Kiwirob wrote:

The guy playing him in the Amazon series is pretty close to what I would think Jack Ryan would be like.

Alec Baldwin has always been Jack Ryan to me. I think he does really well, actually. Not sure I buy him as an ex-Marine with a bad back, but I buy him as a CIA agent who will one day go on to be President. I can't see John Krasinski as Jack Ryan at all. They try to make him too macho for me to buy him as Jack Ryan.

TSS wrote:

dik909 wrote:

Honorable mention (for Worst Adaptation): Sphere by Michael Crichton

Now I'm intrigued- I read the book and hated it, I felt the ending was a huge copout, so I had less than no interest in seeing the film. How is the film different from the book?

Welcome to Michael Chrichton. He creates an amazing story that you can't imagine how it will end...then in one paragraph, its all over. Overall still one of my favourite authors. I will add my vote to Sphere the movie being a horrible adaptation. My take is they knew they couldn't possibly re-create the murder-mystery-ish theme that everyone is a suspect and the feeling of tension between the crew, so they did a special effects movie and hired a bunch of a-list actors for the cast but ran out of money to write a script. I watched it when it came out before I read the book and thought it sucked. Then I read the book and re-watched it and wanted to call the studio to ask them if they thought I was an imbecile.

meecrob wrote:

TSS wrote:

dik909 wrote:

Honorable mention (for Worst Adaptation): Sphere by Michael Crichton

Now I'm intrigued- I read the book and hated it, I felt the ending was a huge copout, so I had less than no interest in seeing the film. How is the film different from the book?

Welcome to Michael Chrichton. He creates an amazing story that you can't imagine how it will end...then in one paragraph, its all over. Overall still one of my favourite authors.

Ehhh… Prior to Sphere, the only other book of his I'd read was Jurassic Park, mainly because a friend who is far more critical than I am literally put a copy in my hand and said "Here. You need to read this before someone makes a bad film out of it". Before that I'd never heard of Michael Crichton. After reading Sphere I thought "Well, he's batting .500 so far but everybody drops a clunker once in a while. Next I tried to read Congo and couldn't even finish it.

meecrob wrote:

I will add my vote to Sphere the movie being a horrible adaptation. My take is they knew they couldn't possibly re-create the murder-mystery-ish theme that everyone is a suspect and the feeling of tension between the crew, so they did a special effects movie and hired a bunch of a-list actors for the cast but ran out of money to write a script. I watched it when it came out before I read the book and thought it sucked. Then I read the book and re-watched it and wanted to call the studio to ask them if they thought I was an imbecile.

Yeah, when they announced Sharon Stone and Dustin Hoffman were going to star in the film version I wondered if the studio had bought the rights before reading the book and were trying to pad the box office by hiring heavy hitters to star in it.

Agree on The Andromeda Strain.
I re-readed the book on my recent business trip.
By the time I boarded the plane in FLR, during the flight tu MUC and then from MUC to DUS I readed about 75%.
I've readed the remaining 25% while waiting in DUS...
Movie was also well made. Have it in the DVD player right now, guess I'll watch it tonight.

Many of you will say Dune was a bad movie adaptation. But may I disagree. I've readed all the Dune series books and whilst some of them are very good, others are only boring. In fact, I prefer David Lynch's movie over the book. Oh by the way, I love David Lynch as a filmmaker.

ER757 wrote:

dik909 wrote:

Best = Shawshank Redemption. Even though the film added much that wasn't in the book, the final product was still brilliant.

Honorable mention: although I never read the book, One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest was phenomenal, too.

Worst = Last of the Mohicans. The book by James Fennimore Cooper was sooooooo much more compelling and riveting than the film.

Honorable mention: Sphere by Michael Crichton

Cuckoo's Nest is in my all-time top five (actually #2 behind Close Encounters) - Nicholson won best actor and as great as his performance was, he was probably the least convincing of the "patients."
Christopher Lloyd (Taber) was amazing, Brad Dourif (Billy) and Sydney Lassick (Cheswick) were outstanding!

"Sphere" was pretty decent as well

If you can get a hold of it, check out the 'Making of' Cuckoo's nest special that came with the DVD; there's some really fascinating stuff in there on how the actors got into character, etc.

FatCat wrote:

Many of you will say Dune was a bad movie adaptation. But may I disagree. I've readed all the Dune series books and whilst some of them are very good, others are only boring. In fact, I prefer David Lynch's movie over the book. Oh by the way, I love David Lynch as a filmmaker.

I haven't read any of the Dune books but I did go see the movie with someone who is a huge fan of them and he thought that for what the film did cover, it did a very good job, just that it didn't cover anywhere near enough. He was particularly impressed with the depiction of the Third Stage Navigators. Now that, what, thirty years or so have passed maybe someone will do a much longer, more in-depth version as a series a la Game of Thrones.

