The book is pro-fascism bullshit with some techno-nerd shit about power armor. The movie is a brilliant satire, along the lines of RoboCop, about war politics.
Whether you like it or not the book is a staple of military science-fiction. So is the concept of power armor. Whether Heinlein was pro-fascist or libertarian is another discussion altogether. Indeed it is a satire of war and the politics and media surrounding it. Alas, it never reaches the heights of RoboCop and feels like a poor imitation in comparison. It has some of the best starship model work ever though, I’ll give it that.
Because if you're not actually using the source material, then you're not actually doing an adaptation and you're just wasting the name. If I'm going to see a movie based on something I enjoy, then I'm going to want to see a movie based on the thing I enjoy, not a movie that just happens to have the same name. I can enjoy a bad adaptation if it's well done, but I'm still going to be disappointed it wasn't a true adaptation of the source material.
I don't care one iota how closely a superhero movie adapts the storyline that inspired it, but when a flick is tangibly based on a particular storyline by a particular author or two, as with DoFP and (Old Man) Logan, those authors should get a prominent on-screen credit.
I talking about adaptations in general not just superhero ones. They usually seem to be pretty good about at least giving them special thanks credits or something.
And by "his family tragedy" we mean WB crapping all over his film and pushing him out because of Beavis' box office and all the nonsensical butthurt entitled fanboy whining.
Exactly this. Like what novelist Tom Clancy once said in a DVD commentary no less: "I’m the author of the book the director ignored"!
So what? If the movie is good, it doesn’t matter. Plus, the book is still available to those who want to read it.
That's not really how it works. An adaptation is an adaptation if it is based on something else that already previously existed, period, regardless of how 'faithful' it is to the thing from which it's been adapted. For example, Tina Fey's Mean Girls and the short-lived CW series Hellcats are adaptations of the non-fiction works Queen Bees and Wannabes and Cheer: Inside the Secret World of College Cheerleaders, respectively, despite the two projects bearing little to no actual resemblance to said works.
It matters to those who read the book and want to see both a good movie and a faithful adaptation of the book they loved. (cough) Peter Jackson (cough)
If that's what people want, Peter Jackson is a master of adaptation because that's exactly what he gave us with the LotR and Hobbit Trilogies.
It amuses me to no end that there's still a subset of people on the Internet who remain outraged that Jackson cut Tom fuckin' Bombadil and his stupid-ass singing.
From what I’ve heard/read online it’s not as much about the stuff he cut off as it’s about the stuff he (made up and) put in.
Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the Trilogies' quality as adaptations. Steve Kloves and Michael Goldenberg both added things to their scripts for the Harry Potter films, but that hasn't stopped said films from being recognized by both fans and J.K. Rowling as being very well-made adaptations of the novels.
Something can be a good movie, but still a bad adaptation. I'm just talking about what makes something a good adaptation, which is separate from the overall quality of the movie or whatever it is. I was actually pretty happy with the LOTR movies as adaptations. They did change, add, and remove things, but IMO it was still recognizable as LOTR. I haven't read The Hobbit in ages, so I can't really comment on the quality of the movies as adaptations.
When i reread LOTR I always skip the Tom Bombadil part...annoying character. I'm so glad that Jackson cut it out of the films.
I wasn't upset at it not being included either, it doesn't really seem to have a huge impact on the bigger story, so taking it out doesn't really hurt anything. I'll confess, when I read the books I only made it about 3/4 of the way through The Two Towers, so I guess there is a chance it could have come into play in Return of the King, but that seems unlikely.
Tom Bombadil never comes back, but he is an important part of the mythology itself. And the scouring of the shire is literally the moral of the story, which got taken out, thus neutering the entire narrative.