"Well, there it is." Not the Same as the Book, but Still Just as Good

I know all of you book lovers out there dread when you hear that a beloved book is going to be made into a film. We might get excited, but if we do, it's usually with some trepidation. But sometimes, we just flat out cringe, wring our hands, and/or groan under our breath.

For example, I was excited to hear Netflix was tackling Locke & Key. Some of the most beautiful comics I've ever read (now in six graphic novel volumes), both in artwork and in story, were going to be made into a show, and they were making it a series rather than trying to cram everything into one film or a mini-series. This was fantastic! But then I saw the cast, and I was questioning their choices. And then I actually watched the first episode... and I stopped the show thirty minutes in. I wasn't just disappointed, I was upset. They had dumbed down the show to be for tweens and teens rather than be a strong PG-13, almost R-rated story. They had completely changed the characters, so much that the mother had become a bland, typical teenager show mom rather than the incredibly complex and tragic character she was in the comics. Incredibly key plot devices, including the one item that solves the entire story, were completely excluded or change to where they were unrecognizable. I could go on and on, but overall, they were given a perfect blueprint for a TV series--including a full-color storyboard!--and they tore it apart and made it into a common tween-angst show, effectively ruining it.

I have also been told do not, under any circumstances, watch the film The Lovely Bones if you truly loved the book. The film is supposedly horrible compared to the book, so I'm avoiding it. I am also avoiding Bird Box (I read the novel about a year before the was a film) because I heard they changed it to an "everything is going to be okay" ending, and that ruins the entire atmosphere and themes of the novel.

But let's take a step back and think about something different. We always seem to have two reactions. Either we're constantly getting upset about films that do not even begin to match up to the book's quality (I Am Legend, World War Z, The Hobbit trilogy) or we are thrilled that a film brings the book to the screen exactly as we read it, or close enough that we are very happy with the results (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Black Beauty from 1994, Life of Pi). However, there's a different reaction that I think gets overlooked quite a bit, and that's where the filmmakers make a lot of changes from the book, but we end up really liking the film anyway, or--gasp!--loving it just as much as the book.

That's what I'm going to discuss here. Sometimes, changes can be made to a story that are enough to keep the spirit of the plot without damaging important story arcs, character triumphs and flaws, and honoring the author's original intent while making the film ready-made for audiences (and many times to fit a time frame).

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. Obviously, I'll be covering some major details from each book and film. You may run across a title where you either haven't read the book or haven't seen the film, or both, and you want to read and/or watch both. So you might want to skip that title and move on to the next!

So, let's get started with Not the Same as the Book, but Still Just as Good!

The Fellowship of the Ring: novel - 1954; film - 2001

The Two Towers: novel - 1954; film - 2002

The Return of the King: novel - 1955; film - 2003

Buy the book here and buy the Blu-ray here, streaming on HBO Max, YouTube, and Amazon Prime

Peter Jackson really made the impossible possible: the took the most well-known and epic fantasy adventure novels of all time and made them into films. While there are lots of differences, the films are now just as beloved as the book, and I think it's because Jackson kept the spirit of Tolkien's work embedded in everything he did. I think it's even why Tolkien scholars have enjoyed the films, even whil pointing out their multitude of flaws.

A change that I am actually a big fan of is Arwen. In the novels, Glorfindel, who is eliminated from the films, is the elf who rescues Frodo from the Ringwraiths at Bruinen. Arwen takes over the role, which brings her forward as a much more prominent and significant character. While she was always fated to wed Aragon in the novels, she becomes more than just an object of affection and marriage. Her unfailing love and confidence in Aragon is what helps him with his personal struggles in the film (which also don't exist in the book), and she is a strong woman who is willing to make sacrifices to help Aragon meet his destiny. Plus, it's pretty damn cool that she was able to use magic and her amazing horse to shake off the Ringwraiths and get Frodo to Rivendell.

And in speaking of Arwen, I actually like a lot of the character personality changes in the film. I like that Gandalf is a bit more human and less of an unyielding wizard with very little empathy. Ian McKellen's fantastic portrayal truly helped us see Gandalf as not only extremely important to the outcome of the story, but also a true, kind friend who understood his fate and did his best to do right. The personal struggles Aragon toes through show how even though a man can have made mistakes and is flawed, these traits are what make him the one who is the most trusted and capable to rule. And I absolutely love that Faramir defied Denethor instead of following him without question to please him in his brother's stead. I think Boromir would've been proud of him.

