What's more important: Being a good film, or a good adaptation?

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

So good adaptation, bad movie.

Basically the consensus i get. Though most book fans love it.

Then there's World War Z. Calling it a loose adaptation is a ridiculous understatements of all understatements. It wasn't even a pragmatic adaptation. It's basically in name only. I think the resident evil films are better adaptations lol

[Sighphi]

good adaptation.

Whats the point of it being a good movie if it's not recognizable?

[SpiderClops]

Basically the consensus i get. Though most book fans love it.

Then there's World War Z. Calling it a loose adaptation is a ridiculous understatements of all understatements. It wasn't even a pragmatic adaptation. It's basically in name only. I think the resident evil films are better adaptations lol

I've never read World War Z book. But the movie was just meh.

[Tugger]

I guess it will depend on whether you prefer reading or viewing. The readers will say good adaptation, the viewers good movie. Those who like both will want the film to mirror a good adaptation

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

I'm stills PISSED over World War Z to this very day. Not even David Fincher will make me watch the sequel.

[Coal Tiger]

good adaptation.

Whats the point of it being a good movie if it's not recognizable?

If only the few hardcore fans recognize it, what’s the point of making it at all?

[Immortal Weapon]

good adaptation.

Whats the point of it being a good movie if it's not recognizable?

It's a movie so I want it to be good in that medium first and foremost.

[LordLeviathan]

should we add starship troopers the first movie which basicly is the anithesis of the novel.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I think if you are a fan its a good adaptation but if you are a creator then making a good film is more important. Ideally you would want to do both but doing both isn't always possible.

[Osiris-Rex]

should we add starship troopers the first movie which basicly is the anithesis of the novel.

Wasn't the movie sort of a satire of the novel? Sort of like how the Batman TV show was a satire of the Batman comic books. Or how Space Balls was a parody of Star Wars.

[Kusanagi]

Stephen King is really good for this thread as with some of his books it's almost impossible to be a faithful adaptation and good. The problem comes from the fact that King's biggest strength (imo) are his character's inner struggles and those just don't come across as well on film.

[Carabas]

Stephen King is really good for this thread as with some of his books it's almost impossible to be a faithful adaptation and good.

Usually this is 'solved' by making a very unfaithful adaption that is terrible.

[LordLeviathan]

Wasn't the movie sort of a satire of the novel? Sort of like how the Batman TV show was a satire of the Batman comic books. Or how Space Balls was a parody of Star Wars.

More like ruthless deconstruction. The Fact that unlike Heinlein Verhoeven got a frontrow seat at Facism and War(he was a child during WWII and the nazi occupation of the Netherlands)

[ChrisIII]

How about film adaptations that sometimes affect the source material (if part of a series, that is)? In some of Ian Fleming's later Bond works before his death, the character seemed to come off a bit lighter than in earlier novels, and this trend becomes even more apparent in the later novels not written by Fleming but still in the basic continuity (For instance the expanded roles of Q and Moneypenny).

Michael Crichton's The Lost World novel also seems to have been heavily inspired by the success of Spielberg's adaptation; Ian Malcolm is pretty much extremely dead at the end of the first novel-a combination of his injuries and also being napalmed is pretty definitive; however in The Lost World he's magically alive although with a cane. (Plus I don't think much is made of the novel's ending where it appears there are raptors on the mainland and Grant and co. are stuck in Costa Rica)


Plus pretty much every superhero movie ever made has had the comics at least temporarily incorporate some of it's changes-the X-men wearing all black for a while, for example....

[Carabas]

How about film adaptations that sometimes affect the source material (if part of a series, that is)? In some of Ian Fleming's later Bond works before his death, the character seemed to come off a bit lighter than in earlier novels, and this trend becomes even more apparent in the later novels not written by Fleming but still in the basic continuity (For instance the expanded roles of Q and Moneypenny).

Michael Crichton's The Lost World novel also seems to have been heavily inspired by the success of Spielberg's adaptation; Ian Malcolm is pretty much extremely dead at the end of the first novel-a combination of his injuries and also being napalmed is pretty definitive; however in The Lost World he's magically alive although with a cane. (Plus I don't think much is made of the novel's ending where it appears there are raptors on the mainland and Grant and co. are stuck in Costa Rica)

It is impossible for works created after the movie to be source material.

As for everlasting and infinitely ongoing characters, they will always change with the times, movies or not.