Don't you think the films murder the books value?

I think it's important to separate the two. In general, i agree with you. I'd rather not have books adapted into film, but they're inevitable. And it's important to look at them as separate entities because they can never be the same for a multitude of reasons. If we're lucky, we'll get a good adaptation, like Fight Club. But we're also lucky when we get great adaptations that're different from the book, much like i'm hoping for with Where the Wild things Are. And if we're really fucking lucky, we get adaptations that are better than the book, such as Apocalypse Now and Bram Stoker's Dracula by Copolla. If we're unlucky, we get things like American Psycho. Though that's not really a bad movie, just a bad adaptation. But, too, it's near impossible to condense 400+ pages into 120 minutes.

I actually think that the sub-par movies have made the books better. I got into Chuck because of the 'Fight Club' movie and I was very eager to buy 'Choke' when it came out on DVD (I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it didn't come out ANYWHERE near I live). I love 'Choke' (The Novel) but wasn't that disappointed with the movie. It didn't have some things from the book but I didn't expect the whole book as a movie. So they've change endings and cut/alter some scenes. That is what happens when they makes movies out of books. I'm not too pleased that 'Haunted' is in development to be a movie. Just thinking of what would get cut just because of time restrictions makes me have very little faith that it is going to be done properly. I don't think I've ever seen a movie based on a book that was actually BETTER than the book. Sure, 'Fight Club' the movie got me into Chuck, but I still think the book is better. But that's just me.

Theres a lot of people here that prefer the movie Fight Club to the book, and off the top of my head, The Shawshank Redemption was a much better movie than book.

I don't get that--why fans of books don't want them to be movies, why fans of a series don't want there to be another sequel, why fans of comic books don't want to see their heroes directed by so and so. Art is made, and it's there, and it's unchanged when the ideas therein are expanded upon in some separate entity. Fight Club is the same novel, whether they made a movie or not, whether they added a video game, whether they make another movie. If a guy that you don't like because he snores and picks his nose and listens to music you used to like and now think is crap reads Fight Club and likes it, this does not devalue the novel. The only way these things can affect a novel is if they affect your perception of the novel, and if you're reading American Psycho and picturing Christian Bale than you're shedding the novel of the author's intentions and yeah, that can murder it, or you can like, not be an amateur.

Rum Punch too, that was made into Jackie Brown...
Id love to see Tarintino get his hands on Invisible Monsters or Rant, or something....
I appreciate great movies... but i agree with you, they are two separate entities, novels and films... but, its just to me, how i think is ive loved a book for ages, and think it is amazing, and some prick from Hollywood turns it into a mediocre movie and you get a lot of idiots going 'oh that movie Choke (or whatever it maybe) is well good'... and im just thinking... STOP IT! they dont get Chuck, they dont get the subversive nature of them, and more then likely (in the case of Fight Club) like Brad Pitt...
Just gets on my nerves slightly...

The way to kill something is to make it 'commercially' viable... i mean they've made movies about Che Guevara. im no communist, but i find it strange a capitalist movie business promotes communist guerrilla warriors and his face on tshirts from GAP... Same as Karl Max is commercially used, the books by Naomi Klein (No Logo especially)... I think 'they' get rid of a 'threat' buy selling it to you... If that made any sense at all..

They couldn't sell you Che and Marx shirts if you didn't buy all your clothes from Hot Topic.

Im from the UK we dont have Hot Topic here (i dont think)... I dont meen literally, i meen in general, it was just an example...

(plus im a punk, i wear DIY clothes )

These will be packaged and sold because they can be. Adaptations usually help bolster the sales of the original book. It's actually probably very good for the authors to have their book be made into a film. I mean, most people hadn't heard of Chuck Palahniuk until Fight Club the movie was made. Since then Chuck's become huge. I'm sure all these Cormac McCarthy adaptations have helped sell his books as well. I mean, he's been a very well respected author for a long time, but now loads of people who normally wouldn't know who he is are reading his books.
Same goes for those Che shirts. People need to learn about things one way or another. Sometimes it's through mass media, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes the movie is better than the book. "Requiem for a Dream" and "The Prestige" come to mind. Other times it's an cinematic abortion.

The thing to keep in mind is that a truly good story is meant to be told in more ways than one...and sometimes you get the wrong people involved, and yes, it reflects badly on everybody.

