Badmovies.org Forum

I debated where to post this, in Bad Movies or in Good Movies. Ultimately this one won out. Why? I did the "Eine-meenie-minie-mo" thing. Simple as that.

Anyway! What does everybody here think of film novelizations? Usually they're just cash-ins, to be sure, but sometimes they can add a whole new dimension to the films (like the title character's weird crush on Elliot's mom in the novelization for E.T.). If you like them, what are some of your favorites?

Mine are:

E.T. - As I mentioned above, the wierdo factor of E.T.'s crush on Elliot's mom alone is enough to make the book worth owning. Plus I also like the way it fleshes out the character of Keys (the lead government agent) and makes him a somewhat more sympathetic character. It's been a while since I've read it, though, and I can't remember who the author is.

King Kong - Possibly the very first film novelization, written in 1932 by one Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong has since gone on to be, to my knowledge, the only film tie-in book to be regarded as something of a minor classic, getting reprinted every few decades or so, and even being part of the Modern Library Classics Line! It contains a lot of the stuff that got deleted from the final cut of the film, including the infamous chasm filled with giant man-eating creepy crawlies, and some extra encounters with dinosaurs such as a bit where Kong has it out with a bunch of triceratopes. What's not to love?

Warlords of Atlantis - Now we're getting into outright obscurity here. I'm unsure how many people were actually aware that the so-corny-it's-lovable 1978 Doug McClure sci-fi epic about Atlantis was novelized, but it's a pretty good book. Author Paul Victor seems to have been laboring under the delusion, however, that his version of the film's story would be somehow regarded a lot more highly than it ended up being, considering that the book comes complete with a preface about the history of the Atlantis myth in the real world, apparently to provide more "weight" to the ensuing cheesy story. The novel has a completely different beginning and ending (although personally I prefer the movie's ending), rearranges the order of some scenes (such as the attack by the flying fish happening earlier), and even adds a new character in the form of a fourth crew member named Chuck (who admittedly doesn't last that long). It also goes into a little more detail about the Atlantean society and makes the whole "seven cities of Atlantis" angle a lot clearer than it was in the movie.

Ghostbusters - In this case I'm referring to the book by Richard Mueller published in 1989 (to coincide with the sequel), not the original, shorter one by Larry Milne, which I have not read. Interesting, and sometimes bizarre, subplots abound in this retelling of the story of the first movie, which provides a buttload of backstory for all four of the Ghostbusters, including the fact that Ray is estranged from his family due to Peter making a pass at his sister at a family reunion. Mueller even goes as far as to make the Louis Tully character into even more of a hopeless loser/creepy stalker than he was in the film, and even expands on the infamous "Murray and Aykroyd as bums" deleted scene by including two homeless guys based on them (named Harlan and Robert) who keep turning up in the oddest places throughout the story.

I read a few film novelizations when I was younger (probably around 12 years old) and I found them to be terrible.  They are usually written by hack writers out for a quick buck.  The ones I remember reading are:

* GREASE - Awful and nothing like the move;
* THE BAD NEWS BEARS - They cleaned up the swearing and racial slurs because the book was aimed at kids;
* THE STING - They took an excellent movie and turned it into a crappy book.

These days, I avoid books whenever they say, "based on the movie . . . "

The most interesting one I read was.  Dean Koontz's The Funhouse, simply because it was Dean Koontz adapting a movie.

For some reason, some novelisations that I have read [and enjoy] have been a good read, even if they were total crap.

At the moment I'm sort of plugging my way through 'Aliens' which although is far from a classic, does give a bit more depth to the characters.

I borrowed it from a friend and he has all the Aliens 'books' and Mad Max 1 and 2.  I'm sure they are terrible.

Of all of the ones that I have read, the best is probably 'Tomorrow Never Dies'.  Adds alot more to a movie that otherwise didn't really have a lot of substance.  I was actually quite surprised that the novelisation actually improved on the movie, rather than blank cut and pasted it like normal.

But yeah, most are just cash-in ploys, but sometimes worth a look if you're bored and have a trip to take, and you just borrow it from the library or something.

Been a while since I read any novelizations. The last one IIRC was the tie-in book for Circle of Iron that I found in a used book store several years ago. It was pretty decent for what it is, added some depth to the characters, although knowing more about the Blind Man (including his name) actually took away from the story. Seemed to downplay the Buddhist and philosophical elements in favor of the quest and action, one of the things I liked in the movie actually. The humor that was added to the script was missing, although I wish they had included a little since the book needed it.

