Literary works that should never be adapted to film or TV again. Club. Last year’s news that Stretch Armstrong (the stretchy- muscleman children’s toy from the ’7. Battleship the strategy game were both headed for big- screen film adaptations finally, conclusively proved what malcontents have been saying for decades: Hollywood is officially out of ideas. Further proof has come in recent years via a renewed rash of sequelitis, and endless adaptations of literary works that have already been wrung through the Hollywood grinder, in some cases dozens of times. Honestly, Hollywood, it’s time to knock it off and quit returning to the same old wells over and over. The world doesn’t need a fifth Indiana Jones movie, or any more big- screen retreads of ’8. And it especially doesn’t need yet another weak reconceptualization of Romeo And Juliet, or yet another stuffy screen version of Pride And Prejudice to join the wave of them that started back in 1. In fact, here’s a list of just a few of the literary works that have officially been done to death—and some recommendations for where to find newer, fresher stories just waiting on the page. Book: Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking- Glass. Adaptations to date: More than three dozen, notably including the 1. Disney musical version and big- event 1. TV miniseries. Other countries have released their own versions as well; there’s a 2. Japanese animated adaptation, an Argentinean mime version, and nationalist versions like 1. Alice Of Wonderland In Paris and 1. Alice In Spanish Wonderland. Plus, of course, the upcoming Tim Burton sequel to Carroll’s original stories. Definitive version: The Disney version is probably best known. While it has its own charms, though, it liberally diverges from Carroll’s text, like most Disney adaptations. Why steer clear? The Alice books are simultaneously two of the most- adapted novels in history, and among the most habitually worst- adapted. Film and TV versions necessarily tend to elide over the original books’ densely packed puns and references, and instead concentrate on spectacle or on drearily plodding through a series of events that should be sprightly and disorienting, yet somehow not manic. It’s a difficult balance, and one that directors rarely seem to get right. What’s left behind is a bunch of creative, fun ideas that have had the creativity and fun leached out through repetition. How many times can we watch Alice grow, shrink, and boggle at it all? What to adapt instead? Other Carroll works, including his novel Sylvie And Bruno and his poem “The Hunting Of The Snark,” bring in as much clever nonsense, wordplay, and episodic adventure, but are less line- by- line familiar. Book: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. Adaptations to date: Versions of Holmes first appeared onstage in 1. TV shows, and movies, right up to Guy Ritchie’s outsized, manic 2. Sherlock Holmes. There have also been more than a few back- door adaptations, including the medical mystery series House, about a drug- addled doctor with a stoic best friend, abominable social skills, and a gift for noticing clues that other miss. Definitive version: The image of Holmes as a refined gentleman with a deerstalker hat and a calabash pipe dates back to the early 2. Basil Rathbone in a 1. The Three Musketeers(2004) Dual Audio ReviewsA Time Skip is similar to the Distant Finale, but rather than coming at the end of a series, occurs somewhere in the middle, usually between seasons or Story Arcs. A Time Skip can also happen when a series gets a sequel that. Here are the latest articles published on Tom’s Hardware. See the latest news, reviews and roundups and access our tech archives. Added Title Size RTS S L DL Subcat; : Mickey.Donald.Goofy.The.Three.Musketeers.2004.HEVC.720p.BluRay.DTS.x265-LEGi0N T That's Entertainment! The Trilogy (1974) DVDRip VOSE That's Entertainment (Jack Haley Jr., 1974) SATrip VO Los 300 Espartanos (1962) DVDRip Dual Tierras Lejanas (Anthony Mann, 1955) DVDRip Dual Las Tribulaciones de un chino. T-The Grey (2011) Dual Audio BRRip 720P HD The Wolverine (2013) Dual Audio BRRip 720P HD Thor (2011) Dual Audio BRRip 720P HD The Hills Have Eyes (2006) Dual Audio BRRip 720P HD The Campaign (2012) Dual Audio BRRip 720P HD The. The later Rathbone films modernize Holmes in an ill- advised attempt to serve as wartime propaganda, but the first two—The Hound Of The Baskervilles and The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes—stay reasonably true to Doyle. Why steer clear? Because Holmes is so damned hard to get right. He’s a prickly character, difficult to make likeable, and Doyle’s original stories tend to be too detailed to render onscreen without becoming either tedious or simplistic. Even the Rathbone films pale in comparison to the source material, and though there have been some entertaining uses of Holmes in non- canonical ways over the years, attempts to make a straightforward Holmes movie or TV series nearly always disappoint. What to adapt instead? For 2. 