Adam Savage's Favorite Novel-to-Movie Adaptation
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- čas přidán 3. 04. 2024
- Which "unfilmmable" story would Adam Savage most like to see hit the screen? Which novel-to-movie adaptation is Adam's favorite? In this live stream excerpt, Adam answers questions from Tested members @Andrew Montgomery and @ianrigby7395, whom we thank for their support. Join this channel to support Tested and get access to perks, like asking Adam questions during live streams:
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I think the story of the Maltese falcon and how is made is actually in Syd Fields book. I could be wrong. And the story as I remember it John Houston asked the secretary to just write out the story beats and when he came back from a weekend of drinking or whatever she had basically written a script. I wonder if she ever got credited for that.
I have a request for 2 possible experiments to bust.
1) Grocery store produce have dead seeds?
Many people think grocers zap their produce with radiation to prevent people from planting and growing their own vegetables. You could have a couple nurseries and grow store bought produce seeds. Be sure to include a couple whole food stores.(I question Trader Joe’s options)
2. Creatine Monohydrate HCL use and the possibility of leading to a zombie apocalypse. (Be careful)
In high school, I did an experiment to see the effects of creatine monohydrate HCL on mice. (I wanted rats but all I could find was feeder mice.) About a week into the experiment I reported higher levels of activity as the mice utilized a spinning wheel night and day, however, 4 days later one mouse died while I was sleeping. The mice were unusually quiete that night. When I checked them in the morning, the others had halfway eaten through the dead mouse. The experiment came to an abrupt halt as my results were inconclusive. I started human trials at the college in my town but my second experiment also resulted in inconclusive results as a test subject bit another student…
Research wisely my friends. Lmk if u need any guidance; I may have found a cure… 😉
I had not realized Arrival was based on a Ted Chiang story. Now I have to get a copy of Stories of your Life and Others, so I can read it after my next viewing of Arrival. I noticed that the collection has Tower of Babylon, which was his first published story which I read back in 1990. I highly recommend it.
where did you get the ghostbusters ghost doing metal horns sticker on your drill press?
Jurassic Park is a brilliant adaptation precisely because it changes it in the exact ways it needed to be changed in order to work as a movie thriller.
the dwarf elephant would have been a nice touch instead of the flea circus
I listened to JP on audio a few years ago and responding, “Is that it?” So much of it was vastly different than the movie. It felt underwhelming because I had the movie so ingrained into my brain that Crichton’s novel didn’t seem like the source material for the movie. It makes me wonder how I would have responded if I had been exposed to these two media in the other order. 🤔
@@glennac My opinion is no more valid than yours, but I had the opposite reaction. I was in 1st grade when I saw the original movie in theatres, so it was probably the best age to see it to get the full impact. I loved dinosaurs already, and this was a huge leap in CG and puppetry in movies, so this was amazing to me.
After reading the book a few years ago, it was pleasantly shocking to see my childhood baby movie in the form of a dark horror story with strong elements of corporate espionage and graphic violence. I absolutely adore the way the old man dies at the end while the kids listen to his screams on the intercom, it was brilliantly dark
Remember before Peter Jackson, The Lord Of The Rings was considered unfilmable.
Jackson's LOTR is probably my gold standard for adapting something unadaptable. Tolkien is exceedingly descriptive and flowery, and Jackson did a remarkable job at expanding the cinematic and reducing the poetic. Tolkein's focus is so pastoral, and Jackson walks such fine line depicting that without compromsing too much narrative focus. I'd also say it is a rare adaptation that makes the books more fun to read afterwards! Jackson and Tolkein are perfectly compliments in the corners of the story that they paint in.
As was The Princess Bride!
The cartoon from 1978 was great. Peter copied many sceens 😁
Not sure why 9 hours of walking to a volcano is unfilmable. Oh and mix in a bunch of an annoying CGI character saying "my precious" over and over.
and it was better that way.
'Short story' immediately made me think of The Shawshank Redemption.
As well as "Stand By Me" aka "The Body"
You get a like for your avatar
Reading the Maltese Falcon in 90 minutes...that must play out like the Benny Hill Show inside your head.
Read at the speed at which Bogart delivers dialogue, and I think you could be done in under 30 minutes!!
