Adaptations better than the originals

[maninahat]

Watchmen. I don't really like the graphic novel, the characters are all too unlikeable and the ending makes no sense and there are too many wordy passages that don't add anything valuable to the story. The film was far superior as far as I'm concerned.

Watchmen is a hard one for me to pin. I think I prefer the comic more, in that the comic book language on the page can manage to have a little more grandeur without it sounding silly. In the movie, a lot of the dialogue lifted straight from the comic sounds really pompous and corny. Also, the movie gets really puerile in its fascination with watching gore and violence in slow motion. There are frank depictions of violence, and then there are indulgent depictions of it. Watchmen wants to be the former but ends up the latter.

 

[FPLOON]

-wolfman snip-

That... angle... Now, I can't unsee that if I ever see that movie again...

SNIP

Are we turning this into a FMA:Brotherhood hate thread? Cause I thought the 2003 anime was far superior.

First off, of course we're not turning this into a FMA: Brotherhood hate thread... Or, at least, I'm not consider I see Brotherhood as being better than the FMA manga...

Second off, you are my fourth in terms of liking the 2003 anime the most...

 

[crimson5pheonix]

snip

snip

FMA: Brotherhood, the battle between kung-fu wizards and the generically evil eldritch abominations with no brains!

 

[Lupine]

Samurai Champloo and Attack on Titan both. Samurai Champloo's soundtrack, the insert of certain anachronisms, and a much more satisfying ending all combine to make it better than the manga from whence it came (edit: it seems the manga technically was after the series or rather premiered after the first few episodes). AoT, the art is thousands of times better, they cleaned up the pacing and dialogue, gave it good music.

Wasn't Samurai Champloo one of those rare cases when anime got manga adaptation, not the other way around (i.e. the usual way)?

OT: Green Mile. The book itself is good, but performances of Tom Hanks and Michael Clark Duncan and great soundtrack made this story truly great.

Yep, that's why I edited. Was wrong about the time frame initially, but anime then manga though the manga ended before the anime and had a much less interesting ending on top of it so that... T_T

 

[Silvanus]

Here, here! The original trilogy skips on everyone and their mother being given a song-and-dance number except for when the effect is guaranteed to be poignant (Merry's song at Minas Tirith, for instance), and most of all, we don't have any Tom Bombashit nonsense to push through.

The main problem with the books is that they're written by a war-scarred linguist and philologist trying and failing at putting suitable bedtime stories together for his kids. One moment's all "Whee, lookit the hobbits being all whimsical and shit!" and then the next you've got Nazgûl being described as post-traumatic hallucinations carved out of undead flesh and bones.

Um, consistency, Tolkien? Please?

Heh, I agree entirely with the first paragraph here, but funnily enough, the massively changing tone was something I was fine with. I'm really not sure why, but films/books/games which shift tone significantly have always appealed to me.

It's an element of absurdity I just like for some reason; I enjoy comedies which delve quite a lot into dark subject matter at some points and are completely upbeat at others, and I love dark dramas and stuff which inexplicably take a foray into lightheartedness.

On the other counts, I certainly agree, though.

 

[deleted+75193]

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[bdeamon]

I think most people like the movie adaptation of Fight Club better than the book. I think the ending in the movie was definitely better.
I also think Kubrick's version of The Shining was better than the book because he turned it into some kind of crazy puzzle movie that you would need multiple viewings and to take notes to get a glimpse of what he was trying to say.

 

[happyninja42]

BladeRunner, plucked one of the ideas from the novelette and ran with that rather than the crush if ideas the novelette had.

Yeah, the novelette had very little to do with the movie plot, other than some of the basic plot threads. I still enjoyed the book, but it felt very much like some acid trip on paper.

OT: The Princess Bride. The novel is quite good in it's own right, but it's definitely a different story than what the movie shows you. It sort of makes sense for this to be the case, because the book is basically a father, writing a condensed version of this book that his father read to him as a kid, and he loved it. The problem was, he never actually read it, and his father left out tons of the dull political and economic commentary in the original book, and just fast forwarded to the swashbuckling and Twu Wuvving stuff. Stuff that a 6 year old kid would enjoy. The novel of the PB, is the now adult kid, making notes in the margins to you the reader, about all the other stuff in the book, while he makes a new version for his own son to enjoy. It's a nice bit of father/son illumination, from the eyes of the now father-himself son. The main story of the movie is there, but there's a lot more to it.

I'm going to delve into the realm of music for some of this part, and say that the remake of "How Soon is Now" by Morrisey, for the tv show Charmed is the better song.

Original

Remake

I like the original just fine, but I think the remake is better.

 

[MetalShadowChaos]

DmC Devil May Cry easily stands up alongside the main series. Personally I like it better than I do 1 and 2, and I prefer it's gameplay to the gameplay of 3.

 

[the December King]

Here, here! The original trilogy skips on everyone and their mother being given a song-and-dance number except for when the effect is guaranteed to be poignant (Merry's song at Minas Tirith, for instance), and most of all, we don't have any Tom Bombashit nonsense to push through.

The main problem with the books is that they're written by a war-scarred linguist and philologist trying and failing at putting suitable bedtime stories together for his kids. One moment's all "Whee, lookit the hobbits being all whimsical and shit!" and then the next you've got Nazgûl being described as post-traumatic hallucinations carved out of undead flesh and bones.

Um, consistency, Tolkien? Please?

Heh, I agree entirely with the first paragraph here, but funnily enough, the massively changing tone was something I was fine with. I'm really not sure why, but films/books/games which shift tone significantly have always appealed to me.

It's an element of absurdity I just like for some reason; I enjoy comedies which delve quite a lot into dark subject matter at some points and are completely upbeat at others, and I love dark dramas and stuff which inexplicably take a foray into lightheartedness.

On the other counts, I certainly agree, though.

I dunno. I understand where you both are coming from, I think. For example, for me, I fully understand why you couldn't add Tom Bombadil into the LOTR movies. But the idea that there is a guy sooo powerful and oblivious to the petty struggles of elves and men that he would rather talk to trees and dance with a river is almost childish silly, and at the same time chillingly awesome.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

OT: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. There's some big changes between the book and the film, and they're both fantastic on their own merits. I can't really say that the film is better, but its as worthy of being watched as the book is worthy of being read.

It's so cool you mention that; I just yesterday finished the run of the stage version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, at a local community theater. I played one of the aids on the ward. It was a blast being just a complete dick to everybody.

Anyway, I haven't read the book, but the play, which supposedly is much closer to the novel, is better than the movie. I may have a rare perspective, since I spent weeks learning all the angles of the script and inhabiting the world of McMurphy and Bromden. But the stage play has such depth and layers, and just amazing exploration of the characters and intricacies of theme, that I don't think the film conveyed as well. The atmosphere of the film also is less interesting than the play, which is more upbeat half the time, and more terrifying the other half.