0 years now, Hollywood has been trying to return to making movies about Gregory Mcdonald’s offbeat reporter/detective Fletch, having already made one great one and one lousy one. It’d be nice if that could get worked out. Barring a Fletch reboot, how about a series based on Mcdonald’s other major creation, police detective Flynn? Book: The Bible. Adaptations to date: Wikipedia’s list of films based on the Bible contains 1. There have been many films about the Ten Commandments, including two by Cecil B. De. Mille (from 1. Salomes; two big Ben Hurs (including the 1. Best Picture Oscar); acres of Christs ranging from Ted Neeley’s hippie turn in Jesus Christ Superstar (1. Jim Caviezel’s bloody one in Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ (2. That’s (mostly) not counting allegories—and leaving Christmas out of it. But for the sake of simplicity, let’s go with Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation Of Christ (1. Willem Dafoe’s very human performance as Jesus. Why steer clear? Sure, these stories have been the bedrock of Western civilization for centuries. But the last couple of times a big name has tackled Jesus’ persecution—the above- named Scorsese and Gibson films—they’ve been greeted with loud protests from religious organizers. That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t make the movies they want to make, but so many Bible movies exist already, it’s worth wondering whether the trouble is worthwhile. What to adapt instead? We’ve seen movies about the Dalai Lama (1. Kundun, another Scorsese), but we’re still waiting for that modern blockbuster epic about the Buddha. How about it, Marty? Book: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Adaptations to date: Too many to number, including Robert Zemeckis’ recent 3. Put the book back on the shelf: Literary works that should never be adapted to film or TV again. The Three Musketeers(2004) Dual Audio TorrentD animated version and very special Christmas episodes of nearly every sitcom produced between 1. Definitive version: Movie buffs tend to be split between the 1. Scrooge (the latter with Alastair Sim, arguably the definitive Ebenezer), but the truest take on the book may well be the 1. TV A Christmas Carol, with George C. Scott as the crotchety miser who receives a life- changing visit from three ghosts. Why steer clear? When a story’s hero has been portrayed by Mr. Magoo, Fred Flintstone, Daffy Duck, and Oscar The Grouch, it may be time to concede that the source material has been picked clean. What to adapt instead? Of the four novellas featured in Stephen King’s 1. Different Seasons, three have become movies. Is Frank Darabont available? Book: H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Adaptations to date: A 1. BBC teleplay, 1. 94. TV movie starring Three’s Company’s Priscilla Barnes, a 1. Leonard Nimoy, a 2. BBC radio broadcast, numerous science- fiction “sequels,” and looser adaptations like 1. Back To The Future. Definitive version: There doesn’t seem to be one faithful adaptation that’s widely established as the best, although the 1. George Pal film version seems to be the most accepted mainstream version relatively faithful to the book, at least more so than its 2. The forthcoming Hot Tub Time Machine reminds us how much we don’t need another time- machine project anytime soon. The subject of time travel has become more of a slapstick movie gimmick, and less of what Wells intended: a social satire and serious examination of what the future might hold. How would The Invisible Man play in a world where more and more people strive to be increasingly visible to all? Book: George Orwell’s 1. Adaptations to date: Three, all made in Britain: a 1. BBC, and two theatrical versions, released in 1. Definitive version: Though it’s the only version made in color, the 1. Orwell’s Airstrip One, and John Hurt looks suitably haunted as the rebellious Winston Smith. Why steer clear? Elements of Orwell’s nightmare vision of the future have seeped into every aspect of pop culture—and when they aren’t being endlessly recycled in any film set in a dystopic society, they’ve been euthanized via associations with properties like the international reality- TV phenomenon Big Brother and the comedic BBC talk show Room 1. And while the film adaptations of 1. Big Brother Is Watching You” posters, which played a large part in the work of artist Shepard Fairey), it must be remembered that one of the most crucial points the novel makes is that words have tremendous power—thus the reductive goals of Newspeak. Not to sound like the conspiracy theorists that love to throw the word “Orwellian” around, but wouldn’t any further removal of Orwell’s message from his words be comparable to what his Ministry Of Truth plans to do to other great works of British literature? What to adapt instead? It’s been pointed out that no recent cinematic projection of the future is positive, so there’s no reason to abandon dystopia on film. The society portrayed in Lois Lowry’s The Giver has familiar trappings—non- biological family units, emotional suppression, omnipresent surveillance—but the way in which the true nature of the novel’s false- utopia is revealed to its colorblind protagonist (and the process by which he receives the memories of what came before) invite a film adaptation. One has been stuck in development hell since 1. IMDB thinks is coming out next year. Book: J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Adaptations to date: Barrie’s original stage play and subsequent musical versions remain regional- theater favorites, and Barrie’s concept and characters have inspired both direct and indirect film adaptations, including Walt Disney’s 1. Steven Spielberg’s 1. Pan grows up” blockbuster Hook, and dueling 2. P. J. Hogan’s authorized Peter Pan and Damion Dietz’s unauthorized modernization, Neverland. Definitive version: While the Disney movie pre- dates it, the 1. Peter Pan was more popular for a long stretch, thanks to a televised production that was re- staged and re- aired periodically throughout the ’5. For a certain generation, the name Peter Pan will always conjure images of a wired- up Mary Martin flying around.
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