I had the opposite reaction–for me several of the adaptation choices deeply rankled. I’ll concede that some changes–the attempted assassination of Bond and Vesper’s kidnapping–are more visually effective on film, and that Vesper is a richer character onscreen too. But the torture scene for me is spoiled by the intrusion of wisecracks–in the book Bond is so nearly broken he can barely speak–and the end of the Bond/Vesper relationship is overshadowed by the action scenes.
I miss the tragedy of the book, where their relationship, after a mysterious strain (Vesper’s horrified reaction when Bond reveals he was going to propose is heartbreaking in retrospect), seems to have righted itself; there is the poignant final night (“Look at me,’ she said, ‘and let me look at you’”) and then the horrible shock the next day, followed by the even greater shock of Bond’s feelings for her disappearing—a shock the movie throws away when Bond learns of Vesper’s perfidy before her death and even threatens to kill her. The film ends with Bond standing victorious over a villain Vesper posthumously helped him catch, whereas the book ends with Bond impotent and defeated and shouting hatred into a phone; I guess even in the late 2000s Fleming’s ending would have been too dark for a mass audience.
All that said, I happily concede that almost every scene adapted from GF and OHMSS works better than the original.
I don’t entirely disagree - scabby, lurid, nasty, pick-your-word, but then that’s exactly why I love the book, especially when compared to the film. The film jettisons the book’s nasty edge, replacing it with a Disney-ride experience that appeals to later Spielberg’s family-viewing sensibilities.
If the novel Jaws has a spiritual successor, it’s Crichton’s Jurassic Park. Young Spielberg’s faithfulness to the tone of the former’s source material, is in IMHO, jettisoned by older Spielberg’s franchise-creating sensibility when dealing with the latter’s.
Was Spielberg faithful to Benchley´s novel? I remember the opposite. And Spielberg himself said he only liked the third part of Benchley´s novel - and he completely changed the characters and their motivations, throwing out Hooper´s affair with Brody´s wife etc.
SAF you are correct - but I was thinking along the lines of the overall tone. By streamlining the narrative Spielberg arguably (not unlike this topic!!) improved upon the story. Straightforward, linear, monster movie.
As for Jurassic Park - I guess one could argue that he repeated the tactic, but in this case, he undersells the book. I find something to like in nearly all of Crichton’s works, and while I’m not suggesting he’s Dickens or anything, he did, with varying success, try to flesh out his summer paperback thrills with a bit more “substance” than some of his bestselling competitors.
I don’t think it’s coincidence that not one adaptation of his books improves upon, or does justice to the source. Disclosure and Rising Sun are both entertaining films (Crichton knew how to make a plot tick over) but so much of their politics which underpinned those novels, are removed or anaethesiazed. Airframe has yet to be adapted - for me both curious and yet understandable.