I could certainly talk about this a lot more--I reread The Fellowship of the Ring novel after watching the films, so I saw all the differences. But for me, the films are just as good in that Tolkien's vision was absolutely honored while giving modern audiences who don't know the world's details the ability to understand the complexity of such an incredible story. And I was thrilled to see that people were jumping to read the books after seeing the films. I think it sparked a new generation of Tolkien fans, and maybe some of them will become scholars themselves!

Of note, here's a fun video of an online reunion of the cast and crew, from Josh Gad's Reunited Apart: One Zoom to Rule Them All. Be sure to watch all the way to the end... I about died laughing at John Rhys-Davies's Indiana Jones joke.

novel - 1974; film - 1975

Buy the book here and buy the Blu-ray here, streaming on Hulu with HBO Max and Amazon Prime

The novel Jaws was a bestseller before the film was made, so audiences were certainly familiar with Peter Benchley's story of a killer shark. They just weren't ready for Steven Spielberg's vision.

We all know Spielberg's filming of Jaws constantly changed due to non-working mechanical sharks, sinking boats, and weather and water problems. But it doesn't mean they didn't skimp on terror, suspense, and incredible casting to flesh out some very bold characters. It was part of what I enjoyed about the film versus the book. I very much liked that the affair between Ellen Brody and Matt Hooper was eliminated. While it created fantastic tension between Chief Martin Brody and Hooper in the book, the tension was still just as strong when switched to being between a long-time shark survivor and a young shark scientist. Brody worrying about ending up in the water and being truly scared when out of his element perfectly added to the story.

Two major scenes in the film are completely different than in the book: the reopening of the beaches and the final climax of how the shark and Quint die. I don't mind the changes in both these scenes. While both scenes are dramatic in the novel, I think the changes to the film bring across the tension at a higher caliber than the subtlety in the novel. The structure choices of both scenes are studies in how to create suspense and scares in a film using no music and relying on the audience's understanding of Brody's fears. Really, even though shooting an oxygen tank in a shark's mouth wouldn't make it blow up, it is certainly a more dramatic exit for the beast than what happens in the book. And I am amazed by Robert Shaw's sheer terror when the shark is eating him. His screams are haunting. Hooper doesn't survive in the book, either, so it is nice for him to live instead.

A little tidbit: remember that news reporter on the beach, reporting that there was a "cloud in the shape of a shark" over the community of Amity? That was none other than Peter Benchley himself. He is also helped write the screenplay, and we know he was happy with what the filmmakers had come up with. And I believe millions of fans all across the world four decades later who still talk about how great the novel and the film are tell us that nothing is wrong with this book-to-film masterpiece.

novel - 1977; film - 1980

Buy the book here and buy the Blu-ray here, streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Now I will be very forthright with this one: The Shining is my favorite of King's novels, and the film is the only Kubrick film I really like. I'm not saying Kubrick isn't a master filmmaker--he is. I just don't prefer his films, except for this one.

I think most of us see the major differences in the film, and it makes sense because of running time. The story is quite complex, so it was whittle down to the bare bones. What's really different, though, is the fate of the characters and the hotel itself. The boiler, an incredibly important component to the book, isn't mentioned at all in the film, which means the hotel and Jack Torrance meet entirely different fates. And in the novel, it's Mr. Hallorann who saves Wendy and Danny, getting them out of the hotel before it explodes and in the snow cat to get them back down the hill. And to me, the scariest part of the film was Danny trying to outrun the topiaries, but I imagine the expense of the special effects at that time would've been too much of a barrier to help translate that terror onto the screen.

But I believe the changes worked very well with Kubrick's film style. His long shots with no movement on the actors' parts and blandly-delivered dialog really creates a very eerie and haunted quality to the atmosphere of the film. He also successfully directed Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall as helpless to what is happening around them. I do agree with Stephen King, that a major reason the film is inferior is Kubrick made Torrance crazy from the beginning. He is already slipping when they move up to the hotel rather than truly trying to turn a new leaf. But Nicholson takes that characterization and runs with it, and he is convincing as a man who has very little grip on reality, so the hotel can easily take him over.

So, even though there are pretty big changes, The Shining as a film does very much work for me. I think it captures the terror of the hotel's demons and delivers them in a very eerie and dark fashion. I like to turn on the film for background noise as I'm working, too. Somehow, the style appeals to my need to help with my concentration.

Also, I do recommend the mini-series from 1997. It follows the book quite closely, and I love the acting choices. The CGI is certainly dated, but overall, the movie feels more like the book rather than taking the story in a different direction.

novella - included in Dark Forces in 1980; film - 2007

Buy the book here and buy the Blu-ray here, streaming on YouTube and Amazon Prime.

