a Recomendation

tuomoruutufan · Post by **tuomoruutufan** » 27 Feb 2007 10:30

READ THE BOOK:

"The Beach"

By: alex garland

"writer of the 28 days later screenplay"

If you saw the movie "the beach" with leo, then im sorry

They just bought the rights and needed a quick movie release to follow loe's success in titanic.

and ultimately butchered the whole idea and beauty of this action adventure novel.

I absolutely could not put this book down.

And i really think its one of those books that can turn a non reader into a reader.

ENJOY

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » 27 Feb 2007 12:53

[Moved to Kicking Circle]

CIC flurry · Post by **CIC flurry** » 28 Feb 2007 11:04

The movie came on in the hotel room while I was in Mexico last week. I remember you posting about the book, and it made me not wanna watch it. I did end up watching it though, and liked it. Hopefully it won't ruin my reading the book if i ever do that.

NotHisRealName · Post by **NotHisRealName** » 28 Feb 2007 15:07

I was fortunate to see the movie before the book and found both to be enjoyable.

tuomoruutufan · Post by **tuomoruutufan** » 28 Feb 2007 15:41

I really dispised the movie.

they really stole the story and just hollywoodized it and made a significant change based on leos fame

i dont want to say any spoilers but anyone who has read the book and seen the movie should know what im talking about.

I dont think the movie would completely ruin the book, but i do think the book was alot better without seeing the movie.

Anexthesis · Post by **Anexthesis** » 03 Mar 2007 16:01

Welcome to book to movie translations. If you want to see a story that was truly butchered then check out The Bourne Identity. Anyone who has read the book will tell you it's awesome the movie, however, was a flaming pile of crap.

tuomoruutufan · Post by **tuomoruutufan** » 03 Mar 2007 16:41

Anexthesis wrote:Welcome to book to movie translations. If you want to see a story that was truly butchered then check out The Bourne Identity. Anyone who has read the book will tell you it's awesome the movie, however, was a flaming pile of crap.

DUDE GREAT EXAMPLE!!!!!!!

I love both of those books and then hollywood just stole the idea and name to make a very average action flick.

i actually thought the book of "bourne supremecy" was way better than the first.

i still have not read the third and finaly book

HG · Post by HG » 04 Mar 2007 13:00

Seriously. How could they leave out the whole "Carlos" storyline in the Bourne Identity. That was the MAIN PLOTLINE and they didnt even mention it once in the movie.

I recommend the Osterman weekend by Ludlum also. Very good book.

But seriously, Bourne Identity (the movie) was pretty good if you didnt read the book, but if you did (as i have) its like "What the hell, this is like 3% of what happened in the book"

Eskimo Joe · Post by **Eskimo Joe** » 05 Mar 2007 07:40

I recomend reading the entire Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Great books.

max · Post by **max** » 05 Mar 2007 08:10

HG wrote:Seriously. How could they leave out the whole "Carlos" storyline in the Bourne Identity. That was the MAIN PLOTLINE and they didnt even mention it once in the movie.

I recommend the Osterman weekend by Ludlum also. Very good book.

But seriously, Bourne Identity (the movie) was pretty good if you didnt read the book, but if you did (as i have) its like "What the hell, this is like 3% of what happened in the book"

I think the Bourne movies were actually quite good in a holywood-blockbuster type of way. The books rock, of course, as anyone who's read them will agree. As to the whole "book-to-movie" translations, well you all saw how long the Bourne books are. There's only so much you can fit in a 90 minute movie (which is roughly the avg. length time a movie can grab one's attention). So yes, choices have to be made and things have to be cut, but I still think that they did a half decent job with the movies.

jon · Post by **jon** » 05 Mar 2007 10:40

The Bourne Identity (the book) was subpar as the as the ending was crap. I don't see how a writer can make the rest of the book so interesting and then fail in the end game. I would not consider the Bourne Identity a good book imho. Most good book never become movies thankfully.

