"Failure to Adapt" Topic

Reading the Jodi Taylor Christmas short story. This year's is "Lights! Camera! Mayhem!" in which she describes a (fictional) film-maker making a hash of Troy. But one of her characters describes the Book Adaptation Disasters--the BADs--given out each year for the worst movie or TV adaptation of a beloved classic.
(1) We need to create this in real life--and backdate it. Dibs I Starship Troopers!
(2) To go with it, we should create an award for Historical Adaptation Disasters. Yes, of course, Ridley Scott gets a lifetime achievement award. And it will give every one of us a chance to stand up in a crowded theater--or in front of our subscription TV--and shout "I've been HAD!"

The floor is now open for nominations.

To be fair, Starship Troopers was so uniquely strangely adapted that it deserves a so bad it's goodish in an ironic but still stone the Director way.

The first Dune movie disappointed but I can't go full horrid.

Amazon's Rings of Power.
Now get me a beer.

Can't let St Peter Jackson off the hook. He really didn't want to do The Hobbit Trilogy (TRILOGY??? 🙄), and it showed.

Say what you want about Starship troopers. However, the Arachnids are one of the best scifi creations as a serious and deadly opponent for Human forces ever made. Personally, I'm not all excited about the book. I think taking the movie forces with the Roughnecks chronicles makes for a pretty decent narrative.

Thanks.

John

"Gods and Generals" disappointed me the most. Every thing was very wooden and stiff. Even the reliable Robert Duvall and Jeff Daniels didn't resonate.

How about The Charge of the Light Brigade (Errol Flynn version) which puts the Crimean War after the Indian Mutiny instead of before?

Surely at least an honorable mention?

Hey, I loved the movie 'Starship Troopers' – I had read the book but absolutely prefer the film!

How about not bad or good but so different from the book it is unrecognizable?

I have been a life long fan of the Blue Max. A couple years ago I finally bought and read the book. The only things the same were the names of the characters. However, I like both equally as well. I keep hearing someone is going to re-make the Blue Max. How about rather than doing a scene by scene of the movie make a movie based on the book? How about that for something completely different?

In Harm's Way…a decent book. But the movie was a soap opera, ship models at the end were sort of okay.

Mel Gibson also deserves a Lifetime Achievement award for… just about anything "historical".
The Patriot
Braveheart
A whole bunch of "et ceteras".
What's really funny about The Patriot was the constant press before the movie came out about it being "one of the most historically accurate… blah blah blah…)

I enjoyed both versions of Starship Troopers, but I'm weird like that.

I Robot, about the only thing they had in common was the title.

Ender's Game. Movie was meh. Great book.

Starship troopers was such a different movie than the book :/ Really liked the book. The movie was not a bad space oater. Kind of like a Celtic warband in space <lol>

Starship Troopers was a brilliant adaptation, completely took the p*ss out of Heinleins proto-fascist vision of the future and was a decent space adventure as well as being very funny.

I also really enjoyed Rings of Power, although I would concede that the first season was a bit slow in places. The film adaptation of The Hobbit though….. dear me.

The recent remake of All Quiet on the Western Front made me want to pull my eyes out though. It completely misseded the point of the book, and signalled every significant event in the most blunderingly obvious manner. The only enjoyable bit were the French tanks.

It is so easy to tear historical films apart that I won't even bother. I did however recently watch the uncut extended version of Oliver Stones "Alexander" and it was as actually pretty good.

Well, IF Heinlein's vision was "proto fascist", and that's a huge IF, then the film adaptation completely missed the point. I remember seeing an article at the time where the "auteur" talked about his contempt for the book and author. I also remember thinking "Why did he bother?"
I had the same thought seeing the show-runners (a polite term for "desecrators") bragging about how they had thrown away Tolkien's old fashioned and "not in tune with today's modern world" concepts. A cynical person might think "They only raped Tolkien for the money". But they were really that arrogant.

