Author Topic: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???  (Read 5644 times)

Offline mark

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #15 on: February 28, 2017, 04:57:34 PM »
I like having versions of a story in different media when they're well done. I was recently looking at a comic version of Alien (Walt Simonson art :) ) It basically just follows the movie, though there is a little bit of additional dialog and character development. But there are scenes that work really well as panels in the book, when they first see the alien ship, a certain chest-bursting event that some people may recall. I can't say they work better than the corresponding scene in the movie but they are just as effective, and effective in a different way.

Legion has been a good data point. So far it has little to do with the comics, except for inspiration I guess, though in episode 3 there are some hints at things that might be more similar to the comics. But it works really, really well and I think part of the reason is that Noah Hawley isn't playing it safe, which has been the case with Fargo the TV series as well. (In his list of upcoming projects there are adaptations of Cat's Cradle, Hellhound On His Trail, and The Hot Rock, which suggests a certain fearlessness.)

Offline Mel

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #16 on: February 28, 2017, 10:13:46 PM »
As someone obsessed with Stieg Larson's Millennium Trilogy, I found the Swedish made-for-tv adaptation severely lacking and disappointing. David Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was, imo, the most amazing adaptation of a novel to a film I've seen as far as capturing everything absolutely perfectly. I was very highly disappointed they didn't let Fincher finish the trilogy.
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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #17 on: Today at 04:31:27 PM »

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #17 on: February 28, 2017, 11:51:49 PM »
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As someone obsessed with Stieg Larson's Millennium Trilogy, I found the Swedish made-for-tv adaptation severely lacking and disappointing. David Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was, imo, the most amazing adaptation of a novel to a film I've seen as far as capturing everything absolutely perfectly. I was very highly disappointed they didn't let Fincher finish the trilogy.
I was the opposite. I thought the Swedish films captured the dark brutality of the books superbly.
Fincher's film was too light and held back from going right into the heart of Lisbeth. It looked nice though.

Offline Chris

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #18 on: March 01, 2017, 10:24:27 PM »
Is this the thread where I'm allowed to preach my love for the x-books and utter distain for the x-movies?  :)

Offline AzT

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #19 on: March 01, 2017, 11:00:51 PM »
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Is this the thread where I'm allowed to preach my love for the x-books and utter disdain for the x-movies?  :)

Seen and raised: which x-books do you recommend as being good context starter points for someone who loves the movies? What did the movies miss?  :)

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #20 on: March 01, 2017, 11:13:36 PM »
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Seen and raised: which x-books do you recommend as being good context starter points for someone who loves the movies? What did the movies miss?  :)

Jeepers!  I have to justify my distain?  But.. But.. But...  That's not the way the internet works.  :)

Uncanny 168 would be my first stop.  It focuses on the people aspect to the x-team in my opinion.

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #21 on: March 02, 2017, 09:29:15 AM »
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Jeepers!  I have to justify my distain?  But.. But.. But...  That's not the way the internet works.  :)

Uncanny 168 would be my first stop.  It focuses on the people aspect to the x-team in my opinion.

Speaking of justify, that brings to mind a whole new category, adaptations that have done the most with the least amount of source. Justified the tv series, from the short story by Elmore Leonard, and the RED movies based on the 3 issue mini by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner.

I'm really mixed on the X-Movies, in general the casting is good, and there are great scenes (Nightcrawler in the White House, Magneto's prison escape, ...) But I usually feel like something is missing even if I can't put my finger on it.  First Class is my favorite.

For someone who has seen the movies I'd recommend the "God Loves, Man Kills" and "Days of Future Past" arcs to see where some of the ideas came from. And then Joss Whedon's run but only since it's my favorite. Then back to the other Claremont material.

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As someone obsessed with Stieg Larson's Millennium Trilogy, I found the Swedish made-for-tv adaptation severely lacking and disappointing. David Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was, imo, the most amazing adaptation of a novel to a film I've seen as far as capturing everything absolutely perfectly. I was very highly disappointed they didn't let Fincher finish the trilogy.
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I was the opposite. I thought the Swedish films captured the dark brutality of the books superbly.
Fincher's film was too light and held back from going right into the heart of Lisbeth. It looked nice though.

