Adaptation: Significance of Temporal Precedence

[Jim Deutch]

Corey often devotes an episode or two to adaptations at the end of a book series, and even before that there is often some compare and contrast between the book and the adaptation(s). But as far as I can recall, the ONLY work where he explicitly prefers the movie is "The Princess Bride", which he saw first as a movie, before he'd ever read the book.

I read "The Princess Bride" in hardcover, long before the movie was made, and I still like the book better. In particular, it is funnier than the movie (not that the movie takes itself seriously, either). Despite all the problems that Corey has pointed out with the frame and plot of the book, I still like it better. But, as Corey often says, "this is just one data point".

Do others here have a similar experience? If you've seen the movie first, before reading the book, does the movie remain your favorite, and perhaps influence your "head-canon" more than the book you read later?

 

[Rob Harding]

Harry Potter. Only just read those books to my son and as far as I was concerned the writing was utter bilge. But the storylines and characters I know were engaging as I was picturing (and attempting to do the voices of) the actors who played them. People say ‘oh, they cut so much out for those films’ and frankly I think yes, good, they cut out all the dross that did nothing to enhance the stories of characters and was just treading water. And again, the writing was bilge. And I think it’s because I have no nostalgia for the books that I don’t hold them in esteem over the films. Again, it’s all preference, but they did not work for me at all.

 

[Odola]

Harry Potter. Only just read those books to my son and as far as I was concerned the writing was utter bilge.

Read the books first. Having been to London before loved the "Londoness" and the "Britishness" of it. Thought most of this local colour lost in the movies. They were fine, but the quiet charme not quite the same.

 

[Ilana Mushin]

I usually read the books first but Princess Bride and HP were film first. I still liked the HP books but less so PB. I've just finished watching His Dark Materials and have never read the books - but these are next on my reading list.

 

[Haerangil]

Even WORSE . I knew the Dune 2 Computergame before reading any Dune books, then i read Dune : Prophet before reading Dune 1 AND I saw the Lynch adaptation before reading Dune 1.

I completely saw everything in Dune, architecture, Costumes through the lense of westwood graphics! I still think Dune is an awesome book, though the Lynch adaptation 7s far inferior to the Villeneuveadaptation, which imho is genius, almost on bladerunner level. The scu fi channel adaptation was worse though, as it lacked the athmosphear of the lynch version.

 

[Yard Sard]

I remember when I read TPB (after the film) I was most nonplussed by was that none of the characters were presented with any kind of idiom. Not Fezzik, not Inigo. They seemed so flat compared to the larger-than-life, scenery-chewing cartoon characters they were in the movie.

 

[Yard Sard]

I wonder what people think who saw Will Smith "I, Robot" movie before reading the story thought.

Or people who saw the (1993) Super Mario Bros. movie without ever playing the game

 

[Haerangil]

I saw Bladerunner before reading the book, i saw Bakshis lord of the rings before reading the book, i saw conan before reading any Story, and i read conan comics before watching any conan movie...

 

[Jim Deutch]

I've just finished watching His Dark Materials

Ooh: I didn't know there even was a series.

I've watched the movie "The Golden Compass", which covers most of the first book (it leaves off the cliffhanger ending). It's a pretty good adaptation. They got Mrs. Coulter's evilness just right, also Iorek's nobility, and the general weirdness of the setting and technology was well-shown.

I just thought of another movie I saw long before I read the book, but I'm not sure "The Wizard of Oz" really counts here. It would be like judging whether the movie "Camelot" was a good adaptation of "Le Mort D'Arthur". Sure, a few character names and incidents are kept, but it's not at all the same story! I guess musical adaptations are really in a different category entirely...

 

[Makar]

Dennis Wheatleys "The Devil Rides Out" i saw after reading the book. Now, i am very fond of the book, but i find Hammers take on it very good. The scene with Mocata trying to hypnotice is almost impossible to capture on film, but i think they did a good job there. Even if they had to cut the whole "going abroad" scheme (probably for economical reasons).

It does not hurt to have Christopher Lee playing the Duke (a good guy!) either 🙂

 

[Ilana Mushin]

Ooh: I didn't know there even was a series.

I've watched the movie "The Golden Compass", which covers most of the first book (it leaves off the cliffhanger ending). It's a pretty good adaptation. They got Mrs. Coulter's evilness just right, also Iorek's nobility, and the general weirdness of the setting and technology was well-shown.

I just thought of another movie I saw long before I read the book, but I'm not sure "The Wizard of Oz" really counts here. It would be like judging whether the movie "Camelot" was a good adaptation of "Le Mort D'Arthur". Sure, a few character names and incidents are kept, but it's not at all the same story! I guess musical adaptations are really in a different category entirely...

It's a three season BBC series that I think just wrapped up last year. As I haven't read the books I have no idea how good an adaptation it is. I found Mrs Coulter to be a fascinating and complex character. And Morfydd Clark has a small role!

 

[MithLuin]

I watched The Count of Monte Cristo before reading the book. So, naturally, all of the things that had been changed from the book did not bother me upon the first viewing, because I was unaware of what was 'supposed' to be happening in the story. I watched the film with a friend who considered Count of Monte Cristo one of her favorite books. She liked the movie, at least well enough to be a good sport about it when we discussed it after. That, however, is an extremely thematic story - it's a revenge plot, so you can change nearly every detail and still be telling more or less 'the same' story. Even so, I liked the book much better than the film when I did get around to reading it. I also watched the anime version (Gankutsuo) after reading the book. That preserves many details, but sets the story in a futuristic setting with space travel, aliens, giant robots, and...significantly changes the ending.

