Say No To Novelisations!

[duckula]

I have a bone to pick with the movie industry. It isn't about the lack of decent films or their unwillingness to embrace new distribution technology, no, it's about their insistence on creating 'novelisations' of perfectly good films.

A couple of months ago I watched Pride & Predjudice and I must say I really rather enjoyed it so when I saw the novelisation in the bookshop I thought 'why not'.

Why not indeed. I'll tell you why not, it's terrible. First off they hired some third rate hack writer to do it.
Secondly they added bits that weren't in the film. What's up with that? It was great as it was.
Here's another thing, the dialogue. It is really hard to follow and this crazy bitch keeps mispelling words and putting it in obscure old english. I appreciate the novel is set ages ago but it was written recently so why can't the author act like it.
Finally, and I feel most egregiously, the author fails to highlight Keira's obvious physical radiance and is constantly doing her down. It's misleading and plain rude.

This kind of ham fisted money grabbing will only serve to alienate the film-going public. We don't appreciate being taken for a ride and as a Keira fan I don't like seeing her beauty being degraded.

The 'novelisation' phenomenon is stupid but, if they insist on doing it why don't they get some talented writers to do it.

Not happy, not happy at all. :mad:

Anyway, to make this a thread: What do you think of the novelisation phenomenon and are there any you particularly like/ dislike.

[Kelsey]

No!

Though usually, novelizations aren't written after the release of the film, but during their production. Therefore, regarding your comment about the bits that weren't in the film, they're based on the shooting script, whcih is never an exact transcript of the final edited piece. What you read in the novelization was once in the script, but not the finished version.

As for the author downplaying Keira's beauty. It could be at the time of it's creation, it was not known that Keira would be playing Elizabeth Bennett. If the author worked off the original P&P and I remember correctly, Elizabeth was never supposed to be anything special in the first place.

They've always been around, I've read a few (most all of them crappy as Hell), but it's just one more marketing tool. I'll commission novelizations of my films simply to profit of those who can't get enough of it.

[deviljet88]

The Planet of the Apes novelisation had a really cool screen capture section in the middle. Plus it was thin as hell, probably saved me an hour.

[Kelsey]

Yeah, I usually get them before the movie comes out for the pictures.

[chewwie]

Never bought one, and dont plan on! If the final piece is satisyfying enough why stretch for more, which could and in duckula's case turn out to be a disapointment! If it was less than satisfying then why do u even want to know!!!