• @driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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      5 months ago

      Is Interesting that in the Chinese version of Fight Club, its end with a message saying that after the final scene the narrator was arrested and institutionalized and the movement disbanded, making it more faithful to the original ending of the book.

  • Dessalines
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    105 months ago

    I just went through my entire favorite movie and show list and couldn’t find a single one. I can only find ones where the adaptation is great, because it limits its focus while still keeping the overall spirit of the original. Or ones that tell a very different story, but manage to do it well.

    Dune, all quiet on the western front (1930s one), total recall, it’s a wonderful life, blade runner, I claudius.

      • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝
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        35 months ago

        It wasn’t even a book, more a sketch, a joke even. A lot (most?) of the adaptations of PKD’s writing are better than the original. And yet, the core concepts, about the nature of humanity and reality, break through and inspire some truly great work.

      • Dessalines
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        25 months ago

        Haven’t seen what we do in the shadows, but fargo would be a tough call for me. Both the film and the show are wonderful.

  • @dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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    295 months ago

    Pretty much everyone who’s discussed it agrees The Godfather (film) blows the Puzo novel it adapted away.

    Runner up is Adaptation, an adaptation of the novel The Orchid Thief that expands its scope significantly.

    • Che Banana
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      65 months ago

      Adaptation was one of those movies I watched and then caught myself thinking about it through the year…a very well done movie.

    • @Zahille7@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The movies made me want to read the book. I still haven’t yet though.

      I still get chills when I hear “you’re nothing to me now, Fredo.”

    • @Statlerwaldorf@midwest.social
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      25 months ago

      The Godfather book has a lot of great character nuances but it also has a subplot of Sonny’s enormous dong being the only thing that could satisfy his wife’s bridesmaid’s enormous vagina.

  • @xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    605 months ago

    Starship Troopers - the book was extremely meh - the movie is excellent (and very relevant to modern day).

    Clue - an excellent movie based off a fucking boardgame… ditto for Barbie now as well!

    Mage the Acension is a TTRPG love letter to Ars Magicka and it blows it out of the water.

      • ComradeSharkfucker
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        5 months ago

        How would Hannah Arendt be relevant here? I read a short blurb about her philosophy especially in regards to authority but I haven’t seen starship troopers

        • Dessalines
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          95 months ago

          A hexbear or lemmygrad user could better explain this one, but its a deep-cut satirical comment on how nations that market themselves as “free” (but aren’t), promote philosophies that group and demonize all their enemies into a single camp, and prop up writers like Arendt, who was one of the main ideological peddlers of western moral supremacy during the cold war.

          Losurdo has a lot of good articles on this and Arendt specificaly, and also Gabriel Rockhill has some good articles about this too.

          https://ia801609.us.archive.org/0/items/pdfy-dfBD-isycOcvHvqS/Domenico Losurdo -- Towards a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism.pdf

          • @BaumGeist@lemmy.ml
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            25 months ago

            I recently started reading Eichmann In Jerusalem, because I was aware it introduced the phrase “banality of evil” and always think of that in moral/ethical discussions about the real world (versus hypotheticals), and was immediately struck by how uncritical she was of zionism when it crops up in her reporting/writing. It’s almost like just a quirk of some of the heads of state that is used to explain their politics, rather than anything with more sinister implications.

            Perhaps this comes from some immature SJW-ish ideal that an author should always negatively represent harmful ideas—or maybe she does later and I’m just impatient—but it still strikes me as ironic that in the seminal work on The Banality of Evil, genocidal colonialism is treated as, well, banal.

    • @arthur@lemmy.zip
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      45 months ago

      Helldivers 2 is heavily inspired by the movie… And I would say it’s better than it.

      PS: Mage - The Ascension ♥️

      • @FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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        25 months ago

        While I like the theme etc. of Helldivers 2, I do wish they went a bit further than that. This kind of satire is best when it forces small bits of unease on the audience, like the ending of Starship Troopers - “it feels fear!”, and everyone celebrates. There are bits and pieces surrounding the gameplay loop (e.g. something like “never talk to the enemy, destroy them for democracy”, forgot the exact line), but it’s rare enough to be easy to ignore.

  • @funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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    245 months ago

    heres a controversial opinion: The American Office vs the UK Office.

    While I respect the original, Gervais’ external antics and the much meaner, darker humor just don’t create as good a comedy vehicle that enables the viewer to laugh and have fun and enjoy themselves watching the show

      • @funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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        55 months ago

        Agree to disagree - to me the Uk office was a Gervais vehicle with the Tim/Dawn romance Christmas special episode as a nice bonus and Gareth as an occasional funny victim of his own hubris. Keith and Finchy having a couple of good scenes. Neil, Donna, Rachel, Jennifer, Jamie, Ralph… all very forgettable.

