(potential spoilers to follow with any of these mentions of course)
one comes to mind immediately: The Shining
What Kubrick did with this film cannot be overstated. The perfect casting, the iconic scenes of Danny pedaling down the empty (mostly) hallways of the Overlook Hotel, Jack axing through the bathroom door. And where he diverged from the book - Jack killing Hallorann with an axe instead of knocking him unconscious with a mallet, and meeting his demise in the frozen hedge maze chasing Danny (genius) instead of a neglected creeping boiler blowing up the hotel.
The Lord of the Rings - first read that when I was kid, and when the movies were announced I scoffed at it like a snob. But Peter Jackson knocked this one out of the ballpark. He removed Tom Bombadil from the story which just never fit the narrative IMO and the anti-climactic Scouring of the Shire. And the scene with Arwen at the river bank facing off against the Black Riders did not happen that way in the book, mainly because it wasn't her. That scene was just f'n epic.
Can't say the same for The Hobbit movies though. those were awful.
one comes to mind immediately: The Shining
What Kubrick did with this film cannot be overstated. The perfect casting, the iconic scenes of Danny pedaling down the empty (mostly) hallways of the Overlook Hotel, Jack axing through the bathroom door. And where he diverged from the book - Jack killing Hallorann with an axe instead of knocking him unconscious with a mallet, and meeting his demise in the frozen hedge maze chasing Danny (genius) instead of a neglected creeping boiler blowing up the hotel.
The Lord of the Rings - first read that when I was kid, and when the movies were announced I scoffed at it like a snob. But Peter Jackson knocked this one out of the ballpark. He removed Tom Bombadil from the story which just never fit the narrative IMO and the anti-climactic Scouring of the Shire. And the scene with Arwen at the river bank facing off against the Black Riders did not happen that way in the book, mainly because it wasn't her. That scene was just f'n epic.
Can't say the same for The Hobbit movies though. those were awful.
