Bad Adaptations, Good Product

[Christopher]

The main thing I remember about the Damnation Alley movie is that it was one more example of Paul Winfield's characters always getting killed. I remember a Starlog article about Winfield that was specifically about how he was known for getting killed a lot, with Damnation Alley and The Wrath of Khan being two of the main examples.

 

[Trekkin]

Both death scenes also involved evil bugs crawling in places bugs should not go. What a weirdly specific trend.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

It does lead to one of the great all-time bad lines in cinema - 'This town is infested with killer cockroaches. I repeat: Killer cockroaches!'

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Has anybody here read 'Make Room, Make Room' which was the basis for 'Soylent Green'? What's similar and what's different about the two?
One thing that's bothered me about the film over the years is that Thorne has no recollection of what the world was like before the pollution and overcrowding. But if Thorne was approximately the same age as fifty-something Charlton Heston and the movie was set in 2020, that means he would have been born in the mid-60s a few years before the movie was made. The world must have gone to hell in a hand basket pretty quickly in 50-60 years.
One other thing I've come to realize over the years is that the ending is damn depressing - Sol has gone 'home', Thorne has been shot and will most likely lose his job because as he told Shirl earlier in the film there were 20 million unemployed people looking for work and if he missed a day he would be replaced and people are being recycled into food.
I know that last one is supposed to be the 'stinger' but in a world that looked like it was well past the tipping point what other choice do those in charge really have? It won't be long before those living in those luxury apartments will forced into the same situation. As it was pointed out by the doorman, security was down because they didn't manufacture replacement parts anymore for the cameras, the same with Hatchers watch. Everything was breaking down and on its way to a slow inevitable extinction.

 

[Christopher]

Has anybody here read 'Make Room, Make Room' which was the basis for 'Soylent Green'? What's similar and what's different about the two?

I haven't read it, but I vaguely remember reading an interview with Harry Harrison where he complained about the movie taking a different tone than he intended, in connection with a larger complaint that mass-media SF tended to be more anti-science, more about predicting disaster than exploring solutions, or something like that. The big dark secret about Soylent Green was invented for the movie. According to Wikipedia, the focus of the book was more on conveying the dangers of overpopulation and recommending contraception and population control as a solution. Also, its focus was spread out among multiple characters with their own independent threads.

 

[Sakrysta]

I'm kind of surprised that no one has mentioned The Neverending Story. The movie is lighter in tone and stops halfway through the book, but I find its story much more digestible and coherent. Plus, it's just awesome.

 

[Tim Walker]

The Planet of the Apes movie. Similar in theme to the novel, in a very general way.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

The Bond movies are also good examples, though the degree by which they stray from the source material varies very much.

"Dr. No" is very close to the novel. Differences are the addition of Felix Leiter, whom Bond first meets here in the movies, but the novel was actually the sixth in the series, and Bond and Leiter first met in "Casino Royale", of course, and this is also the reason why Bond and Quarrel first meet in this movie, even though in the novel, they know each other from "Live & Let Die". Dr. No being part of SPECTRE is also a deviation from the novel. Most of the other deviations are minor.

"From Russia with Love" is very close to the novel, with the major exception of changing the villains from SMERSH to SPECTRE, and rebranding the Spektor decoding device as Lektor, to avoid confusion.

"Goldfinger" also stayed close to the novel, with two major deviasions, the first being the early death of Tilly Masterson, the other changing Goldfinger's scheme from robbing Fort Knox to irradiating it. The latter is, I'm sure few will disagree, a big improvement on the novel. Nothing major, but interesting is the fact that the movie downplayed Pussy Galore's (apparent) homosexuality, but a few hints are dropped, nonetheless.

"Thunderball", again, is very faithful to the novel, with only minor deviations.

Now, "You only live twice" is the first major break, as it is almost a completely different story than the novel, owing heavily to the inability of the filmmakers to do "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" first, and also on the huge success of the previous two movies, making the producers try to use those as a formula (the formula for most following installments, actually). What they kept was the Japanese setting, as well as a few characters ('Tiger' Tanaka, Kissy Suzuki - though left unnamed in the actual movie - and 'Dikko' Henderson, not to forget Blofeld).

"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is, again, very faithful to the novel, maybe even being the most faithful adaptation in the movie series.

