And now for something light

[rhu]

OK, let's get a good discussion going here. :-)

The other night, introverte and I were discussing film adapations of science fiction stories that originally appeared in print. We were unable to come up with a single example of a story that meets all these criteria:

• Science fiction (not fantasy) (excluding, for example, The Lord of the Rings and The Wizard of Oz)
• First appeared in print (excluding, for example, 2001: A Space Odyssey)
• Movie adaptation remains essentially faithful to the print story (excluding, for example, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I, Robot, etc.)
• Both the original print story and the movie adaptation are generally accepted as great (excluding, for example, well, most others).

The closest I could come up with was Farenheit 451 but I'm not sure the movie really qualifies as great. But I figure that if there exists a true example, you, gentle readers, will let me know.

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

It seems to me part of the problem is how you define faithful.

Do you mean evokes the same emotions as the written tale? In my mind Bicentennial Man does that quite well.

Do you mean contains all of the plot elements of the written tale?

Do you mean keeps the right feel; it looks the way one thinks the written tale would look?

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Good questions. I'll try to dodge answering them by saying that, at least for the purposes of this discussion, essentially the same story is told in both media --- if the movie starts or ends at a significantly different spot in the narrative, or if major plot points are significantly altered, or if the entire tone of the piece is changed, then it's not faithful.

Examples that were given above included characters that died in one medium being spared in another, or a short story (and its title) being used to tell a completely different story in the same universe.

Being unfaithful can be fun. The Frank Oz Little Shop of Horrors is a delightful romp, even if (in comparison with the Roger Corman version) it significantly changes the ending and the tone.

But for the purposes of this exercise, I think restricting ourselves to movies that tell essentially the same story as their print predecessors is a useful and instructive limitation.

[cheshyre]

Can you give some examples of faithful adaptations in other genres?
I mean, do you consider "Princess Bride" faithful, since it eliminates Buttercup's parents and skips a whole lot of delightful narration (ranking the most beautiful women or the best kisses or etiquette and clothing and geneology)