To come to Heinlein's Defence, not that he needs it, what EXACTLY does "proto fascist" mean? That's a word I haven't heard in years. Apply that concept to other Heinlein works, like "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", or "Time Enough for Love".
The underlying, and very background idea was that only Citizens who had served the nation got the right to vote. And it wasn't just by being in the military either. That's "Fascist"? Strange definition, hainna? Let alone the fact that "proto-fascist" seemed to have a rather … flexible meaning back then. It usually meant "something that I find icky".

EDIT: Heinlein also liked to explore radically different societies in his later "more mature" writings. Thus my above challenge.

Starship Troopers was a thoroughly entertaining movie. I don't watch movies to see an accurate portrayal of a fiction novel.

Actually, I don't really expect realism or accuracy from historical movies neither, although those are bonus points if it is at least entertaining.

Gods & Generals is the worst hands down. Broke my DVD and tossed it to avoid any accidental re-watching.

Jackson's Hobbit is certainly so bad that I couldn't finish watching it. Unending bad CGI with absolutely no drama — oh look will any of them survive the perilous CGI in escaping the goblin tunnels with the stupid everything crashing behind them as they run trope. Click.

Let's not forget the Bible, and any number of epic movies allegedly derived from it.

Getting back to Starship Troopers. Whether or not it was good or fun, it is clearly a failure at the adaptation. Thus it qualifies.

I never understood why the Starship Troopers people paid for the book. They could have had the rights to "The Forever War" for a comparative song, and it actually made the points the movie people wanted to make.

Oh. And as Ye Ed has reminded me--by disagreeing, in this case--I regard the Heston Planet of the Apes a poor adaptation of the Boule novel. I'll grant you Boulle's trick framing sequence would have been difficult to film, but Boule identified a much greater and more subtle threat to humanity than "nuclear war would be bad."

Oh. And another weird one. I thoroughly enjoy both "Fitzwilly" and its source--Poyntz Tyler's "A Garden of Cucumbers." But outside of the premise and the barest bones of the plot, they have surprisingly little in common.

I'll throw in Catch 22…great book, terrible movie (the alan arkin one). Other than putting in a few aspects of the book to get viewers, (naked Arkin in the tree and the guy getting propped chopped) but the movie misses the entire theme of the book. IMO.

Starship Troopers: Wasn't Heinlein also warning of giving up personal freedoms for the overall good of the State? And the danger of blind obediance to authority? When written it was the height of the Cold War and he was warning about what could happen if the commies took over.

I like the movie BUT this is surprising since the directors goal was to crush the premise of the book. Directors who hate the source material they are using should not make movies about the topic. That goes double for the latest Napoleon movie. Now I like both of the directors and but why would you make a movie about a subject you hate?

Starship troopers was not an adaption of the novel.

Would you like to know more?

It was based on a short story, not the Heinlein novel, about bugs attacking an out post.

During script writing people noticed how much like Starship troopers it was, so they got the rights and changed the names.

The director couldn't even read the book, so got someone else to tell him about it.

That's why its so different to it's namesake.

The sequel is also a great film, possibly closer to the original short story, though I've not read it. Tippets first feature film, low budget, but well done.

The third, typically not as good, but watchable.

"Its a good day to die…"

I find topics like this amusing.

Films are not accurate to source material for a reason.

Its impossible for them to be accurate or they would not work as a film.

Film are not just made up.

Jurassic Park is Genesis. Less the I can't dance video clip, it's only flaw.

Its sequel is (at least) Macbeth forwards, and then backwards.

You can't make this s**t up.

Changing one thing changes the rest.

When you watch a film you are watching the same, typically, things, again and again. You can not mess with it.

Jurassic Park (love it) palys the same forward or backward.

I remember a doco on Braveheart where historians were picking all the flaws.

Not flaws, film.

I love watching British cop show, and cheer when a random Bobby walks out the back of the room during a briefing/discussion, giving me my exit at the end of the algorithm.

One had a character who would often play with their hands, a useful tool for many a hand motion in the show sequence, he would often get a cheer from me.

Its a fun game to play.

Its a rabbit hole, don't do it.

Topics like this have no understanding of film/TV.

Make one asking for an accurate film. There will be no posts.

Famous scenes cut from films also tell a story.

The JP trike riding and Mr Arnold's death, hmm..? Think about it. They are exact opposites. I suspect one was deleted because of the other.

