I came up with the idea for this essay back when I saw The Fault In Our Stars. What I'm going to attempt to do is look at some of the more prominent book to movie adaptations and look at whether or not they fit into the idea of a good adaptation. Also in the middle of the debate, we have one writer who's works have been done adapted to death, Stephen King, and a director (one who is considered one of the greatest), Stanley Kubrick, who's entire filmography (bar one or two movies) is made up of adaptations.
So everyone's favourite dictionary, the Merriam-Webster, defines adaptation thusly; "something that is adapted; especially : a movie, book, play, etc., that is changed so that it can be presented in another form." Now I'm going to add a caveat to that definition. An adaptation for me doesn't blindly follow the source material scene for scene. If that was the case, why don't you just read the novel, or comic book, or play the game or see the play again. No for me an adaptation must take the story of the source material, sure, but when it comes to parts that are either not relevant or extraneous to the forwarding of the plot, they can be ditched. The main ideas, themes and evocative feelings are needed for an adaptation. I'm going to split this article between good and bad and then at the end talk about Stanley and Stephen.
The Good
Jurassic Park (1993)
It is generally agreed that this is a good movie, especially for it's time. It has probably garnered more praise for the fact that it was ground breaking in the field of computer-generated images than it's story. Michael Crichton's original novel came out in 1990 and it hadn't even been released before Steven Spielberg snapped up the rights. The first few drafts were written by Crichton himself before screenwriter David Koepp was brought in.
But enough about the movie's production, let's briefly look at the stories side by side. The overall plot of both the book and the movie are the same; a wealthy entrepreneur opens a park full of dinosaurs and, after an accident on the island where it is located, he is forced to bring in experts to evaluate the park and how safe it is. Things go wrong when one of the tech guys in the park is working for a rival company and corrupts the security system with a computer virus.
Some of those major plot points are differ from the book. The accident that happens at the start to cause the events of the film occurs when a worker is killed transporting one of the dinosaurs. In the book, this is a long series of scenes involving a little girl who is bitten in Costa Rica (we'll revisit this later in the article) as well as attacks on babies in nearby nurseries. Another difference is that the two main characters of Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler are romantically involved. In the book, these two characters are mentor and student.
There are, however, some parts that were removed from the story completely to make a more streamlined film story. Scenes involving the board of directors at the rival company are removed, as well as some of the scenes that focus on chaos theory mathematics, which I struggled to read through. These scenes would have slowed the film down and I doubt that it would have become as classic film as it is.
Spike Jonze's meta comedy-drama is probably the best adaptation ever made because that is what it about. It is adapted from Susan Orlean's non-fiction book The Orchid Thief and is about an attempt to adapt that same book. Nicolas Cage plays two characters; Charlie Kaufman (who wrote the actual film) and Donald Kaufman (who doesn't exist, but is still credited with writing the film). The other characters who appear are similarly fictionalised versions of real people appear, including Susan Orlean herself.
The reason this is such a good adaptation is because it tells the story of the actual book, whilst blurring the lines of fiction and reality at the same time. This movie is very organic as well and doesn't really have the same feeling of a regular movie, rather it feels like it just came into being.
Planet of the Apes (1968)
For the longest time I didn't know this movie was an adaptation, but as soon as I saw the book "La Planete des singes" at a bookshop, I knew I had to read it because I love the film so much. The overall plot is present, but minor changes have been made. The biggest change and the one that benefitted the film most was the level of civilisation the apes had reached. In the novel, the ape's civilisation was on par with contemporary technology (or that of 1963), however, this was replaced in the film with a different path of technological advancement.
I'm going to attribute this well made adaptation to screenwriter Rod Serling (best known for creating The Twilight Zone). He chose parts of the novel that worked best and tweaked parts that lacked punch, most notably the ending, which makes the most defiant statement of the final film.
