I’m out-of-pocket this weekend, being in a wedding, so I’ll just leave this question for the comments:
Having taken our first steps into the Hobbit and Hunger Games movies, Great Gatsby just out, Ender’s Game coming soon and The Book Thief still being cast, what are your thoughts? What movies did you think captured their books well? What movies totally ruined the books? What movies might have improved the books?
I’ve not read the books myself, but I know a friend was appalled by “Eragon”‘s film portrayal. I still remember coming out of the cinema and innocently asking, “What was with the dragon flying into the sky as a baby then coming back all grown up?”
And she very near exploded in her rage. 😛
I thought the same thing after seeing the movie! It seemed so thin a film for such a thick book. I went on to read the first two books in the cycle and they are, indeed, far better than the movie. It was only 90 minutes long; they should have bumped it to 2 hours and spent more time building characters and letting the dragon grow at its normal rate. Of course, the story is so close to the original Star Wars, that kind of takes away some of its honor. I mean, a princess carrying a tool that can help destroy the evil empire is being pursued by bad guys and finds a way to send the weapon beyond their reach before they catch her. It ends up in the hands of an orphan farm boy living on the outer reaches of the empire with his uncle. The bad guys trace it back to him, kill his uncle, so he follows an old fool (formerly a mystical knight, who gives him a sword) on an adventure wherein they hire a plucky guide and rescue the princess (and in the rescue process, the old man dies)…
It goes on and on like that. In the sequel, he receives training from a pointy-eared cripple. And finds out who his father is…
There are probably plenty of others, but there’s only one I can think of now. Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews was a wonderful book in a tragic kind of way, but the movie based on it was horrible. I saw it as a teen and couldn’t believe I wasted my money to see it.
I hate those money-wasting flicks! It’s enough to make you want to rent all your movies at the library and thus never risk wasting a dime.