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Movies (and Books): From page to screen
On May 16, the Narnia saga continues with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe sequel Prince Caspian. Although cinematic adaptations of books tend to make literary enthusiasts cringe, the first Narnia movie seemed to satisfy “even the most ardent fan of C.S. Lewis’ literary classic.” Thus, expectations are high for Prince Caspian–but so is confidence in the producer and director.
Too bad that wasn’t the case for all books adapted to the silver screen. I’ve read some books that I think would make great movies–but only if the book’s integrity isn’t lost along the way. If you could be confident in the end result, are there any books you’d like to see made into movies?
Topic: Entertainment, WorldMagBlog
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back to top21 Comments to “Movies (and Books): From page to screen”
Any of the three books from C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, but especially the last one – “That Hideous Strength.”
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This present Darkness.
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“Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand
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This ardent Narnia fan was not pleased.
I concur about the Space Trilogy, mostly just to get people to read the books, but I’d like to see Darren Aronofsky make them (”The Fountain”, “Pi”).
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“At Home in Mitford”
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Yeah, I wasn’t particularly pleased with Lion either. That added scene about crossing the frozen river was simply unnecessary, and, worse–nobody warned me about this–the dialogue was all completely different from the book. With that change, it might as well have been a whole new book. I also didn’t like how weak the Pevensie children were, their constant bickering, etc. The books really weren’t about weak-willed, whiny brats from the 21st century. I didn’t buy the video, didn’t want to. (I do have plans to see my first-ever midnight showing of Prince Caspian, though, and I hope I like it better!)
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Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Only if they do a good job, though.
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JBH beat me to it–I never thought someone would pick that!
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Well, Marley and Me is in production, This Present Darkness got stalled in pre-production over content control . . . so I’d have to go with Rain of God by Victor Villasenor or The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover.
Screen writers who can take a good book and make even a reasonably close movie story have accomplished a feat of wonder.
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Sorry, that was Rain of Gold, not Rain of God.
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Alissa, what didn’t you like about the first Narnia movie? I thought the pretty much nailed it except for a couple things.
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“The Blind Side” by Michael Lewis.
This book would make a fantastic movie, but it probably never will because it shows the superiority of Christian education over government schools. Perhaps a Christian studio would pick it up.
This is a true story about an inner city black kid who went through 9 years of public school yet couldn’t read. At 15 he was the size of a professional linebacker, yet was shy and rarely spoke. He was headed into gangs and drugs.
After 3 years at a Christian school, he qualified academically for college and was offered football scholarships by many of the top ranked colleges. He is destined to become the highest paid player in the NFL.
The funny parts of all this have to do with teaching this gentle giant how to play football. Hilarious!
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I’m with MANXMAN, and I aslo concur with your comments, CherylD. If the the trailer shown on TV for Prince Caspian is any indication, this movie is more removed from the book than the first one, though. But, you can’t just go by a trailer. My son and I just got done reading Prince Caspian, and it sure would be nice if the movie keeps in the parts about seeing and not seeing Aslan, and the amount of faith and obedience that went along with that.
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Samuel #3, that would make for one long and tedious piece of crap. Plus, would the conservative Christian base of WorldBlog come out to see it if it stayed true the source material and included all the violent sex?
Fun excercise, don’t just name the movie, also play casting director and tell us who should star in it.
For Samuel’s 3.5 snore fest, I advocate (thought it actually looks like Angelina Jolie was going to be playing this part as of 2006) Kate Bosworth as Dagney, she did a good job as Lois Lane, and they are pretty much the same character.
Ms. Bosworth, however, would not be enough to make me sit through it!
JBH, good pick. But the challenge of finding that may child actors who can play those roles, and the implications of filming in zero-g with children make Ender’s Game (in my view) unfilmable. Plus, you can’t put naked kids on screen! So, how would you film one of the most pivotal scene’s in the story, Ender and Bonso’s fight?
And yes, you could get around the zero-g thing, but should you?
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Lois Lane and Dagny are the same character. That is a very interesting statement, because Dagny Taggart is an extraordinary woman by any measure. How do you come to this?
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Luke,
It would depend on how you “got around” the filming in null-g, and Ender and Bonzo’s fight would be hard to film in a way that would make it acceptable, but I still think they should try!
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Well you’d have to make the whole movie animated, which actaully might be the best way to make Enders Game anyway.
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John: everything that Cheryl said in #6, plus Aslan was not nearly fearsome enough (Liam Neeson? really, guys?), the CG was just a tad short of convincing, and the soundtrack really, really bugged me. I did love Tumnus, though.
I went in really hoping to like it . . . I’m still going to give Caspian a fair shake, because after “Amazing Grace” I do think Walden can pull off better production quality, but I’m not incredibly optimistic.
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easy — Robinson Crusoe
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My understanding is that A Severe Mercy and Same Kind of Different as Me will both be made into movies. I hope that the movies do justice to the books!
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I wouldn’t mind seeing a movie based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu mythos, but I think it’d be hard to portray the inevitable insanity of the protagonist very well. Lovecraft’s racism would probably impede any translation into a movie anyway.
The X-Wing series by Michael Stackpole would probably make for an interesting TV show.
The Darkness series by Frank Peretti would be a cool movie, but it’d be hard to do without making it campy or poor quality. We all saw what happened with Left Behind…
The Walden interpretation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was fair. It was by no means the the most spectacular, but it wasn’t as atrocious as the BBC interpretations from years before.
Then again, I’m picky and was very upset that Peter Jackson excluded the Scourging of the Shire simply because he didn’t like it. That was one of the most important points of the series, the fact that you can’t go back again, and sometimes “happily ever after” is bittersweet.
Alissa, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Space Trilogy translated into movie form, but I’d hate to see it done by Darren Aronofsky. The Fountain was just awful.
But I’m of the general opinion that movies can rarely do books justice, and are more often than not better off in print.
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