I havn't seen a topic about this in a while, so hopefully it is all ok.
It is no secret that adapting a book into a film is very difficult. One reason is because with books you have a lot of book fans that watch the film makers every move and critique 
Also, print to screen is a totally different method of story telling.
An Australian bookclub television show in March looked at adaptations of books to films and one of the guests mentioned 2005's LWW as a good adaptation. John Collee is a screenplay writer.
JOHN COLLEE: The book doesn't matter. But you could then read the book to get where all that stuff came from. I'd like to respond to one of John's points about character and action because my feeling, in a way, is that in film, action is character, that you can't editorialise about the characters, you can't hear their thoughts as you can in a book. You only get one look at them and you can't sort of triangulate, usually, from lots of different perspectives. And so the character is defined by their action, they're defined by what they do. And there's all these beats of action. Narnia, The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, that was a good adaptation. And they really added only one beat of action and that was the first thing where you find out why the brothers hate each other. In The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Edmund hates Peter. It's kind of unexplained, he's just an awkward child. They added in this brilliant opening sequence where you learn that the father died in the war, Peter has become the father, sort of the de facto father of the family and Edmund resents that. And in this scramble to get to the air-raid shelter where Edmund is protesting and Peter has taken the lead and Edmund resents him you suddenly understand, in an action, the character dynamic between these two that actually then resonates right through the film and it forms the very ending and delivers the ending, which is that Edmund finally kind of rises to the challenge and learns sacrifice. So that's it. I think as a novelist you have all these different ways of expressing character. As a film writer you only have action.
It's nice that he praised LWW as a good adaptation, because it is.
Also in the program they discussed what is a bad adaptation and one of the guests said 2006's The Golden Compass was a bad adaptation. They said it was bad because it is an adapatation that does not engage with the source material. It just slaps together a few created scenes of the book and hope that it makes a good movie.
The video and the transcript of the episode can be found here:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/s2815898.htm
How do you want Narnia to be adapted for the cinema? Do you think it should exactly like the book, or the film makers can have creative license? What are there limitations for being creative. An added scene like the opening of LWW was fantastic, but then moments in PC maybe not so much.
Topic starter
Posted : June 17, 2010 12:10 am
Well I'm no hardcore purist, but I like it when characters from books are in their original like character on screen. I don't mind a few changes to subplots, just don't mess up the characters. If you make characters a little like the book on screen but add these characteristics like with Peter and Susan in PC then it's going to be sloppy and risks further adaptations.
I'm not one who wants movies to be exactly like the books, just don't mess with character emotions, aspirations, etc.
Long Live King Caspian & Queen Liliandil Forever!
Jill+Tirian! Let there be Jilrian!
Posted : June 17, 2010 12:31 am
I agree with that sentiment but his example isn't a good one because I don't think their father died in the war for the film version. I think he was away at war in LWW, or else there'll be some more background tweaking in VDT.
But in any case! I really liked the personalities Peter and Susan had in PC. I felt their issues were believable for adults-turned-teenagers and in Peter's case specifically we got to see his character arc, from an aggressive young man to the maturity we see him display at the end of the film. It may make it a poor adaptation of the book word for word, but I think it made for a more engaging story. Sorry to say, PC the book is not one of my favorites, but the movie made it more enjoyable to read. I feel this way about a few other adaptations, particularly comic book movies. Watchmen wasn't the most faithful to its source material but I found that I enjoyed the comic more after seeing it. Before the movie I could never sit through it more than twice, after the movie I can reread it more frequently.
I think regardless of how by-the-book the adaptation is, what's more important is that the film engages the audience in a way that pleases them and turns them towards the source material. I've yet to meet anyone who truly hates the books because they're so different from the movies.
Posted : June 17, 2010 12:48 am
I think that changes when translating a story from book to film is necessary, -I just think they are less necessary than filmmakers would like us to believe.
Adapt as closely to the book as possible; change only what you need to in order to keep the story entertaining on screen.
Movie Aristotle, AKA Risto
Posted : June 19, 2010 9:32 pm
I believe the filmmakers should have an amount of creative license, but not so much as rewriting the story. 
What I found to be a brilliant thing about LWW is this: that even though, for example, the opening war scene is not in the book, it still could have happened. In the book, it simply says that the Pevensies had to leave London because of the air raids. In the movie, it shows those air raids, draws us into the story, and helps us understand why they have to leave. It wasn't a change to the story, it just expanded on the material from the book.
Posted : June 20, 2010 8:42 am
^ditto. I really like them to stick close to the book, but I know for film you have to add a little here and there but I like them just to expand on material and characters that are already there instead of adding new plot lines and issues.
Posted : June 21, 2010 11:45 am
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