BooksToMovies

I think the main problem when translating books into movies is that the requirements are so different:

• Books are long. They have lots of space. Special effects are cheap. That’s why lots of details, subplots and many different characters work well.
• Movies are short. Things move quickly. A lot of things have to be told via dialog. That’s why action, cuts, and slapstick work well.

Now, if you take a book like The Lord of the Rings and translate it into a movie, you have to be very careful. If you’re not, you’ll get a long, boring, and disjointed movie.

Examples:

• 2007-12-20 Golden Compass – it was quite passable
• 2007-11-17 Comic → Movie – it really worked well for the translation from the comic *300*
• 2007-10-14 Persepolis – it seems to have worked really well
• 2007-08-10 A Scanner Darkly – the movie was excellent but then again Philip K. Dick wrote a long time ago and has a very peculiar style; that makes his books harder to read

2007-12-20 Golden Compass

2007-11-17 Comic → Movie

2007-10-14 Persepolis

2007-08-10 A Scanner Darkly