On a side note I never read the Davinci Code but liked the movie. Everyone I know that read the book hated the movie.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 05 Mar 2007 17:33

Book to film adaptation is a pretty massive subject within film theory and criticism and there's a lot going on. Firstly as Max pointed out film is generally 90-120 mins and necessarly must cut large portions of the book out in terms of plot, this of course has a knock-on effect as other things need to be changed to make the new plot coherent. Filmmakers have a choice - they can either try and keep "the spirit of the book" or they can try and make it as accurate a visual representation of the book as possible. It is pretty much impossible to do both for most books. So on the one hand you have something like "High Fidelity", which ironically is not that accurate in regards to the book, moving the action from England to America among other things, but attempting to keep "the spirit of the book" as the filmmakers perceived it. I'd say that the Bourne movies fit largely into this category - the next film instalment I think is currently in production, I heard they started filming chase scenes before the movie had been written! On the other hand you have something like the BBC productions of "Pride and Prejudice" which go to great lengths to make the settings and the costumes accurate and follow the plot as closely as possible.
Viewers/readers however shift between these two measures when judging an adaptation and generally want both which is why so many fail in the eyes of most viewers/readers. It can suceed only if it gets really close to its aim in either field such that the viewer/reader will happily overlook the shortcomings. THere are of course many viewers who are fully aware of the difficulties of adaptation and adjust their expecttations accordingly, but there will still generally be a preference for some type of fidelity either spirit or content.
Alot of this occurs because the filmmaker is setting the comparison up by keeping the name - if the changes are that drastic it would be far better to simply change the names which connect the book and the film as this lowers the expectation of fidelity - by keeping the name filmmakers are drawing upon a readymade audience, the risk they take is that a large section of that audience (the section that has read the book) is hypercritical. However if the names are changed it has to be sufficiently different so not to be considered "stolen", or it must announce the connection by presetning itself as "inspired by" or "adapted from" in the film's title sequence. It's a fine line to tread. This of course is just the tip of the iceberg regarding what is going on in a film adaptation there are libraries of books written on the topic and a quarterly journal (probably more than one) dedicated to it.

tuomoruutufan · Post by **tuomoruutufan** » 27 Mar 2007 09:01

im ranting about "the beach" and "the bourne identity"

cause they just took a crap on the spirit of the book and just wanted an easy cheap story line to market a popular actor.

So they pay a few hundred k for a low rate writer to make a rushed pathetic attempt of adaptation.

then they pay millions to the star, and run to the bank laughing about their way below par effort.

Its a scam!

now when you see movies that make full hearted creative unique attempts to create a beautiful vision of a story from a book like Lord of the rings, Fight club, Children of men, Requirem for a dream, Shawshank redemption, and Trainspotting.

Its not a matter of judgement, its not a matter of what they were able to fit or what they have to change.

Harry potter and the goblet of fire is a great example that just cause you cant have as much meat and story as the book is not an excuse to make a bad movie.

I mean you cant compare goblet of fire the movie to the book, but if you were to just see the movie and not read the book you would get a slightly above average quality action movie experience.

The book is still better, but the movie was a respectable effort even if it fell a bit short of what the book did.

I would also put american psycho into this same category. 70% less story than the book but still somewhat of a respectable effort to adapt it to cinema.

So as a huge fan of books, movies like The beach and the bourne identity i find to be insulting efforts. I almost see it as stealing and ruining the original art. Cause there is no way someone could see those movies and think "maybe i should check out the book?"

But i find it an interesting perspective that the author of "the beach" wrote a screen play called "28 days later" which was imediately picked up by fox searchlight productions and became what could be called one of the most dynamic and emotionally deep horror/zombie movie ever created.

maybe he was inspired by the piss poor efforts that the screen play writer of the beach made, and wrote his own to kind of shove it in hollywoods face to say "this is how you do it"