aspects on a production which was ultimately not his own, nor which he had written the story for. But on Prometheus and Covenant, he was also the producer, so anything which was greenlit on those movies would have had to get his yes or no before being included in even the script, let alone the final edit.

[fppilot 4,350]

Don't watch movies any more for multiple reasons!  Not related to most story lines.

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by fppilot

[overspeed3 410]

Alien:  The absolute best sc-fi film ever made, esp. considering it's more than 40 years old.  Very close second, of course:  2001

[Fielder 3,644]

I was reading  Project Mars: A Technical Tale by Dr. Werhner von Braun. He starts out his novel written in 1953 by charting the parameters necessary for a successful Mars landing and colonization. Something for which he was well qualified to tabulate.

His novel proceeds to the future. "The Martian government was directed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled Elon. Two houses of Parliament enacted the laws to be administered by the Elon and his cabinet."

So now, less suspense when watching live coverage of the race to Mars. 🤓

tinyurl.com/3hhfzmzu

 

 

 

[W2DR 1,859]

19 hours ago, birdguy said:

The charm of reading a book is imagining the settings as you read it and forming the characters in your mind.

And that's why the old-time radio programs are better than television. You can see the picture much better.