I've just finished reading The Bone Collector by Jeffrey Deever. Maybe like me, you first saw the movie with Denzel Washington. He plays a bed-ridden forensics guru who solves a serial killer spree in the old parts of New York City.
I really enjoyed noting the differences between book and film, especially the penultimate scene in his room when the killer turns up.
Angelina Jolie is Denzel's character's able assistant, Officer Sachs, described as a Portable, which must be American for Uniform.
The movie adds some happy ever after at the end too as we all like a nice outcome on film.
Have you seen the film?
The book classification inside is film tie-in, but I'm pretty sure the book came first. The movie's based on Deever's novel.
Not so with Star Wars I don't think? I recall reading the paperback after seeing the film and enjoying spotting all the differences between the two, the film having imprinted itself on my brain.
Is this your experience?
I've never read ALIEN. I wonder if there are differences between the film and the novel?
Have you read ALIEN readers?
I had the Alien graphic novel, garishly colored and very bloody, an excellent read!!!
ReplyDeleteGraphic novel eh! Not sure I've seen that MB.
DeleteThe Alien novelisation is by Alan Dean Foster, who covered a lot of the movie tie-ins and is ghost writer on the Star Wars novel too. Deans novel is very true to the film, with maybe a little expansion on certain parts, but essentially as it is seen in the film. Conversely, William Gibson (Neuromancer/Johnny Mnemonic) has written an alternate Alien 3 script which is infinitely better than the filmed version, with much more action a wider scope. Bill
ReplyDeleteI bought the Blade Runner movie tie in back in 79, not realising it was just Philip K. Dick's novel - 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' and was so annoyed that it had precious little to do with the film. Blade Runner is based on the basic premise and includes Deckard and Batty, but is dull and depressing by comparison! The Alien graphic novel was published by Marvel and is actually quite close to the film, too. Bill
ReplyDeleteBill nailed the Alan Dean Foster conjection before I could (although I'll add Close Encounters of thecThird Kind!)
ReplyDeleteMy strongest memory of the Alien novel is the crew being worried about the acid eating all the way through the hull, because supposedly some of the star drive circuitry ran through it!
I have never read novelisations of movies.
ReplyDeleteWhy would I ? There's a movie of it for Pete's sake !
As Chance the gardener (played by Peter Sellers) says in the movie 'Being There', "I like to watch."
And remember, 'a picture paints a thousand words'.
Many of the most famous novel tie-ins from that time had a wealth of extra scenes and info as, due to the lead times involved to have merchandising all ready at the same time the writers were given the original scripts to work from which meant scenes which were for whatever reason deleted from the movie were intact, it being too late to re-write parts of the novel by the editing stage. I seen to recall the Empire Strikes Back had a load of extra material as well
ReplyDeleteIn the movie ALIEN, there was what looked like a small hopper craft the some crew members walked past. Any idea as to what that was?
ReplyDelete