I remember in high school several of us reading the novelizations of horror films like Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and the first three Nightmare on Elm Street films, which were published in one omnibus edition (all three were short, barely 100 pages each I think). The Jason book was okay, added some backstory, a sex scene and how Cort picked up the girl in the first place, went inside the thoughts of the victims as they were killed. Also upped the sexual tension between the sheriff's daughter and the hero, including a car ride with his head buried in her lap so no one will know he's in the car with her. But for that scene to work (he's staring at her crotch during the trip) he'd have to turn his head around like in The Exorcist or sit really awkwardly in the passenger seat. But to hell with logistics, a girl in skin tight jeans is a girl in skin tight jeans.

The Nightmare books were so-so, I remember little of the first one. The second one played up the "gay seduction" subtext of Freddie and the male lead even more than the movie. And Freddie's claws burst out of the chest of a different character at the end on the bus ride to hell. The third one was more about action than horror, but is probably the best of the three.

I remember reading the tie-in book for Outland, I actually liked it better than the movie. Follows the story pretty well, but gives more background to the operation of the mining operation and how people live and function (or don't) there.

 I read quite a few in High School too.It was easy book report material...andI could always cut out the pictures and put them in the book report,which was fun...
 
 I read alot of them then,like NIGHT of the LIVING DEAD,Clash of the TITANS, the 1976 KING KONG (Why...I don't know...),Most of which didn't have any distinctive style.
  I remember reading Pierre Boulle's PLANET of the APES...and disapointed that it was nothing like the movie...they were all French! And the humans talked...aLOT!

I had the same experience when I was a kid. Where was the trial?  Where was Zira? ...and where the hell was Nova?!? :wink:

Years of appreciation and study put the production of the entire pentalogy in perspective for me.  I'd advise any fans of the movies to seek out the behind scenes stories...Paul Dehn's script issues, AP Jacobs and the magic subsequent halving budgets, Natalie Trundy(as much a fixture in the series as Roddy)...one of the greatest making of stories around.

I was working at the bookstore when the APES remake came out.  It had sparked a little revival of interest in the Boulle book.  People poured in to snag it and I had to warn a few of them not to be surprised by the vast difference between the book and what they had presumed about it.

So many people are surprised to see just how much of the 68 film is Rod Serling's (and Michael Wilson).  In fact, if you're familiar with Twilight Zone at all, the 'Serlingisms' literally jump off the screen in APES.  The final shot being the gimme.

D'oh forgot to mention...

Some of the novelizations I've accumlated...

AMERIKA - the novel of the controversial ABC miniseries about the Red take-over of the USA.  Pretty straightforward dump of the script.  I've been hunting a decent boot on DVD for a little while now.

STAR TREK IV - another basic cash-in, notable for some key little scenes..one, where as the crew members walk thorugh 1980's San Fran, Sulu spots and meets his great-great grandfather as a little boy...and another where an after-dinner mint explains quite a bit about Spock's swim.

DAWN OF THE DEAD - The jewel in my treasury.  While, like most others, it's pretty much a dump of the original script, it benefits from using an earlier version of Romero's story.  Some extra dimensions are the presence of a little puppy and a more horrific exploration of what the scientist on the tv is proposing as a strategy for handling the zombiepocalypse.

....and I must mention this,
BATMAN - the '89 novelization based on the Sam Hamm(I Am!) screenplay...complete with a subway train chase(!) and a caped crusader on horseback(!!).

I also read a bunch of those novelized movies in my time. Before VHS it was about the only way to revisit favorite movies. Now when I see some of these movies again for the first time in years I find I sometimes 'remember' scenes that were only in the novel version! To this day I'm still surprised whenever I see JAWS 2 there's no subplot about the Brody Kids learing to scuba dive or baby white sharks fighting each other in the womb.

I liked "The Funhouse" too, and for the same reason, another one that I've read is "The Abyss", liked the novelization more than the movie as it goes into detail about the motives of all the characters, From the oil drillers to the friendly aliens.

The novelizations of Alien and Aliens had some of the scenes that weren't included until the special editions came. 

I admit I have a copy of Sword and the Sorceror...

'Course, while I obviously champion movie novelizations, there are a few that are complete duds. Such as Christopher Golden's novelization of Peter Jackson's King Kong. It's little more than a rote retelling of the final draft of the script, with entire descriptive passages taken verbatim from said screenplay.