        In the US office, as mentioned, I think its a well rounded ensemble comedy where you can feel it’s a collab of a writers room and a complicit cast. Everyone has their favorite moments from pretty much any character…

        In the early 2000s I probably would’ve liked the UK office more because I was an edgy teen. 25 years later and after an 8 year run, 200 episodes vs 14 - I feel like I’d much rather turn on the US one if I wanted a laugh.

  • Drusas
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    355 months ago

    Controversial, but Lord of the Rings. Tolkien wrote great stories, but his writing style always seemed kind of lackluster.

    • @blindsight@beehaw.org
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      05 months ago

      This was mine, but I’m assuming you weren’t referring to the BBC radio play, which is the best version of LotR ever made. The films had major distortions on the themes of the story and completely unbelievable characterization that destroyed all suspension of disbelief.

      Sure, the CG was nice eye candy… but Gandalf getting into a shouting match with Elrond? Really? We’re okay with that?

      Plus, skipping the correct ending of Frodo and Sam coming back to the Shire in industrialized dystopia missed key parts of their character growth and Tolkien’s anti-industrial themes.

      And the massive over-focus on a love story that was barely relevant in the story? And a half hour epilogue of useless wide shots showing how amazing the wedding was and how everyone is doing so great now that they won? What a waste of time. They skipped one of the best parts of the book for that shit.

      I could go on if I had watched the films more than twice and could recall all the other huge problems.

      The books don’t hold up, either. Ain’t nobody got time to read 3-page info dumps of dense descriptive writing about plot-irrelevant details, or dense blocks of ancient history that demolishes any semblance of pacing left over.

      He founded a lot of tropes of fantasy, so I know why he included all those descriptive details, but it just doesn’t hold up. Elf, big tree house, got it. You’ve got me for two paragraphs to fill in the descriptive details, but then let’s move on with the plot, tyvm.

      If you’re a fan of LotR, give the 13-hour BBC radio play a listen. And of you’ve watched/listened to/read all three and disagree with me, I’d love to hear why (out of interest). Full disclosure: you probably won’t convince me, but I’m still waiting to hear someone who knows the source material justifying why the movies are so adored.

    • @boatswain@infosec.pub
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      65 months ago

      I came to this thread expecting to see this, and even with that expectation it makes me sad to see; to me the books are unarguably superior, to a large degree because Tolkien is such an excellent writer. I’d encourage anyone who’s bounced off the books a time or two to go back to them and try reading them aloud, even quietly to yourself: even though it’s prose, the text has meter and flow almost as strong as poetry. It’s undeniably a slow read, but it’s just such a beautiful one that the films, fun as they are, don’t hold up.

      Plus, Jackson’s Two Towers is garbage.

      • Drusas
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        35 months ago

        It being better when read aloud actually nails what I dislike about it and, far more so, The Hobbit. They read like they were written to be told as tales around a fire, not to be read. So they don’t work particularly well as books that you read quietly to yourself (imo, obviously).

    • @linearchaos@lemmy.world
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      185 months ago

      I can’t fault him for any of his depth and character building and poetry and storytelling and descriptive environments it was all very thorough and for the right person wonderful. I think the movies did a giant justice to making his work accessible. There are a lot of people out there that can’t manage to make their way through his poetry sections. And you can’t not read the poetry sections because there’s definitely content in there you need.

      • @teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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        75 months ago

        I don’t know what Reznor and Cash’s relationship was, but that has to feel so surreal for Reznor. You never see older artists cover newer ones in general, let alone such a legendary country artist cover a young alternative rock artist. If I were Reznor, that would be the thing that lets me die happy.

    • @Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de
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      55 months ago

      I had never heard Trent Reznor’s original or Johnny Cash’s cover so thank you for mentioning it. What an incredible music video!

  • Veraxus
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    5 months ago

    The Mist

    That ending was one of the most brilliant gut-punches in film history. Stephen King himself said he wished he had written it.

    • @Zahille7@lemmy.world
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      35 months ago

      I hate how it just… ends. I complained about it online when I finally finished the show, and the book fans were just like “lol now you have to wait 20 years for the next part!”

    • @Nath@aussie.zone
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      55 months ago

      You really think the TV series is better than the books? Don’t get me wrong, I think they are both marvellous. I just don’t think the series is better. Particularly if you are a book reader. I get how they’d potentially be a bit meaty if you don’t normally read much.

      • @FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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        15 months ago

        I think it’s the first series that’s as good as the books, maybe Outlander is close but has casting issues. Could have been better but was hampered by the cancel, move, then cancel again along with Anvar being a shitbag.

        I guess it’s sort of a low bar given things like Witcher and Wheel of Time, but I’d say it’s the one where I see what I read more than the others. Maybe not better but equivalent, which is more than most book->film treatments.

        • @Nath@aussie.zone
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          05 months ago

          If you haven’t read the books, Chrisjen Avasarala is completely pointless throughout the entire first season.

          She’s just ranting and reacting to stuff that’s happening on the far side of Mars and nothing to do with her. Yet she keeps getting screen time. She doesn’t become relevant to the wider plot until Bobby visits Earth.