What is Digg?101 Comments
- MrBabyMan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26Surprised "Blade Runner" is not on that list. "Do Androids Dream...", while an excellent book, bears little in common with its movie adaptation, yet both are phenomenal works.
- ego_slam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16From Article, "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas: Have you ever tried reading this "classic" book? It's the definition of illegible drivel."
Has this person ever actually read anything but webpages and the menu at Taco Bell? Hunter S. Thompson was one of America's best modern writers, and inspired a whole generation. A drug addled generation, but a generation nonetheless. His articles and later his books are the one of the best ways to have your finger on the pulse of middle to late 1900's America. To have someone label anything by HST as "illegible drivel" is the sign of a truly ignorant writer. - gzim, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14are you serious? that book WAS the movie, (save for the ending)
- acdcfanbill, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16Life of Brian gets dugg in my book.
- Farik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I have to disagree quite strongly with the Fear and Loathing comment. I loved the movie, and enjoyed reading the book so much more after viewing the movie.
- XatM, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Yeah and I thought the film of Fear and Loathing was incredibly close to the book, long sections of it were taken word for word.
- gandhi2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13What a sophomoric and unvalidated attempt to bash very good literary works. Obviously written by somebody who has little understanding of the written word, yet feels qualified to compare screen plays to actual...uh...literature. I suppose Crichton is God, then, huh?
Hunter S. Thompson is undoubtedly one of the greatest news writers of all time. To write off his works as "illegible drivel" goes to show how little of writing this guy understands. Sure, Thompson is drivel, but goddam was he good at it. And that Gilliam strayed more than a few words off the key parts of the book? *****. Most of the passages are verbatim from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Gilliam and Depp work closely with Thompson, and Depp pulled off the character brilliantly. It would've been awesome to have an adaption of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.
Most of the comments the author is writing is simply ripping on decent works of writing to praise the ***** films that came from them. I didn't read the Blade comics, but I did know him when he was part of Nightstalkers and the Midnight Sons. And they weren't bad. In the movies, Hollywood took a ***** on the integrity of the comic series, just as they've done with every single other ***** comic book flick. It was flashy, witty, goth, and full of Hollywood glitterz... The formula leads to a ***** product that can't really be equated to the original. Sorry.
And I'm just plain sorry. The end products of both the Dune and Hobbit aren't even in the same camp as their literary counterparts. Come on, as unpalettable as Herbert may be, compressing the ENTIRETY of the last books into a scene where it magically rains? Ass-*****. And the Hobbit? Oh god, I think I'm going to ***** vomit....the ***** quality of animation, the cheesy rotoscoping, the ***** STUPID music. Released by the same company that did Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town(remember those lame Christmas specials), and later picked up for redistribution by Disney. Bad Disney! Stay the ***** off my literature. No cookies.
Next time you compile such a list, you might to think more careful, and make sure you are on topic. Perhaps it would be more apt to title it "Movies that compromised the integrity of the original work, but because the public is so ***** dumb, made huge box office numbers." And before you sit down at the keyboard to review, you might want to gather a) some background info, b) the actual work you are critiquing, c) your ***** brain. - inactive, on 05/12/2008, -3/+14The animated Lord of the Rings has to be one of the worst things I've ever seen. All I remember was that scene where the people (I can't remember what they were) slowly got up from hiding in the bushes, singing. That scene singlehandedly kept me away from reading Lord of the Rings (at the time anyway).
- zjungleist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11They missed Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. That's not even the name of the freakin book. They changed the title the sell candy. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the movie version, is far more accurate, and also not all that good.
- atcdev, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Every version of Hitchhikers has been different :
The radio play was different to the novel was different to the TV series was different to the computer game was different to the comic was different to the film (and Douglas Adams wrote all but the last two). So in a round about way the movie was faithful in that it was unfaithful to anything done previously. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I thought Contact belonged on there. I only found out recently that some of the best themes from that film were unique to the film.
- ChagrinRiddle, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Life of Brian was definitely way better than it's source material...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9The title said least faithful screen adaptions that came out GOOD. That movie quite literally made me weep for the memory of that amazing book. So many people will never read that awesomeness that is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy just because the movie was so terrible. The best part of that book was it's subtle sarcastic wit, especially in the narrative. The movie tried to cherry pick jokes, water them down, and shove them forcefully down your throat.