King Kong, spider pit and the chasing Dino, same thing.

Things need to be ommited or changed form novels or history to facilitate the Godley algorithm.

Also films are not unique.

How can you make a unique (?) Historical event into a film if it doesn't play out like some other film/story?

You can't.

You have to change it.

Ying and Yang.

Now I'm thinking of Fight Club.

What ever have you done.

Otay, that explains why the "Mobile Infantry" wasn't mobile infantry. Thanks for the explanation . It was still a Celtic warband in space !

Also explains why there were no skinnies.

The batyle suites were introduced in the third film.

Haven't seen the CG show, but they were armoured, what the mini game initially had. I don't think that had any film rights until later.

PS

The mi also show up in firefly. At least their uniforms.

I must disagree with H Man. No, of course a film is not a book--or even a novella, which would get the length right. But no one is saying that it should be. For me, a successful adaptation is one which tells the same story and makes the same points.

You notice that no one's beating up Rebecca or Gone with the Wind, even though, by the normal standard of "one page of book equals one minute of film" Hitchcock had to abandon about two-thirds of du Maurier, and Selznik about three-quarters of Mitchell. "A middle-aged Ashley Wilkes and an English Scarlet O'Hara" aside, both films were successful translations of the story. When the Starship Troopers people decided to buy and use the name and tell the opposite story, they left themselves open to legitimate criticism. As I said, if they'd called it "The Forever War" and paid Joe Haldeman, I doubt anyone would have said much. Certainly I wouldn't have.

Mind you, I'm perfectly willing to believe the director couldn't read. But couldn't the scriptwriter? At least a little?

This just in: the director was Dutch, so he really might have struggled with English at book length, and the scriptwriter was a journalism major, so perhaps full literacy is an unreasonable expectation on my part. Still, there are such things as audiobooks. (And it would have been perfectly legitimate to pay Heinlein for the rights and tell a completely different story. Star Trek, back in the day, got Heinlein's permission for "The Trouble with Tribbles." It was the use of Heinlein's title and many of Heinlein's names that irked the fans, and rightly so. The movie people wanted fans to come and pay for a story they had no intention of delivering. Glory is a perfectly good movie, but you don't title it "Gone with the Wind.")

I'm starting to think we need a Starship Troopers board.

It's amazing how much it gets discussed around here.

For the record, I read it a long time ago and was not impressed. (I did like the AH game though.)

"even though, by the normal standard of "one page of book equals one minute of film""

Yawn. Incorrect, it's one page of script, not book.

I hear Lord of the rings may be a good example.

Some people seem to still be having trouble understanding film concepts.

Budgets also play a part.

In a book you can do anything, but in a film you have to pay for it.

Film is also a visual medium, things need to be shown. So things need to be adjusted and edited to appease the Godley algorithm.

Eve ain't gonna make herself, you know:

Perhaps that, historically, straight battlement could have a curve instead?

"Or a ladder perhaps?"

"Ladders weren't invented yet!"

"Tough, I've got two NCIS scripts that need my attention. So, unless you have any better ideas?"

Upon the straight wall, overlooking the gathering seige forces of the Duke, the guards stood eating greasy ribs.

"With hot sauce, don't forget the hot sauce!"

PS

It seems more typical that such things are not necessarily written into to the script, going by my notes, it would have to be like many pages a minute.

Writing, directing, set design, costume, so on all play a part. I suspect editing may be most important here.

No, H Man. Not "incorrect" though possibly about the same. Try looking at novelizations some time--or comparing books with movies and see how much they have to omit. "Many" as multiple supply sergeants will tell you, is not a unit of issue. If you have an opinion with a number in it, I'd be interested.

But since Selznik and company chopped GWTW to hamburger, omitting sub-plots and characters right and left, and still had a minute of film for every four pages of text, the number has to be well under that. (Looking around for another book with a reasonably faithful adaptation on my shelves.) Note that A&E was doing a nice job of converting 60-page Nero Wolfe short stories into one-hour episodes, and adaptations of The Hound of the Baskervilles--144 pages--keep coming in at about 90-100 minutes. (Book lengths are from whatever copy is on my shelves.)