Seriously though, I think when an author is getting their book optioned for a film, they need to realize that the film is essentially a big commercial for their book...they need to take some personal responsibility and have a more active role in the adaptation whether it's with the screenplay or actors. Too often really good novels end up in a bad movie because the author took the money and ran without setting some parameters.

We should ask Allan Moore about this.

I guess i just see things differently...

haha...isn't he STILL pissed off about Watchmen? Geez, that guy needs a couple Xanax.

He's still pissed off about every adaptation made of his works.

He should take King's advice on the movie industry, "Take the money and run!"

Allan Moore should probably stop selling his work then. He doesn't bitch when he deposits the paychecks.

There's always someone who comes along after you who you think isn't cool enough to like the things you do. It's the same as how a band always sells out on an album released after you've gotten into them. Really it says more about you as a fan than anything else.

I think alan moore gets a bad rap about bitching about the movies from his stuff and because he looks so gruff everyone just thinks he's whining about how terrible the movies are.
I don't think he cares one iota about the movies that are made but gets pissed off when people keep asking him questions about a work he had nothing to do with.

He's definitely not like Frank Miller. You can tell that Frank Miller is into it. Alan...well...he's just anti-Hollywood. It might not even be the movies so much as the social aspect that bothers him.

Well said Nightrious.

Well, let's see ... I think that both the Choke movie and the Fightclub movie were brilliant adaptations of Chuck's novels. And Terry Gilliam's movie Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas was phenomenal. And what about Cronenberg's Naked Lunch? And Coscarelli's Bubba Hotep based on the short story by Joe Lansdale? So brilliant. I don't think it's important or even wise to do a literal translation of a book for a novel ... they are different beasts. I think it is more about capturing the zeitgeist of the novel and chucking over the cash to the book author for his time spent developing the idea.

Honestly, between the two hundred to thousand people it takes to make a movie, it's hard for things not to get fucked up at every step. But some director's manage it!

I'm a firm believer in the "two different animals" theory as well. I loved the Choke movie and respected that it was different from the book. I thought there were some things they really missed on, but forgave them because of the budget/schedule thing.But you've gotta admit, for the most part, until Watchmen - and some people would even debate that -Alan Moore has gotten shafted pretty hard on his movie adaptations.

You know, I didn't see From Hell but I did see Watchman and thought it was disasterous ... but I think the problem lay in trying to be too faithful to all the themes instead of just picking a few ... like, the director was more worried about getting as many references in rather than picking a few and doing those themes well. At least, that's what it felt like because the movie was so emotionally vacant and scattered. But I don't know for sure because I didn't read the source material for Watchmen.

That said, I did like the scene where the guy with the blue peen fragmented himself so he could do his world work (or whatever it is he does) while multiple sets of his hands fondled his girlfriend while she's asleep.

It's basically the only part I remember besides trying to get long enough glimpses at his naughty bits to determine if he was circumcised or not. lol.

From Hell is probably my favorite by Moore and the movie was absolutely abysmal! Probably the worst of any of the adaptations of his stuff. But guess what, the book is still my favorite work by him.

The only time a movie made about a book pisses me off is when the book is really obscure but good, and the movie is over-hyped and terrible. And this only pisses me off because for the majority of people, the movie is all they will ever know. Take that movie Eragon. What a terrible piece of crap that was, and yet from what I've heard from my sister (who is WAY more into fantasy novels than I am), the books are actually pretty good. But from seeing the movie, most people will blow these books off instead of giving them the honest chance they deserve. THAT'S what pisses me off about terrible book to movie adaptations, the tragedy of good books being neglected.

And that's also why I dread the day when Ender's Game gets turned into a movie.

I think it's pretty much common knowledge that movies don't do books justice; however, I think actually more books get sold even if the movie is crap.

How is it strange that some frat kids buy Rage Against The Machine CD's and Che shirts think they are cooler than you and against "The man" while in training to become another cog in the capitalist machine that makes the world run?

I think by "strange" he meant "ironic?"

Dontcha think?

A little too ironic.

its like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

It's like a free ride, when you've already paid.

Ya.

You people should be ashamed of yourselves.

I don't think films murder a books value. If anything they increase a books value because an artist saw something special in the book and used another canvas (motion picture) to reinterpret the art. Films create more awareness of a book, whether the movie was bad or good.

A movie is just an interpretation of the director/cinematographer/editor. If don't want a movie to ruin a book for you, then don't watch the movie first.

