h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The entry seems to be a little overly critical of movies, particularly in the introduction. The novel seems to be glorified, the film put down. Yes, there are lots of movies that don't say much, but then there is also a whole lot of bad fiction out there. There are infinitely more novels published a year than films made, and the novel has hundreds of years of history to pull from. The cinema has barely 100. There are easily as many thought provoking movies produced each year as truly great novels. An author need only convince his audience with words. A director has to use visuals and sound as well as dialouge.

That's the rant part.

I liked how Kubrick got so many references in the article. He was the consummate book to film directer. You need an auteur like Kubrick to properly translate a novel.

None of this made very much sense. I need sleep...

I agree. There are many film adaptations that are superior, in many ways, to novels, plays and short stories. In some cases, films and novels are incomparable in their own right. In many cases, some people don't even realise a film was based on a literary source.

Examples:
- 'The Night of the Hunter' from David Grubb's novel, 'The Night of the Hunter'
- 'The Godfather' from Mario Puzo's novel, 'The Godfather'
- 'Casablanca' from Murray Burnett's play, 'Everybody Comes to Rick's'
- 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' from Peter George's novel, 'Red Alert'
- 'To Catch a Thief' from David Dodge's novel, 'To Catch a Thief'
- 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' from Pierre Boulle's novel, 'Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï' (one of his other novels was also adapted into a film, 'Planet of the Apes')
- 'Fail-Safe' (two versions, one by Sidney Lumet in 1962 and one by Stephen Frears in 2000) from Eugene Burdick & Harvey Wheeler's novel, 'Fail Safe'