Nor were any of the worst atrocities I've run into in adaptation caused by budget constraints, historical accuracy or "show, not tell." The worst bits of The Two Towers, for instance, probably cost more than doing it straight. (And if you listen to the commentary track, you can hear a young woman on her second film explaining--not that there were difficulties in changing mediums--but that if only the best-selling writer of the 20th Century had attended a modern writing seminar, he'd have told the story differently. No doubt this is true.)

Go on. Read a book some time. You might enjoy it, and anyway the experience will do you good.

And then I did another sweep of the shelves:
The Thin Man. Book 224 pages, Film 91 minutes
The Maltese Falcon. Book 269 pages, Film 101 minutes
Tiger in the Smoke. Book 326, Film 89 minutes (N.B. This one is noted for being majorly chopped: an Albert Campion novel, and Campion never appears in the film.)
Love Story. 125 pages, 100 minutes
Atlas Shrugged. 1,168 pages, 790 minutes.

I think I'd concede a page and a half a minute, but above two pages per minute, there's major choppery. And fairly consistently, Hammett is more pages per minute than Stout or Conan Doyle. I'll have to run Philo Vance next.

Anyone else have numbers?

"Starship Troopers: Wasn't Heinlein also warning of giving up personal freedoms for the overall good of the State? And the danger of blind obediance to authority? When written it was the height of the Cold War and he was warning about what could happen if the commies took over"

Well, yes, that was rather my point. The only individuals worthy of citizenship were those who had served the state, although the book seemed rather admiring of the concept instead of critical. In the context of a post WW2 world, I an rather see why some people might think that. That was why Heinlein was such a good writer of ciurse, here we are many decades on still discussing it.

"Gods and Generals" was a bad adaptation of a bad book. I was so disappointed and actually embarrassed by it. "Gettysburg" inspired a lot of interest in history. "Gods and Generals" did the opposite.

"The floor is now open for nominations."

Robert,

We have been over this so many times. Just post your lists and then we can add to it.

And I got sidetracked by the pages/minutes ratio. Your fun fact for this morning: One minute of film equals roughly one page of Conan Doyle or Rex Stout, two pages of Hammett and four pages of SS van Dine. I suspect with work, one could derive a commentary/plot ratio.

OC, I'm mostly pretty tolerant of such things, and we've covered the two spectaculars--Ridley Scott and Starship Troopers. I wanted to see what other people thought.

I'll toss in one you haven't heard of. Remember Poul Anderson's "The High Crusade?" Fun and insightful. There's a movie version, which is neither. It would have been difficult and expensive to do right, and the movie people saved themselves a ton of money and a lot of effort by turning it into second-rate Monty Python. Maybe third rate, actually. And as I recall there were some real Pythonists associated with it.

If someone is charged with adapting a book and doesn't have the money to do it right, I can sympathize. But the real atrocities usually come when someone wants to keep the title and tell some different story altogether.

Hmph. I was reminded of the "Lost Horizon" musical. High on the list of movies which never ought to have been made.

The Seeker: the dark is rising was a terrible adaptation of a great book – shame they started with book 2 of a 5 book series….

Apocalypse Now is a great adaptation of Heart of Darkness, but is also wildly different from the book. So – does it require nominating?

"No, H Man. Not "incorrect" though possibly about the same. Try looking at novelizations some time--or comparing books with movies and see how much they have to omit. "Many" as multiple supply sergeants will tell you, is not a unit of issue. If you have an opinion with a number in it, I'd be interested."

I reiterate, incorrect.

A page film script is typically about a minute of film on screen.

Novels can be any length.

Heck, there's a film of the Lottery! Its longer than 4 minutes. And has Carrie Russell, shwing.

Most films are around 100 pages/minutes.

If they wrote all the guff on screen out, a picture is worth a thousand words style, it would be a long script! Many, many pages.

Many enough for many supply sergeants to put in their many pipes and smoke.

"Nero Wolfe"

If thats the Timothy Hutton ones from 90s-2000s? I agree.

"The Two Towers,"

Or is that back to the future?

