Bad Adaptations, Good Product

[sidious618]

My favorite "bad" adaptation would definitely be The Shining. It's a remarkable situation where, if someone told you the plot, you'd think it was a fairly direct adaptation, but the themes and some small nuances of characterization are different enough that the meaning behind the story changes from the book. Kubrick and King come from very different storytelling points of view so it's no surprise.

Both the book and the film are stellar, though, and should be consumed if you haven't had the chance yet.

 

[Mudd]

That sounds familiar - I may have read that as well.

One of Verhoeven's "problems" as a director of these action-oriented movies that he intends as satire (Robocop and arguably Total Recall, for instance) is that he's too good at the violence, and a big segment of the audience just eats that up at face value. He does often present it as comic.

I read an interview years ago in which he responded to a question about whether the kinds of gore in some of his movies troubled him by saying that he grew up seeing some pretty stark things in the post-war Netherlands, and that violence and death in movies didn't look at all real to him.

 

[Christopher]

@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.

Yeah, I remember that. Not the interview, but I remember that there were a lot of critics and viewers who didn't realize it was satirical.

Because I actually saw the movie first, I assumed when I read Heinlein's book that it was also a satire. I made a post on the Analog discussion forum about how cleverly it skewered the characters' arguments in favor of fascism because they were all predicated on the assertion that it worked without there ever actually being any evidence provided that it did, in fact, work. But then Gardner Dozois, who of course had known Heinlein personally, replied and told me that Heinlein had actually presented those arguments in earnest.

 

[Nerys Myk]

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.

Pretty much anything you see in an Arthurian film is historically inaccurate. Armor, clothes, architecture, language, weapons....

 

[Christopher]

Pretty much anything you see in an Arthurian film is historically inaccurate. Armor, clothes, architecture, language, weapons....

Indeed. We don't even know if there actually was an Arthur. If there was, he was probably a Cornish chieftain who united the local tribes in defending against the invading Anglo-Saxons -- which makes it really weird that the English, the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons that Arthur fought against, ended up adopting him as their national hero.

 

[Silvercrest]

That sounds familiar - I may have read that as well.

One of Verhoeven's "problems" as a director of these action-oriented movies that he intends as satire (Robocop and arguably Total Recall, for instance) is that he's too good at the violence, and a big segment of the audience just eats that up at face value. He does often present it as comic.

Yeah ... If you're going to satirize violence by making it cartoonishly over-the-top, that's a fine line to walk. It's easy to land in the zone that directors want for non-satirical action films. For years I didn't realize Starship Troopers was supposed to be a satire.

 

[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.

Pretty much anything you see in an Arthurian film is historically inaccurate. Armor, clothes, architecture, language, weapons....

Ladies of the Lake?

 

[Christopher]

One of Verhoeven's "problems" as a director of these action-oriented movies that he intends as satire (Robocop and arguably Total Recall, for instance) is that he's too good at the violence, and a big segment of the audience just eats that up at face value. He does often present it as comic.

Yeah. A lot of people didn't get that RoboCop was a comedy. For instance, the dreadful RoboCop: Prime Directives miniseries was utterly dark and grim and serious as well as violent, and it totally missed the point. Conversely, RoboCop: The Series was openly comic and satirical but toned down the violence for TV, and a lot of people complained about that, but to me, it was the one adaptation that got it right in recognizing that the satire, not the violence, was the point.

Then there was RoboCop 2, which tried to use violence for satire as Verhoeven had, but did so ineptly, mistaking gratuitous nastiness and excess for satirical humor. Verhoeven's excesses served a purpose; they weren't an end in themselves. (Also, RoboCop isn't all that deadly in the original film; he mostly shoots to wound, and he chooses to arrest Boddicker rather than murdering him, at least until the climax when he has to kill in self-defense. RC2 totally missed this and had every one of Robo's shots be a kill shot, except for the one guy that he left alive to interrogate.)

 

[Trekkin]

I went and saw the Robocop remake with a group of friends who hadn't seen the original, and I had a really hard time explaining why I was really let down compared to their 'it's okay' reactions.

Every time I tried to explain how the original handled it's humour and social commentary (and why I preferred it), it kept coming out 'You don't understand! It was really silly, there was a lot more violence and gore, and cyborg Jesus. Therefore - better!'

Funny enough, that didn't really sell the original to them.

 

[Christopher]

Well, I hold the RoboCop remake to a different standard, because it was trying to be a fresh take on the basic concept, rather than a continuation of the original. So it didn't need to be faithful. I approve of its effort to be different, to find a novel way of telling the story in order to justify doing a new version. I don't even mind that it played it more straight, because that helps make it different. I just don't think it succeeded at telling a solid story in its own right. It paid lip service to the ethical questions of drone warfare and the surveillance state, but then didn't do anything with them. The stakes of its story were too low, personally and otherwise, and it didn't really add up to much in the final analysis. It was better than the second and third movies and Prime Directives, but it was just kind of there. (My more detailed review here.)