"Diamonds are Forever", owing to the return of Sean Connery, the cliffhanger from the previous movie, as well as its financial failure in the USA, was changed almost as much as "You Only Live Twice". Again, they mostly kept the Las Vegas setting, the involvement of diamonds (they are in the title, so they were hard to get around), as well as characters like Tiffany Case and Wint & Kidd.

"Live & Let Die" continues this trend, though even the setting changes from Jamaica (though it was shot there) to the fictional San Monique. The drug smuggling is kept, though, as well as many characters, though some only recognizable by name.

"The Man with the Golden Gun" has almost nothing in common with the novel, with only Scaramanga and Mary Goodnight taken from the novel.

"The Spy who loved me" only used the title for a completely unrelated original story.

"Moonraker" took the villain of Hugo Drax, a billionaire (only a millionaire in the novel, but inflation accounts for that change) who uses his fortune to seemingly help mankind, but really plans genocide on a grand scale (grander in the movie, as in almost total eradication of mankind). Otherwise, the movie goes his own ways.

"For Your Eyes Only" adapts and expands on the short story, as well as using unused scenes from the novels "Live & Let Die" and "Goldfinger".

"Octopussy" only referrences the short story of the same name, trying to be a kind of sequel to it, but takes elements from the short story "Property of a Lady".

"A View to a Kill" has nothing to do with the short story, having even shortened the title "From a View to a Kill".

"The Living Daylights" closely adapts the short story, and expands heavily on it.

"Licence to Kill", being the first Bond movie without a Fleming title, has an almost completely original plot, but it uses elements and scenes from the novel "Live & Let Die" and the short story "The Hildebrand Rarity".

The Brosnan movies are all original with little to no elements from the novels.

"Casino Royale" is relatively close to the novel, but has some major changes, too. For the update of the story, obviously, Le Chiffre is changed from a soviet agent to a banker for terrorists. The setting is changed from Southern France to Montenegro. René Mathis is changed from an agent of the Deuxième Bureau to one of the MI6. The game is changed from Chemin de Fer to Texas Hold 'em. And, of course, the finale is changed to involve more action. In the process, Vesper's character is slightly changed from the novel, where she is remorseful and wants to start a new life with Bond, but is driven to suicide by a SMERSH agent (or paranoia, this isn't clear). In the movie, she betrays Bond one last time, trying to get the money to the villains, letting Bond hang out to dry.

"Quantum of Solace" has nothing to do with the short story, which is no surprise, since it is hardly a Bond story at all.

"Skyfall" is original.

Right now, it's hard to predect how much "SPECTRE" will take from the novels, but it obviously takes at least elements from "Thunderball", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and, oddly enough, "Octopussy".

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The main thing I remember about the Damnation Alley movie is that it was one more example of Paul Winfield's characters always getting killed. I remember a Starlog article about Winfield that was specifically about how he was known for getting killed a lot, with Damnation Alley and The Wrath of Khan being two of the main examples.

Don't forget Anthony Zerbe. He always gets killed too, in fact in worse ways than Winfield did (Licence to Kill, anyone?).

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The things I remember most clearly about Damnation Alley (a.k.a. Survival Run) are giant scorpions and that Ark II-like Landmaster with the tri-star wheel system.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What I didn't know until recently is that the Landmaster is real and drivable...I always used to think it was some kind of special effect.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Annie is a great crowdpleaser Broadway musical. It is also, in presenting the New Deal as a happy ending, the political antithesis of the very conservative original comic strip, which I understand was extremely anti-FDR. Which presents an interesting question: I love Annie, or at least I did as a child when I saw it twice on Broadway--but is it ethical to present an adaptation whose message directly opposes that of its original source? I mean, if the original strip had been pro-New Deal but the play presented it as a terrible thing, I'd probably have been annoyed.

Something similar happened with the TV adaptation of M*A*S*H. The original author Dr. Richard Hornberger, who wrote the novel under the name Richard Hooker, was quite a bit more conservative than the folks making the TV series, and he was quite displeased when the show developed a more liberal bent. He was quoted as saying, "I like the theme song, after that it gets a bit dull."

 

[cardinal biggles]

The main thing I remember about the Damnation Alley movie is that it was one more example of Paul Winfield's characters always getting killed. I remember a Starlog article about Winfield that was specifically about how he was known for getting killed a lot, with Damnation Alley and The Wrath of Khan being two of the main examples.

Don't forget Anthony Zerbe. He always gets killed too, in fact in worse ways than Winfield did (Licence to Kill, anyone?).

