Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for October 06, 2022

Every novel adaption, ever!

The idea of a “director’s cut” never made sense to me. “Remember that movie where, after the director trimmed the fat, you got to see a movie that you enjoyed? Watch the movie again after we put that fat back on.”

Normally every scene the director departs so far from the novel that you might as ell not bother to read the book.

There’s a reason J.K. Rowling retained the right to insist… and therefore that the Harry Potter movies were a lot better than average.

The director’s cut is the movie as he wanted before the censors put a gun to his head.

Stanley Kubrick did a shining job of making King’s The Shining a much better movie than the novel. King didn’t like that Kubrick left out his usual superfluous bits so he attempted to make his own TV miniseries; it bombed.

Next, we’ll ask the actress to run up 10 flights of stairs while carrying a heavy scuba tank.

A smart author will take the money and never watch the movie.

Fortunately most movie goers have never read the book. Or any book. In case you’re wondering, books are the rectangular things made of paper.

I like the bird on top of the cactus. Reminds me of The Star.

that is going to cut deep.

Why movies say ‘based’ on a book. Besides, the author has received his/her payment and won’t say anything to jeopardize sales of movie tickets, bad publicity. Although Ann Rice took out a full page ad blasting the movie ‘Interview With A Vampire’.

The only novel adaptation I ever saw that followed the nook nearly to the word (and to great effect) was, “Like Water For Chocolate.” I despise when directors decide to make the story “their own.”

Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, among others, disliked the way their writings were transferred to the screen. (Each of them eventually won the Nobel Prize in Literature.) They had dealings with Hollywood movie studios at some point in their careers, for financial reasons.

However, Hemingway’s novel, To Have And Have Not — that he admitted was not all that great — was in many critics’ opinions improved in the movie-making process.

Where is the flying saucer?

Love the guy in the scuba diving outfit with – let me count : 1. mountains in the background; 2. a cactus (with seagull, yet); 3. a penguin. Just who was it wrote this piece of cr@p (original author or script re-writers)? Gonna make for a fascinating movie, however it comes out. And is there any sex involved??

Frankenstein was a good book!

One of the worst ever, wasn’t a directors cut, but SciFi channels butchering of Ursula K LeGuin’s Earthsea story. Besides the horrific white washing of the cast, it was so far away from the story I had to reread the books to assure myself I hadn’t lost my mind. I hadn’t. It’s a shame, as she created the original wizard’s school.

Ursula had been told the writer that wrote for Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings would be writing the series adaptation. Apparently, he was the first one they canned, if they had him at all, after they got her to sign the rights for them to make their mini series. Needless to say, their pathetic adaptation tanked so badly it ended nearly as quickly as it started. It was painful to watch, and I recommend not torturing yourself if you haven’t seen it. Not the first time she was let down by Hollywood. She was reluctant to voice her disappointment, until her fans had voiced theirs. They never even thought to consult her on how to pronounce names and such. Just terrible. I don’t think they realized how many fans she has in the world, and thought no one would know how badly they butchered her world. How wrong they were.

So, a scuba diver, a penguin and a princess walk into a bar. The seagull says, “Yeah, I didn’t see it either.”

In the movie, The French Connection, a suspenseful stake out in the book is replaced by a car / train chase in the movie. Neither would have been good in the other media.

Yay, the penguin is back! Last I saw him, he was hovering over a flower in the Sunday title slug.

And those who already read the book

Like Rings of Power which has nothing to do with Tolkein or his characters, despite some of them having the same names.

No one ever made a good movie from The Great Gatsby which was an almost good book but never a great book. They should have stopped trying a long long time ago

Someone needs to get a grip…

oh look. only 4hours 22 minutes long. Awesome!

Every movie based on a Tom Clancy book. Usually only the title and character names are the same, maybe a fleeting reference to the main plot.

I’ll never forgive them for what they did to The Hobbit. Perfectly wonderful book. Simply awful movies (how in the world they thought they needed to make 3 movies from one good story is beyond me). The first wasn’t so bad, but the 2nd was so absurd I never bothered seeing the 3rd.

Now they make movies nobody watches about books nobody reads

Is that Opus? From Bloom County? With Jacques Cousteau and Dolly Parton?

Directors and re-writers are obligated to make themselves felt in their worlds. The lack of substance doesn’t seem to matter to them, just the headlines.

I love Wiley’s little dioramas. They are fun to look at.

In many cases, the author is already insane. So, that isn’t a very long trip. Also, hate it when the only thing that the movie has the same as the book is the title. It makes one wonder what book the director read or how he/she could have so abysmal reading comprehension.

I’m just enjoying the costumes of the two main characters.

As friends who have had success with selling TV or screen rights say, “Take the money and don’t look back.”

It works on the readers too!

When author is already insane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovCf9VRLnDY&ab_channel=metal574

Way, WAY too $@!^#* true!

Hated adaptation of One Flew Over the Coocoos Nest….excellent dive into the workings of the mind of insanity and the slow climb out only to find out in the movie that the Chief was faking it too.

I don’t know what the author had in mind, but I’d pay to see a movie with a scuba diver and penguin in the Swiss Alps.

And we know just which author would be driven insane, don’t we? “I hate when a director says to me ‘Here’s how I envision this scene’ … excuse me? It’s right here in the script — I ‘envisioned’ it FOR you. Do what I wrote. If you want to ‘envision’, you should become a writer. Where the fück were you when the page was blank?” —Harlan Ellison (1934-2018) American fantasy writer

Stephan King hated The Shining.

Not just authors. Readers too.

Pride and Prejudice, The Perfect novel, was beautifully produced by the BBC in a many episode series. There was a movie made with Keira Knightly of the same title that butchered the novel beyond any recognition. I will never forgive them.

“Flying saucers! They left out my flying saucers. The entire symbolism of cultural negligence was BASED on the flying saucers!”

Where’s the CAMERA?

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a d@mn.”

The sad part is that they really do that.

Hollyweird likes nothing better than getting the Film Rights to a great book and totally Destroying the story.

The Three Musketeers—early ‘80s? was fun to watch. I carefully read the book (in English) without finding the line "I never washed a woman’s legs" and others, but enjoyed the writing style that you miss as a filmgoer.

FAVORITE STORY—-“All The King’s Men” with Broderick Crawford.

Robert Rossen,then a Hollywood newbie,wrote a revised script—-and on the cross country train ride from LA to New York he threw several months work to the four winds;figuring who the freak was he to try to improve on a book that won the Pulitzer Prize.

He shot it direct from t he book and it swept the Oscars.