I saw Arrival FOUR times in the theater when it came out, what an astonishing movie! I wanted to share the experience with as many friends as I could. The last viewing was with my dad - I could tell the movie affected him deeply and we had some great philosophical conversations afterwards. Not long after he suffered a stroke, the first of several, and is no longer with us. I will always cherish Arrival and the memories that it helped create.
It is amazing you had that moment with him. Thanks for sharing. May his memory be a blessing.
So happy you shared that film with him. My best friends mom had just passed from cancer when it came out and we wept to it. I saw it twice in theaters. Beautiful picture.
that movie was the most boring thing I have ever sat through. watching amy adams mope around like she was the dude from manchester by the sea. when she didnt even burn that alien baby or anything. Like why was she so mopey the whole time?
@@Chaelsonen Sounds like it just wasn't for you, nothing wrong with that, but did you like anything at all about the movie? What is a sci-fi movie that you do like?
@@kaid3566 I will say my comment is kind of deliberately more whiny sounding than I really feel. I do not think it would even rank on a scale of "bad" movies. Even if its not my personal thing, and I do get the aspects of it that interest people with trying to establish communication with something there is no real basis to do so. And add in trying to understand "time" as a concept beyond what we really can understand. The movie to me leads to more interesting conversations than what it really is itself.
To its credit whenever I think of other sci fi or space movies like you say to compare it to, it almost feels like arrival is in its own category. Maybe interstellar and moon also kind of fit in, maybe 2001. something like alien feels too different to even try to compare.
Another…Master and Commander: far Side of the world is a brilliant and underrated movie all on its own.
Was about to make the same comment. Only "problem" is that it's not based on A novel, but rather a mix of several, although the bulk of the story is from one novel in the series. Brilliant books, and a brilliant movie!
Hey Adam, thank you for reminding me that I have been meaning to watch Arrival for years. I paused your video and went and found it and watched it. It really _is_ such an amazing story. I've just read Ted Chiang's short story as well. Thanks for the nudge. 🙂
Hyperion Cantos would be insane if it could be pulled off onscreen. Denis Villeneuve might be the cliche answer, but his work on Dune plus Arrival shows he can film material deemed unfilmable. Cannot wait to see what he does with Rendezvous With Rama.
The potential for Hyperion to be made into a film is insane. The first story with Father Duré could be a movie in and of itself.
I dont think you can adapt Hyperion into a film. Its perfectly suited for a 4-6 episode miniseries. Like each characters story could be a 90 minute film by itself. Even if you condensed a couple of them down I dont see how you get that on screen in under 3 hours
i think film adaptions are ok, bit i would kill for novel to game adaptions, they could include so much more and the player sets the pace
The "twist" at the end of Arrival is by far and away the coolest thing ever and I remember reading the short story before watching the movie and I was still blown away.
I still believe that The Silmarillion is unfilmable because of the immense scope, rich mythology but mainly the characters and story elements are so fantastical and otherworldly. You can't adapt that visually in a way that would do it justice. For example the creation of the universe through music and song. Characters like Feanor or Morgoth. Luthien destroying the fortress on Tol-In-Gaurhoth by singing. I can't imagine a fulfilling visual interpretation of these. Maybe you could pull single tales from it and film them separately as movie series. But not the whole thing.
Dennis Villeneuve would do a good job
One of the best adaptations of a novel is The Hunt for Red October. The film cuts out the technical manuals and a lot of the sermons against the Soviet Union, performs the latter by showing rather than telling, and finds the story that is buried in the novel's bumbling prose.
'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' was a great transfer from Novella to movie. Its one of the few times the movie is better than the source material. It's a good book, but its way better as a movie.
Same goes for "The Body" and "Stand By Me"!
@@gospyroI've heard that, but I never read it.
The 13th Warrior was better than it's book Eaters of the Dead
fear and loathing in las vegas was exactly what I saw im my head when I read the book
For me, the Book the Hunt for Red October, and the movie is my favourite. I read the book first and the movie simply complimented what I had in my minds eye as I watched it.
To me the movie was much better paced.. Tom Clancy added material to extend the novel that was wisely cut from the movie adaptation.
@@robertkohler4173 I agree. The book is rather dry - as a lot of Clancy's work was, especially the early stuff.