Zerbe's death in Licence to Kill gave us one of my favorite lines from the film:

Henchman: What do we do with the money, patrón?
Sanchez: Launder it.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I don't know if this counts but I think the 'Escape from New York' novelization is better than the movie.
The book goes into more detail about how the United States and the rest of the world wound up in the state it's in and the characters past history, especially how an Englishman like Donald Pleasance can become President. (Think Frank Underwood in 'House of Cards'.) The ending doesn't hold out much hope for a resolution to the ongoing conflict that Hauk mentions early on in the film. Too bad subsequent comics and the sequel 'Escape from L.A.' didn't follow up on that.
Another interesting thing about the novel is that in the first few chapters the clock counts up. Once the President's plane had crashed and Plisken is given 23 hours to rescue him, the clock starts counting down and as it gets closer to zero the chapters become shorter, reflecting the urgency of getting the President out and the charges in Plisken's neck neutralized. I can't think of any other novel that does that.

 

[eyeresist]

The Bond movies are also good examples, though the degree by which they stray from the source material varies very much.
...

Very interesting, but no mention of Never Say Never Again? I'm wondering how it compares with Thunderball for faithfulness.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

The Bond movies are also good examples, though the degree by which they stray from the source material varies very much.
...

Very interesting, but no mention of Never Say Never Again? I'm wondering how it compares with Thunderball for faithfulness.

"Never Say Never Again" is actually not based on the novel "Thunderball", but on the original, never-used screenplay by Fleming, Jack Wittingham and Kevin McClory, which Fleming cannibalized for the novel. This is why McClory got the rights to do "Never Say Never Again" in the first place. It's hard to say how it adapts that original story, since that never got out.

In comparison, though, NSNA used the more suave Bond known from the Eon series, propably because the audience was used to that version, and Connery was used to it as well. Since Connery aged, though, the NSNA Bond was almost twenty years older than the one from the "Thunderball" movie.

Now, the novel doesn't mention his age, but Bond scholars have put literary Bond's birthday between 1920 and 1924, and have the novel set in 1959, which makes him between 35 and 39 years old. Connery was born in 1930, the Eon movie was released in 1965, so he was 35 at the time, so that movie has Bond at about the right age.

NSNA features the scene where M (albeit a new one, so that's a deviation) sends Bond to that health clinic, which is in the novel, but NSNA's M is doing it on the basis of medical reports, while the novel's M does it for more dickish reasons, as he was there recently and simply thinks Bond could use it based purely on his personal observation.

Both movies deviate from the novel when it comes to Domino's brother, but in different ways. The novel has turn from war hero into crook by him selling out to SPECTRE. Both movies were obviously uncomfortable in making the female leads brother, whose death by SPECTRE's hand is the major reason for her to turn on Largo, so unlikeable. The Eon movie had him killed and replaced by an imposter, NSNA had him blackmailed.

Wow. If I go on like this, this will turn into an essay.

Alright, since I'm pressed for time (and you propably don't want to read through a six-page post), I'll cut to the chase and judge the Eon movie to be more faithful to the novel, but NSNA is more faithful in some minor regards. A huge thing is, of course, the finale, with which NSNA goes its very own way.

 

[scotpens]

I don't know if this counts but I think the 'Escape from New York' novelization is better than the movie.
The book goes into more detail about how the United States and the rest of the world wound up in the state it's in and the characters past history, especially how an Englishman like Donald Pleasence can become President.

I assumed the President in the movie was supposed to be American. Donald Pleasence did attempt a sort of half-assed (half-arsed?) American accent.

 

[Mudd]

Starship Troopers - the movie is great fun and is a broad satire, mocking much of Heinlein's point-of-view as expressed in the original novel. And the movie's managed to spawn a kind of confused, stumbling franchise of its own. Loved it.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The film Starship Troopers was great fun. I thought it was obviously satirical.

---

Excalibur. Is plate armor historically accurate? If Arthur lived in the 6th century, not even close. But it's a beautiful film, and the armor contributes to the otherworldly and fantastic, if not timeless, atmosphere.

 

[{ Emilia }]

@Dennis: I once read a very bitter interview in which Paul Verhoeven complained that the audience didn't get that the movie was supposed to be a satire about stupid fascism and militarism.

Apparently he was like "WTF???" when he saw the audience's reactions.