Or.., The Gorge!!!

Studying them/it at the moment.

"Go on. Read a book some time. You might enjoy it, and anyway the experience will do you good"

I could say the same about watching a film.

Besides, the man responsible for the success it Harry Potter and Twilight already saw one of my stories and deemed it worthy of a full read through. Got the certificate to prove it, so I'm doing ok.

"I think I'd concede a page and a half a minute,"

It gets better…

Writers can waffle on for pages, or have a huge battle in a sentence.

Story length and film length are not relatable.

Script length and film length are.

For example.

I robot. The tv episode, or the feature film?

The Lord of the rings was to be 2 films. Besides, do we use the theatrical or longer extended cut?

Jokers errand.

Actually, the idea is half sound, but those aren't the books your looking for.

For example, Genesis reads to Jurassic Park, Macbeth to JP the lost world.

So on.

They, to some extent, run to the reading of the words.

However, movie times may not always line up.

JP doesn't use all of Genesis, unless Genesis then reads backwards, haven't checked.

Macbeth does read forwards, them backwards for the lost world.

These texts are more literal to the films, unlike the stories they are based on.

But it's not a place for the sane.

PS

Different editions, fonts, page layouts and illustrations can all alter the page count.

Not to mention abridged editions.

PPS

Some more flies in the ointment.

Multiple films of different lengths based on the same story.

I robot, film and TV.

Casino Royale, tv and 2 films.

The thing/who goes there?, 3 films.

Hunchback of Notre Dame, the time machine, pride and prejudice, so on…

Or films in series with various story lengths.

Harry potter's got more pages as they went, until suddenly splitting the last one into two films, trying to regain some consistency. The hunger games and Twilight doing the same.

James Bond is all over the place with story lengths from short to novel, 3 casino Royales and 2 Thunderballs.

Other story-films that are well out of wack.

Battlefield earth. Its a big book.

There is no consistency here. You make a film, typically 90-120 minutes, based on a story 500-500,000 words.

Average 100 minutes.

That's between 5 and 5,000 words per minute.

Means nothing.

A 100 page script would by typically around 100 minutes.

Film length has nothing to do with story length and everything to do with budget and market.

"Film length has nothing to do with story length and everything to do with budget and market."

Only if you believe a film has no story to tell.

But you're not even right about script pages and length, unless everyone connected with "Moonlighting" was lying to me. There used to be comment that the reliance on dialogue--and often overlapping dialogue at that--mad a Moonlighting script about half again to twice as thick as programs of comprable length.

H Man, you're right about the "go read a book." It was a cheap shot, and I shouldn't have taken it.

Get back in touch when someone takes a story you love--maybe a book, maybe a classic movie--keeps the title and character names, trashes the plot, reverses the theme and insults a creator you deeply respect in the bargain. We'll have a more interesting conversation then.

"Moonlighting"

News flash. This just in: exceptions are not rules.

""Film length has nothing to do with story length and everything to do with budget and market."

Only if you believe a film has no story to tell"

Did you out even read what I wrote??

The length of a film has 0, zip, nil, nothing, nudda, not a thing, to do with the length of the story it is based on.*

I'm not sure how else to explain it, out side of all the examples and explanations I have already given.

"We'll have a more interesting conversation then."

I'm not sure what was wrong with this one?

* Being the story providing the names and visuals (I'm sure theres a term for it), and not the one providing the structure, which seem to line up pretty well, even if one is doubled or what not – rabbit hole, again, best avoided.

when someone takes a story you love--maybe a book, maybe a classic movie--keeps the title and character names, trashes the plot, reverses the theme and insults a creator you deeply respect in the bargain

You mean like a Space marine codex….?

PJs King Kong.

Daniel Craig bonds.

Jurassic worlds.

Star Wars after, 77 really, but definitely after 80s.

Dr Who modern tat.

Post LOTR trilogy.

I was going to write marvel movies, because of the difference to the comics, but that's like the difference to novels.

Films will always be different to the novel. So I guess comics are no different.

X men should have had the yellow blue.

I will have to see what story type it's structure came from, likely that's the cause.