I read Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash years ago. Anyone remember those 3D “magic eye” posters from the ‘90s? There’s an old video on CZcams that looks like random white noise-but if you look at it with the same eye-cross technique as those posters, it’s a 3D cartoon. 1000% reminded me of the brain-hijacking white noise from Snow Crash.
That's awesome, Snow Crash is an all time favorite
@@cloudbloom I will attempt to find it and post a link/the title, but I know CZcams usually nukes comments with URLs.
@@cloudbloom The Snowman: A Stereogram Animation
@@DrFranklynAnderson I'll check it out thanks!
Fun, thanks! Looks like there’s a few if you just search “stereogram animation”. Good times!
I've never read the book, but Cloud Atlas felt like a monumental undertaking that nobody but the Wachowskis could have realized to such perfection
The book is fantastic. One of my absolute favorites.
I thought the movie was terrible beyond words though. Completely dropped the ball.
@@Case16710 k
May not count, but The Orchid Thief to Adaptation is my favorite.
I also enjoy The Princess Bride: there's a lot more in the book but you can tell how much the humor was polished and workshopped by the time it was filmed.
Starship Troopers did a great job of adaptatiing the satire to Hollywood form.
Also, I believe Phillip K. Dick had the record for author most adapted to film, largely because he also exclusively wrote short stories.
PKD was not exclusively short stories. I've got many, many of his novels on my shelf.
Princess Bride has a few things that you couldn't do in film (the "missing scene" stunt in it is still hilarious to read through everything tied to that).
Starship Troopers is not a good adaptation, it's an amusing movie, but one that has very little to do with the book...and was admitted to be something where Verhoven never finished the book and was working on "Bug Hunt and Sector 9" and it was suggested to just use the names from Starship Troopers.
Oh man!!! I’ve been saying for years that The Maltese Falcon is the best book adaptation ever. And Adam Savage is agreeing with me! Truly, it’s my equivalent of his Coppola story.
The reason for me, is that the film perfectly selects which parts of the novel to capture, and avoids the bad bits. There are sections of the book that would be very problematic on screen, and the film navigates around those parts so well that you could never tell. Some films cut or introduce material in a way that’s jarring and completely at odds with the original intent (Chandler based films seem to suffer a lot from this). But Huston weaves his film together perfectly. It’s sheer brilliance. Do as Adam says - read and then watch - and I think you’ll agree.
Jaws always comes to mind as I've preferred the film adaptation.
I had a film class in university where we watched Jaws and the professor afterwards talked about how she read the novel and hated it, going over the novel's various subplots and how they detracted from the overall story. I've heard similar things about the Godfather novel.
9 Princes in Amber. Been started, stopped many times. Transitioning from realm to realm would be pretty tough. Filming Chaos would be tough. I WANT IT!
Two of m favorite fantasy writers as a kid, were Piers Anthony's Xanth series. Also David Eddings Belgariad.
I only read one David Eddings, and to be honest it was so long ago that I don't remember anything about it. But I read Piers Anthony like crazy. I liked the Xanth series, but I loved the "Apprentice Adept" books and the "Incarnations of Immortality" series. "On a Pale Horse" should be a movie.
The second you said "short story" I immediately thought of Arrival.
God Arrival is a movie that fundamentally changed my life and how I interact with movies.
I still don’t have a good word for the sensation of pain and longing for suffering one will experience in the future.
@@dylanvickers7953 Arrival is for sure one of my top five favorite movies. It’s one I always recommend and one I love to watch people react to on CZcams. To see them slowly grasp the reality of what it is they are watching is beautiful.
Arrival is a masterpiece!!
Watching Arrival bent my brain. Reading twisted and shoved it into a Klein bottle. Both are phenomenally brilliant.
there are several movies named "arrival" which one are we talking about?
I know it probably sounds really stupid but I feel a real sense of connection and joy when my question makes it to one of these short clips :) I don't have a large social circle (tiny in fact!) But I always tell the couple of people in it, "hey my question got picked and clipped!" Lol thank you guys :) hope everyone at tested is having a wonderful week 🙂
LOL Adam catching himself from swearing was great.
_"There's some spectacularly weird sh-tuff..."_
The Culture series by Iain M Banks done right would be epic. Consider Phlebas would lend itself very well to a series.