Has anyone seen the longer version they made of the Swedish films? If so, is it worth it? This was one of those rare instances where I had not read the books but my wife had so it was her turn to be all critical and nit-picky :)  I liked the Fincher version a bit better, though I think both Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara were excellent as Lisbeth. Agree with [member=2226]Mel[/member] that it's too bad Fincher didn't get to finish the series, especially the 3rd part. My wife preferred the Swedish version, (this despite having Daniel Craig in the other,) but she would have liked the films to go more into the social issues that Larsson discussed in the books.

I'm tempted to start in on Insomnia and Let the Right One In but this post is already long enough .

Offline Mel

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #22 on: March 02, 2017, 11:49:04 AM »
I just felt like those Swedish films were cheesy and Noomi was too old and angry for me. In my mind Lisbeth was not supposed to look tough or even show much emotion, but rather tiny and alien-like so that she is always underestimated and never understood. Swedish version also messed with events of the book. The only thing Fincher's version changed was something that SHOULD have been changed b/c it made the book clunky and felt like a tacked on ending.

I am not sure what version I saw of the Swedish films. I just watched what was on Netflix. I saw them before the Fincher movie was released and I was instantly disappointed. I felt like Ralphie when he got his Little Orphan Annie decoder and decoded the message. "Sonofab***h!"
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Offline mark

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #23 on: March 02, 2017, 12:01:01 PM »
Am I to understand you hadn't drank your Ovaltine?

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #24 on: March 02, 2017, 12:16:27 PM »
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Speaking of justify, that brings to mind a whole new category, adaptations that have done the most with the least amount of source. Justified the tv series, from the short story by Elmore Leonard, and the RED movies based on the 3 issue mini by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner.

I'm really mixed on the X-Movies, in general the casting is good, and there are great scenes (Nightcrawler in the White House, Magneto's prison escape, ...) But I usually feel like something is missing even if I can't put my finger on it.  First Class is my favorite.

For someone who has seen the movies I'd recommend the "God Loves, Man Kills" and "Days of Future Past" arcs to see where some of the ideas came from. And then Joss Whedon's run but only since it's my favorite. Then back to the other Claremont material.

Has anyone seen the longer version they made of the Swedish films? If so, is it worth it? This was one of those rare instances where I had not read the books but my wife had so it was her turn to be all critical and nit-picky :)  I liked the Fincher version a bit better, though I think both Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara were excellent as Lisbeth. Agree with [member=2226]Mel[/member] that it's too bad Fincher didn't get to finish the series, especially the 3rd part. My wife preferred the Swedish version, (this despite having Daniel Craig in the other,) but she would have liked the films to go more into the social issues that Larsson discussed in the books.

I'm tempted to start in on Insomnia and Let the Right One In but this post is already long enough .
The remake of Insomnia is far superior to the original. However, the opposite is true of Let The Right One In.

Offline AzT

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #25 on: March 02, 2017, 12:39:10 PM »
They heard about this thread ;)

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Quote
Hollywood keeps making video games movies and they keep being terrible. So, the people in Hollywood keep on having to talk about whether any video game film adaptation will ever be good.

Starting in the 1990s, the earliest live-action video game movies were blatant cash-in affairs, meant to pull in dollars from a medium that Hollywood studios had no stake in and barely understood. Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat were total cheesefests, barely recognizable contortions that seemed embarrassed to even exist.

A new wave began in the 2000s, sparked by the better-than-most execution of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001. But Hollywood did as Hollywood does, chasing after success with lesser wannabe fare, like the oeuvre of infamous director Uwe Boll. Postal, Alone in the Dark, and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege ramped up the idea that video game movies were destined to be horrible.

Since then, that “video game movies suck” idea has become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that creators involved with video game movies have to dodge and contend with. Likewise, the dreaded video game question rears its head in the publicity junkets and set visits used to generate anticipation for each film’s release.