But the thing about the original RoboCop... Looking back on it now, it was depressingly prophetic. It depicted a world where corporate power was virtually unfettered, where a few corporate oligarchs effectively controlled the government and the media, where the police were becoming a heavily armed and militarized force, and where Detroit was a failed ruin of a city. We're basically living in the future Verhoeven presented as an exaggerated farce.

 

[eyeresist]

Re Starship Troopers, the first time I saw it I think I was aware of the satire, but the gungho OTT violence, and the obvious (to me) direct parallels to the first gulf war, made it a rather uncomfortable experience. Of course, turns out Verhouven specialises in "uncomfortable".
I do wish he was directing more sf. There are so few great directors in the genre.

...
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.

Thanks so much for going to the trouble! This was very interesting and useful.

 

[Trekkin]

His last SF was Hollow Man, wasn't it? Now there's a movie (and an adaptation) I like waaay more than I should. Can't really tell you why, considering I didn't really like any of the characters.

Well, I felt sorry for Rhona Mitra. But that's purely because there's 'worst nightmare' levels of shit in her one scene.

 

[eyeresist]

^ Ah, I did think that one was fairly terrible. Keep Verhouven in the territory of spaceships, cyborbs, mutants and giant bugs, and away from Invisible Man rapes.

 

[Nerys Myk]

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.

Pretty much anything you see in an Arthurian film is historically inaccurate. Armor, clothes, architecture, language, weapons....

Ladies of the Lake?

Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

 

[Silvercrest]

I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

 

[JoeZhang]

@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.

Yeah, I remember that. Not the interview, but I remember that there were a lot of critics and viewers who didn't realize it was satirical.

Because I actually saw the movie first, I assumed when I read Heinlein's book that it was also a satire. I made a post on the Analog discussion forum about how cleverly it skewered the characters' arguments in favor of fascism because they were all predicated on the assertion that it worked without there ever actually being any evidence provided that it did, in fact, work. But then Gardner Dozois, who of course had known Heinlein personally, replied and told me that Heinlein had actually presented those arguments in earnest.

I've mentioned this somewhere else recently - but I have never quite been able to decide if the Midshipman's hope series were not a very very subtle parody given the constant spanking and over-earnest nature of some of the prose.

 

[MacLeod]

Well the latest Robocop film is ok, sure I prefer the original but then again that's the one I grew up with so perhaps nostalgia plays into that.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Singer's X-Men. Takes enormous liberties with the comics, but still, it was faithful enough to the spirit to be the foundation of the modern superhero-movie fad.

Amen!

The classic 1968 version of Planet of the Apes is arguably better than the original novel--and has a much better ending (courtesy of Rod Serling).

What was the original ending?

The Howling is one of my favorite horror movies, and definitely my favorite werewolf movie. I've read the novel it is based on, which is also interesting, but it's very different. Apparently one of the lousy direct-to-video sequels is a remake that sticks closer to the source material, but I am not keen on sitting through it to find out.

The fourth movie is the one that's closer to the book. Even for a Howling sequel, that one is pretty bad.

Off topic but which franchise has shittier sequels: The Howling or Highlander?

The first Mission: Impossible movie comes to mind. The team (which was the emphasis of the show) was killed of in the first act, and the lead character of Jim Phelps is turned into a villain. I understand any fan of the TV show who utterly hates this movie.

It is still a very good movie in its own right. I saw the movie before I ever watched the show, and it worked very well for me.

I think it's a pretty bad movie for reasons that have nothing to do with fidelity to the show. Heck, it's actually more faithful to the show than most of the sequels. But it has a completely incoherent and nonsensical plot. The supposedly crucial clue involving a hotel Bible doesn't prove anything at all.

That always confused me too. I was also confused by the fact that I guess each individual Bible verse has its own alt.group or something. (And since I was 13 when I first saw it and already pretty confused, I got even more confused when they had the conversation between Ethan Hunt & Jim Phelps where they were talking about how Kittridge was the bad guy while at the same time showing us flashes to indicate that Ethan was realizing that Phelps was the bad guy.)

The first of those isn't quite an adaptation, because the book and movie were developed simultaneously and influenced each other. More collaboration than adaptation, though I suppose you could call it a mutual adaptation.

Collaborative is a good way to put it, and it must be unique, in that I can't quite think of anything else that's been done that way.

Closest thing I can think of is Jurassic Park. IIRC, Spielberg had already agreed to direct the movie before Crichton finished the book. Crichton then designed some sequences in the book based on ideas of stuff that Spielberg said he'd like to film.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

The original plot to Planet of the Apes can be read here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Apes_(novel)

 

[Marc]

The original plot to Planet of the Apes can be read here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Apes_(novel)

Wow - almost nothing like the movie.