Use Tom Hiddleston as the lead?
@@davidjunk6117 yeah great choice.
I suspect they'd try to start with The Player Of Games first. Though they'd have trouble translating the baroque and expansive game of Azad.
My pick for "Unfilmable that you would like to see" would be:
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, directed by Guillermo Del Toro.
I think he's the only person who would be able to depict the foolishness, pain and trauma of the war without glorifing any specific characters, and also have the melancholic comedy throughout.
There's already a film version from the 70s which is, frankly, underrated.
@@henryglennon3864 NO SHOT! REALLY?!
@@henryglennon3864 Yup - I read the book & watched the movie as part of an English class back in the day
@@WhiskyCanuck i immediately went and watched it! Its pretty good! Great adaptation! The book is much more poingnant of course, but I don't know how you'd adapt most of it if not the way they did it. Thanks for telling me about it, @henryglennon3864 ! Had a great time.
the made the film like 40+ years ago
I was watching the video and thinking that my favorite adaptation was "The Maltese Falcon" (having read the novel after seeing the movie a gazillion times), and then Adam mentioned it. Yes!
One of my favorites is the Jonathan Strange adaptation. As for unfilmable, I would say Malazan. I feel like it would have to either be broken into separate stories, kind of like the MCU, all being combined at the end or be made into something more like an anime.
Arrival is such a nice movie. The way it paces itself and works around a small and intimate setting with relatively few people just makes the movie breathe and it gives the actors room to act.
there are several movies named "arrival" which one are we talking about?
The soundtrack is amazing as well, it perfectly sets scenes and feelings throughout the entire film
@@chuckjann1714 Arrival 2016 directed by Denis Villeneuve. IMDB index tt2543164.
@@chuckjann1714 Released in 2016. Denis Villeneuve director.
Arrival was great! I watched the whole thing sitting on the living room floor because I didn't want to pause it even to just get a chair
God this is the first time I have heard anyone mention “Arrival”. I will always shout praises of this in particular
I couldn’t agree more with how short stories are a much better fit for a movie script than a book is.
It is interesting that John Huston also adapted Rudyard Kipling's short story The Man Who Would Be King into a gem of a movie.
Minority Report was a great short story to movie adaptation.
I think I have Arrival on disk. I have a long sleeve gray t-shirt with one of the Heptapod symbols printed on the front. Thanks to this video, I bought Ted's "Stories of Your Life and Others" just now. I'll watch the movie tonight and reed the story tomorrow.
I think my favorite book to movie would be The Green Mile. They followed the novel very faithfully, with incredible actor choices and fantastic performances.
I was thinking of Ted Chiang’s story and Arrival before you said it. Both so good.
I gotta say, I need a Blood Meridian adaptation (preferably as a miniseries) by Robert Eggers. If I could cast The Judge too, I'd cast James Spader.
I will say, I don't think it's as unfilmable as a lot of people say
Nice!
it is unfilmable because of the main part of the novel which is mccarthy’s style, not because of action he depicts.
I think The Silence of the Lambs was a very faithful adaptation of the Thomas Harris book.
The Chinese version of "Three Body" is FANTASTIC. The cinematography and storytelling is SO GOOD. (On Amazon Prime)
Wow, as you were contemplating the question, and saying how “unfilmable” is often related to stories thought of as being of such immense scope, I thought of the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. And bang, you start talking about Neal. A bit later you read the viewer’s question where he mentioned The Martian. I started thinking about Andy Weir’s amazing Project Hail Mary, and I wondered how they could possibly portray in film the process of the protagonist learning to communicate with the alien, which led me to comment internally, well, look at how that was portrayed in Arrival. A minute later you were talking about Arrival! Dude, I was speechless. That’s some serious ESPN. 😁😁😁
I think the main barrier to a lot of this is the amount of story driven by inner monologue. Substantial changes are necessary for those books.
A Scanner Darkly is IMO a near perfect book to film adaptation
I was going to say the same thing, its a fantastic film and very close to the source material
I love the book but have never seen the film, is that the Keanu Reeves adaptation?
@@photoluke1499 Yep, and he is perfect in the role
Now I want to write a pulp fantasy, as dark and gritty as any proper detective horror story; but with dragons.
