Books to Films.....

[kaiyatomiko]

Has anyone read any books that were really good and always wanted to see it on the screen?
For me I'd love to see Robert Jordans books made into films and/or the different Anne McCaffrey books.
Do you have a particular book you'd like to see or do you think all books should be kept as books and not made into films?
Do you think there's a particular genre of book that works better as a film or do you think all can get good results on the big screen.

Personally I find that Fantasy books are great as films but film-makers have the tendancy to cut out huge chunks and re-order everything!

[Comfortable Madness]

While I have to agree that I would love to see Robert Jordans WoT on the screen I am a little wary. I believe that good books can become good movies. Take for example the Lord of the Rings books and movies. Although, you are correct that large chunks are taking out in order to keep the time of the movie manageable. Also, it's nearly impossible for film to recreate those scenes in books where you get incite into what a character is thinking. By not being able to bring that to the screen you lose a whole lot of important character depth....

I personally think that the WoT would work better as a series on a network such as HBO. Which does a really good job with their originally series such as Sopranos and Rome. Making it a long running series gives you more time to get in as much as possible as opposed to a movie in which you get three hours. Even if you made a trilogie out of it you still only get nine hours. However, if you make it a series that last for say six years, at twelve episodes a year, and each an hour long you get 72 hours. Given the size and depth of the WoT series I think that that would be the best option.

[Azhev]

I think the Pern books by Anne McCaffery would be cool to see on the big screen.  Looks of cool special effects with the dragons, and Thread, and between.

However, I am very leary about any movie based from a book.  In my opinion, the track record of such endeavors hasn't been very good.

[Felastizairu]

While I'd love to see many, many books turned into movies, I'm always afraid that the movie will slaughter the book.  That's the catch with movies.  There are very few book-to-movie transitions that I felt did the book justice.

That being said, I'd say T.A. Barron's Lost Years of Merlin series. 

[White]

Well, my favourite movie adaptation of a book was the Studio Ghibli take on the book Howl's Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones... I think there would be nice potential for others of her books...

Speaking of which, when people are thinking along this topic:

Do you think the film would be better as a Live-action film or Animated/CG?

[Tekiel]

Well, my favourite movie adaptation of a book was the Studio Ghibli take on the book Howl's Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones... I think there would be nice potential for others of her books...

Yes, but the movie and book had nothing to do with each other.  Not that I'm disagreeing with you, I own both and have watched/read each more times that I can count (or would admit).  I'm just saying that the two really had nothing to do with each other on the whole.  I'm wondering how she feels about what they did to her story, and if that would influence her decision to let them make more of her stories into movies.

[White]

Well, my favourite movie adaptation of a book was the Studio Ghibli take on the book Howl's Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones... I think there would be nice potential for others of her books...

Yes, but the movie and book had nothing to do with each other.  Not that I'm disagreeing with you, I own both and have watched/read each more times that I can count (or would admit).  I'm just saying that the two really had nothing to do with each other on the whole.  I'm wondering how she feels about what they did to her story, and if that would influence her decision to let them make more of her stories into movies.

I like the way the book and film of that worked, I mean, they're just differnent flavours of the same theme, and the movie was created in a different culture, nearly twenty years after the book - I fully am appreciative of this extra, expanded context it adds to it.

I thought it added a very interesting flavour to it - the book of howl's moving castle was a little higgildy-piggildy so it would always have had to be streamlined along some line to make a nice, tight movie (IMO).

Both the book and movie increase my apprieciation of eachother though - in my opion that's the best way for it to be. I don't think I would like them both if the movie was just a play by play exactly of the book. Howl's moving castle was a good and very enjoyable look, but the film really took it to a different place.