I mean, Broadway has got an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on The Woman in White. We are truly a culture of pathetic recycling.

Could be worse - he could be doing THE PRINCESS BRIDE instead.

And The World According to Garp.

I love the book so much that I never wanted to see the movie -- was it actually a good adaptation?

The Princess Bride. LotR.

The professor said this before either of these were released. But To Kill a Mockingbird is a great example of where he was wrong to generalize. I think he made the statement just to provoke discussion. Or just to be provoking. I always thought it was kind of b.s.

There was a snippet of Room with a View in last night's Gilmore Girls. Oh how I loved that movie.

There was a snippet of Room with a View in last night's Gilmore Girls. Oh how I loved that movie.

I first saw it in high school, back when I was *really* innocent, and I was very unprepared for the naked running around the pond, penii and all.

That said, I adore that movie. Yummy Julian Sands. Priggish yet still yummy Daniel Day-Lewis.

was it actually a good adaptation?

Hard to say. But it is a good movie.

was it actually a good adaptation?

If by adaptation you mean 'capturing the spirit of the book whilst utilizing the opportunities the cinematic medium offers', then yes. If you mean 'utterly faithful', then notsomuch.

::bites tongue and refuses to say the LotR movies are bad adaptions of great books::

oops, did I think that out loud?

Speaking of movies, Broadway and recycling.

The Last Starfighter - The Musical

::shakes head in wonder::

::bites tongue and refuses to say the LotR movies are bad adaptions of great books::

I think they're great adaptations of mediocre books! We almost agree!

The closest I can come to thinking of great book/great movie is Orlando.

Mel Brooks is working on a sequel to Spaceballs.

I'm meh on this - I didn't think the original was all that great.

Oh! I love Spaceballs. Major guilty-pleasure flick. Nick Moranis is great as Darth Helmet.

That said, I don't like the idea of a sequel.

There was a snippet of Room with a View in last night's Gilmore Girls.

The niftiest thing about the Henry James/E.M Forster (but not in a dead-writers RPS kind of a way) references from GG was that the writers didn't feel it necessary to laboriously explain them, but just threw them out there and trusted the audience to get it.

My favorite from the whole Austen/James/Forster adaptation frenzy from the 90's is probably Softley's The Wings of the Dove. Love that movie, a lot a lot A LOT.

Older examples of great book--> great movie... Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath maybe? I haven't read the book, but thought it was considered a classic, and the movie is really powerful.

Steph, The World According to Garp is a pretty good movie, although I'm not sure whether I'd call it great. Certainly the best of the Irving adaptations, although that's probably not saying much.

The closest I can come to thinking of great book/great movie is Orlando.

And see? I hated that movie.

I think part of the problem with the adaptation of any book into a movie is that people already have created the world of the book in their head, and any interpretation of the text is going to be an imposition into that world. Maybe with bad books the pictures in your head aren't so strong, or you care less about them being compromised or taken over by someone elses vision.