You have to read the book/You just didn't get it

[Plaidman]

Personally I hate it when a movie is claiming to be based on a book, but then is nothing like the book. Now I understand adaptions need to be made and changes, which is why say, LOTR and the harry potter series I can at least watch because it's at the least mostly like the book.

But... say, the Postman? With Kevin Costner? The only thing they had in common was he found a postman suit. How they found it was different, there was no Holinst in the book, (It was a super computer). just literly the only thing they had in common was the postman uniform.

[Racket_Man]

in some anime I like the subtitled version with the original voice actors. the original cast voice actors seem to bing out the character as it was meant in their native language.

sometimes the English dub voice is better.

one example: I just finished watching all of FullMetal Alichemist:Brotherhood on YouTube. this version followed the Manga (unlike the first FullMetal Alichemist anime series). I watched the whole 62 episode series in subtitle and am watching the English dub on Cartoon Network on Sat Nights.

there are several characters that I feel were done better in Japanneese. the English dub voice actors just do not protray the evilness/grittyness/nastyness and emotion the original Japaneese actors did.

Particularly the character Kimblee. the Japaneese actor gave the voice a gritty and nasty edge. the English dub actor just fell flat


Now with the Harry Potter movies, yes there have been some serious editing of the plot line. but I will not detail it all as that is better left to the Harry Potter sites. but MAJOR items plot points, serious information and the like have been sliced out.

the best example is Half Blood Prince. my daughter had not red the book in a while before we went to see the movie. afterward she kept asking questions about several things because she vaguely remembered MAJOR points that were not coverd or even hinted at in the movie. several things were so watered down that is made no sense. she then asked WHY there were several scenes that were added that made no sense.

she then read the book again and kinda of understood but was upset the scriptwriter threw so much out.

[telecom_goddess]

I prefer subtitles over overdubbing. I've watched a few movies with subtitles and have enjoyed them, the most memorable being Aimee and Jaguar (which coincidentally was based on a book). That's an amazing movie and followed the book pretty well, they just left out a lot of details due to length. So you saw the hardships they went through but not all the fine day to day and year to year bullshit....that jewish people in general went through in Germany during WW2.

Another great one is Chaplin, about Charlie Chaplin, which is actually based on two books....one written about him and his own autobiography. Now THAT one cut out a lot of fine details because it would have been a month long miniseries if they hadn't.

OOOH almost forgot I just got done reading the Exorcist....and if you think the movie was gory in spots it's tame compared to the book. And a some sub plots were just left out completely. And the time of year it takes place in is completely off...in the movie it's the fall/winter and in the book it's spring/summer.

[Andara Bledin]

If the original voice acting is better, I'm fine with that. But I don't like it when people claim its better without any way of really JUDGING.

You don't have to actually know how to understand the original language to know whether the dubbed acting is better or not. Honestly, watch some of the anime One Piece in the original Japanese, and then turn around and watch the same scenes with the FourKids dub. There will be absolutely zero question of which is the better acting.

The acting divide in dubs is a problem of the dubbing studio and not endemic to dubbing in general. Disney proved that you can do quality dubbing with the work they did on the Miyazaki films. And the studio that did Hellsing is a good one, too.

Speaking of Hellsing, that's a show that diverged quite a bit from the book because they had to invent an entire plot around a whole new enemy in order to fit the story into the time frame they had to work with. The manga is much more rambling and much, much longer.

^-.-^

[Ginger Tea]

The Battle Royale Manga was more fleshed out than the movie and the book (which I haven't watched), some times though, it seemed like it was needless padding giving you the life story of someone who would be dead by the end of the volume.
I suppose it's good in a way as you could skip it without it spoiling the overal arc.

[AdminAssistant]

The dubbing of Ponyo is hilarious! Tina Fey in particular (although that character definitely wins worst mother of the year award, srsly.)

[muses_nightmare]

I tend to try and watch movies as separate from the source material they're coming from. The X-men movies? I'm counting them as AU, because there's no other way Rogue's storyline makes sense.

Blood and Chocolate, now that was one of the worst adaptations of a book I've seen, it was one I couldn't ignore either. They basically just used the title and the character names and the fact that they are werewolves. The rest was completely made up for the movie. The movie was terrible, they even had to make the title literal, by making the main character work in a chocolate shop, just no. The entire point of the title was the difference between being human and being werewolf, she was supposed to choose the were side over the human one. Sorry, I'm ranting...

My boyfriend will not watch anything that's in black and white. He was going to skip an episode of Monk because it was done in Black and white, they did a colour version to apparently.

[Andara Bledin]

I tend to try and watch movies as separate from the source material they're coming from. The X-men movies? I'm counting them as AU, because there's no other way Rogue's storyline makes sense.

DC made a point that the movies wouldn't be part of the regular universe storyline to avoid the fact that you can't cram everybody's favorite characters from 40 years of a comic into 120 minutes.

^-.-^

[muses_nightmare]

DC made a point that the movies wouldn't be part of the regular universe storyline to avoid the fact that you can't cram everybody's favorite characters from 40 years of a comic into 120 minutes.

^-.-^

Are you talking about other comic movies? Cause the X-men are Marvel. Just curious.

[Ginger Tea]

Captain Dickhead once asked me which graphic novel of DareDevil was the one used in the movie.
Probably none of em.

OK years ago there used to be movie to comic tie ins, but never that many if any comic tie ins of a movie based on a comic and if there were they wouldnt be cannon.

I hate the whole introduce the vilain and kill them in the same film that batman and spiderman do

[Andara Bledin]

Are you talking about other comic movies? Cause the X-men are Marvel. Just curious.

No, wait, I'm confused. >_<

I did mean Marvel, but the other stuff they've done and are doing involving Iron Man, etc. They're basing it mostly on the Ultimates Universe, which is why Samuel L. Jackson is playing Nick Fury, which is fun, since the Ultimates Nick Fury was based on Samuel L. Jackson.

What they did with X-Men and Wolverine were awful; Spiderman wasn't so bad. I'm just hoping that their treatment of Deadpool in his own movie is better than the drek that was done in Wolverine.

And it isn't so much that it doesn't match what was in the comics as it is that the movies just weren't that good. It's just worse when you know the source material.

^-.-^

[crashhelmet]

I can't believe I forgot about this, but one of the biggest bastardizations of a book to movie conversion was Robert Ludlum's "The Bourne Identity." Pretty much the only thing the two had in common were the title, the main character's name, and amnesia. Everything else was almost night and day.

[muses_nightmare]

I rather liked the Wolverine movie, as something separate from the comics all together, it wasn't the greatest piece of filmmaking ever, but I enjoyed it as something that was fun to watch.

I'm a big geek about X-men, so I'll watch whatever they put out moviewise It's an addiction. LOL

[Racket_Man]

I can't believe I forgot about this, but one of the biggest bastardizations of a book to movie conversion was Robert Ludlum's "The Bourne Identity." Pretty much the only thing the two had in common were the title, the main character's name, and amnesia. Everything else was almost night and day.

that was remake/reboot. it also included the fishing boat in the beginning and the memory loss. then everything completely diverges from the book except the very basic story line

if I remember correctly they did a 2 or 3 part TV movie of the Bourne Idendity back in the 1980's with Richard Chamberlin and Jackqulin Smith. that version followed the book somewhat closely.

I do not remember if they ever did the Bourne Supremecy with those actors.

several of Ludlum's novels were put to screen and they frankly sucked