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

[Rageaholic]

I hate it when people act like your opinion on a movie isn't valuable because you either didn't read the book it was based on or you "didn't get it".

I'm noticing the first one more and more since a lot of movies are based on books (no matter how well known they are). Can't a movie just stand on it's own regardless of whether or not I read the book? I've seen some pretty good movies that were based on books I've never read. Conserversly I've seen some pretty awful movies that seemed to follow the book perfectly. It's one thing to want to compare the movie to the book, but it's another to act as if the only way you can judge the movie is if you read the book. Bull shit. It's still a movie and CAN be judged as a movie.

Then there are those who say "You just didn't get it" when a negative opinion is expressed toward a movie they loved. Bullshit. Either a: I didn't get it because there was nothing to "get" (they were just making their own interpration) or b: I did get it, but I didn't LIKE it. For me, it's usually B: I get the point of the movie, but I found it boring and unsatisfying to sit through. But apparently that means I didn't get it because if I got it, I would have thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.

[Andara Bledin]

Ugh, people who claim you "don't get it" are usually pretentious twats.

Like a lot of Woody Allen fans.

^-.-^

[AdminAssistant]

Yeah, movies based on books, plays, etc. should be able to stand on their own. They are, after all, separate works of art. I remember watching "The Two Towers" with a LOTR fanatic and he kept confusing me by saying, "Now, in the BOOK, this this and this happen." Finally I said, "Look, I'm not reading the book, I'm watching the movie, so STFU!"

The best play to movie adaptations that I've seen are the ones that actually embrace what film can do. Sweeney Todd, Doubt, and Closer were all excellent because they didn't try to be too faithful to the original at the expense of good filmmaking. The Producers (w/ Lane and Broderick) looked and felt like a taped version of a live performance. (Will Ferrell, however, was hilarious.) RENT need not be mentioned. Ever.

[protege]

Yeah, movies based on books, plays, etc. should be able to stand on their own. They are, after all, separate works of art. I remember watching "The Two Towers" with a LOTR fanatic and he kept confusing me by saying, "Now, in the BOOK, this this and this happen."

They should be able to stand on their own. However, sometimes you have to edit things out, or add things to cater to the audience. Viewers aren't going to tolerate something that resembles watching paint dry

Seriously though, I'm sure everyone that's seen <i>Goodfellas</i> knows that many of the events depicted in the film actually happened--the 1978 Lufthansa heist, the bodies popping up around NYC--to name a couple. Several years after that flick came out, Henry Hill (who participated in some of the events depicted in the film) wrote a book about it. Mainly, about things that led up to the events in the flick...but also things that happened after it.

[Ginger Tea]

V for Vendetta the movie out surpasses the original due to a drastic rewrite of the catalist that allowed the facists into power (and got rid of the in love with the computer sub plot)

Alan Moore wrote that he at the time had no idea what would happen if europe was attacked with atomic weapons yet the UK spared due to the peace treaty signed at the time, we probably would have suffered alot of fallout, but I'm not one for testing this theory.
Also 9/11 had not happened and no one at the time thought of flying a plane into a building even as an action movie plot device. also dirty bombs, SARS and numerous biological terrorism devices were not as well known.

So if he wrote V for Vendetta in the late 90's he would have written a far different story.

Setting a story in a contemporary world instead of the one it was written in sometimes helps a story, others its just making it more acceptable to the viewing public, set now vs set in the 50's only to keep it simpler for set directions etc.

I've not seen it, but I thought the adaptations to the Girl with the dragon tattoo and other books were already Americanised, or atleast in English, the third film isnt out yet they are starting the remake.
Can't the average cinema goer read subtitles? is that why they remade "let the right one in"?
It's almost the same as remaking a classic B&W movie only cos no one will watch it unless its in colour.

[Lace Neil Singer]

If the LOTR books were translated directly into movie form, you'd get movies that were ten hours long... each. O.o

[Andara Bledin]

Can't the average cinema goer read subtitles? is that why they remade "let the right one in"?
It's almost the same as remaking a classic B&W movie only cos no one will watch it unless its in colour.

In a lot of cases; No.

My mother, who loves anime shows, can't watch subtitled anime because she cannot read subtitles at all. Her vision just isn't that good any more.

Then there are a lot of people who can read them just fine, but not fast enough. And even for a speed-reader, there are things you miss when you're busy staring at the edge of the screen instead of the focus of the shot.

However, with the advances in technology we have today, why can't we just dub them? Sure, the lips might not synch up quite right, but is that really such a horrible thing?