I still have a few old (and newer) novelizations on the shelf:

Battlestar Galactica - orginal TV pilot
Alien
The Thing (Carpenter version)
Dragonslayer
Krull
Back to the Future II
Star Trek V
Star Trek VI
The Abyss
Terminator 2
Willow
Event Horizon
The Chronicles of Riddick

I have not read any film adaption books. I avoid those but I think I will look into the 1932 Kong book. I briefly read a passage of Jackson's Kong and I found myself annoyed that Anna revered to the V-Rex as that, V-Rex's. I found that a little out of place since it's a made up dinosaur and I think it would have made more sense if she called them T-Rex's.

But I do hate comci book adaptions of movies. I disliked the Batman Returns comic, and the Spider-Man 2 adaption cut out too much action.

Alan Dean Foster's novelization of THE BLACK HOLE is pretty good, with a better ending than the movie.

I love my Child's Play 2 novelization. :)

I buy 'em for three reasons.

(1) They show changes in the script, from first script to last script.

(2) They fill in the plotholes in a film.

(3) And they add depth to the characters in a film.

The only thing I regret about novelizations is that they use to be done for even the most obscure films. Now, they are seldom done even for the biggest films.

Not a film, but a BBC TV show:
Red Dwarf --
Now, this is a bit of a stretch, perhaps, but this is a real chicken-or-egg one, as apparently the book was being written at about the same time the screenplays for the first TV season were being written, so it's not as if there was an initial hoo-ha and the book appears --
What is odd about this though is that while the TV series went on and on and on, the book comes to a crashing and quite dark coclusion. Very eerie.
Anyway, I love both the TV series and the book, though the way the book ends, there could never be a followup . . .
peter johnson/denny shocked

Very true PJ, the ending of the book I have [I understand there's a few though] was quite bittersweet.  Christmas never seemed so sad...

Great book and great TV series!

What was the name of that Red Dwarf book? I think I may have that.

I remember that.  Didn't they end up having their atoms discharged into a new universe on the other side of the wormhole or something.  I still think that movie could have been great if they had only dumped the worthless cute robots, dropped the Star Wars gunfights and spent more time on the ghostly drone workers. Ah, what am I saying?!?!  It was a Disney film.  Not such thing as intelligence in Disney films. I mean, they keep hiring Randy Newman, for the love of God!!!!

What ho?
No, I am quite confused now, as I thought there was only ever one, single novel called "Red Dwarf" --
If there are others, I don't know of them --
The only "Red Dwarf" book I know about was written by Doug Naylor, the same guy who wrote most of the TV series --
If there are "other" books, I really would like to know about them --
peter fan/denny WTF?

I have a copy of Red Dwarf by Grant Naylor and according to the first page they have listed "Better Than Life" as a sequel, and "Primordial Soup" as another publication as a collection of scripts.

Also forthcoming is "Last Human" the third Red Dwarf novel.  According to my copy at least.

It could all be bitter, bitter lies, but they'd have no reason to tear my dreams down.  Anyways, at this moment, since I haven't seen any other books out there, this is all purely conjecture.

Oh and I should mention that Grant Naylor may be the listed author, but is actually Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, with both collaborating on the novel.

I've only seen a few myself:

Carnosaur: I only read a few pages, but it definitly made the story more of a horror film than an "oh my god, that's a silly B movie... is it trying to be funny or horrific?" film.

Prophecy: David Seltzer's version had a heavy theme of racism between the lumberjacks, the law, and the Native Americans. John Hawks spent most of his free time avoiding lynchings. Also, the monster's design was very different- think of "The Relic", only the animal is a result of generations of mutations breeding- getting consecutively more deformed as their gene pool gets more polluted. Oh, and the deaths are more varied and realistic... Isely's is particularly nasty. The final conforntation- where Rob manages to avoid being eaten- seems a little more plausible because the animal's jaw has been shattered by a bullet, therefore hindering and form of chewing.

I read one of the Red Dwarf novelizations years ago (the first one, I think, but maybe Better Than Life) and remember seeing another one (whichever one I didn't read) on the shelves at the bookstore. I had access to the those years before the local PBS station carried the show. Just recently gave the book to the other fanboy at work who loves the series much more than me, he'd never read it. He tried to talk to me about it, had to tell him I hadn't read it in years and recalled very little.

Also gave him a novelization of the early episodes of the original Gundam anime series. Again read it since I had little access to lots of anime, especially stuff I wanted to see. I liked it enough at the time to read others if they had been published, if they were they never made it to my neck of the woods.

