io9 
Enter your username and password.
San Francisco, 9:33 AM
Tue Dec 22
25 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Annalee Newitz |
News Editor:
Charlie Jane Anders |
Associate Editor:
Meredith Woerner |
Assistant Editor:
Lauren Davis |
Weekend Editor:
Graeme McMillan |
Contributors:
Joshua Glenn
Stephen Goldmeier |
Ed Grabianowski |
Austin Grossman
Paul Hogan |
Lauren Davis |
Chris Hsiang |
Lynn Peril |
Ann VanderMeer
Alasdair Wilkins |
Graphic Designer:
Stephanie Fox |
Interns:
Tim Barribeau |
Julia Carusillo |
Alex Eichler |
Cyriaque Lamar |
Caitlin Petrakovitz |
Mary Ratliff |
Josh Snyder |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
12/01/09
12/02/09
12/02/09
12/01/09
[en.wikipedia.org]
[www.pbs.org]
12/01/09
12/01/09
12/01/09
12/01/09
12/01/09
It should really be titled, "Francis Ford Coppola presents: Fancis Ford Coppola's interpretation of Brahm Stokers 'Dracula' (inspired by the novel)"
12/01/09
Bram Stoker's Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe's: Buried Alive, but the worst--worst!--was Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Amniotic fluid? Really? Thanks, Kenneth Branagh!
12/01/09
12/01/09
80s-style montage!
12/01/09
12/02/09
12/01/09
Since everyone else I knew loved it, I went back to see it again, just in case I was in the grip of temporary insanity or was having a stroke the first time I saw it. Unfortunately, I still didn't care for it.
Big disappointment for me.
12/01/09
12/01/09
In my opinion, Jackson's adaptation completely missed the point. The mood of the films was completely wrong, and WHY for fuck sake did they have to INVENT the incident with Aragorn falling off a cliff? It takes up half an hour of the film, valuable time which could have been used to portray Faramir as he was.
And what I hate most about the whole business is that now, when I talk about The Lord of the Rings with people, they mostly can't tell the book and the films apart. That drives me nuts.
I have to agree on Dracula tho. I found the book mind numbingly boring an repetitive. That's actually probably the only book in the world that's worse than any adaptation of it, ever. But Coppola's version is really stunning.
And I'm on the fence about A Clockwork Orange. I think that it's a good movie, but it has a bit too much of the old ultraviolence and a bit too little of the old social control. Also they're supposed to look like clowns and be 15 years old.
And yeah, you forgot Interview with a vampire, that really was a great movie and a very good adaptation.
Fight club was also a very good adaptation, but I guess it doesn't fall into the scifi/fantasy realm. Although, trying to reboot civilization with the help of your imaginary friend is kinda fantastic. And I preferred the ending of the film to the ending of the book, for the first and only time ever.
12/01/09
for my own part i found the return of the king mostly palatable, even with the adjustments. a notable exception was the scene where the witch king makes gandalf his bitch. gandalf is of the same race as sauron i.e. the nazgul's master while they are just men with some magical talents and a shinny ring. granted the witch king is the greatest of them but still no match for a gandalf. hell, the only reason he doesn't slay them all outright was because it was his job to let the people of middle earth overcome sauron on their own power. i mean... wait, where was i? o right, yes, other than that the last film was alright. the first is still my favorite.
12/01/09
...of course, I thought both Sin City and The Watchmen should have been included on the list so what does that tell you?
12/01/09
12/01/09
12/01/09
As far as the movie adaptations of the trilogy, I saw a kind of opposite trend. Minus a few key scenes, the movies progressively become better adaptations of the books. The last one FINALLY got me jazzed up about the stories in the final book. Being able to see a fantastical war on the grand scale that it was intended clicked better in visual format than the text ever did.
I do agree with AdoraBelle that it pains me to hear about and talk with people that have only seen the movies and haven't bothered to read the books!
12/01/09
One can argue that one of the texts is more successful within it's form and intentions than the other, but you're really comparing apples and oranges, so any direct comparison is nonsense.
And re: The Two Towers, thankfully liberties were taken, else it would have been two different tales in series (Merry and Pippin and the Ents, being one book of the Two Towers; and the further adventures of the remains of the Fellowship in the other), rather than blending the stories for heightened drama and effect, no?
12/01/09
Aragorn is not the noble descendant of a long lost line trying to reclaim his rightful throne - he "turned from that path long ago," and has to be browbeaten into doing everything by Elrond. He can't even reforge his own sword!
Theoden is not the newly rewakened tiger of Rohan setting out with his men to set right the world - he is a scared old man who has to be prodded into doing anything by Gandalf and Aragorn (who suddenly grows a conscience!).