The Bad
War of the Worlds (2005)
H.G. Wells sci-fi novel is considered a classic novel for its time and I'm not saying that the movie is bad, I think it works quite well on it's merits. And that's why I'm calling it a bad adaptation. It only has the most tenuous of ties to the novel it is based on, these being that the aliens ride around in 'tripod' machines and there is a character named Ogilvy. Other than that, it is a pretty stock standard alien invasion movie that just focuses on Tom Cruise running around with a squealing Dakota Fanning.
David Koepp again teamed up with Steven Spielberg (who will pop up in this article again). His script seems to miss out on all the underlying themes of the original work, such as natural selection, religion, colonialism and evolution, to make a popcorn blockbuster.
The Fault In Our Stars (2014)
I know that this is going to make me wildly unpopular, but as I said in my review this is a bit of a pointless adaptation, especially when you just want to put everything from the book in the movie. There is a large portion of the film which wasn't necessary and though it worked in the book it had no place in the film. This of course was the two character's obsession with a book. It's not like this book was the instigator of their relationship, rather it was just a distraction and took up time where we could have focused on a romance building. The only thing we got from that detour was a great performance from Willem Dafoe.
This is something I see more increasingly in adaptations of young adult novels, Hunger Games, City of Bones, that kind of thing. I think the main problem is two-fold. The books that are being adapted are already extremely popular so to change it would lessen the financial return for studios. But also there is an underlying perception that the intended audiences (kids aged 9-14) won't be able to comprehend and recognise the film as being adapted from the original work if they change it too much.
Jurassic Park: The Lost World
So we come full circle back to Steven Spielberg and Jurassic Park. Again it's not that I don't like this movie, but more that it goes way too far from the source material, rather than hugging it extremely close.
The sequel focuses on Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) from the first film, just as the novel does. This is probably the only character to remain intact from the novel, which is about Malcolm discovering that there was another island with dinosaurs on it, whereas in the film he gets sent to the island to record the species that live there. The antagonists in this film are different also. In the book, rival company Biosyn (who make a minor appearance in the first film) are on the island to steal the cloning technology. In the film, it is John Hammond's own company, who are rounding up dinosaurs for a theme park in San Diego. Other characters have been changed or added, like Malcolm's daughter who is one of the most annoying characters in any film ever made.
The Creators
So who are the people being adapted and doing the adapting. Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King are two creators who have been on either side of this divide with many of their works.
I'll start with King because his works have been adapted so many times there's even a Wikipedia article about it. There have been 61 movies made from his books so far (I didn't count the ten that are yet to be made or released) and 32 TV related projects (some of those are single episodes of other TV series). A lot of projects on that list have been made more than once; three adaptations of Carrie and two of both IT and The Shining. The quality of these adaptations can vary. Movies like Misery and Stand By Me have been very good adaptations, the 1990 TV version of IT was quite bad.
Pretty much all of Kubrick's most well known works were adaptions. Of the 13 he directed, 11 were adaptations. If he hadn't of died, he would have collaborated with Spielberg to make A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which is another adaptation. I am in no way saying that Kubrick was unoriginal though. He brought his own style to many of these works to make them his own. Both A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey have more of his auteur style than being influenced by their source materials. 2001 was incredible that it made many wonder whether man has actually been to the moon or if Kubrick simply filmed the landing, but to those people I ask if they've seen the quality of the moon landing footage, that wouldn't fly with Kubrick.
But there's is a connection between our two creators: The Shining. Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of King's 1977 novel is a prime example of adapting a novel for the screen. All the horror that is contained in King's writing is perfectly conveyed through Kubrick's direction with a little added something that makes it feel just right.
Although I've shown that there are some good adaptations out there, I haven't gone over the huge amount that aren't that great. But there's no reason adaptations have to be bad, with a good screenwriter you can achieve anything. Looking at the current list of upcoming films though, it seems that we just have to keep our fingers crossed that the big studios decide to fund some more original ideas.
Let us know how you feel about adaptations. Which ones do you love or hate and why?
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