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

[justcomeinalone.livejournal.com]

Alan Kistler of Monitor Duty here (blame it on Mabfan).

You know, I've been thinking and thinking and for the life of me I can't really come up with an example that I want to point to and say "Right there! There's the one!"

My impulse is to say I,Robot, but I totally understand your reasons for excluding it. For me, it is a wonderful prequel to the book of the same title and its conclusion was a nice foreshadowing of Asimov's "Zenith Law of Robotics." Yet, of course, it is an original story and thus not an adaptation. But for me, it was great and is faithful enough in atmosphere and circumstances to act as an introduction to the Robot Novels.

The first half of "The Bicentennial Man" I thought was pretty faithful, but then they involved the love story and an ending that for me went against Asimov's laws. "Nightfall" was somewhat faithful, but added a couple of characters and went from six suns to three suns.

I want to mention "The Shining" with Steven Webber and "The Stand" with Gary Senise, but again, that's TV. DAMMIT. What about "Prisoner of Zenda"? That was a novel first, wasn't it?

And I will say right now that "Farenheit 451" was NOT great in my opinion and left out some of the coolest visuals from the book, such as the evil dogs with their hyperdermic teeth. Also, as a would-be film guy, I think darker lighting all around would've given the same feeling as the book. The movie was way too brightly lit for me to get an ominous feeling from it.

Does "Interview With the Vampire" count as fantasy rather than sci-fi? I suppose it must, though that to me would be another faithful adaptation, especially considering the changes that were made were made by the author herself.

[justcomeinalone.livejournal.com]

Oh, H.G. Wells "Invisible Man" would be a pick of mine too, though I believe someone already mentioned it.