The Best Movie Adaptation Ever- Your Opinions Please

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I want you to think about a movie that has been adapted from either a work of literature, or a play, that you consider to be the best ever. If you can give your top 3, wonderful.

For me...

No. 1: Nineteen Eighty-Four, the 1984 version with John Hurt, Suzanne Hamilton, and Richard Burton. This is THE ultimate adaptation ever, in my opinion. It is also one of the few movies to evoke tears from me, time and time again. John Hurt IS Winston Smith. It is a very gritty and dirty adaptation that does not shirk away from the big questions the book asks, nor does it shirk away from the tear-jerking ending when Winston Smith, completely brainwashed, says "I love you" to the impassive image of Big Brother.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MgOQznfFOY[/youtube]

No. 2: Casino Royale, 2006 version. I have to say that they took the core essence of the book, and not only updated it for modern times, but made it substantially better than the book. The dated villains of SMERSH are replaced with the terrorist puppet masters (revealed in Quantum of Solace as being called Quantum) behind Le Chiffre, a better development of a fledgling Bond... Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelson, all are wonderful here. And what's more, it has probably the best Bond titles ever, despite the fact that it has virtually no...um...outlines of women.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl5WHj0bZ2Q[/youtube]

No. 3: Jurassic Park. I have read the original novel, and although the novel itself is extremely good, I feel that there are a few more points in the favour of the movie. Besides pioneering the use of CG effects to recreate living things, I think that changing the roles of the kids around, as well as making Hammond a lot more benign, improved the story somewhat, although it's a pity that they left out some of the more interesting things from the novel (like the faulty dinosaur tracking system, or the lawyer, Gennaro, being more heroic than he turned out in the film).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bim7RtKXv90[/youtube]

Quatermass... as always, a fascinating question....

I'm not sure I agree with you - 1984 is good to be sure.... Casino Royale ... well, I haven't read the book so I can't comment but you already know I don't like serious Bond. Jurassic Park... movie was good but I liked the book more because of the computer issues with the park gates etc...

Ok, so my three

1. Lord of the Rings (PJ Version - obviously not the cartoon).
I don't necessarily agree with all of the changes - It's a pity to lose Tom Bombadil - maybe he'll be in the Hobbit Movie? Also - I personally think Faramir should have been strong enough to withstand the ring - so that he would represent "hope" that men could change.

2. Jaws
I know this is a weird choice but the novel of Jaws has a lot more social stuff - not just "close the beaches" but Ellen's romance with Hooper and the decay of her society friends because she married a policeman. Spielberg made the right choices in the movie though... He cut the bits that were too complex and changed the ending. In the book, Hooper dies but he lives in the movie. Also, in the book, the shark just suddenly stops, sinks and (presumably) dies of anoxia - you never quite know what happened (which would have made movie sequels easier). I preferred watching the shark go out with a bank... goddam sonova b..... (boom).

3. The Shawshank Redemption (though it was hard to pick a winner because Stand By Me, the Mist and the Green Mile are all great too). In the end, I'm going with Shawshank because it took what, to me was not a great Stephen King story and turned it into a fantastic film.

S***, I forgot about LOTR. That would have been no. 2, and Casino Royale 3rd...

I thought A Scanner Darkly was the best Dick adaptation so far.

also, Adaptation is a wicked adaptation, although a lot different than the original.

I agree with LOTR, not so much with 1984 though, I didn't enjoy it as much as the book.

Lord of the Rings

Children of Men

Harry Potter

No Country for Old Men

Sweeney Todd

Except for the Simpsons Movie, I am not particularly keen of the movies that are modern remakes of classic TV shows (i.e. Bewitched, Lost in Space, etc.), that they show on TBS every other day.

Why pay $10+ to see something you used to see for free all those years ago.

No Country for Old Men was one of the most faithful book to movie adaptations I've seen in years, even the Coen brothers have said that the screen writing process was that one of them read the novel aloud while the other typed. Most of the little details that they did change were for the better too, like pruning some unnecessary dialogue and an extraneous character, if anything the movie improved on the book. The one thing that the book did do better was explaining Anton Chigurh, his dialogue in the book is extended, and it explains his motivations a little better, if not why he is like he is.

Harry Potter: I think that the entire series has been a really good adaptation, except that I think that it stinks that they couldn't have added the scenes that had Dobby, Winky, and Kreacher and the rest of the house-elves in the Hogwarts kitchen into the Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix movies; maybe they'll add them in the sixth and the two parts of the seventh movies.

Lord of the Rings: I think that this series was a very good adaptation too, I just think it stinks that they couldn't add more of the Smeagol/Gollum scenes and the rest of the scenes. Maybe they'll add more scenes to the Hobbit movies.

Star Wars: I think the entire six movies were a very, very good adaptation too.

Actually, there was a Star Wars book before the film - which is where all the knowledge about Biggs Darklighter came from. George wrote the book to help him finance the film. I don't think the film is an adaptation though - since they both come from the same source (George -and the hidden fortress).

Tim - the Simpsons movie doesn't really count as an adaptation - we're really looking at films from plays or novels. (and if the Simpson's movie did count, then why didn't South Park - bigger, longer and uncut)? Don't you like that movie?


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Some more....

Sorry (can't help myself) movies are a bit of a special interest.

Dracula (the Coppola version - I loved the way they incorporated the narrative style in the film via voiceovers and diary entries.

All Quiet on the Western Front - both versions actually.