Frodo is not the badass little hobbit with his uncle's spirit of adventure who leaps forth to smite Nazgul and trolls in the foot with Sting - he cowers behind a rock shrieking like a little girl for Aragorn to save him.
Merry and Pippin just happen to bump into Frodo and Sam and fall in with their quest, instead of bravely resolving not to let their friend go face this danger alone.
And, as someone else pointed out, yes, Gandalf gets pwned by the Witch King. W. T. F?
It's like there's a prejudice against any protagonist showing some initiative in regards to the bigger picture.
12/01/09
12/01/09
12/02/09
Oh, that was just me being lazy. Also it's been a while since I saw them last time. But here's one thing: Legolas killing the oliphant. What the fuck? That is just so wrong on so many levels. And one of my favorite scenes from the book, where Eowyn kills the witch king, indeed one of the most important scenes from the book, is like a five second clip while the oliphant thing takes ten minutes.
12/02/09
12/02/09
12/02/09
12/01/09
As great a film as it is, removing the final chapter and resolution drastically alters the tone and meaning of the original text - the underlyng subtext of the book and movie are utterly different.
One has Alex growing up and maturing into an adult, a sign of hope in future generations, the other has him revert to his old ways and spells the end to modern society.
12/01/09
Wikipedia also tells me that the screenplay was based on the American edition of the novel which didn't contain the final chapter. Apparently Kubrick didn't even know it existed until it was too late to add it in.
12/01/09
I'll see if I can dig up my copy of the book and send some quotes from it out after I get home...
12/01/09
The movie ends with him returning to his life of crime (after being de-programed), as does the novel if the extra chapter isn't included.
So really, Hollywood decided to go with the not so happy ending (Alex continuing to rape, pillage and plunder), rather than Burgess' more thoughtful, less racy ending (which implies Alex one day becoming a tax paying, law-abiding family man).
12/01/09
12/02/09
12/02/09
12/01/09
Also, if fantasy is on the table- The Wizard of Oz and Return to Oz are, needless to say, awesome adaptations.
11/30/09
LOTR was a casualty of my dislike for the genre, but the movies were so well-made on so many different levels that I gave it a pass and rank them among my favorite movies.
12/01/09
12/01/09
I read the Sword of Truth to about Temple of the Winds, but never continued. I liked SoT as a teen, but I even then I found its violence, sex, and violent sex a little disturbing, alongside the Ayn Rand-lite philosophy. I'll give it another go eventually, and dabble with the other recommendations.
As for Peter Jackson's changes/deletions, I would have really liked the Tom Bombadil chapter in Fellowship of the Ring, but everything else just fit like a glove. When I read that part, I kept thinking of that crazy Trumpy flying toys around the kid's bedroom scene from the MST3k episode on "Pod People." It was that weird. If any of you MST fans got that, kudos to you.
11/30/09
11/30/09
I haven't read Coraline, but I've heard the same of it.
I know a lot of people disagree, but I feel like Minority Report did a good job with what it had to work with (it's not my favorite of PKD's short stories).
12/01/09
12/01/09
11/30/09
But I'm going to put in a good word for Richard Linklater's adaptation of "A Scanner Darkly".
It was faithful to Philip K. Dick's stark ambivalence about mind-alteration, and it also did a good job of visualizing the "scramble suit" (one of PKD's most original inventions).
I think "A Scanner Darkly" would have been more warmly received had it featured a cast of unknowns. The mega-star cast detracted from the film's ambitious trippiness.
(here's what I thought of the book a while back....)
11/30/09
No no no no no no no no no. No. NO.
It took the same plot, characters, and events and raped them with a giant plaster cock.
The beauty of the book was portraying the horrible scenes in a REALISTIC way, not some bizzare Sci-Fi distopian environment where none of the characters have any redeeming qualities...
Please, please someone read the book.
11/30/09
11/30/09
11/30/09
I don't think the movie actually did, but I think you could. The squid was a bit of a weak plot point in an otherwise strong graphic novel.
12/01/09
For being "the smartest man on the cinder", the movie Ozy is pretty damn stupid. "I know! We'll scare everyone into playing nice by threatening the destruction of the world by Dr. Manhattan, while conveniently ignoring that that strategy didn't work at all when the US used it against the Soviets!"
12/01/09
Plus, Malin Ackerman... sigh...
12/01/09
That stuff just didn't bother me as much as the ending being totally changed (and again, not specifically the Squid, but the "stop fighting out of being scared" instead of "scared into all fighting on the same side").
11/30/09
11/30/09
12/01/09
12/01/09
11/30/09
Take my advice though, don't watch it all in one day. Pick a three day weekend (new years is traditional in the Lizardo household since the sun goes down early and you don't have to deal with glare on the TV) and watch one a day.