> Hitch wrote
>
> Nor do I think that any bad movie "ruins" the reading experience; I do
> think, however, that a bad movie can deter people from *attempting*
> the reading experience, whilst a good or great movie can bring new
> readers to the book that was the genesis for the film, witness TLOTR-
> movies' success in driving (new) book sales.
Good or bad, a movie adaptation is likely to increase book
sales for any book simply because X number of people who
never heard of the story, will now be aware of it.
But IMO there are three fundamental problems with adapting a
story like "Dune" or "LotR" to film; time, money and Hollywood's
arrogance.
With Lynch's "Dune", 1-1/2 hours (or even 3 hrs for the "special
edition") was simply not enough time to do the story and this only
reinforced the arrogance of Hollywood and their belief that they
could write a better story then Frank Herbert.
The Sci-Fi Channel's version, being a TV mini-series, had enough
time (or would have, had they continued with the series) but they
didn't have enough cash to do it right, which again reinforces the
arrogance of Hollywood and their belief that they could write a
better story then Frank Herbert.
And then there are the cases of stories like "Star****p Troopers"
and the "Conan" series, where Hollywood flat out didn't give a
damm about the original stories, seeing them only as something
to loot for the title and a few character names.
Now the time and money issues can be overcome, but I don't
think anything can put the breaks on Hollywood's arrogance....
No matter what, Hollywood will always believe that they are
better artists then the original author because if they were to
think otherwise, it would require them to acknowledge the fact
that they are (for the most part) nothing more then technicians
who would all (from the director on down to the janitor) be out
of a job if it wasn't for the original author.
Even with a film like "LotR", which had tons of cash behind it
and several hours to do the story and pur****tedly a director
who was a big time fan of the original story, Hollywood still felt
the need to include numerous useless and stupid changes to the
story, ignoring the fact that the original story has sold a bazillion
copies all over the world and that the author just might have
been on to something.
And the same thing will happen with this latest version of "Dune",
it will suck ass because a theatrical film doesn't provide enough
time to do the story, so Hollywood will edit and re-write the ****
out of the story to make it fit a 1.5-2 hr time frame.
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