I've been thinking about this because we talked about adaptations last night in the chatroom. I'm all for people attempting to adapt good books into movies. Sure most of them turn out pretty badly but bad films tend to get forgotten. Look at the book of Less Than Zero, it still gets praise from critics and it's fairly popular but pretty much everyone except BEE fans are completely unaware of the shitty movie adaptation. It's only when an adaptation turns out great, like Fight Club or No Country, that it gets remembered. So I think it's worth the risk.

Also, there's a growing trend of books being adapted as television shows so there's a good chance that some complex and multi-faceted novels could be given a decent treatment as TV series.

Sadly I agree that most movies adapted from books do turn into shit. Why? For one, most films attempt to access a broader audience, so they don't take the risks necessary to do true justice to a Palahniuk book. As mentioned before, the only adaption we've seen yet that really captured Palahniuk well was Fight Club. It was dark, it was dirty, it WAS the book. But no one in Hollywood has the balls to take a risk as big as Fincher did ten years ago, especially considering Fight Club was by all means a failure at the box office, finding it's redemption in home video. So pretty much, Hollywood won't make a movie with the thought of its subject matter tanking again, so they change the tone and subject matter of the story, and it ruins the vision

Yeah but Choke was pretty shitty. And the rest seem to just bounce around Hollywood and never come to fruition

Still, 50/50 is pretty good odds on book to movie adaptations.

They all forget about Stranger Than Fiction.

I think that a book will be promoted well if it is used to make a film. Coz movies is always a good way to promote something.

I absolutely agree. Film adaptations ruin the imagery of great literature! Leave the literature alone. Everything is based off of technology anymore.

Regardless, the film version of Fight Club was an pretty accurate depiction. And I like that Chuck was well involved in the creating of the film.

i think the fight club film was actually better than the book, i never seen choke but i watched the trailer n i dont fancy it. the books great but the movie dont look right to me. i know the book is very funny but theres a hell of a lot more to it than its humour and the trailer looks like its just a daft comedy, is that what the whole films like?

you can understand how alan moore must feel though, the movie of watchmen is cringeworthy in places. most of it in fact

I think the whole thing with Alan Moore and the movies is kind of blown out of proportion. I think he just sees comics and movies as two completely different mediums and trying to cross them over most times is a bad idea.
Watchmen is certainly the best adaptation of any of his work.
If he ever gets his second novel finished, i wouldn't mind seeing him try his hand at a screenplay and turning out a movie on his own terms.

I am sure that when we read a book, we just... make our own movie in our heads. And when we see that book adapted- a movie by someone else- we of course get disappointed.

I agree with someone above: a movie, a book, a play- they all are different things, it doesn't matter that they share the same name. A writer has an idea, then a director takes that idea and remakes it because he sees the same things differently. He developes some points the writer maybe put into a book accidentally or hides some.

I have to admit that Fight Club the movie was one of the greatest possible adaptions. Though I am glad I happened to read the book before seeing it.

Yeah I can't agree that a movie kills the value of a book, and I like a lot of what Jurga said. I agree that Generally, the movie is not as good as the book. But that's not always the case. And if it wasn't for the Fight Club Movie, I would've never cared to check out the book -and I think they Both work well together and then on their own. No Country For Old Men comes to mind, too. Great movie -didn't ruin the book for me at all and it's one of my favorite movies. I might even like it better than the book, but...

For me, as long as the movie's done well, then cool. I like a movie version of a novel to either Add to the experience, or offer something Different, or follow it to a tee as long as it has the same effect.

Watchmen? Don't know what happened there. The movie follows the book almost exactly -I even like the Ending of the movie Better, yet as a whole, I think the movie sucks. How does that happen if I like the book so much? That movie just proved to me that just because you adapt something you love to a tee, doesn't mean it'll make for a solid cinematic experience. Who knows? Maybe they shoul'dve broken the movie up.

You just can't tell. But even shitty movie versions of books don't ruin the books for me. 'Cause I still have the book and I know better. But that's just me.

To me, it's 50-50, it depends on how sell-out the author is or the agreements he had with the movie production crew and leave them be to do their own adaptation. But, so far Palahniuk's book adapted movies (Choke and Fight Club) have turn out just fine. And, he gets to plug his books, and actually makes people curious into reading the novel after watching the movie.
Even so, if David Fincher have not made Fight Club into a movie, I wouldn't have stumbled into reading Palahniuk's novels.