Herewith, an incomplete (but still rather long) list of directors, screenwriters, actors, and producers waxing philosophical about what it’s so damn hard to make a movie out of a video game.

...

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #26 on: March 02, 2017, 01:27:47 PM »
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They heard about this thread ;)

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...
That's a good read.

Offline mark

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #27 on: March 07, 2017, 09:41:00 PM »
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They heard about this thread ;)
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Thanks for the link! I often find the same to be true about things like comics based on video games, at least in terms of motivation. Injustice would be a counterexample. Like many of the comments on io9 I liked the first Silent Hill and the first Resident Evil, RE especially had some nice gaming nods.

Sometimes I will read things that I think would make better video games than movies. Princess of Mars is the example I always come back to, and it has so many elements like an RPG. There's some intro stuff you don't care about, then you wind up naked in some weird place. You have these new abilities that you have to learn how to use. You unlock achievements, you get a pet, at some point you learn a color code that is important later on. There's even a stealth level. Plus the John Carter of the books doesn't really have any sort of personality, when they made it into a movie they had to give him one.

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The remake of Insomnia is far superior to the original. However, the opposite is true of Let The Right One In.


There's a great chat between Stellan Skarsgård and the director/cowriter Erik Skjoldbjaerg where Skarsgård talks about the ideas and potential that were lurking there, worth watching for the look on the director's face.

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Insomnia is a complicated one, I definitely see where Nolan took the ideas in the original film and made a better movie overall but I don't know how I feel about the difference in the main character's decision at the end. The way things end in the original was so deliberate and unconventional, it's always going to bug me that they changed it.

There were a number of Scandinavian subtleties in the original that I liked but could not survive the transposition, happy to trade that for the wonderful (and mostly subdued!) pairing of Pacino and Robin Williams.

No argument on Let the Right One In, I really should read the book at some point.

Dare we discuss Thomas Harris?

Offline Chris

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #28 on: March 07, 2017, 10:19:50 PM »
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Speaking of justify, that brings to mind a whole new category, adaptations that have done the most with the least amount of source. Justified the tv series, from the short story by Elmore Leonard, and the RED movies based on the 3 issue mini by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner.

I'm really mixed on the X-Movies, in general the casting is good, and there are great scenes (Nightcrawler in the White House, Magneto's prison escape, ...) But I usually feel like something is missing even if I can't put my finger on it.  First Class is my favorite.

For someone who has seen the movies I'd recommend the "God Loves, Man Kills" and "Days of Future Past" arcs to see where some of the ideas came from. And then Joss Whedon's run but only since it's my favorite. Then back to the other Claremont material.

Has anyone seen the longer version they made of the Swedish films? If so, is it worth it? This was one of those rare instances where I had not read the books but my wife had so it was her turn to be all critical and nit-picky :)  I liked the Fincher version a bit better, though I think both Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara were excellent as Lisbeth. Agree with [member=2226]Mel[/member] that it's too bad Fincher didn't get to finish the series, especially the 3rd part. My wife preferred the Swedish version, (this despite having Daniel Craig in the other,) but she would have liked the films to go more into the social issues that Larsson discussed in the books.

I'm tempted to start in on Insomnia and Let the Right One In but this post is already long enough .

My x-reviews are:

X1 pioneering a new genre, gets dated with age, but fond memories.
X2 probably the best one
X3 a travesty of the Dark Phoenix Saga
Wolverine origins: I pretend this one never happened
First class, The Adequate X-Men
The Wolverine, I wanted to claw my own eyes out.  With adamantium claws, not bone claws
Days of Future, reasonable, but continuity???
Deadpool, exhausting with being dialed to 11 for two hours, but funny with repeated viewing
Apocalypse, dollar bin x-factor 6 went for $100 for this piece of $#!+???

Logan, TBD, but I hope its good.  :)

Offline AzT

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #29 on: April 20, 2017, 08:19:54 PM »
Many more to consider we will have, from the House of Gaiman:

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