Re:Non-Hollywood-Butchered
Great topic! Well I really liked Lems’s Solaris, loved the Russian movie, haven’t seen the Hollywood remake.
What about the Kubrick ones (one might argue that these are not strictly Hollywood Hollywood)?
I actually much preferred Kubrick’s The Shining to King’s.
As for 2001 a Space Odyssey, well doesn’t exactly count, since the movie was based on Clark’s short story The Sentinel, but I will say that I much preferred the movie to Clark’s novel that came out after the movie — I felt the book tried to explain too much. I prefer to draw my own conclusions.
And as for Clockwork Orange, well I won’t argue which is better, I like both in a way — though I truly wish the violence wasn’t so sickeningly explicit in the film (find it too disturbing to watch all the way through now).
The Player was an excellent adaptation of a book.
I wasn’t keen on the story that Logan’s Run was based on, but really liked the movie. Yeah, I know plenty of people think it was terrible.
Oh, I actually preferred the Omen movies to the books.
Boys From Brazil and The Stepford Wives (both Ira Levin novels) were admirably remade I think — not as good as the originals though.
I can think of lots of films that improved on the source novels, but not many that were done by Hollywood.
And what about all the crap Hollywood remakes of movies and TV shows? Too many to list.