Re:[OT] Movies vs. Books (was: Tired...)

At 6:45 PM -0800 3/6/99, Brian Bell wrote:
>I have yet to see a movie that lived up to a book that I liked.
>On the other hand, I have yet to see a novelization of a movie
>that was as good as the movie.
>
>Movies based on books usually drop the character development
>and interesting themes. Books based on a movie usually fail to
>convey the visual nature of the movie (as well as futdz with the
>details in order to add pages).

Good points. However, books based on movies often have a few scenes
that didn't make the final cut in the movie. For example, Allen Dean
Foster's novelizations of Alien and Aliens (worth reading) have the
missing scenes, such as the cocoon sequence from Alien and the sentry
guns from Aliens that didn't make it into the movie, even though it was
filmed (I saw a URL for a webpage with scenes, but forgot to bookmark
it, more silly me). The two Terminator novelizations (c'mon, I bought
'em used) add a lot of incidental detail and charaterisation for the
minor characters that just couldn't come through onscreen since it'd be
a waste of expensive film. Of course in T and T2, the screenplay
definitely needs the padding to qualify as more than a novella.

Michael Carter Llaneza
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1991-1950
Devolution is very real to me.

Whenever I hear the "Odd Couple" theme, I get this image of Dennis
Rodman borrowing Marge Schott's toothbrush.