- atcdev, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7There's rather a lot of singing in the LOTR books too (at least a few editions even provide sheet music). A couple of the early conflicts is resolved entirely through singing (care to join me in a few verses of 'Hey, Tom Bombadil' anyone?).
I suspect both directors agonized over how deal with this, Jackson's decision to pretend it never happened was probably wise. - sfslim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6By rights, the number one spot should have been given to "Adaptation". Nominally an adaptation of Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief", the film quickly becomes a meta-tale about the process of adaptation, and any pretense of adherence to the original source text quickly devolves, and is ultimately abandoned altogether. Sheer genius, thanks to the "Kaufman twins".
- Binky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Yeah, I can't believe I'm bothering to jump into this one, but I find it insulting that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is on this list. The movie is so close to the book that I would have put it on my "The Ten MOST Faithful Screen Adaptations That Came Out...Good" list. Clearly the person who wrote this list is a moron.
- wilf_brim, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy."
- ChagrinRiddle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4From what I heard the Gene Wilder version changed the name of the movie because "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" apparently made people think it was going to be about Vietnam or something, and I see where it's coming from with "Charlie" but to think "and the Chocolate Factory" doesn't actually correct that thought immediately...
- miyamotofreak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I prefered the Godfather book to the film. And I thought the film was pretty faithful.
- burningmonk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Although the list is alright, except for a few missing films (Children of Men is a glaring omission), the guy who wrote it immediately loses all credibility when he calls Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas "illegible dribble," but then considers the movie a fine and coherent work. The book is spectacular, and the film adapts it almost perfectly. I'm assuming this ***** (no digg, I don't mean 'twit', I mean '*****') didn't read the book and just assumed. Anyway, as a Thompson fan (as well as a Gilliam fan) I needed to get that off my chest.
- Thrag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I was about to say the exact same thing. Blade Runner was awesome, but only had a passing similarity with the also awesome book.
- hugalager, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3My thoughts exactly... he totally missed the mark on this one. The movie is as close to the book as any other book/movie I've experienced
- CLShortFuse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@drinklord: Look at you correcting grammar when the first word you say is grammatically incorrect. "it's" not "its"
I don't read books, it's not my thing personally, so kudos for those directors to make the changes to make it enjoyable. Though some things in, say, World of the Wars bugged me. And like in Batman (1989), the Joker killing Bruce's parents!?
But the best screen adaption has to be Muppet Treasure Island, based on Treasure Island - aviazn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5No, the movie Fail-Safe was based on the book Fail-Safe, although it was pretty much the same plot as Red Alert, from what I understand. I remember reading somewhere that Kubrick was racing the guys behind the Fail-Safe movie to get theirs out first so that when Fail-Safe did come out, it was like it had already been parodied.
- fauxXenophanes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Great film. Who would have thought you would get that chemistry from Foster and Mac ??
- atcdev, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The Ralph Bakshi LOTR was about as failthful to the original as the Jackson versions (if you discount stopping half way through when the money ran out). If you watch it through 'seventies' goggles it's not too bad for a for something so ambitious - the modern LOTR is just heaps better.
- Cameleopard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I was just going to write a comment to the same effect. Thompson nixed Alex Cox (Repo Man, Death and the Compass), a wonderful director in my opinion, as the original director because his screenplay wasn't faithful enough. Gilliam's version is about as close to the book as one could get, and thankfully so. This hack of a blogger has both read the book and seen the movie and yet cannot tell that they are virtually alike? I spit in the general direction of this stupidity.
- RunnyBabbit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Because you're only allowed to digg things from the same five websites, over, and over, and over again.
- ambrosious, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"I know I just raised the blood pressure of a lot of LOTR fanatics, but hear me out. As someone who hates Lord Of The Rings and Tolkien in general, the Hobbit cartoon is right up my alley. It's trippy and weird and actually FUN, something the original material (and all of Tolkien) lacks entirely. You may fling rocks at your computer screen now"
... how can you possibly think those horrible animated adaptations were good in any way? Besides, not all good/interesting literature is required to be "fun" to be good. Buried for lameness. - vornan19, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I thought the animated Hobbit to be not unfaithful. Instead there are whole chapters removed and scenes exagerated. Watching it years ago with a friend (who doesn't read fiction or much at all) I kept pausing the play and explaining what was missing from between the movie's scenes.