The Mist scared the crap out of me when I first read it in the late 90s in Stephen King's collection Skeleton Crew. It always held a strong impression on me, and I had reread it quite a bit long before the film was announced. And when I heard Frank Darabont was going to helm the film version, I was absolutely thrilled.

Darabont is the absolute best at this: The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist are all exactly like Stephen King's original works, down to where he even has the imagery from what I imagined when I read the words down pat. So at first, it seemed like not much was done to change The Mist for the theatrical version. However, there are some significant changes that I want to talk about.

Mrs. Carmondy is just as horrid in the film as she is in the novella, but there are key moments with her that were changed from the book, including going off to pray in the bathroom by herself and the mist bug landing on her. These moments that were added to the film became incredibly important in not only learning her character, but to justify her actions later in the film. And in the novella, she wore a typical 80s yellow jumpsuit, a normal choice for women of her type during that time period. That outfit set the stage for her character in the novella. However, Marcia Gay Harden was so great at capturing Mrs. Carmondy's evil, she didn't have to wear that particular embarassment!

In addition, the relationship between the military officer and the cashier was not in the novella--but more on that in a bit.

Most important to The Mist are the two different endings. In the novella, our five survivors who leave the story just keep driving. They hope to find the end of the mist and civilization there, but the story ends with a dread that we just don't know what's going to happen, for the mist just goes on and on and on. However, Darabont had an entirely different idea for the ending, and even King thought it was far better than his own. He had the group of five decide to kill themselves with the four bullets they have left in Amanda's revolver, and the final person, David, would step out into the mist, a commit to sacrifice. After he kills everyone, including his young son, David steps outside... to find the mist clearing up and the military coming with transports full of people they've saved. I can't even imagine the grief, guilt, and terror of what I had done if that happened to me.

Overall, what I love about the film is that it took liberty with the novella in giving us some answers. We received an answer for why the mist happened--the young soldier previously mentioned tells us something weird was going on at the military base, and they screwed up and opened up a portal to another world. Then we get to see the horror of how people will treat others in times of crisis in their "expiation" of the young soldier. Sadly, this has proven to happen in real life, so Darabont was really able to give us the juxtaposition of the types of actions that some people consider good, right, and just. Don't get me wrong--I don't mind the lack of answers in the novella. The unknown can be horrifying, as I experienced when I read it. I believe both King and Darabont understand what happens when people are in life-and-death situations, and both of them were able to give us those horrors and triumphs due to the characters' actions in a really concise and strong narrative in both formats of the story. In some ways, I think the film is better than the novella, but I do still equally enjoy both.

(I won't mention the series on Netflix... My advice is just to stick with the novella and the film.)

novel - 1990; film - 1993

Buy the book here and buy the Blu-ray here, streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

My father walked into my room one day with a paperback in his hand: a plain white cover with a black tyrannosaurus skeleton and the words JURASSIC PARK emblazoned on it. He said I needed to read this, and I did. Man, I loved that book. Then, about a week after I finished it, my father came into the kitchen where I was eating breakfast, a newspaper in hand (this was long before the internet, kiddos), and announced that Jurassic Park was going to be made into a film, and by none other than Steven Spielberg. I don't think I've ever been quite so giddy... and my dad secretly was, too.

Two novels and five (soon to be six) films later, Jurassic Park is now a franchise, and I certainly don't mind. I loved every word in that novel, and I loved every frame of that film. And what was so funny was I absolutely did not care that the film had changed quite a bit of the story. It didn't matter that those who died in the film lived in the book, and vice versa. It didn't matter that the velociraptors were too big and the dilophosaurus too small with a frill around its neck. These animals had come alive on the screen, and they were just as accurate and alive as they were in the pages of the novel.

I think what was truly important was the effect the film had on not just audiences, but filmmakers everywhere. Dinosaurs were suddenly real, and they were far beyond the simpler days of hand-drawn animation and stop-motion animation. Even go-motion animation wasn't advanced enough to reach the vision that Michael Crichton had written in his novel. And the sound... all new, no more recycled old lion roars and horse whinnies disguised to sound like dinosaurs, and we could suddenly hear someone whispering over the sound of helicopter blades. I think that's part of what made us moviegoers so accepting of the film: we were handed a new set of technology on a sliver platter, and we ate it up and wanted more.

What are the major differences? Well, in the novel, Dr. Malcolm died from his wounds the T-rex delt him, while Gennaro, the lawyer, lived. The Rex did to Malcolm in the book what she did to Gennaro in the film--tossed them in the air with no mercy. John Hammond died by being overrun with compsognatuses. And Timmy was both the dino nerd and the hacker, while his younger sister, Alex, was honestly an annoying little brat. And there is an entire heart-pounding scenario in the novel where the raptors are testing the fences around the control center, trying to get in, while Ellie tries to distract them. There is also a terrifying moment when everyone learns the raptors can jump.

