::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.

It's okay for those of us who read the books first, but when you get people who refuse to read the books before they see the movies, it breaks your damn heart. Then if/when they read, say, LOTR, they'll be seeing Viggo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom instead of Aragorn and Legolas. They've had their imaginations hijacked, essentially. It makes me sad because I can read the books and still see the images I conjured when I was eight, ten years old.

I get worried when all of my non-reader friends (the ones who won't read a book for years, then hand me Tuesdays with Morrie because it's sooooo good) not only have read The DaVinci Code but own it, and proclaim it the bestest book EVAH.

Lilty is me. The people I hear going off most about The DaVinci Code are people who either do not read or don't read anything that isn't pop fiction, so they take books like this as intensely enlightening experiences just because they seem to have a philosophy behind them. Seasoned readers seem more able to take books like this for what they are. Still haven't read it, but honestly, I don't know that I want to.

the LotR movies are bad adaptions of great books::

Heh and in my world they are great movies of really boring books that I haven't been able to get more than a chapter or two into so I can't rate how good the movies are as adaptations.

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.

I don't think I ever saw this. Cool!

I loved them having that snippet from A Room with a View on GG last night!

It fit so perfectly.

I don't think I ever saw this. Cool!

Oh, The Wings of the Dove is totally worth a look if you're into costume drama. The protagonists are so gloriously messed up, and the whole thing is terribly sad and nasty and also beautiful to look at. It's not completely faithful to the book--Softley moved the time period from late 1800's to about 1910, which I thought actually improved the film.

You know, if this film came out last year instead of 7 years ago, it'd probably have spawned a WOTD fandom with a distinctive emphasis on fucked-up threesomes.

Lastly, Linus Roache is dreeeeamy.

Heh and in my world they are great movies of really boring books that I haven't been able to get more than a chapter or two into so I can't rate how good the movies are as adaptations.

You're a loony!

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

And so are you!

Heh and in my world they are great movies of really boring books

Can we send sweaters and hairpats to this world?

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

And so are you!

Name-calling is so for the non-LOTR enhanced. Just cast gentle aspersions at upbringing and sensibility, and smile sadly.