I'm so very annoyed with the recent surge in movies that are adaptations of books -> A christmas carol, twilight/newmoon, angels and demons.
A movie adaptation NEVER works. In all my years of movie-watching i've never watched a movie adaptation of a novel that actually works. To define 'work', it means.. NOT FAIL and fall short of the book's standard completely by appearing too rushed or just plain terrible!
Let me just run through some examples:
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks vs The Notebook (2004)
I read The Notebook when i was in the army.. and i was struggling to hold back tears while reading the book. ( I was with my men, quite malu if suddenly start tearing right) After finishing it i was left in a state of emo-ness and emo for quite awhile. haha. It's really that good! I cannot elaborate more on the story without spoiling you, so.. go get the book and read!
I watched The Notebook at home after DLing it off the net.. and i was struggling to hold back tears.. OF UTTER BOREDOM. Omg i really forced myself to sit through as much of the show as possible. But it was totally boring? I had to stop after about midway through the show.
I think one of my favourite scenes from the book was the scene near the end of the book in the hospital with Noah and his wife.. when they were both crying for different reasons. It was something like: "The aide rushed into the room and was greeted by two sobbing people - one woman cowered in a corner tearing and shrieking in fear, the other with his face buried in his hands, crying for the love he could never get."
SOMETHING LIKE THAT OMG I DONT DO IT JUSTICE. i really forgot the exact words and i simply paraphrased.
And another wonderful paragraph from the book was a letter from Noah to Allie.. i don't think any actor will ever do it justice, it's the kind of line that has to be read by yourself (like the twilight one which ill share later)
""The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that's what you've given me. That's what I'd hoped to give you forever.""
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown vs Angels and Demons (2009)
What can i say.. despite the controversy, the uproar, the blasphemy... Dan Brown is a pretty damn good author?
I first read his 'Da Vinci Code' and i was already intrigued by the mystery of it all.. the anti-Christ stuff was quite bullshit but.. it was still interesting! haha.
And of course Angels and Demons was as exciting and thrilling and i LOVED the ambigrams !!
There are ambigrams. They are basically the exact same thing when viewed upside down. damn cool right!
Ok firstly i can't say this show as BAD, because it really isn't! It IS still very exciting and intriguing as Tom Hanks delivers his deductions convincingly.... to a certain point.
Then as with all shows involving clever deductions, it becomes TOO easy. Like 'oh the angel's hand is pointing in this direction .. oh must be this church !" when in the book it may take several pages, even chapters to arrive at the same deduction.
But the good thing about this movie adaptation is that things are a little clearer too. Because many of the clues are visual, you may have to re-read portions of the book to understand what the symbolic clue is about, but in the movie.. it is literally visual.
The limitations of a movie was clearly defined in the last 20 minutes or so.. it was so disappointing! The show was well-paced all the way till then. Then i think they realised they were running out of time (the whole movie was already 2hours) and started rushing things.
A helicopter popped out of nowhere conveniently, the camerlango conveniently could fly a helicopter.. etcetc and the rest of the stuff that led to the climatic ending.
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris vs Red Dragon (2002)
One of my favourite series of all time, the series of Dr Hannibal Lector, the genius, psychotic, cannibalistic mass murderer. The author paints such a vivid image of the character that you just can't help fear/be awed by him.
It's like.. there's this page which talks about when he was waiting to take a chest xray, so his pulse was monitored via the machine. Then suddenly he grabbed the nurse's head and pulled out her tongue (!!! lol yes) . He was quickly subdued by the other attendants. The startling thing - his pulse rate BARELY rose throughout this violent, sick act.
And he has VERY good lines too, he's not just a crazy killer per se, he's actually very very smart. So the whole story is full of witty lines and such from Hannibal.
Red Dragon is the 1 of 2 movies of the series (the other movie being Hannibal Rising, which doesnt have a book.. but it's like a prologue of the whole series so it was pretty good )
The show does NOT capture the intensity of the book. Many scenes were severely shortened and hence losing alot of its original value. One distinct scene I remembered was when Hannibal(or the other killer?) enters this photo room to retrieve something from a lab assistant. The scene in the movie was at most.. 20 seconds? But in the book it was a rather long scene, several pages long i think.
Ok i think it's not actually Hannibal but the 'Red Dragon' guy in the story 'Red Dragon'.
It was something like 'Red Dragon' always had people look at him with a slight pitiful look cos i think he has a cleft lip or something like that. So he strongly detests it and can detect it very sharply. Then when he was interacting with the assistant he didn't receive a hint of it from him.
And they develop some sort of small bond and he actually chats with the assistant for awhile.
At the end of the scene.. you find out that the assistant is blind.
Ok it's not as powerful here but when you actually read the whole thing you'll just be :o from the revelation. Very good!!!
And last but definitely not the least.. probably the worst ever movie adaptation:
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer vs Twilight (2008)
Totally enjoyed this romance novel by Steph meyer, her exaggerated over-the-top narrative style is thoroughly enjoyable and it really makes you FEEL the story and the gaga-love-feeling that Bella has for Edward.
And of course, the picture that she paints of Edward Cullen, the perfect-looking vampire, alike a Greek God, etcetc.. wow it really makes you fall in love with this character whom you cant even see.
It is said that Imagination is the most powerful picture.. (actually i don't know if this saying exists i'm making it up) S.Meyer plays on this ALOT.
With lines like "He ran his finger down my arm and it felt like a trail of fire shocking me to live" (totally paraphrased by me, i forgot the actual line. but always got this metaphor with fire) "When he looked into my eyes, I tried to remember how to breathe, but i couldn't." (again terribly paraphaseed by me) ... how can you not enjoy it? ownage book.
And of course there's my favourite lines from the book which i blogged about before.. let me write it here again: (ok i just checked it was from New Moon, not Twilight. But yea same thing.)
" Before you Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars - points of light and reason ... and then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything"
A W E S O M E isn't it!?
Fail fail fail. I don't think i'll bother writing much about this as when i did a search i've already made 2 blog posts regarding this.
here's one slamming the movie.
And this one slams the ugly actor.
lol the 2nd link is quite funny you should go see. i compare robert with cam gigandet (james, the evil vampire)
Bad acting, bad camera zooming, bad looks, bad everything. bad bad. what the hell is with the hype about Twilight the movie huh? fail fail.
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On a side note, bestie just watched New Moon and i quote her: "IT'S 10000X better than Twilight. and 986234775214554466x better than A Christmas Carol!"
Really meh!!
I don't believe. =X but i can't comment on those just like how i'm not commenting on some obvious book-to-movie adaptations like HP or LotR because i haven't read the books so i can't be accurate in commenting. But i'm sure the movies don't do the books full justice too.
OK, time to go fix up my bicycle seat and go cycle out to buy lunch :)
