Ten books that were better off on paper

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I read Dune yonks ago and of course have seen the David Lynch adaptation a half dozen times on cable, but recently after seeing it on cable again I reread the book. I was quite shocked at some of the changes and omissions. I actually LIKE the movie for what it is, but it is far from a noteworthy adaptation. It deserves credit for making a watchable movie out of a long book with a lot of internal dialogue.

I, Robot, I had also read yonks ago, but I knew from the trailers that it was going to have almost nothing in common with Azimov's collection of stories except the title and 3 Laws. It doesn't make it a bad adaptation because, really, it DIDN'T adapt anything from Azimov. It just borrowed the title and the concept of the 3 Laws for a summer, blockbuster action movie. Nothing wrong with that. I have NOT reread Azimov's original stories, but from what I vaguely remember, I don't know that they would have made a good movie anyway.

Great written fiction does NOT always translate to film. Look at War of the Worlds. A classic piece of fiction from H.G. Wells that has had two major movie adaptations and a number of other attempts. But the original story has characters and scenes that just DON'T translate well to a movie. The part with the "artilleryman", played in the recent blockbuster by Tim Robbins, is talky, slow, and generally a huge dead spot in the pacing. The ending to the story (and thus the movies) is somewhat abrupt and anti-climactic. Adaptation to film can be DIFFICULT - more difficult than simply writing a new screenplay from scratch. I find it quite difficult to nitpik to a significant degree that an adapted screenplay varies fro mthe original material - even wildly.

A lot of the rest of the list are not so much bad adaptations of books so much as BADLY WRITTEN - PERIOD, such as This Island Earth, and When Worlds Collide.

 

[SKyOdin]

I have NOT reread Azimov's original stories, but from what I vaguely remember, I don't know that they would have made a good movie anyway.

I think Isaac Asimov was proud that his stories weren't well suited to be movies. One of his story collections included Waterclap, which was partially commissioned by a Hollywood studio to serve as the basis for a movie screenplay. When Asimov sat down with the studio executive to plan the story out, the exec told Asimov what kind of characters and plot the story should have. Asimov thought those characters and that plot where terrible, and ended up writing a short story that twisted those elements around into something completely unfilmable. The movie was obviously never made.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The reason I, Robot is on that list is that the movie falls into the mindset that Isaac Asimov intentionally avoided.

Although Asimov wasn't opposed to using his 'three laws' to provide locked room style mysteries, and the film I, Robot is slap bang alongside that element of his work.

(I can't remember whether it was in the original I, Robot book or Caves of something or another one - he had a mystery solving detective character)

 

[Staffan]

(I can't remember whether it was in the original I, Robot book or Caves of something or another one - he had a mystery solving detective character)

Caves of Steel, followed by The Naked Sun, and Robots of Dawn. The detective's name is Eliah Bailey, and the movies take place on Earth, Solaria, and Aurora, respectively. There was also one more sequel, Robots and Empire, featuring many of the same characters except it took place 200 years after Robots of Dawn, so Bailey himself had croaked.