One reason for reading or rereading a book is that we have seen its screen adaptation. I saw The Firm, then, the following day, found the second hand paperback and was intrigued to read about characters that I had just seen enacted by Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman, but the ending of the film was inauthentic.
If I saw any of Poul Anderson's characters on screen, then I would immediately reread the relevant book. Even very bad adaptations - which we do not want - might get people reading the books, then realizing how good they are. I have reread Stieg Larsson's novels while re-watching the two high-quality screen adaptations and am now rereading Garth Ennis' The Boys after seeing what I think is a very inauthentic TV dramatization. (I am trying to stop posting and get back to Ennis' graphic novel series.)
Imagine:
Star Wars fans see a high-budget Dominic Flandry feature film series, then start buying the newly re-issued books;
Flandry takes his deserved place as a modern myth.
From your mouth to Fate's ear!
ReplyDeleteKaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteBoth: I absolutely agree! And I wish someone in the film and TV worlds would get interested in the Dominic Flandry stories and push for making screened versions of them.
Paul: The examples I thought were Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS and HOBBIT movies. Despite how INAUTHENTIC they so often were to the actual stories, I hope the movies got some viewers interested enough in Tolkien's works to READ them. And finding out how much better they were compared to the filmed versions.
Ad astra! Sean