Hate to rain on your parade, because, well, it's a great idea, but you're some 35 years late. "Guards! Guards!", by Terry Pratchett, was published in 1989.
Drop whatever it is you're doing & go read it!! Lest Carrot throws the book at you! (inside joke)
Thank me later.
P.S.: Unless that's exactly what you implied, in which case I am hereby respectfully withdrawing my ignorant remark.
I met her in a darkened street, as rain dripped from the tenement gutters and spattered across her scaly hide. “Got a light?” I asked. She blew a kiss towards me. It warmed my heart, and incinerated most of my hat. I gently dowsed it in a puddle and casually inquired, “say, doll, am I missing an eyebrow? I got me a hot date later.” But when it came to hot, this babe was the real deal. 6,000 degrees of real.
Thank you for being you, Adam. I’ve been in since I saw a couple of weirdos shoving pop rocks and cola into a pig’s stomach and thought, “don’t know what this is but I like it.” Very grateful for the access you’ve provided to your worldview. Inspiring, insightful, fun, and delightfully odd.
Rendezvous with Rama would be a sight to behold.
Denis Villeneuve is set to direct a script of Rama written by Eric Roth. Villeneuve has been quoted as saying, "It's Arrival on steroids."
Even though the other Rama novels are a bit strange, I would still love to see them all made into movies.
Yeah, I'd love to see _The Diamond Age_ in particular, though yeah, really any of Neal Stephenson's books, translated to screen. Though I think you answer your own question as to why they haven't been -- they're just too long to make it an easy process. That said, I think it could be done, and I think it could be epic.
If they do REAMDE, though, I hope they'll shoot some of it on site at Hackerbot Labs. ;) (The Peter character is loosely based on a friend of mine from there.)
Love all these takes on written to visual media.
Hearing you talk about Raymond Chandler gave me goosebumps
In 1960 in the sixth grade, I fell in live with Sci-Fi stories when I read _Rocket Ship Galileo_ written by Robert A. Heinlein and published in1948. Last year I read sixty books, mostly fiction. I love stories in books, plays and movies. When I saw _Arrival_ in 2016 I was blown away. It was such a surprise in many ways. I have not seen anything as good before or sense.
Compelling case for the two movies that were mentioned. But for my money, A Clockwork Orange is the finest novel-to-screen adaptation. It is nearly word-for-word in most of the film.
Snow Crash is still one of the craziest stories I ever read. I recently rewatched Cowboy Bebop and I think Snow Crash influenced the "Heaven's Gate" episode.
Cryptonomicon! Id especially love that scene when Shaftoe does a HALO jump into the island fortress in manila bay!
The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson. An incredible book.
I point out the description of "Source Victoria" early on in the novel as some of the best descriptive writing I've ever read.
Bill Gibson’s NEUROMANCER is maybe my favorite book ever. What makes it difficult to adapt is that it’s not character or plot or meta insights that make it great, it’s his flow of words and language. It’s ‘just’ great writing, and that is nigh impossible to translate.
It looks like there is a Neuromancer project that is (finally) in flight. My biggest concern is that so much of it has already been stolen and presented in other works that it will now be seen as unoriginal and derivative.
Arrival is so good! Probably my favorite sci-fi film so far this century. Also absolutely my favorite example of female STEM representation in movies in a long time (maybe ever). The leading lady gets respected as one of the best in her field, working alongside a team of all men with zero hint of gender bias. They truly listen to her as an equal, don't try to talk over/around her or mansplain anything.
She also manages to avoid all the usual "smart female" Hollywood stereotypes. Not a supermodel-with-brains, goth nerd chick, klutzy but cute introvert, overpowering boss b-word, or "just one of the guys."
If I'd seen it first when I was a bit younger, I can totally see myself changing paths and going into linguistics or some other field along those lines. I hope it gets shown to tons of young women (ones old enough to not get traumatized by the aliens), and inspires more of them to aim for STEM career paths.
I love the tip about Arrival. It is one of the most amazing sci-fi films ever, if you truly understand what sci-fi means. Thanks Adam!
Great work sir
Love your channel adam im from south east london, to add to the novel to movie question.
