Category 1: Don't even get me started on Conan the Barbarian, Scott! Let's take Robert E. Howard's origin-story, completely throw it out the window, make our own movie about some slave with muscles and call it Conan...yeah! That's it! It'll be great! NOT!

Oh, and we'll move Valeria completely out of context and have her meet conan 20 years early...no one will notice.

Oh, and Conan will have brown hair, too...no one will notice that it's not black.

Etc, etc, etc.

Category 2: Name of the Rose...while it had to be trimmed to make it fit into its 2 hour & 11 minute run-time, both the book and the movie are satisfying.

Category 3: First Blood...sure the story was changed a little (Rambo doesn't kill any of the police, directly, in the movie, making him a more sympathetic character) and he lives at the end (instead of Trautman killing him) but the overall theme of "the alienated veitnam vetran" came through loud and clear. The movie was simply a more interesting experience than the novel.

-Wapitikev

There were a lot of good things about Conan, but it hasn't aged well in terms of film technology. I still enjoy it, as I do most things John Milius has done. I will blame the bad on Oliver Stone's involvement.

Hey, it still beats "Red Sonja"!

Also agree on "The Name of the Rose". Both really good.

I prefer the Morrell novel, although the first film wasn't bad, although Stallone's ego-tripping probably hurt it. And the first film can be blamed for the ones that came after it...

(Original post deleted.)

EDITED: Re-reading his orginal post, I think I misinterpreted what KRW wrote - sorry, KRW! That was stupid of me.

There were a lot of good things about Conan, but it hasn't aged well in terms of film technology. I still enjoy it, as I do most things John Milius has done. I will blame the bad on Oliver Stone's involvement.

Hey, it still beats "Red Sonja"!

I enjoy watching Barbarian as a swords and sorcery adventure movie but I refuse to aknowledge that the Conan referred to in the movie is the Conan from the novels and short stories, since it is clear from the storyline that it is not.

Milius is likely the least culpable but he is still a accessory to the crime.

Red Sonja wasn't great but it was as good as The Sword and the Sorcerer and better than Beastmaster or the host of other pretenders that followed.

Hopefully Robert Rodriguez's version of Sonja (with Rose McGowan) is better. Doug Aarniokoski (first assistant director on Rodriguez projects like Dusk 'til Dawn, Spy Kids, et. al.) is directing...but he is also responsible for directing Highlander: Endgame (ouch).

I'm not holding my breath.

-Wapitikev

(I have the same problem when I power up my Commodore VIC-20, by the way.)

The VIC-20 is a lightweight when it comes to sucking from the Grid. The machines I mention were heavy-duty business machines "back in the day". 8" floppy drives and all. The Mod 2 is the same kind of machine Asimov typed his last 150 or so books on (he never "upgraded" if that's the right word, to a PC) and the T6k was a multi-user system with the port of Unix that Microsoft won't admit to having made (and never really supported, that was my job at Radio Shack). Each suck over half a kilowatt just idling. Based on the serial numbers, the Mod 2 came off the line in early 1980 and the T6kHD was mid-1985. The Mod 2 is what I really learned word processing on, and the T6k is the successor to the Model 16 that started me in Unix system administration (but I'm not holding a grudge). They don't spend a lot of time fired up lately, but they both still work.

Yeah, the ultimate Tarzan movie has never been made. He's always treated as jungle naif or borderline mentally
challenged, never with the power and majesty you see in the books (or the excellent Kubert comics adaptation).

Been a Burroughs reader since 1965. The closest to an adequate adaptation was the TV series about a decade back with Joe Lara.

I am the only American who has never seen "Jaws", so I'll have to withhold comment on #3.

No you're not. I saw the trailers and never had interest in the movie. I'd read something else by the author so never bothered with the book either.

The VIC-20 is a lightweight when it comes to sucking from the Grid. The machines I mention were heavy-duty business machines "back in the day". 8" floppy drives and all. The Mod 2 is the same kind of machine Asimov typed his last 150 or so books on (he never "upgraded" if that's the right word, to a PC) and the T6k was a multi-user system with the port of Unix that Microsoft won't admit to having made (and never really supported, that was my job at Radio Shack). Each suck over half a kilowatt just idling. Based on the serial numbers, the Mod 2 came off the line in early 1980 and the T6kHD was mid-1985. The Mod 2 is what I really learned word processing on, and the T6k is the successor to the Model 16 that started me in Unix system administration (but I'm not holding a grudge). They don't spend a lot of time fired up lately, but they both still work.

I learned to word process on one of the old Burroughs computers (no relation to Edgar Rice, but a slight relation to William S.), one of the more bizarre purchasing decisions by the federal government. Man, the tiny little screens they had back then...

Yeah, KRW...jeez, dude, that cuts kind of close to home.

I interpretted his comment as re-reading books isnt a bad thing, not that killing cops isnt a bad thing. :confused:

That sounds more like the sort of thing I would say milewinkgrin:

No you're not. I saw the trailers and never had interest in the movie. I'd read something else by the author so never bothered with the book either.

You've never seen Jaws??

Really? Honestly? Truly? :confused:

I learned to word process on one of the old Burroughs computers (no relation to Edgar Rice, but a slight relation to William S.), one of the more bizarre purchasing decisions by the federal government. Man, the tiny little screens they had back then...

William S. Burroughs' grandfather founded the Burroughs Adding Machine Company. In a way, I've had two rounds of employment with them. When I was fresh out of the USAF, 1978-9, I worked for Memorex in Santa Clara, a couple years after I left, Burroughs bought the Memorex computer products division (and Tandy, for whom I was working by then, bought the consumer products division). Then in 1990-1 I worked for Unisys at the old Convergent Technologies campus in San Jose.

To partially resume the thread, the movie adaptation of The Naked Lunch was some kinda strange. Of course it didn't follow the plot of the book, because nobody has ever been able to find a plot in the book.

You've never seen Jaws??

Really? Honestly? Truly? :confused:

Really, honestly, truly. Don't have any plans to see it during my remaining lifespan, either.