And now for something light
May. 10th, 2006 10:24 pmOK, 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.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-12 12:42 am (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-12 01:06 am (UTC)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)