OFF: Starship Troopers and a connection to the Tick

[Dave Berry]

On 09 Jan 14:59, BREVARD, Adrian R. wrote:
> >There in lies the rub.  How many great books have been sucessfully
> >translated into movies?  I'm hard pressed to think of many.

I can think of several.   Trainspotting is an obvious one.  L.A. Confidential
has had excellent reviews, as has Tarantino's new one (Jackie Brown).
The Remains Of The Day was excellent, as was Orlando.  The English Patient
was also pretty good (notwithstanding Andy's criticisms of the plot).
How about Of Mice And Men?

If you consider costume dramas, there are lots of good books that have
been made into good (but not great) films -- e.g. A Room With A View,
Howards End, The Age Of Innocence, Heat And Dust, Maurice.  I saw
Regeneration last night, and it was pretty good, although like a lot
of these costume dramas, it lacked bite.  The Wings Of A Dove has had
good reviews, but I haven't seen it yet.

Thrillers are another genre where several successful films have come
from books.  I haven't seen many of these, but examples like The Fugitive
come to mind.

SF though, doesn't do so well.  Why is this?  Blade Runner was excellent,
but only shared some of the background with Dick's novel.  Total Recall
also threw away most of Dick's ideas to make a passable film.  I'm hard
pressed to think of any other examples of SF movies from books.  (I'm
deliberately discounting 2001: A Space Oddysey, because the book and
the film were developed in tandem).  Dune, of course, was crap, as
was Damnation Alley (dragging the message back to vaguely on-topic
at last).

Dave.
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