They left out so many good scenes.
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Cult_of_Kibner — 9 years ago(July 03, 2016 10:42 AM)
books are always better than movies
Not in my experience.
and don't have problems and limits of time as movies
That's a double edged sword though. Sometimes authors drone on and on, dragging the story out longer than it needs to be. -
Kaliyugaforkix — 10 years ago(August 09, 2015 09:59 AM)
I think it was decent for a Hollywood adaptation and everything that implies. Understandably they opened up the setting and added more characters because the book is such a chamber piece but they didn't come close to the original's darkness. That's the kind of thing King doesn't seem to do much now- nasty as hell; I don't doubt he was dealing with drug addiction. It probably gave him the edge he used to have.
Since most of the novel is so internalized like
Gerald's Game
they never stood a chance plumbing the depths the book got at. Its like a Cole's Notes. Maybe today the audience could handle foot amputation/blowtorch cauterization but they still couldn't properly illustrate the weird symbiosis between Sheldon and Annie, the way his creative life merges with real-time events as the Misery project takes shape. In the book Annie becomes the dark god Paul has to appease like Scheherazade on amphetamines, constantly offering up new chapters to assuage her wrath and getting lost in the storytelling despite himself. Its bleak. There's nothing like that here, just solid suspense-comedy (which is fine); it was probably the best direction to take if they weren't going for depth. I just wonder why people bother sometimes since visual translation usually means dumbing down for mass appeal. I guess that's the medium, without the right director the images do all the heavy lifting for you. -
poetcomic1 — 9 years ago(May 07, 2016 08:31 PM)
Stephen King's The Shining got made into a movie that was 'true to the book' and it was so bad it was unintentionally funny. Since 'Misery' is such a lean, mean near-perfect film 'more would definitely be less). I find Stephen King unreadable by the way though he can get out a great story idea.
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beedoobee — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 01:21 AM)
I loved both equally. If they had included everything from the book, it could have been a four hour movie. I actually think what Annie did to Paul's legs in the movie was better, and better showed her craziness. The cutting off of a finger, while brutal, is basically a one-time injury, while the pain of what she did in the movie would last much longer and I think much more sadistic and fit in with her insanity.