I read fear and loathing litrally 3 yrs before it was released and NEVER EVER thought this could be made into a film
And i was not disappointed wow
Ron or Royn if your American lol ❤
I knew about the film "The Maltese Falcon" for a long time and I think that I watched it once as a kid, when I was home from school sick.
That would have been decades before I picked up a copy of the book at a library sale.
I know that some people are not going to be happy when I write that the only thing that I was impressed with was how much the book description of Miles Archer read as matching Humphrey Bogart.
The Sam Spade description impressed me by saying that his eyes were like a demon dreaming.
Amazing short story adaptation to short film: Meat. Several times. There's at least two versions on CZcams. The wonderful opening line: "They're made out of meat."
Yes! Neal Stephenson's work needs to be done.
Have Snow Crash done in the same style as 'Into the Spiderverse'
I totally agree about Maltese Falcon. It’s perfect.
It's funny that Adam considers Arrival a good adaptation of the source material, since it went out of its way to gut the meaning to make it palatable for a general audience. It did this by simply not discussing free will, when the central problem of the story is what "free will" means to someone who can "remember" her whole life at once. For instance, in the book, her daughter dies in her 20s during a hiking accident the mother could have prevented (not as a child of an incurable disease as in the movie) because the mother, who can "remember" her entire future, knew it was going to happen. When she explains to her husband that she knew and did nothing, he divorces her when he can't understand. This was left out of the movie because it would have been too difficult for audiences to process, as any suggestion that free will may be an illusion will throw them into a tizzy, so the only thing Villeneuve took from that aspect of the original story was the twist that the flashbacks she's remembering are of a daughter that isn't born yet. He turned a poem about time and free will into parlor trick. Pathetic..
House of Leaves (Danielewski) directed by Aronofsky, Villeneuve, Nolan or even Studio Ghibli
I took Detective Fiction in college. The whole course was reading the story, then watching the film. It's a great way to enjoy the material, but it also illustrated how detective fiction evolved as a genre.
I’d like to see Blood Meridian adapted by the Cohen brothers.
I always wanted to see a Neuromancer movie. When I first saw the trailer for the Matrix, I actually thought it was an adaptation of that novel.
Director John Huston's The Maltese Falcon from 1941 was the third time Dashel Hammet's novel was adapted for the big screen.
And he missed the decade of the novel. 1930 after 1929 Black Mask serialization.
Best novel to movie adaptation I’ve seen is Silence of the Lambs. I read the book after seeing the movie and I was amazed at how close the movie had been to the book.
My choice too. I’ve never seen another movie that so closely captured the flavor of the book.
Yes! I love Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon! Zodiac is another one of my comfort books. Neal is one of my favorite authors!
Can you imagine "The Diamond Age" as a film??
@@thecorinthianguy I think MOST Stephenson books would be good as movies, but that would be pretty wild. I need to read that one again. 😸
Another shared favourite film - Drive my Car. Really awesome film. (Along with Philadelphia Story and Arrival)
The Man with Bogart's Face was a (short) novel and a faithful movie adaptation
It's a short early reader series and one of the proto-YA novels but Garth Nix's Seventh Tower series & Shades Children would be difficult but not unfilmable. I'd give them to Villinueve. He gets the bleakness and scale required for the settings.
It's also high time for a true to tone Animorphs TV series.
ARRIVAL IS SUCH A GOOD ADAPTATION
♥ Drive My Car. The perfect rainy Sunday afternoon film (we get quite a few of those here n the UK).
I would love to see an adaptation of (1) Jack Vance’s Tschai (4 movies please) or (2) Tanith Lee’s Flat Earth (5 movies) or (3) Larry Niven’s Ringworld (4 movies, maybe 5 or even 9).
I’m gonna have to say The Shawshank Redemption!!!!
Yep, ‘Arrival’ fantastic movie. I hate the thought of the underlying premise of the story, but love the way they constructed and told the story.
you need to watch one of the movie analysis videos to highlight how much of a work of art this movie actually is.
[I need to read the short story again because the movie has eclipsed it]
I would have to have The Shawshank Redemption at or near the top of my list
I have learned that, for me, watching the movie and then reading the book is more entertaining. I would rather imagine the faces of the actors while reading the book, than being distracted by or disappointed that the actors don’t match what I had imagined while reading. Not to mention the book then ads content to the story, whereas the movie almost always is forced to leave content out.
