Best/Not-so-Great Book-to-Movie Adaptation Discussion

For January 2018 we will be reading books that were made into movies
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Best/Not-so-Great Book-to-Movie Adaptation Discussion

Post by Heidi M Simone »

We know that this is pretty accurate when it comes to Book-to-Movie adaptations:

The Movie, The Book.jpg
The Movie, The Book.jpg (53.75 KiB) Viewed 5511 times
(image was found on google)

But, this doesn't mean that there aren't good movie adaptations of books. So, I thought it would be fun to discuss which movies we thought were the best book-to-movie adaptations and maybe those that were not-so-great book-to-movie adaptations.

Here some guiding questions to begin (feel free to add more to this discussion):
  • What book-to-movie will you be discussing?
  • What made the movie the best or not-so-great?
  • Were there scenes you missed? Why do you think they were cut out?
  • Did the changes affect the movie in a positive light?
  • Would you say the movie stayed true to the core message of the book? If not, why not?
Can't wait to hear your thoughts!
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Post by kandscreeley »

Well as I went on about on another of these topics, I found a great adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It's the mini series version featuring Colin firth. It is about 6 hours and really does the book justice.
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Post by Alice in Scotland »

kandscreeley wrote: 04 Jan 2018, 20:05 Well as I went on about on another of these topics, I found a great adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It's the mini series version featuring Colin firth. It is about 6 hours and really does the book justice.
Seconding that! The TV series brought the book to life. It's interesting how well Austen adapts to a medium that didn't exist when she was writing. Same with Dickens, though those books were the TV of their day of course.

I recently saw the film Paddington, an adaptation of classic books from my childhood. It had some merits as an up-to-date version of the story. They made the most of Paddington's talent for creating havoc and Mrs Bird's ability to fix things was a nice touch. However, the attempts at creating tension by introducing a foe for Paddington fell flat for me. Overall, some of the quirky charm of the original was lost. One of the most disappointing aspects was the reduction of Mr Gruber to a cameo :( .
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Post by elivia05 »

kandscreeley wrote: 04 Jan 2018, 20:05 Well as I went on about on another of these topics, I found a great adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It's the mini series version featuring Colin firth. It is about 6 hours and really does the book justice.
I definitely will be looking for this! I am absolutely obsessed with Pride and Prejudice, and I have yet to see an adaptation that I have truly enjoyed.
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