Re: the book was....

[Don Smith <dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu>]

Steve wrote:
> Then there are adaptations like "Fight Club" which diverges so far as to
> completely change the ending and purpose but which works somehow as a
> different story.

Oh, my goodness, I completely forgot to include Fight Club in my list of novels
I've read because I saw the movie.  I thought they both were brilliant.
Definitely one of the best film adaptations of a novel I've ever seen.  In what
way did you find the movie changed the *purpose* of the novel?

> Factoid: Die Hard is based on a very fine neo-noir novel and manages to
> completely change the point of the story from one that shows the futility of
> a society based on violence to one that requires violence for salvation.

Really?  What's it called?  One of the things that always bothered me about Die
Hard (although it is one my "guilty pleasures" as a well-constructed,
well-executed thriller) is that it implies the way for the officer to get over
the trauma of shooting a kid is to shoot someone else (preferably someone
*really* bad).  That way he can get more comfortable with the idea of shooting
someone, and this is his peculiar form of "redemption" in the context of the
film narrative.  So I would like to read the book.

-- 
Don Smith                           Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu                                 http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/

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