Then again all those Doctor Who novelizations, continuing adventures and spinoffs quit turning up years ago around here. When I would go to Huntsville, AL - about 60 miles away - I'd find a few more. When I lived in DC, I was truly shocked to see that they were going strong and was overwhelmed by just how much was out there. And pretty much any bookstore I went into had tons of them. But the show was still on there then. The books disappeared around here years before the series left our PBS station.

Well Crap!
I gotta look for these --
Another reason I love this board . . .
peter clueless/denny duh?

Are you saying they made a book based off the movie Carnosaur...or do you mean the original in which the Roger Corman movie took it as a base?

I read the original book. Not the best writing but it's certainly more entertaining than the movie, and had more dinos and action.

I'm not sure Dave, but I'm inclined to think so... I mean, who can do to a story what Corman can?

 :smile: I've been collecting books for a long time and these are the novelizations that I have on my shelves:

[Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Zulu Dawn
Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
Aliens
Outland
The Ghost & The Darkness
Juggernaut
Phase IV
Midnight Run
Ghostbusters (Milne)
Rambo First Blood Part 11
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
Halloween (1978)
Star Trek The Motion Picture
The Hellions
Operation Crossbow
Star Wars IV
The Mechanic
The Untouchables


Worst novelization ever? Lethal Weapon.

Trevor, your list looks interesting. Juggernaut is a good movie, but I always thought it would have made a better book since tension and the thoughts of the characters weigh heavy on the story.

Midnight Run is one of my favorite movies, it's probably one of the last movies I remember watching with my dad on TV, and we both enjoyed it. How's the novelization? The movie is one of the best examples I use when explaining to people that some movies are better with profanity because of how integral it is to the dialogue, the machismo, the humor, and the emotions.

The Mechanic? Seems like a book version would be pretty straightforward.

Phase IV, creepy odd movie, wonder what a novelization would be like.

Just think there might be novelizations of Lethal Weapon 3 or 4 out there.

 :smile: Hi Yaddo.

Juggernaut is one of my fave movies but the book is a let down ~ at one point, one of the characters has a bath and has, as my friend Borat would say, a "hand party" to relieve the tension. This is described in full.  :buggedout:  Yuckies.

The novelization of Midnight Run is OK, but Marvin gets killed instead of just knocked out by Serrano's goons ~ other than that, it is pretty much what you and I saw. Good movie.

Lewis John Carlino's The Mechanic is almost the same as the film but not as good ~ Arthur Bishop is a little more whacked out than Charles Bronson played him.

Phase IV by Mayo Simon is very strange indeed and very creepy ~ I will never look at ants the same way again.  :teddyr:

hey legionofpuppets can you either post or pm me with the book's ending for childs play 2?

Incidentally, bored so I felt like posting the collection of movie novelizations I own:

Ghostbusters: The Supernatural Spectacular by Richard Mueller
King Kong by Delos W. Lovelace
King Kong by Christopher Golden
Clash of the Titans by Alan Dean Foster
Van Helsing by Kevin Ryan
Gargantua by K. Robert Andreassi
Warlords of Atlantis by Paul Victor
Resident Evil: Genesis by Keith R.A. DeCandido
Resident Evil: Apocalypse by Keith R.A. DeCandido
The Empire Strikes Back by Donald F. Glut

I also have novelizations of the Resident Evil games by S.D. Perry, all save Underworld, and, oddly enough, novelizations of episodes of the Goosebumps TV series (adaptations of adaptations? Yikes):

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Conspiracy
Resident Evil: Caliban Cove
Resident Evil: City of the Dead
Resident Evil: Nemesis
Resident Evil: Code: Veronica
Resident Evil: Zero Hour
Goosebumps: The Girl Who Cried Monster
Goosebumps: The Cuckoo Clock of Doom
Goosebumps: Welcome to Camp Nightmare

Yeah, I was a huge Goosebumps fan as a kid, and I still am to a certain extent.

I'm going to be getting a few more novelizations pretty soon, specifically:

Prophecy by David Seltzer
Gremlins by George Gipe
Gremlins 2 by David Bischoff
The Blob by David Bischoff
Ghostbusters 2 by Ed Naha
The Thing by Alan Dean Foster
and
Raiders of the Lost Ark by Campbell Black

Anybody read these and wanna warn me about them in advance? The Blob's already been bought and paid for off of eBay but if anyone's read any of the other ones and thinks they're totally worthless go ahead and let me know.

I remember not being a fan of the Raiders of the Lost Ark novel, action seemed to be cut out and stupid stuff was added in. Plus they turned the big fist fighting mecanic into a kid that just ruffles Indy a little.

Sounds like the general description of the first mechanic with the wrench.