Eragon moves to the big screen soon, adding to the trend of books into movies; including Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, a Series of Unfortunate Events, and The Chronicles of Narnia. Is this a trend that anyone really cares for? To me, the first two had a good amount of success and were pretty good movies, but now everybodys doing it. I'm not a fan of this fad really. Especially for Harry Potter, they're making a series that they don't even know the end to. Maybe its just me.

Not really a new fad - many of the first movies way way back were based on books.
Personally, I find the movie is seldom as good as the book, though there are a few adaptations that really stand out as excellent - To Kill a Mockingbird, for one, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for another.

Personally, I think it's great that they've made Eragon into a movie. I'm a huge fan of the book, and its sequel Eldest, and I always had images in my mind of what everything looked like, but I always like seeing how it turns out in the movie. One movie that was based on a book that I really loved was Stormbreaker. It was really well made, and it was pretty true to the book, but i guess that's because the book's author wrote the screenplay for the movie!

How about the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter series?

I think they're ok, but from what I hear from people who see those movies but don't read the book, they are pretty lost. 99% of the time, movies are no sub for the books.

Yes, no fad here. A great example is Gone With The Wind. It was made into a movie in 1939 and I'm sure there must have been more before that, even in the silent era.

I think the making of so many books into movies now is simply because the movie makers cannot come up with something original! They have also been remaking more and more movies, and making movies from television series. Give me a break! Give me something original!

I thought that the Lord of the Rings movies weren't half bad and people who haven't read the books can follow them easily. I thought that The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe was an excellent adaptation though. I've read the book and I couldn't really think of anything they had left out or changed. It was so refreshing after the last Harry Potter movie which is pathetic if you compare it to the book which is such a rich story with many side plots, and all sorts of interesting character and things that they left out.

Do you think we will ever get to see Peeves the Poltergeist

For Peeves, no I don't, if they've gone so far without him now, they won't bother to put him in, especialy when in books 5 and 6 he doesn't play a very important role. And, yes books into movies is a trend right now, if it isn't a fad. Some of the best movies were from books. But they're all over the place now, mostly spurring from a lack of material to make a film over in Hollywood. I can't think of a movie concept that hasn't been tried before.

Also, I don't know how many people out there have read the Dinotopia series, it's been out awhile, but I do think that would make a good movie, excluding ABC's television injustice. I think it would work because of its somewhat openess and journal style makes it adaptable to the big screen.

A lot of movies from books that I absolutely love are the old Agatha Christie movies. I think they are more suspenseful than the newer adaptations, and they are great to watch. They never really strayed from the story, except for And Then There Were None, which really lost me when I watched it after reading the book!

They are very good indeed, the Agatha Christie ones . Personally, I really enjoy the TV series of Poirot, with David Suchet as Poirot - yes, I know they aren't movies but they are done just as good as the movies.
The problem with the popular movies which were original books, is that they have to remove so much detail. I am thinking of the Harry Potter series especailly. The Harry Potter movies are very good, but not replaces the books for me

I loved the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies. Good story, good visuals, good dialogue. In fact, the Harry Potter books may benefit from being translated to screen, as the later books seem unnecessarily long. For me, it is much easier to watch a few minutes of Quidditch match onscreen than to skim through a chapter of play-by-play.

One thing I don't like is that movies are so visual that they replace whatever image you have formed for yourself. I mean thinking of Poirot as David Suchet or Harry Potter as Daniel Radcliffe even when you read the stories. Robs you of some imagination, I think.

I do not know if this counts but I am a great admirer of the BBC TV versions of Jane Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare and Agatha Christie. Rather a lot, and a generalisation, I know, but to me they are brilliantly done.

The other thread on classics, added to ren's comment above, got me thinking about those wonderful Merchant-Ivory movies, based on great books. "A Room with a View" was absolutely fantastic, a great version of a favorite book of mine. "Howard's End" was also wonderful.

Yes books into movies has been going a long time one of the most notorious was "Birth of a Nation" (1915) which was based on the novel "The Clansmen" by Thomas Dixon, the hero is rescued by the Ku Klux Klan at the end of the film. This has been cited as a great film. A better example would be "A Trip to the Moon" (1902) by the genius Georges Melies based on the novel "From the Earth to the Moon" by Jules Verne. One of the earliest sound films based on a literary source was "Don Juan" (1926) from the poem by Byron. There have been movies since 1888, sound since about 1900 (Edison made "Frankenstein" in 1910), colour since about 1908 the first feature film being "The World , The Flesh and The Devil" (1914) from the play by Laurance Cowen.

Regards,

Tin

I suggest making a movie of John Sandfords hero in the "Prey" series..Lucas Davenport into a movie hero. He is one of my favorite characters of all time..and that is some feat considering my disdain for cops.

A lot of movies were made from books: The Nanny, I Know what you did last Summer, The Bat, I saw what you did and I know who you are, Are you in the house alone?, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Tom Sawyer, Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe, The Member of the Wedding, The Godfather, Psycho, Fahrenheit 451, Death Sentence, The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, Lord of the Flies, Slaughterhouse-Five, And Then There Were None, The Halloween Tree, Interview with a vampire, Left Behind...the list goes on and on, so this certainly isn't a new thing...there's just more attention drawn to it now.

I love movies that were made out of books. But I think my favorite is Chronicles of Narnia. I love it.

I personally don't like movies made from books. There are a few exceptions to this rule (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, a couple more). Generally though, I wind up sitting in the theater going: "They left that out!... Where the heck did they get that? That was never in the book!... Hey, they cut my favorite scene!" Et cetera, ad infinatum, ad nausium. Then there are movies where they borrow the books title, the name of the main charicter and a couple of plot elements and then go off and write their own story. *stops typing in order to cough something that sounds suspiciously like "I, Robot"* I mean, the only reason that I can stand the movie "Timeline" is that I read the book after seeing it.

When I read I have the images flash in my head, I have my own movie playing. Not everyone has a vivid imagination. For them the movies open up a whole new aspect and may make the book experience that much more interesting.
To me, nothing beats a good book. Eragon was a huge letdown for me. The first 2 books were an amazing story that I could not put down..they butchered it.
I am looking for a new series to be made into a movie and I hope they do it justice. Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan is another amazing story.
I wish the movie writers would read the books BEFORE they write a script.

When I read books and really get into them, I also form a mental image of the characters. When I watched the LOTR trilogy, most of the characters looked just the way I imagined them! Outstanding movies!

I actually like when books are made into movies because it makes me want to read the book as well as see the movie. This year, my favorite book to movie was Little Children. It's a great film, even better than the book, so I recommend it.

Amen on 'Eragon', MuggleMom. I saw it with my boyfriend this last weekend. I'm just glad I wasn't the one paying.

I really like LOTR and Harry Potter movies. But I agree with most of you that movies from books these days are often disappointing.


Except for Miyazaki's movie version of Howl's Moving Castle by Dianna Wynn Jones.

It's the only adaptaion that I can think of that I liked better than the book.

Book was great, movie was amazing. even though they changed SO MANY things.

The Shawshank Redemption was almost flawless, the way it was taken from the original Stephen King story, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption". The only real change is Morgan Freeman's casting but that ended up being absolutely perfect. Played that role extremely well.

Stand By Me was another excellent Stephen Kind adaptation. Funny how there are so many people who deride King and then find out he originally wrote that story. Gives them some pause.

The first 2 Harry Potter movies were a good transition from the book, but I found 3 and 4 disappointing. As for Eragon, it was ok, but missing heaps. I think Prey by Michael Crichton would make an awesome movie.