Why does genre fiction produce classic films...

Why does genre fiction produce classic films, yet so many adaptations of classic literature end up mediocre and forgotten?

people try to class up genre shit but then dumb down the classics

romeo + juliet was great tho

We need a TBK movie. Paul Dano as Alyosha, Dane Dehaan as Ivan, Robert Pattinson as Dmitri.

Because classic literature makes its craft an essential part of what it is, if it could be anything else it wouldn't be literature.

It's basically this + genre fiction is generally better for spectacle: spaceships and robots for sci-fi and great big battle scenes with dragons for fantasy, as examples.

There's no special explanation. The majority of adaptations are from genre fiction, because they sell the best. So you have a larger pool of movies to select from and choose some "good" ones, while ignoring a ton of bad adaptations of books you don't care about. How about Murder on the Orient Express or The Dark Tower from last year? Big budget blockbuster hopeful adaptations of major books from genre fiction that flopped and no one talks about (except annoyed fans). On the other hand, there aren't as many "classics," period, and even fewer adaptations since they don't fill seats like Michael Bay explosions and sappy romance. The simple facts of the overall low probability of a movie being "good" in the first place and a smaller sample size in literary adaptations mean there are simply going to be less of them.

Imagery.

I won't say it is the only one, but a pretty sizeable factor is the emergence of CGI being cheaper than the alternative special effects. It seems near every bigger movie post 1990s swapped practical effects and their limitations for what eventually morphed into CGI spectacle galore.
Literature, being a much slower movement in its narrative, doesn't do so well in translation to film with overblown spectacle. It is far easier and cheaper to write about the inferno of dead leaves which rain from the droopy maple in the yard, but to CGI that is both difficult and costly while also generally losing the impact of the allusion

anyone read this book/ series? I got it on audiotape after I saw a trailer for the film because The Zone and anything vaguely Roadside Picnic gets my dick hard. Narrator of book 1 is a total autist in descriptions, and plot is generally predictable but it's a comfy sort of knowable.

>romeo + juliet was great tho
Luhrmann is a hack. Everything he touches turns to shit.

>need to fit the essence of the entire book in 90 minutes
>requires a dramatic structure to work at all
>it's hard / impossible to convey complex thoughts of characters
>rhetoric of the author and experimental ways of story telling that make the book unique get lost in translation

Some books are just not translatable to film because of this. Simply because the medium is not as restricted as movies are in terms of structure.

Genre fiction has the advantage that is usually already follows an established dramatic structure similar to a movie. They usually contain quite a lot of non-essential filler stories, fan service and world building that can be cut or replaced with a few frames of establishing shots. Genre fiction often is about extraordinary places and creatures, ideas that actually benefit from being shown as still and moving images. Opposed to many examples of classic literature that are about the inside of the minds of the characters rather than the things that happen around them.

This would have been so much more popular if the name wasn't so stupid

White washing

This. Russians aren't human.

Not really. The name is fine. It looks great on a cover.

Doesn't sound good as a movie title. Sounds like a Transformers or Resident Evil movie. It's so generic and edgy.

Ah yeah as a movie. I agree. I don't think the poster is very good either. Maybe with a different look the name could have done better, but the RE comparison is apt.

I'm almost finished with it, having started it yesterday. I'm really enjoying it so far, but I've heard the 2nd and 3rd books aren't that great. Will continue to read because of the amazing covers though

Spectacle. Most audiences are cinematically illiterate, just like they are with music. Many modern movies are hardly anything more than a shape poem. That this is commercially succesful and dominates our culture means most directors never really learn or simply let themselves become hacks. The subtext that makes literature so rewarding cannot be translated onto screen without skill. Additionally, we have short attentions and are too used to montage cinema. Because literature translations rarely make money and are difficult to do, tge ones that are made usually add in cinematic flourishes that run counter to the purpose and meaning of the story, while also relying on the lazy standards of more commercially viable films.
Short version--they make too many camera cuts, they are too focused on plot, have no special effects, and lack proper rhythm.

I'm prepared to accept for discussion both that you do in fact have superior taste and that you know what you're talking about. You still come off as an unlikeable cunt.

I'd argue that something like the lord of the rings trilogy has more cinematic value than a lot of the supposed great genre fiction of the past 18 years does literary value.

That's the worst casting possible. A teenager's wet dream. Doomed to fail.

This. Film is a visual medium, talky dramas set in old boring cities aren't as entertaining as thrillers or sci-fi stories .

Older Crime novels always make GOAT films

should've been a standalone book

The first book is genuinely unique. The rest is a little run-of-the-mill spooks and body horror-ish. Easy to get wrapped up in, but definitely can't be accused of rising action. Much intrigue, little payoff.

The Brothers Karamazov would be a bad movie, it needs a lot of time to develop the characters. Would be better as a TV series probably

>genuinely unique
dude, how can you possibly say this? It's dumb fucking H.P. Lovecraft ambiguity and Roadside Picnic. It is one of the most derivative things I have ever read. You can clearly tell that the dude had no idea what any of his plotpoints would develop in to by the end of book three, it was offensive.

>dude, how can you possibly say this?
Because I read a lot of sci-fi, and compared to most of it, the pacing and the subtle injection of confusion made it stand out. It was genuinely unique.

I'm just a humble genre-fiction brainlet, but different is different.

You just gave bad advice, dude.

What can I do to improve the quality of my personal opinion?

Read more books.

I read quite a bit. I've read about twenty this year. Maybe they were the wrong ones. Perhaps I should read the ones you like.

You are trying to make this into a thing about me hating your taste, but it's not. You saying this story is unique is the thing I'm criticizing. It has direct inspirations that are huge influences on science-fiction and weird-fiction. It is no surprise that all the stupid, shallow cosmic horror shit was excised from the film because it was clearly derivative and half-baked. Has nothing to do with your taste, you're just ignorant about this thing's inspirations.

>you're just ignorant about this thing's inspirations.
No, I got all that. That's wonderful.

I just am having trouble seeing how referring to the first book as unique is some wild stretch. I've conceded both here and in the /sffg/ that the series appears to extinguish any earned intrigue in a murky, muddy "the universe is scary and unknowable lmao"-type poor-man's payoff. But Annihilation grabbed me, as it did others. It's unique, at least for the type of fare I'm used to. I suppose if I was a lovecraftian or something of the sort, it may not seem at all unique.

It grabbed me as well, and I made it through the second book even after hating the first. I think that just because it grabbed you doesn't mean that it was unique. You suggested it to someone as a book that is genuinely unique, but it appears it was just a unique encounter for you. You're saying one thing, but you are meaning another. It's not unique, but you don't read things like it often. Do what you want, but that seemed either ignorant or deceptive, or just careless.

James Franco.

This. A lot of genre fiction doesn't use the medium fully

I understood why they named the film Annihilation but Southern Reach is such a better fitting title for the work imo.

>that seemed either ignorant or deceptive, or just careless.
Probably all three. I put shockingly little effort into it. I really didn't expect to be put under the microscope. It's a wonder I'm even defending this point. Annihilation is not the hill I want to die on. It was a hit-and-run thought on the book. I saw the cover, and thought "hey, we read this, let's contribute something." And here we are.

If it helps you sleep, I recant. Annihilation was not genuinely unique. It was, in fact, highly derivative and rather pedestrian.

Roadside Picnic rip-off.

You were a disappointing conversation partner, and it wasn't because I wanted you to argue with me. I wished you wouldn't have wasted my time.

Can't be helped. Choose better next time.

Ur a goof