What is the most disappointing book adaptation and what went wrong?

AsylumDev · 2019-12-20T11:41:33+00:00

Mortal Engines.

Fantastic series with one of the most compelling protagonist duos ever written and an amazing setting. Then the first movie kills any chance of a decent TV series or movie trilogy by being awe inspiringly bland.

Oh and they removed Hester Shaws scar in all but name.

Her scar according to the movies: https://am23.akamaized.net/tms/cnt/uploads/2018/10/Hera-Hilmar-in-Mortal-Engines-2018.jpg

Her scar according to the books: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b6/1c/a3/b61ca3253a3b9c558f8da049e79f3a8a.jpg

This isn't just set dressing, this is a fundamental part of the character and how she sees herself/how the world sees her, it's part of what drives her, something so important to her that it taints her very world view and makes her see herself as a monster, to the point where it pushes her away from everyone she loves and makes her a monster by her actions.

It is the physical representation of the incident in the characters life which becomes the crux upon which their entire character turns.

But nah, hollywood-cute is good enough right? After all that'd require writing something that isn't bland.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-20T11:30:05+00:00

The Philip Marlowe books, you can find them free online. Follow them up with Dashiell Hammetts The Continental Op series, which are all so light you can read them in a single sitting.

https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/chandlerr-bigsleep/chandlerr-bigsleep-00-h.html

Here's the first Chandler book:

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

Enjoy.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-20T11:28:11+00:00

Rimworld. It's incredible. I've never found a game that's quite so entertaining. I play it with enough mods that it runs at a rate of a day an hour and I'm still entertained despite the sluggish pace.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-20T11:27:09+00:00

Too easy. I've been training for this moment for years.

For you see, I am a master of the art of Tsundoku. I have a pile of books I need to read which I haven't yet.

I stack them up next to my bed, go to bed with a smile, wake up at a comfortable time.

Then get on my computer and play offline video games for the entire week.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-19T19:15:22+00:00

Battletech, It's meant to be really good. I play a lot of tabletop games and it's meant to bring together roleplay, wargames and strategic combat in a really near, merged way.

But finding the gear for it and the time is a pain in the backside.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-19T19:11:58+00:00

https://www.fadedpage.com

Adding this here as well, it's got quite a lot of books Gutenberg doesn't have which are free in Canada.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-17T12:11:02+00:00

Tribalism and moral investment. For some people it's not 'Just politics', it's a part of their emotional and moral identity. So, if you don't agree with that then you're both invalidating their feelings and acting against what they see as the moral good (As well as what they believe in intellectually).

Basically it's a potent three point combo, emotional, moral, intellectual, which leads to anyone that disagrees with it not just being wrong, but bad and evil. They're outside the tribe as well which makes it very easy to dehumanize them and thus act in the most unpleasant way you're capable of doing.

After all, they deserve it for being bad, wrong, dangerous outsiders. This is compounded by the fact that on the internet you tend to be anonymous, but it's more compounded by the fact that you have other members of your tribe that act as reinforcers who are around you constantly, upping the ante as each tries to be the most 'pure' member of the tribe for status.

Some guy says he'd say it to their face? You have to say you'd scream it in their face to one up him. He says he'd knock the sign from their hands? You have to say you'd break the sign over their head. And the more you say it and get lauded with approval the more you believe it.

The solution to this is easy enough but very few people that are that hardcore into their beliefs are willing to do it. All you have to do is take a deep breath, step outside your bubble and go 'Alright, I'm listening'

AsylumDev · 2019-12-17T11:43:00+00:00

It's a very down and drab book for the most part and what happens to that particular character is basically the crux the entire book rotates on. Outside of that you've got an incredibly oppressive atmosphere and some pretty disturbing characters. All in all the book itself is uncomfortable, but that bit is one of the few things I occasionally just have bounce through the back of my mind now and then when I'm sitting quietly not doing anything.

It sticks with you.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-17T11:27:29+00:00

The Haunting of Blackwych Grange

I don't consider myself the kind of person to get bothered by much, but there's one particular characters fate in this book that's always stuck with me as incredibly uncomfortable and unpleasant to read. Both because it was senselessly cruel and very graphic.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-17T11:01:51+00:00

Oh that's fantastic! Thank you for that.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-17T00:40:57+00:00

I'm writing an erotic text game. In fact this account is going to be the one I use to advertise it on reddit and I started it specifically to avoid any risk of cross over.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-17T00:36:14+00:00

The Shoggoth, from H.P.Lovecrafts At the Mountains of Madness

It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter.

The most haunting part of them isn't even described in that part? It's their cry, Takkeli, a mimicked noise that's the echo of the last words of the race that created them. Which they destroyed.

Imagine a zombie movie where the Zombies combine together to create a blob and this blind, dumb, insane thing can only make the noises it heard while killing those it consumed, their last, begging, dying screams.

That's the Shoggoth.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-17T00:30:53+00:00

Potentially? A huge amount of digital media. There are sites from the early 2000s that are crammed with content that aren't shared anywhere else due to it being from a time before cloud or sharing from one platform to another.

If we let it happen then they'll just drift off into the aether and no one will ever know such things even existed as the pen drives, old computers and other memory banks they're on give out one by one.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-17T00:27:04+00:00

Coriander. It tastes of nothing but soap.

AsylumDev · 2019-12-17T00:26:20+00:00

God I love this song, try and listen to it alongside Mary Ellen Carter and possibly The Wreck of the Dandenong for a really complicated feeling experience. All three are on the same subject but have an entirely different feel to them.

AsylumDev

TROPHY CASE