Comment by andrewstuart
2 days ago
I wish just for once these directors had simply made the movie of the book and damn the consequences of what Hollywood thinks audiences want. The movies that directors such as Peter Jackson make are brilliantly done - if only the story wasn't hacked. And that's not even addressing the worst of the travesties such as Radagast the Brown being covered in bird shit and the dwarves in The Hobbit being a bunch of circus clowns.
What works in books often doesn't work on screen and vice versa. They are different media.
Exactly
For example, 2001 was a great movie but Clarke's worst book imo because he collaborated with Kubrick to write it for for big screen.
Agreed. The difference between a book and a film is that they are completely different things. You can't just graft a story from one directly onto another and expect results.
> What works in books often doesn't work on screen and vice versa. They are different media.
Not really. The biggest issue is time. As far as i noticed, one needs 2 hours of movie for 100 pages of a book. Anything below this (fitting 400 pages in 2 hours) is art. That's why Lynch's version is better.
It's not about what they "think audience want" it's about what film directors know works for visual storytelling as opposed to written storytelling.
Its often not directors defining pacing and length of the result, but producer/studio. A lot of bitter conflicts came up from this.
This is the the most famous, if not the only instance of Lynch giving up control of the final edit. He seemed angry about the way it turned out.
That's why the director is listed as "Alan Smithee"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Smithee
"Alan Smithee (also Allen Smithee) is an official pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown a project."
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