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best book to movie adaptation

In my opinion, it's Little Women. I absolutely adore both book and movie, and I think the movie was pretty true to the books, as well as being a well produced, wonderfully acted film.
 
ions said:
LOTR. Yeah there were parts axed but the movies were still really well done and acceptably faithful to me.
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I agree with this. Peter Jackson went to far lengths in order to find scenery that fitted almost perfectly to the ones in the books, and the movie was pretty faithful to the plot in the book. The bits that he chopped out really helped the plot of the movies move along, such as the sequence in the books with Tom Bombadil. Was it just me or was this bit kinda pointless? It took me three tries to get past this part in the Fellowship and read the rest :eek:

And yes, I may be a little bias on this movie because I'm from New Zealand :p
 
I found Tom Bombadil to be an anachronism. Like Treebeard he represented the way the lands used to be. I don't think his inclusion would really have slowed the movie(s) in any way but I don't think his exclusion hurt either. I was thinking more about the parts of Saruman that were not included. While as a fan of the story I did miss these parts but I can't honestly say that the book to film translation was damaged by their exclusion.
 
I thought the translation from book to movies of LOTR was excellent, personally. They couldn't have made them much longer, so they had to make exclusions, however important these aspects seemed in the books. And I thought the films were altogether very faithful and really depicted the books excellently.
 
if I see the movie I wont read the book and vice verca, I have found that I tend to pick apart the movie because of it. I get disappointed when the best parts of the book get left out. However shawshank redemption was pretty close. The last movie I saw after reading the book was Queen of the Damned. I absolutely hated the movie. They left out so much. My husband(who didn't read the book)loved the movie.
 
I just thought of a couple more films that made good work of representing the books -- The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl. They both actually enhanced my understanding of the books, which I re-read after seeing the films.
 
confoundit said:
Jurassic Park killed the book. It's not whether the movie was good, but if you liked the book, as i did, you would find it painful to watch the characters becoming hollywood stereotypes (they even went as far as completely reversing the two child characters.
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And the Jurassic Park sequels were even worse!!!! This is a case where they took a wonderful adult book and turned it into a PG-13 movie based on awesome special effects. Actually, I enjoyed all the movies as they were fun and great mindless entertainment...BUT they sure had nothing to do with Michael Crichton's books!!!
 
The godfather by Mario Puzo was, in my opinion, greatly translated into a movie with the majority of it intact. At times in the movie I knew exactly what was going to happen, it followed the book that well. I believe it to be one of a very few well translated movies that deserve’s respect.
 
Idril Silmaure said:
In my opinion, it's Little Women. I absolutely adore both book and movie, and I think the movie was pretty true to the books, as well as being a well produced, wonderfully acted film.
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The original Little Women was a very good adaption, but the newer one goes off course, don't you think? It's good to watch, but things are added, and so much is cut out. Three quarters of the book is missing.
 
Gone with the Wind-Even with characters and situations hacked by the censorship (like Scarlett's son, Beau), the movie doesn't lose the point of the plot or the ambience. I remembered it because I've very recently purchased the DVD.
 
a few ones

ben hur, been a long time, but i get the impression it was a pretty good adaptation (but i cant remember if the book has the same "holy" ending)

chronicle of a foretold death, italian version, great adaptation, most noticeable thing is they melted two characters, but since one of them was the narrator, well

the fellowship of the ring, really love this one, they make a great job deciding what to include and what not, really in the book the journey to bree is freaking long.

forrest gump, here its a movie that is way better than the book

interview with the vampire, i really think it was a pretty good adaptation, quite faithful to the book
 
mr_michel said:
forrest gump, here its a movie that is way better than the book
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I agree with this. The book to movie translaion wasn't overly accurate, but I think that they did a good job with the movie. The Forrest Gump character that I remember from the book drew much less sympathy from the reader than the movie character did so from the viewer.. well for me anyways. I think it was because he was a lot more crass in the books.
 
What have been the best book -> movie translations?

In my opinion, the Lord of the Rings films were superb in bringing Tolkien's words to life.
 
Stephen King's short story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" got turned into an amazing movie. Also, they did pretty well adapting The Princess Bride by William Goldman into a movie.
 
When I read Slaughterhouse Five, I thought it was a book that could never be presented coherently on film. Of course, it had already been filmed, and I thought the film captured the book brilliantly. I've read that Vonnegut was very pleased with it too.
 
Here we go ...

Harper Lee on To Kill a Mockingbird

This is where I wanted to post this link.

(It seemed a bit out of place in there with the horror films; I almost heard the "klunk" when I hit Submit Reply.

Harper Lee has apparently been happy with the way her only child was treated:

"I think it is one of the best translations of a book to film ever made," she said. Ms. Lee attended Peck's memorial service in California three years ago. About her friend Mr. Foote, who is 89, she said, "He's become quite amazing looking in old age, like God, but clean-shaven."
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Interview With the Vampire was amazing. I think I like the film better than Rice's novel. The same can't be said for Queen of the Damned...
 
In my humble opinion, Mystic River was a much better movie than book.One of the rare occasions wear the movie translated better on film than in the written word.

For me the book was tremendously slow, where as the movie was spurred on with great performances by Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn and Tim Robbins.
 
Midnight Express by William Hayes was turned into an excellent film which nobody I know seems to remember. Does anyone on here remember this film; the endings are quite different but it doesn't take anything away from the book.
 
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