In comic books I always liked EC (horror) comics above all others, then Marvel for the X-Men, but I had friends and family who liked DC for Superman or Batman (never for both, oddly) so I've become familiar with a fair bit of those character's lore by osmosis and through seeing the related films. I have never read so much as a single page of a Green Lantern comic book, but I saw the movie and thought it was fine, better in fact than most DC-based films I've seen, yet fans of the comic books unreservedly hated it. Anyone care to explain in basic terms what was wrong with the Green Lantern film that I, a raw newbie to the character, didn't notice?

dik909 wrote:

ER757 wrote:

dik909 wrote:

Best = Shawshank Redemption. Even though the film added much that wasn't in the book, the final product was still brilliant.

Honorable mention: although I never read the book, One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest was phenomenal, too.

Worst = Last of the Mohicans. The book by James Fennimore Cooper was sooooooo much more compelling and riveting than the film.

Honorable mention: Sphere by Michael Crichton

Cuckoo's Nest is in my all-time top five (actually #2 behind Close Encounters) - Nicholson won best actor and as great as his performance was, he was probably the least convincing of the "patients."
Christopher Lloyd (Taber) was amazing, Brad Dourif (Billy) and Sydney Lassick (Cheswick) were outstanding!

"Sphere" was pretty decent as well

If you can get a hold of it, check out the 'Making of' Cuckoo's nest special that came with the DVD; there's some really fascinating stuff in there on how the actors got into character, etc.

Yeah, I have it - bought the Blu-Ray and the "making of" came with it

Quite a few good submissions in here so far, but my nod goes to "No Country for Old Men" if we're looking for the best film adaptation--there were literally scenes in that film that looked almost identical to what I was imagining when I read the novel. "Jurassic Park" gets a weird nod for the "I like the book and the movie for different reasons" trophy, the film version of "Ender's Game" can go ahead and get hit by a freight train.

TSS wrote:

I haven't read any of the Dune books but I did go see the movie with someone who is a huge fan of them and he thought that for what the film did cover, it did a very good job, just that it didn't cover anywhere near enough. He was particularly impressed with the depiction of the Third Stage Navigators. Now that, what, thirty years or so have passed maybe someone will do a much longer, more in-depth version as a series a la Game of Thrones.

Alexandro Jodorowsky hardly criticized Lynch's film. He made a short Dune film itself, or started filming the whole movie, I don't remember, claiming his one was the right one. I have seen El Topo and La montaña Sagrada and quite liked it, but was he better than Lynch? Not in my opinion...

FatCat wrote:

Agree on The Andromeda Strain.
I re-readed the book on my recent business trip.
By the time I boarded the plane in FLR, during the flight tu MUC and then from MUC to DUS I readed about 75%.
I've readed the remaining 25% while waiting in DUS...
Movie was also well made. Have it in the DVD player right now, guess I'll watch it tonight.

Many of you will say Dune was a bad movie adaptation. But may I disagree. I've readed all the Dune series books and whilst some of them are very good, others are only boring. In fact, I prefer David Lynch's movie over the book. Oh by the way, I love David Lynch as a filmmaker.

On TV recently they shew a documentary "Jodorowsky's Dune" on the initial movie project.
That would have been something. ( the work done up front has permeated most SF Movies after.)
ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky%27s_Dune

Which Andromeda Strain movie are you referencing.
the recent MiniSeries from 2008 or the initial one from 1971?
I do seem to remember a Movie with Dustin Hoffman with similar premises ( but an ape derived virus.).

WIederling wrote:

On TV recently they shew a documentary "Jodorowsky's Dune" on the initial movie project.
That would have been something. ( the work done up front has permeated most SF Movies after.)
ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky%27s_Dune

Which Andromeda Strain movie are you referencing.
the recent MiniSeries from 2008 or the initial one from 1971?
I do seem to remember a Movie with Dustin Hoffman with similar premises ( but an ape derived virus.).

The original movie from 1971.
I didn't even know that a mini series was made! Maybe it never came here.
The movie with D. Hoffman is Outbreak

Max Q wrote:

Apollo 13 was very good, lived up to the book as did ‘Sully’

I would say a movie based on non-fiction will always be better because we have living people to tell the story and potentially consult on the movie.

Essentially everyone from Apollo 13 is still alive today and Sully was only 10 years ago.

BN747 wrote:

I'd say, for it's time the original Jurrasic Park.

I don't know how many pages the book has, but cram all that (I know much was left out) into a 2 hour feature and make it soooo simplistic in explanation so that every F-student of geology, evolutionary studies could grasp the concept and weave into a palatable story, that's an adaptation.

BN747

The Jurassic world trilogy is weaving in a lot of the storylines from the book into film as best they can.
Since we are talking Michael Crichton and this being A.net they need to make Airframe a movie to satisfy us all.

Alas, I so seldom read fiction, so I can't comment on books vs movie, but I thought Hannibal was quite good.