I do think there's something to the order of experience and what comes first in your introduction to something, though. I know many people watched Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory and found it enchanting, never having read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I remember being infuriated that they changed the story so that Charlie and his grandfather broke the rules like all the other kids. I didn't mind the other aspects of the adaptation not being close to the story as written, but getting that wrong seemed unforgiveable. Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a much more faithful adaptation in the details of the story, but...I wouldn't say that the overall work is more successful at adapting the story or capturing why people liked the book in the first place. So, yes, I think it's typical to be a lot more forgiving of a film adaptation if you experienced the film first, but I don't think that always works out that way.

I've seen Troy, but I've never read the Iliad. I could spot parts of the story that seemed off, and then could look up the characters on Wikipedia and figure out how much they were sticking to Homer's version and how much they were making it up as they went.

I saw the BBC's Narnia films before reading CS Lewis' Narnia books - which I read for the first time when I was 18.

Oh...and I saw both of the Rankin/Bass animated Hobbit and Return of the King films before reading anything by Tolkien. As far as I am concerned, the Rankin/Bass Return of the King does not spoil the book in any way.

 

[Haerangil]

I remember beginning to read Anne Rice after watching the film interview with a vampire..
I was very let down, i still think her books are not very well written.

 

[Yard Sard]

My dad's favorite baseball movie is The Natural. It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I learned that Roy Hobbs strikes out at the end in the book.

Talk about making just one little change ...

 

[Rob Harding]

I feel like I speak for a great multitude when I say I saw A Muppet’s Christmas Carol before reading the book. And it’s still better with a talking frog.

Hamlet with talking lions is pretty great too.

 

[Ange1e4e5]

When it comes to adaptations, the one that colored my personal opinion on Sherlock Holmes is the Jeremy Brett adaptations in the mid-80s to mid-90s, and not without reason since the writers for that one adhered to the text as much as they could, with occasional dramatic embellishments.

I actually did an essay in college on how Dr. Watson has changed throughout the years. Watson in the books is the narrator, strong, brave, not as smart as Holmes but enough to understand him. Holmes in turn is at points dismissive of Watson but also admits he needs him ("I am lost without my Boswell"). Watson is smarter than Holmes in other areas ("The fair sex is your department, Watson"). But as adaptations of Holmes began to crop up, since there wasn't as much of a need for a narrator, Watson was sidelined a lot up until the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce films. Bruce's Watson was part of the crew so to speak but not really the Watson of the stories; in contrast he was a buffoon, more a comic foil to Bruce's Holmes and the type you had to wonder how he became a doctor. Alan Cox's Watson went with the Bruce angle but that was to portray him as a starting point in his own character development.

 

[Ilana Mushin]

When it comes to adaptations, the one that colored my personal opinion on Sherlock Holmes is the Jeremy Brett adaptations in the mid-80s to mid-90s, and not without reason since the writers for that one adhered to the text as much as they could, with occasional dramatic embellishments.

I actually did an essay in college on how Dr. Watson has changed throughout the years. Watson in the books is the narrator, strong, brave, not as smart as Holmes but enough to understand him. Holmes in turn is at points dismissive of Watson but also admits he needs him ("I am lost without my Boswell"). Watson is smarter than Holmes in other areas ("The fair sex is your department, Watson"). But as adaptations of Holmes began to crop up, since there wasn't as much of a need for a narrator, Watson was sidelined a lot up until the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce films. Bruce's Watson was part of the crew so to speak but not really the Watson of the stories; in contrast he was a buffoon, more a comic foil to Bruce's Holmes and the type you had to wonder how he became a doctor. Alan Cox's Watson went with the Bruce angle but that was to portray him as a starting point in his own character development.

Completely agree. My father read me Sherlock Holmes stories before I saw the Rathbone films and even as a child I was struck by the downgrading of Watson as a very competent professional and someone of considerable intelligence (not to mention being a war veteran, which Holmes is not), compared with the Watson I was imagining from reading the books.

What did you think of Martin Freeman's Watson in the recent BBC series?

 

[Ange1e4e5]

Completely agree. My father read me Sherlock Holmes stories before I saw the Rathbone films and even as a child I was struck by the downgrading of Watson as a very competent professional and someone of considerable intelligence (not to mention being a war veteran, which Holmes is not), compared with the Watson I was imagining from reading the books.

What did you think of Martin Freeman's Watson in the recent BBC series?

I'll admit I'm not particularly familiar with Freeman's Watson outside of the first episode, but from what I remember of it, the episode emphasized Watson as a stabilizer for Holmes, which appears to be de rigueur as of present (and played out with Lucy Liu's Joan Watson being a sober companion for Sherlock in Elementary). The Jude Law version of Holmes literally has Holmes leaning on Watson for support while they're sitting in jail, and shows them again playing off against one another; Watson, being ex-military, dislikes Holmes' messiness while having his own vice as a gambler. When it comes to Holmes' physical appearance, Downey Jr. was definitely a surprise for me being generally unshaven and sporting a fedora instead of the trademark cap or top hat and I'm aware that Cavill's Holmes in the Enola Holmes duology has been met with skepticism since Cavill is powerfully built.