We also found LOTR animated with some live action incorporated to be creative indeed. - rda52, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Alfonso Cuarón, is one of my favorite directors, he's the only one that made Harry Potter a real movie, who gives a damn if the Harry Potter nerds complain. i hope they bring him back from some of the other movies.
- Zopwx2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2+1 Strangelove, Shining
But the Dune movie while interesting was nothing compared to the book, and knocking Hunter was not cool at all -1. - skytimelapse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Whatever, I thought the movie was great. It may not have been exactly what you wanted it to be (British Trillian probably) but Adams exec produced and cowrote the screenplay (and came up with a lot of the new material for it). With the two hour time limit they did a great job.
- fauxXenophanes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Do a Google search on" the edge of bladerunner", excellent documentary from Britian. Interviews with Author,Cast and behind the scenes folks - Great Stuff.
- SelfAbortion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've never heard of anyone liking the Lynch version of Dune. I didn't like it, and I'm a David Lynch fanboy.
- bakagaigin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3There was a cartoon LOTR, and it wasn't very good (though it's a guilty pleasure for me every now and then), and a cartoon Hobbit, which was FREAKING AWESOME. So...yeah..
- DrewBlood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Or Total Recall for that matter. Whether it's good is debatable but it's well liked at least. We Can Remember It For You Wholesale was waaay different!
- SelfAbortion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It should be "well." "Well" modifies the verb phrase "came out." "Good would be used if it said something like "These unfaithfull screen adaptations are good."
- kanemano, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2lawnmower man also, king said it was so dissimilar he asked to have his name removed
- lokee73, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm surprised The Running Man didn't make the list.
(If the only requirement is least like the book.) - himthatwas, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Fear and Loathing? There's nothing wrong with that book at all, it reads easily and utilizes a conversational tone that keeps ones attention, it's like having a chat with a crazy person. The movie was very close to the source as far as I'm concerned, or was the author talking about the Bill Murray version?
- kencarter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"The Life Of Brian: Isn't this a whole lot funnier than the Bible? Just checking."
OMFG! That had me laughing literally out loud (scaring the @#$% out of everyone around me in the library).
Kudos - geodescent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What's interesting is that the script for Fear and Loathing is so close to the final product that you can read the script and remember each individual scene in the movie. http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/fearandloathing.html (txt dump)
- doctechnical, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Tolkien isn't "fun" enough, Hunter S. Thompson writes "illegible drivel", but a comic book gets high praise?
Oh. I get it. This guy is twelve. Listen, kid, why don't you leave the review of books-without-pictures to the grownups, 'k? - CLShortFuse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Let's not forget about the Spider-Man movies
Though it was faithful for many things, many things were changed for a more realistic portrayal. (Doc Ock for one) - orlandogeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually if you watch both of the Lord of the Rings animated movies and then watch the epics that Peter Jackson created, there are some scenes where the imagery is almost identical.
- DrewBlood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Good is an adjective describing the screen adaptations. I agree it was a little confusing but it's not that big a deal.
- balerhgae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Most PK Dick inspired movies are nothing like his books. Total Recall, Paycheck (ugh!), etc. Blade Runner, while being completely different storyline wise, really managed to capture the atmosphere of Do Androids... I thought so, anyways. So did PK Dick, apparently.
A Scanner Darkly is another exception. That was pretty much exactly what I had in my head when I read the book. Even down to Keanu Reeves. I thought he was good for that part, because Arctor is supposed to be so braindead, and Reeves IS so braindead. - SelfAbortion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why is The Shining on there? It's extremely close to the source material. Only reason I can figure is that Kubrick made it come across as even creepier because of the added dimensions that film allows. Same with F&L in Las Vegas. Almost exactly the same as the source material. And the idea that he found Dune to be a good movie...yikes.
- balerhgae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ghandi
+1 for saying the Matrix sucked in public. IT DID. I liked the first movie. It was fun. I didn't think it was deep, but it was a decent action flick. But it could have been a lot more. Throw in Reloaded and Revolutions, and you have one giant pile of human feces on your hands. -
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