What books to read

[Pete M]

9 hours ago, jdog said:

Why is it that most of the time when they make a movie out of a book they screw it up

 

because frequently it's just a money-grab? 

[jdog]

And that is usually what happens. Altho there are some good adaption of books into movies

[JustEmptyEveryPocket]

Its my policy that if I have read the book, I refuse to watch the movie. And if it happens that I have seen the movie, I refuse to read the book. Too many times of not following this rule has lead to great disappointment. Case and point, I have never seen the Harry Potter movies because I read the books first.

[macbon]

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It is one of my favorite science fiction books.

[MLT Lulu]

On 3/24/2020 at 9:26 PM, jdog said:

Why is it that most of the time when they make a movie out of a book they screw it up

Books = 300+ pages, up into the thousands

Movie script = 120ish pages 

 

Or so i was told

[MLT Lulu]

If you haven't read any Kurt Vonnegut, go get jailbird. He wrote a lot of bizarre, non-sequitur kind of stuff, but it all ties in so beautifully to Everyday Life. For the most part it's light-hearted, but be careful. The Sirens of Titan is one of the saddest books I think I've ever read, and probably the only one he's written that I'll never read again.

 

Also

Enchantment, Orson Scott Card

Just about anything by Tom Robbins (not B Is For Beer, though) 

Christopher Moore has lots of fun, easy reads

And, as so many have said, Douglas Adams

[75sv1]

On 3/25/2020 at 12:12 PM, jdog said:

And that is usually what happens. Altho there are some good adaption of books into movies

I think Lord of the Rings was a good adaptation of the books. At least the second try. There was an animation version in the 70's. Actually, the Hobbit animation was good for the time. There is only so much that can be explained visually. Yes, I read the books. 

[schardein]

On 3/25/2020 at 10:30 PM, macbon said:

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It is one of my favorite science fiction books.

Same here.  It's one of those books I took a chance on, and was happily surprised.  You know there is a sequel- Children of Ruin- but I haven't read it yet.

[derf]

2 hours ago, 75sv1 said:

I think Lord of the Rings was a good adaptation of the books. At least the second try. There was an animation version in the 70's. Actually, the Hobbit animation was good for the time. There is only so much that can be explained visually. Yes, I read the books. 

I agree that they did a good job with LotR.

 

One thing that made their job easier is that Tolkien goes on for pages describing the scene in intricate detail.  It's easy to capture that with a 15-30 second camera pan at the start of the scene.

 

I have the extended editions and I watched the extra material.  They talked about the decision making process when writing the screen play.  Their #1 rule was "if it's not directly tied to the story of the ring, it's something we can take out."  That's why whole sections, like Tom Bombadil, are entirely missing.  While it's interesting stuff, it's not directly related to the story of the ring.  And with only a few hours per movie, they couldn't fit everything in and they ended up making some changes to fit more of the story in to less screen time.

 

But that is why so many movies are so different than the books.  They just don't have time to fit everything in.  So they make changes.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  With LotR, they put a screenplay together that flowed well and kept the essence of the story going.  That doesn't always happen when they go from the book to the movie, unfortunately.  But it's great when it does.

 

I ended up liking the movie adaptation of Ready Player One.  The book was great.  The movie, I think, told the story reasonably well.  It helped that the original author was involved, as was Stephen Spielberg.  The book was able to get deep into the nostalgia and really tell a great story.  The movie only had 2 hours to tell the same story.  While they made some fundamental changes, what they changed it to made sense in the context of the environment.  Sections were entirely different, but it worked.  The car chase at the beginning was able to communicate a lot more than just the fact that the contest was in process.  In just a few lines at the start of the race, you find out just how poor the main character is in a way that flows well.  They were able to fit so many other pieces in that way without it seeming like they were just doing scenes to check a box on the plot sequence list.  It all flowed well.

 

The Martian was another good adaptation from book to movie.  Mat Damon captured the essence of the character.  They cut stuff out to fit in 2 hours but what was left seemed to flow pretty well.  I was able to enjoy both the book and the movie in this case as well.

[jdog]

If you haven't read any Kurt Vonnegut, go get jailbird. He wrote a lot of bizarre, non-sequitur kind of stuff, but it all ties in so beautifully to Everyday Life. For the most part it's light-hearted, but be careful. The Sirens of Titan is one of the saddest books I think I've ever read, and probably the only one he's written that I'll never read again.
 
Also
Enchantment, Orson Scott Card
Just about anything by Tom Robbins (not B Is For Beer, though) 
Christopher Moore has lots of fun, easy reads
And, as so many have said, Douglas Adams

Read almost all of Moores books, most of them are in the same town so it's really neat to see the different sides of the characters. Will have to check out Vonnegut.

[75sv1]

'I have the extended editions and I watched the extra material.  They talked about the decision making process when writing the screen play.  Their #1 rule was "if it's not directly tied to the story of the ring, it's something we can take out."  That's why whole sections, like Tom Bombadil, are entirely missing.  While it's interesting stuff, it's not directly related to the story of the ring.  And with only a few hours per movie, they couldn't fit everything in and they ended up making some changes to fit more of the story in to less screen time.

 

But that is why so many movies are so different than the books.  They just don't have time to fit everything in.  So they make changes.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  With LotR, they put a screenplay together that flowed well and kept the essence of the story going.  That doesn't always happen when they go from the book to the movie, unfortunately.  But it's great when it does.'

 

     Agreed. I think the main reason to see LoTR, is the cinematography. There are some movies I think are a must see on the Big Screen. One of the scenes in LoTR is when they are leaving the Elven village. The Princess is seen as they depart in a boat. There is a ring on her finger. It is hard for the movie to conject the importance of that ring. When the master ring is destroyed, then the Elves power is gone. That is why they must leave at the end of the movie.