I'm afraid I can't wait until a second viewing before discovering any changes.
They pop out at me right away!
gP, thanks for sharing that initial Lewis quote. I haven't seen that version of
King Solomon's Mines but I have seen the end of the 1985 one. I've read the book, and this film completely confused me. It's a kind of spoof of
Indiana Jones - nothing at all like the book. And not at all a good film, in my opinion.
I remember when first hearing about Disney's
The Princess and the Frog that I thought the general plot (the woman kissing the frog also turns into a frog) sounded exactly like a book I'd read. As it turns out, the book
The Frog Princess is credited as inspiring the film. All they've kept is that central theme. Another interesting adaptation is
How to Train Your Dragon. The plot of the film is completely different to that of the book, though they keep Hiccup's character. Yet I like these films a lot. They're good stories, particularly the latter.
An adaptation I did not like (thanks wagga for the Shirley Temple mention) is both the Shirley Temple and the 1995
A Little Princess movies. I mention them together because at the core they are very similar; the latter is based on the earlier movie as much as it is on the book. This was hugely distressing for me, as, having read the book years before and having been disappointed by the Temple version I watched the 1995 one in growing horror ... The newer one is a good film, but it isn't the same story as the book.
fledge1, I love the scene with Arwen and Frodo too. I think LotR is, for me, a great case study of when changes can be made to create a good story and stay faithful to the book.
In terms of what's too far, it's so dependent on the individual. Storytellers are used to playing with characters and scenes to make a story better. It's easy to move quite far from an original idea without really meaning to. I was storyboarding for a short film idea and some of the other artists and I were exploring various ideas beyond the script, and a lot of these ideas were brought in and reinforced which changed the original story in a way that we thought was good. The director came in and said 'No' and took out every change, reminding us to stick to the script. In that case we had a director who knew exactly what he wanted, and we had to figure out how to tell the story he wanted to tell, even if we thought it would be easier or better to do so another way.
When I draw storyboards for corporate videos it can be a real challenge to create a visual for something that's essentially a dry bit of information about a product or company procedure. However, that's my job. I need to take that information and make it work. I can suggest small changes if I think it will smooth it out, or make more sense, but otherwise I'm tied to what the client wants.
Sometimes I think that if filmmakers challenged themselves to stick to the book they might come up with better ideas. I agree that some changes need to be made, but it seems that with a few films (particularly VDT) one change was suggested, and then another, and then another, without reference to the original material.