^-.-^

[Ginger Tea]

With any animation it can be localised with ease, some probably didn't lip sync that well in the original language first time round, afaik Akira is the only one to really care about lip sync.

I watched dead snow with subtitles and when Phelous reviewed it he used the dubbed voices, god it was painful.
Good choices in voice actors might be better than just rehashing the movie to be in English, I could not watch Akira dubbed (also it didn't help that that was a separate VHS purchase), but unless they changed the voices for the DVD I can not endure hearing one of them talk like a teenage mutant ninja turtle.

Also Ring and the grudge didn't cross over as well as our ghost stories and mythology are not the same as Japan's, when the main plot device is a belife system that isn't yours it makes less sense keeping it in the remake, although the grudge was set in japan.

[telecom_goddess]

The best play to movie adaptations that I've seen are the ones that actually embrace what film can do. Sweeney Todd, Doubt, and Closer were all excellent because they didn't try to be too faithful to the original at the expense of good filmmaking. The Producers (w/ Lane and Broderick) looked and felt like a taped version of a live performance. (Will Ferrell, however, was hilarious.) RENT need not be mentioned. Ever.

I just want to inject my two cents here regarding Closer, it's one of my favorite movies of all time an I think did follow the play for the most part, although it was fleshed out in some parts and I feel they did leave a a huge chunk off the end that was in the play. A very important chunk if you ask me.

[AdminAssistant]

I feel they did leave a a huge chunk off the end that was in the play. A very important chunk if you ask me.

Oh, absolutely. But it's kind of...implied, at the end. Of course, the play is mostly about Alice. But when it translated to film, they seemed to shift the story to Dan/Anna. Julia Roberts actually didn't annoy me as much as I thought she would, and Clive Owen was absolutely perfect.

As far as dubbing vs. subtitles, I generally prefer subtitles because I want to hear the original actors' voices, particularly with live action stuff. Animated film dubbing isn't so bad. Actually, Fiance and I are currently watching Gurren Lagann dubbed. This is my first time watching it, but he's seen it many times, subtitled. According to him, the American voice acting is pretty much on par with the original.

[Ginger Tea]

The UK dub of water margin and monkey* are a must although nothing surpasses the "on the waterfront" recut and redub of "The flashing blade"

*Don't know if Monkey was a UK dub but Water margin had one woman doing virtually all female voices, sexily too considering I know what she looks like, she was Black Adders religious Aunt in that season 2 episode, she might have even been the cadburys caramel bunny.
Mind you Pam Ayres could do telephone sex lines and I wont mind that shes old enough to be dead (well perhaps not but I've no idea without looking) and wasn't hot when she was however old she was in the 70's.

[Hyena Dandy]

Subtitles are alright, and I do not approve of remaking black and white movies JUST because nobody would watch unless they were color.

But, I don't have a problem with dubbing things. For one, the point of a visual medium is that its just that. visual. I read crazy quick.

Though one problem I have is people who hate dubs because the original voice acting is superior IF they have no knowledge of the language its in.

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.

[Kheldarson]

If a movie cannot stand apart from its book and still tell a similar story, either the writer/director did something seriously wrong, or the book didn't really need to be in that format. That's my opinion though.

As for dub v. sub, I prefer sub. But that's because I watch anime and such to see a different culture/enjoy a different sort of mythos and I want to hear it in the actual language.

Besides, bad voice choices can kill an anime. *cough*4kids*cough*

[crashhelmet]

I'm usually one to complain about the movie being nothing like or worse than the book or movies that are supposed to be based on real people/events and stray away.

In books like Fight Club, you get a deeper look into the psyche of the characters. The torment that the narrator puts Marla through is so much more vivid in the book and really hits you when the twist is revealed more so than it does in the movie.

The Harry Potter series, for example, has a lot of key plot elements spread across multiple characters. In the movies they either cut those plot points out entirely, or give them to different characters, thus changing the story.

The conversion of Twilight from book to screen took out the psychological cores of the characters, removed plot points, added new plot points, and shortened the timeline from about 9 months to like 2.

The movie Robin Hood, with Russell Crowe is as great as I would expect from Ridley Scott, but how the hell do you change the death of King Richard? That would be like someone making a movie and having Abraham Lincoln die of a heart attack.

Don't even get me started on the comic to movie conversions where in movies like the Spiderman trilogy, they swap characters around and completely change others.

[Ginger Tea]

I didn't know Constantine was meant to be Hellblazer the movie, not nowing this made me apreciate it as its own movie and not a shite comic adaptation bearing little to no resemblance to the original aside from title (Wanted I'm looking at you, good film by itself but what a waste of a licence)