And whilst not a book, per se, people often overlook Flash Gordon because of its camp (and Star Wars nuked it), but the visuals, the cinematography, etc, was all deliberately meant to reflect a comic book adaptation in the purest sense, really. The blocking, the backgrounds, even the hokey dialogue. It's sort of brilliant when you look at it in a different light like that.

One other comment: Stephen King is such a wordy bastard that I'm surprised anyone can do film adaptations because writing screenplays off his works has to be exceedingly difficult. That said, I've heard the new Pet Sematary reboot is supposed to be quite good. Haven't seen it yet though.

StarAC17 wrote:

BN747 wrote:

I'd say, for it's time the original Jurrasic Park.

I don't know how many pages the book has, but cram all that (I know much was left out) into a 2 hour feature and make it soooo simplistic in explanation so that every F-student of geology, evolutionary studies could grasp the concept and weave into a palatable story, that's an adaptation.

BN747

The Jurassic world trilogy is weaving in a lot of the storylines from the book into film as best they can.
Since we are talking Michael Crichton and this being A.net they need to make Airframe a movie to satisfy us all.

My being short on the 'novelist' end but quite extensive on the Film (& screenwriting) end of this transition, I can say to cram all that into 2 hour film and to deliver 'reasonably' plausible story they way it was done was just amazing at the time. Today, with CG being what it is, that part is easy. But just Inception and Interstellar the story can easily 'out-complex' the average moviegoer/entertainment viewer (not calling them dumb but just saying of that pool, there's a lot of 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' fans in those ranks....they all 'got' Jurassic Park perfectly. Not a lost soul in the house. Of course, once the Dinos started chowing down and scaring the wits out of people (and an image forever burned in my mind at a pre-release screening was a guy who literally and physically leaped out of his seat when the T-Rex snatched the frightened lawyer hiding on the toilet in the tiki-shack bathroom) they storyline really didn't matter much. But kudos to those responsible for the adaptation.


BN747

Worst...oh yeah.

Worst Adaptation...Oprah's 'Beloved'...love you Oprah, but you need not be like FAT Donny trump and LISTEN...to staffers or anyone more knowledgeable than yourself.
In Oprah's case, I'm certain she read the book (ding - Book Club) but in the transition somewhere between Oprah's unmistakable understanding of the book clashed with her forever 'always listen to the other person' theme...came up way short against whomever was explaining to the movie going audience.

An audience for all films are a wide collection of interest/reasons for attending. But and 'adaptation audience' are for the most part are on the same page and should have been a slam dunk. But not this case...a total bomb/disaster - I think any actors in the film 'own up to it'...certainly not boasting about it.

The movie bombed, pissed off everyone who saw it and left completely flummoxed! No one can tell you what the point was...I bet the book left no reader anywhere near as confused as the feature film.

BN747

StarAC17 wrote:

Since we are talking Michael Crichton and this being A.net they need to make Airframe a movie to satisfy us all.

I genuinely thought it already had been during the Crichton-mania period of the late 90s/early 00s when even a note Mr. Crichton left on his fridge for his wife had a better than 50% chance of having it's film rights secured by a major studio.

Kubrick's The Shining is not faithful to the book, but it's a better story than the King book. I prefer a film where the hotel is the star, vs, where alcoholism is the star.

Do comic books count?

Best: X-men: Days of future past. Movie actually outdoes the comic book storyline in my opinion.
Worst: Almost any other Marvel comic movie adaptation.

TSS wrote:

StarAC17 wrote:

Since we are talking Michael Crichton and this being A.net they need to make Airframe a movie to satisfy us all.

I genuinely thought it already had been during the Crichton-mania period of the late 90s/early 00s when even a note Mr. Crichton left on his fridge for his wife had a better than 50% chance of having it's film rights secured by a major studio.

Indeed, I recall seeing it being listed on IMDB with Demi Moore attached to star.

If there's a better time to release the movie, it would be now - especially considering how relevant the media fact vs. drama angle is to real life today.

StarAC17 wrote:

Since we are talking Michael Crichton and this being A.net they need to make Airframe a movie to satisfy us all.

TSS wrote:

I genuinely thought it already had been during the Crichton-mania period of the late 90s/early 00s when even a note Mr. Crichton left on his fridge for his wife had a better than 50% chance of having it's film rights secured by a major studio.

TheFlyingDisk wrote:

Indeed, I recall seeing it being listed on IMDB with Demi Moore attached to star.

Thanks for confirmation on that. I wonder why it wound up never getting made if they were already to the point of having the lead cast?

TheFlyingDisk wrote:

If there's a better time to release the movie, it would be now - especially considering how relevant the media fact vs. drama angle is to real life today.

Yep, and a big-budget movie with a strong, smart female lead would certainly gain whatever studio releases it some cred with feminists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airframe_%28novel%29

reads like something from "oOn the Beach" author Nevil Shute
Hmm:
?? "No Highway" ??