I’ve been writing a lot about all of the comic book movies I’ve seen, but not to often about books that became movies. This may be a on going series in books that eventually became movies. I was talking with one of the other bloggers around here, and something brought this up. (Old age is creeping up on me, so I can’t remember what it was.)
Anyway, I started complaining about good books and stories that became rotten movies. I understand the reasoning behind the changes script writers make when converting a book/story to a movie. Some things flow better in words, than they do on screen. Somethings needed for a good movie are missing from the book. Two different media, so it makes sense that some changes would be made.
The first on my list is a story by one of my favorite authors, Isaac Asimov. The story was “Nightfall”. A classic science fiction tale about a planet that never had night. With many suns in its skies, true darkness came on very rare occasions. The story was how the people reacted to the up coming event, and the effect it had on them. It was a very gripping story, that I thought would make a good movie. I didn’t get to see it when it was in the theaters, and only saw it many years later on video. Let’s put it this way I wasted money renting it from a library.
They forgot to change the names to protect the innocent. I can understand why it took years before another Asimov story became a movie.
Now it has been years since I’ve seen that movie, and I’m not sure if anything could cause me to see it again, but here are a few things I remember.
1) Terrible acting. David Birney was the lead character, and he as stiff and boring. The rest of the cast made no impression on me at all. I remember the lead because he was sooo.. bad.
2) Constant looking at the Suns/Sky with freaky music and video effects. Once would have done enough, but over and over again???
3)They advertised this as “Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall” I think he gave permission, and the used the character names and book title. Everything else had nothing to do with the original story.
4)The sets and locations for the movie just bit dust.
5) It was 83 minutes too long.
6) I kept thinking it would get better, it never did….
If you want some real fun, read the reviews on IMDB. I’ve spent too much time on this already.
Sarah Douglas who played bad girl Ursa in Superman 2. Glad to know she has had such a long and distinguished career. An 83 minute movie that was 83 minutes too long. Are videos from the library not free… how ironic.
A few months ago I read the book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer (hope that’s the right spelling of his name). I really enjoyed the book, it was interesting, and I learned a lot from it. Last week I watched the movie, and was kind of disappointed. Not that the movie wasn’t good, I cannot say that, it was more that the story was not meant to be made into a movie. It is too slow, not even sure how to describe it.
On the other hand, I loved the movie the Painted Veil a lot, it gave me faces and shots from scenic China and Hong Kong to go with the book. It complemented each other.
Speaking of comic book movies, I ran across this link the other day:
Iann Robinson’s Lost Comic Movies