By the way, go do my Jane Eyre test:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/which_jane_eyre_character_are_you

http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/d-tPEo2/Which-Jane-Eyre-Character-Are-You

Result: I say it fits the bill although I'm so not christian.
Too bad she died so young.

The problem is that the comedy aspect of the film just isn't that good. Where the books had a great sense of buildup to their jokes, the film all to often either has all buildup and no punchline or just dumps the punchline on the audience with no buildup. Granted, there are some funny moments, but more often then not the comedy fails due to either not being good on a technical level or being buried beneath a more traditional script that is full of boring action sequences and romances.

The film also misses the point of the Infinite Improbability Drive. It's a device that is used in the books to make fun of the way that novels rely heavily on coincidence, hence why the first time it's used, Zaphod immediately finds the planet of Magrathea. In the film, there's some nonsense about needing a cube that has the location of Magrathea that needs to be tracked down the old fashioned way, which misses the point of the original joke.

I read a lot and only very, very rarely watch movies based on books. I mostly also avoid watching sequels.
This has saved me from many disappointing moments over the years, I gather.

A movie adaption ("based on the play") I watched and liked is Prospero's Books.

Fair enough, although personally I'm of the opinion that when one is adapting a work that is as deeply ingrained in the cultural consciousness as The Hobbit is, comparisons to the original are absolutely warranted. But let's set that aside and look at them as films in their own right. They suffer from a major problem of tonal whiplash by both trying to be a lighthearted fantasy adventure while trying to also be Lord of the Rings: the Prequel. Seeding hints about the future events in LotR doesn't serve the base narrative in any way, and those scenes take themselves have a completely different feel to the rest of the film. It's like someone spliced two different films together. That's not even getting into the lame added in content of the white orc (who I am convinced was added purely so that the videogame adaptation could have a boss fight), or the fact that the editing seriously undermines the effectiveness of what should be the best scenes in the movie. Gollum sneaking up on Bilbo and creeping everyone the fuck out is great (except for when he is alternating to his 'cute' Smeagol persona that he did not have in the book, but whatever), but when you keep cutting to an action scene elsewhere, you kill the flow of the scene and remove any sense of mounting dread that you might have had otherwise. It kind of reminded me of The Dark Knight; much as I love that film, I was frustrated when they kept cutting from the Joker doing his thing in Wayne's place to show Bruce beating up bad guys, especially since that scene had been released as a teaser without the cutaways, and it was goddamn terrifying in that state.

Like I said, it's just another version of the story. You can't, and shouldn't, expect it to be the same as the book. I loved the improbability drive sequences in the film by the way.
Alright, different book/adaptation, same author: Have you read the Dirk Gently books? And if so, did you like the TV adaptation?

Well, this thread is a success, so long for 'not driving the thread out of ....many things'

Don't forget people : this is a giveaway initially.

But it's so good for discussion! This is becoming my favorite banter thread.

I must have missed 200 posts. The funny thing is the 'male giveaway' will got thrice the number of entries and a tenth of the total number of posts :-)

As long as people are not putt off from entering the giveaway or taking part in the original topic of discussion, then I don't mind all the extra off-topic discussions. Some of the topics have been interesting and as long as it remains light hearted and civilised, then it's fine.

At least it shows that these girls only threads are actually quite fun :-). It will be interesting to see how the men's giveaway will play out.

It would be grand if you remember my anime suggestions ("The place promised in our early days" and "5 centimeters per second") between all this.
You can be sure that I'll throw in my usual "I like real life battles with swords, first person shooters, metal and Fluttershy". :D

While not a proper book, the movie adaptation of the comic book miniseries The Watchmen was an incredibly faithful adaptation of the source material. Sure, people have complained that the catalyst for the ending was modified, but the ending itself is still the same. Aside from a bit of the meta-textual stuff, the bulk of the comic is in the movie (even more so, if you watch the much longer Ultimate Cut). So many of the scenes and much of the dialogue is pulled straight from the comic that someone who had never seen it before could mouth along to certain parts just by knowing the comic book well enough. It is, to me, the closest adaptation of a story that I've seen.

While you claim that most directors are eccentric, there are definitely some that are not. As our generation gets older and starts taking over for the "old guards" in Hollywood, this will change. People like James Gunn, Joss Whedon Guillermo del Toro and J.J. Abrams are changing how movies are conceptualized, produced and presented. Films like Guardians of the Galaxy, The Avengers, Pacific Rim and (potentially) Star Wars: Episode VII are proving that you can create something on a grand scale that is still, at its core, a movie that you just made for yourself. The old way was to make movies for the masses; movies that you "knew" people wanted to see. The new way is much more genuine; make the movie you always wanted to see and, chances are, the masses will also want to see it.

There will always be movies that pander to the masses and eccentric directors who will bastardize a classic piece of literature or pop-culture, but I think that those films are starting to fall out of fashion. There may never come a day where they become the minority, but we are definitely seeing a change in the tides of the sea of cinema these days.

TL;DR - The Watchmen is a great movie. Tekkaman-James doesn't know how to stop talking.

Don't worry, I made a note of both suggestions, they are both on my to watch list.

I aggree that the Watchmen is an awesome movie, I have watched it countless times, but sadly the long cut isn't available in Germany. :(
I could always relate to Rorschach, because I'm small and vicious too as well as because of his extreme sense of honesty and integrity till the bitter end. Jackie Earle Haley played him wonderfully.

I have yet to read the Watchmen comics, since I'm still on X-Men (I began at the very beginning, and am now at 1983) and noticed how awful the changes in the movies really are.