But if you've read the novel over and over again, perhaps like I have, you'll know there are scenes in The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III that were plucked straight out of the original novel: the death by compies*, the girl on the beach, the hiding behind the waterfall, the river and the birdcage. Even Jurassic World took a cue from The Lost World novel in having the Indominus Rex able to camouflage.

I think, though, that Spielberg and his colleagues did what was done with Jaws when it came to this film: they understood what needed to be changed and tweaked as far as characters and story line are concerned in order to appeal to a movie audience. Obviously, it worked, for the film is one of the best sci-fi adventures of our time and changed filmmaking forever.

*Peter Stormare, the actor most famously known for putting Steve Buschemi through a wood chipper in Fargo, was the hapless victim of the compies in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Spielberg told him that death was getting him back for all those people he killed in Fargo.

novel - 2002; film - 2009

Buy the book here and buy the Blu-ray here, streaming on STARZ

I actually had no idea Coraline was a novel when I saw the film. I watched the film because first, I'm a massive fan of stop-motion animation, and second, I love Henry Selick's stop-motion work. I was absolutely captivated by this fascinating story about a bored girl who finds a strange door in the rental house she and her parents have moved into. That door leads to another world, populated with her favorite things and her Other Mother, a woman who looks just like her own mother but with buttons for eyes and who claims she is who Coraline should really be with. Finding out the book was by Neil Gaiman was a true plus. Neverwhere is my favorite novel of his, and I really cried when I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane. So I read the book nearly immediately when I saw Gaiman's name in the credits.

What was interesting to me was the novel was quite dark and got even darker as Coraline spent more and more time in the other world. Her encounter with the Other Father after his being punished by the Other Mother was downright scary. That doesn't mean the book wasn't good--the same elements were in the film that were in the book. But Selick decided to create a much stronger contrast between this world and the other world, bring in more light than the book had. Selick also gives more time for us to learn Coraline's parents' personalities in this world than the novel brought forward. This created better sympathy for the parents, not just in their being captured, but also in that their loss of innocence has also kept them safe from the other world.

In addition, the actors are incredible choices that bring their own personalities to the roles, which in turn creates subtle changes in the characters from the novel. Selick is truly talented at getting such compelling performances out of his actors. Of note, Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French originally were given the roles of the opposite characters. But when it just didn't seem to be working out well, Selick asked them to switch, with French being Forcible and Saunders as Spink. With minimal effort, the two ladies changed, and it seemed to solve all the problems they were having. And the choice of Keith David as the cat is absolute genius. Keith's voice has the mystery and slyness of a cat that completely fits this feline character, and I loved what he brought to the film.

The biggest difference is the addition of the character named Wyborn, or Wybie, in the film. Wybie starts out as the regular annoyance that girls have toward boys, but he's the only person around who's her age, so she reluctantly spends time with him. He ends up being an extremely strong ally and necessary to Coraline getting rid of the key to the other world's door after she nearly defeats the Other Mother. He, his grandmother who is rending the house to the tenants, and the cat are the only ones who know about the other world.

Gaiman and Selick worked together on the film, so I think that's why the changes are completely acceptable and flowed perfectly for the film. I think Selick took a blueprint from Gaiman and enriched it, finding inspiration in the words on the page. In fact, this is one film that I actually will say I liked the movie better than the book. It doesn't mean the book doesn't have its own charm or character, and that it isn't a wonderfully marvelous story. I simply see it as a wonderful springboard for, in my honest opinion, the best stop-motion film ever made.

Of course, I'm leaving out quite a lot of books-to-film that I think we can all agree are equals. Those were just ones that really tripped my imagination and left me very satisfied that the filmmakers cared enough about the story to keep the essence, ambiance, and story strengths intact. So feel free to discuss your own in the comments. I'd love to hear about your book-to-film favorites, and hope you'll give me some to seek out!

~ Andrea Thomas

Images (top to bottom):
Original single-volume novel cover image (c)1968 Pauline Baynes; Original theatrical release film poster (c)2001
Original first hardback edition cover image (c)1974 Paul Bacon; Original theatrical release film poster (c)1975 Roger Castel
Original first edition cover image (c)1977 Dave Christensen; Original theatrical release film poster (c)1980 Saul Bass
Original anthology cover image (c)1980 from Viking Press; Original theatrical release film poster (c)2007
Original novel cover image (c)1990 Chip Kidd; Original theatrical release film poster (c)1993
Original novel cover image (c)2007 Dave McKean; Original theatrical release film poster (c)2009