A Clockwork Orange - they ditched some of the great parts of the book (bits which would have been too difficult to film) but compensated by including some very bizarre imagery.

The Shining - Turned it from a supernatural book to a study of madness - because Kubrick didn't believe in the supernatural.

The exorcist... dammit... this should have been my No.1. The book and film are both great.


BTW: There's an amazing list of the Oscar Nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay here


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Writing_Adapted_Screenplay

It includes a lot of things I didn't know were adapted - I certainly haven't read all of the originals.

1. Empire of the Sun. I haven't read the book (JG Ballard) and Steven Spielberg stuff can be cloying, but it's a great film.

2. hmm probably a Dickens or Bronte or something, ok. I'll go for Oliver Twist, the David Lean version.

3. Barfly. Haven't read Charles Bukowski's book but it's one of my fave films.

4. In Cold Blood. Truman Capote. good book.

5. Rosemary's Baby. It's a very long time since I read the book (Ira Levin) but I think the film is better than the book.

"The Princess Bride"

"Housekeeping" with Christine Lahti. Miraculously as astonishing and extraordinary as the apparently unfilmable book.

"Peter Pan" 2006 version. Much better than the book.

"Gone with the Wind" "Perfect" adaptation.

"The Hours" with Julianne Moore. Brilliant!

"The Name of the Rose" much more fun than the book.

"The Tailor of Panama" as wry and dry as the book, etc.

"The Bourne Identity" and the third in that trilogy too, representing the best of the original books.

"War of the Worlds" Spielberg, with the unbelievable/make-believe/happyland ending too.

"Excalibur" adapted from ""La Morte d'Arthur" and associated legends. Beautiful, weird, etc.

"Dune" because I could never get into the books but appreciated the fervour and intensity and originality of it as seen in Lynch's version.

"The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" with Maggie Smith. Sharp and acid and sad.

"Jean de Florette"

"A Room With a View" Joyful!

"The Remains of the Day" Classic.

"The Importance of Being Earnest" the 1940's version, with Michael Redgrave.

There's others that I forget right now, including a couple of Agatha Christies, but can't remember which ones... and "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Phantom Tolbooth", both of which are adaptations of children's stories that I never liked in book form but loved as films.

I definitely do not think that LOTR is a good adaptation. It misses out far too many key elements, detail and richness, in the mythology/archetypal characters and events, in favour of repeated and apparently endless vapid close-ups of the elf who eventually marries Strider/Aragorn, ( Arwen) and for sweeping panoramas of yet another beautiful holiday location in New Zealand.

PS: I agree for "The Exorcist", a masterpiece, and also "The Shawshank Redemption".

None of my 50-100 favourite books are on the list. None of them have been adapted successfully to the screen in my opinion, and that includes LOTR.

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IMO, the best adaptations are ones that take the book and IMPROVE upon it. So for the utter best, I'd choose "The Lord of the Rings" (The Extended Editions!) and "Fight Club." Both took challenging source material that many claimed was unfilmable (you know, like what people are saying for "Watchmen"...way to be closed-minded), streamlined the story, removed what wasn't important and added elements that would improve the drama. (For the most part. Though I'll always disagree with the decision to have Arwen play more of a role in LotR--by which I mean having a lot of screen time but no impact on the plot.)

For theatre, my pick is "Sweeney Todd," though I'm bias because I love Tim Burton so much. (Does "Sleepy Hollow" count as a book adaptation? If so, it's a great one too.) I know some people were bothered that some songs were removed, but if they were left in they would have made the movie drag. As it is, every song pushes the story forward, and it WORKS. I hate the kinds of musicals where half the songs are needless and halt the action. So I found it a wonderful adaptation, even though Helena Bonham Carter's singing wasn't very good.


Some others...

"Interview With The Vampire" was a pretty good adaptation. I liked it more than the book because it had a much faster pace, whereas half the book was Louis reflecting on stuff we'd already read over and over again.

"The Princess Bride." Never read the book but it's a hilarious film.

"War of the Worlds." Yeah, the last five minutes sucked, but everything else was just utterly fantastic. Great acting, effects, atmosphere, emotion...just seriously intense.

All the Frank Darabont Stephen King adaptations: "The Shawshank Redemption," "The Green Mile," and, yes, "The Mist." All great films in my opinion.

"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." While the entire series has been a mostly good adaptation, this one was the best by far. While it was the least true to the book and cut a lot of stuff, most of what was cut wasn't really that important or good anyway. It knew how to work best as a FILM.

"Jurassic Park." Yep, that's a goodie.


Adaptations I wish were better:

"No Country for Old Men" (SPOILER ALERT): see, I think the fact that it was so faithful was a problem. The ending sucked balls. You can't have your main character die off-screen and then go on for another half-hour, and have that last half-hour feel like it's from a totally different movie. Though the first hour and a half of that movie is just about perfect, that utter trainwreak of an ending ruined it for me. If they'd only SHOWN the protagonist's death on-screen, and had removed that scene with the guy in the wheelchair at the end (what the hell was the point of that scene?), it would have made all the difference to me. It didn't improve upon the story because it stuck too close to it. Now, one might wonder why the ending did ruin this for me, but not "War of the Worlds." The reason for that is that the crappiness of "War of the Worlds"'s ending was brief. In "No Country for Old Men," the entire last half hour is what ticks me off.

"V for Vendetta": OK, I like the movie, but when I read the graphic novel, it just blew it out of the water. Seriously. I find it hard to watch the film now without feeling like it was a missed opportunity.

Lord of the Rings

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