Choke and Fight Club have gotta be up there
Most of the greatest sci-fi films of all time are short stories. I adore Arrival and am heading to the bookstore to get the novella lol
Arrival is a masterpiece just like the original novel.
Without a shred of doubt, my favorite short story to film adaptation is Stand By Me (1986). One of my top 5 favorite films of all time, a film I've treasured since I was like 7 years old. It's based on the short story "The Body" by Stephen King. I will say that I honestly think that the film is way better.
My favorite novel to movie adaptation that came to mind was Guns of Navarone. It is helped by an amazing cast Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, David Niven (one of the best monologues in film history imo).
About a Boy is a terrific movie based on a well-loved book.
I'm with you Adam on any Neal Stephenson story. I think Ananthem could be amazing without requiring an astronomical budget. The character count is limited for Neal and all the crazy stuff could be done with practical effects for the most part. could even be pitched as A YA movie 😂.
I agree about your novel-to-film views. I think TV series are the way to go with novels. Like GoT!
Lots of Stephenson's work would be hard to film but I'm surprised no one has made a movie out of Zodiac. It seems like something Hollywood would be all over.
The wheel of time is definitely "unfilmable" if you want to do it justice, that saga is so massive and packed with so much stuff i didn't even bother with watching the amazon series because i know they could never do it justice
They didn't even try tbh
Couldn’t agree more 👍👍
i hated the part in the martian where mark does the iron man thing, the whole point of that part in the book was he got this far, now he needs to give his crew the reigns and let them save him
Hi there, I'm a writer and let me clear a few things up. Firstly, it was only ever fans of the book itself that considered it unfilmable; no one in film considers this story or really any story unfilmable. The issue lies with the fact that people seem to fail to understand the definition of the word "Adaptation" which, at it's core, is defined as changing to meet the needs of a new environment or situation. It does not, however, mean an exact carbon copy representation of how you personally thought everything in the story should/shouldn't work or what it should look like etc.
If you fail to understand this then of course you think things are unfilmable as you fail to see that some aspects of any narrative are going to work better in a visual medium and some are going to work better in a written narrative. Ultimately, if your favourite book or series of novels is getting turned into a film then yes it will be different from the book in some aspect whether that be big or small but rarely is this done out of spite or malice and is mostly done to ADAPT the story from a written narrative into a three act structure for a visual medium.
Next I want to address the whole "the book was better" thing... no, no it wasn't "better" you just preferred one over the other and that is totally okay. You cannot draw a direct comparison between people a written narrative and film as they are just different mediums that work completely differently. Some books do transfer better into film but that has far more to do with the way the author wrote the book than how it was adapted and so the odd film adaptation of a book that really nails it is not some benchmark for all adaptations to achieve. Sometimes you get a "Dances with Wolves" that adapts really well from the book as it was just written that way (I swear there was no script for that film and KC was just using a copy of the book that he had taken notes in for a script, go watch the directors cut after reading the book and tell me that I am wrong) and sometimes you get a Three Body Problem that is just... I mean it is narratively a mess from the perspective of developing it into a traditional three act structure which requires changes, adaptations if you will, to be made as not only does it have to appeal to fans of this particular series but it has to work for anyone who has not read the book as well.
I would love to see Thomas Covenant books made into a Movie.
Best novel to film adaptation: Secret Garden (1995)
Unfilmable: A Wrinkle in Time, John Carter of Mars, Mansfield Park.
Cryptonomicon was brilliant! Should definitely be a movie.
Ohh this is fun, The Prestige, another good movie in its own right, although I never read the book.
My favorite "unfilmable" novel would be "Ringworld," by Larry Niven.
I mostly read nonfiction and my book-to-film opinions are probably not widely supported. I didn't like Kubricks Clockwork Orange that much and hated his Lolita but I loved the books and Adrian Lyne’s version of Lolita starring Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is a great film that does a wonderful job of capturing the important themes of a great book and yet the two are told from the perspective of different characters. People might have originally looked at the book and thought it wouldn't work as a play (as it was done before a film) but they figured it out. Telling the film from McMurphy’s perspective works well, for the film where you might have had to use voice-over through the whole movie to directly translate the book.