Books you'd like to see well-made into movies

Wouldn't you be scared that the movie is gonna ruin it? Very rarely does the movie adaptation do the book justice. LotR is pretty much the only example I can think of that did a job I would rate as "good" or above.

Quote: Face

Wouldn't you be scared that the movie is gonna ruin it? Very rarely does the movie adaptation do the book justice. LotR is pretty much the only example I can think of that did a job I would rate as "good" or above.

Most movies are not good adaptions of books.
A few movies do a good job and follow a book pretty closely.
I am a big fan of James Clavell.
He was a prisoner of war during WWII in a japaneese POW camp.
He wrote a fictional account of his expereience, King Rat.
Loved the book.
Watched the movie, was amazed how closely the movie followed the book.

Quote: Face

Wouldn't you be scared that the movie is gonna ruin it? Very rarely does the movie adaptation do the book justice.

There are a few out there.

Offhand I can tell you "Noi Vivi" based on Ayn Rand's "We The Living," and "Hunt for Red October" by Tom Clancy.

The books are still much better and have a great deal more depth, but the movie versions are quite faithful and well made. That's why I specified "well-made" in the title.

Often, IMO, the screen writers and/or directors ruin a book by either 1) turning it into their story or 2) turning it into a mass-appeal, cliché-ridden story.

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LotR is pretty much the only example I can think of that did a job I would rate as "good" or above.

I hate those books.

Quote: Nareed

I've heard about that one over the years.

What is it about?

The author participated in the bombing of Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino at age 21, which proved a traumatic experience for him. After WWII, Miller converted to Catholicism.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel , first published in 1960 but is based on three short stories Miller contributed to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (1956-57-59).
On the Beach is a 1957 post-apocalyptic non science fiction novel written by British-Australian author Nevil Shute after he emigrated to Australia.

ACFL not only dealt with a post atomic age, but it continued on to the far distant future when a revived civilization went to war again. As such it was far more ambitious than "On the Beach".

He was fascinated that monks might be the keepers of knowledge after an atomic war, much as he viewed them as keepers of civilization in the dark ages (6th through 10th century),

Quote: Pacomartin

ACFL not only dealt with a post atomic age, but it continued on to the far distant future when a revived civilization went to war again. As such it was far more ambitious than "On the Beach".

Thanks.

It might have had a bigger impact on being published than now. Given movies like Mad Max, Terminator, Planet of the Apes, and more, "post-apocalyptic" has become cliché.

Then again, there were a lot of post-apocalyptic stories in the pulp SF magazines before and during the Golden Age of magazine SF. Campbell, the dean of the Golden Age, seemed particularly fond of them. Although these tended to be more of a kind of desolate depressive mood than the violent, savage future imagined later on. Pre-WWII, most apocalyptic fiction imagined decadence, degeneration or accident bringing about the end, not nuclear war.

I've never seen an adaption of "Crime and Punishment" that I even have liked much less close to the book.

Yet, it's one of my favorite books.

I would like to see Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series made into a mini-series way too much in it for even a trilogy.