[WaspDog]

SPOILER COUNTDOWN COMMENCING!!!

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You've been warned! :)

I just finished the Running Man today and, having watched the film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger a few years ago, I couldn't believe how different the book is from the film. Just goes to show how Hollywood can chew up a good story and mangle it to suit their own ends.

Big change no.1 - the individual Hunters with their own larger-than-life personalities (reminiscent of WWF wrestling personalities) aren't in the book at all! The only real hunter we get to see in the book is their leader, who turns out to be pretty much a coward when the chips are down. What happened to Buzzsaw et al???!!!

Big change no.2 - Richards family dying. Bit grim for Hollywood that bit, I guess.

Big change no.3 - the big ending, with Richards flying into the headquarters of the Games Association while giving the finger to the boss. This ending was much better than the end of the film. They should have filmed this! I'm surprised King didn't get blamed for 9/11 after writing this, but then again, it WAS twenty years ago that he wrote it. Still - it makes you wonder if any of the 9/11 hijackers read the Running Man, doesn't it?!

All in all, a very different story in book form than the version that got to the big screen.

Has anybody else read it? If so, what did you think?

[johnkarr]

It's probably been 15 years since I read it, but I do recall how very different the story and the film were ... and as usual, the King's printed version far exceeds that of Hollyweird.

They did pretty good with Shawshank Redemption, however.

[poewoe]

To draw an audience for film, you need visual, easily accessible drama. King's rendition wasn;t 'film-suited' enough. They just had to get the WWF-like characters in and also overplay Arnold Schwarznegger's role in order to make the film more exciting.

[Dr.Khron]

I would argue that King's work is inherently bad material for movie adaption... his novels are all about layers of character development, and slowly building plots. Of course, It makes for great novels, though.

The best adaptations of his work are the long form TV series. The only real exception was Misery, which was a great book AND movie. It was also one of his shortest books, which is clearly not coincidental.

[Randy M.]

I would argue that King's work is inherently bad material for movie adaption... his novels are all about layers of character development, and slowly building plots. Of course, It makes for great novels, though.

The best adaptations of his work are the long form TV series. The only real exception was Misery, which was a great book AND movie. It was also one of his shortest books, which is clearly not coincidental.
The Shawshank Redemption is an exception, too, though being based on a novella means less to cram in; and Kubrick's The Shining, even if it isn't exactly King's The Shining.

The thing that makes King so tempting for film-makers, besides his success, is that his writing is heavily visual. He calls on the other senses, but what I've read by him is very visual.

Randy M.

[Randy M.]

Has anybody else read it? If so, what did you think?
No, but I've read a similar novel: The Tenth Victim by Robert Sheckley. [Memory is nagging at me -- it's possible the title is The Seventh Victim by Robert Sheckley. There was an Italian film and one of the those titles is the film title instead of the book title, I think]

I was reading the stories used for the basis of the Turner Network Television King series over the summer and was struck by how deriviative some of King's writing is. He admits this, but sometimes it really annoyed me all the same.

Randy M.

[Dr.Khron]

Well yeah, The Shining is good in both book and movie form, but they are so very different. The Misery movie pulled off an nearly imposible feat: being a good movie AND staying true to the source material.

Sadly, I have not read nor seen the Shawshank Redemption... But its on my Netflicks que. Also, I has talking about his novels, which are generally lenghty. His short stories and novellas are nice and concise.

[AJ_]

Dolores Clairborne is another one that was a good book and a movie.