Which movie or tv novelizations are worth a read? > Likes and Comments

Hey Shields!

Do you have any recommendations for good science fiction or fantasy movie/tv novelizations? Preferably ones who stray a bit or more from the source material (but are not just new stories set in that universe). What would be worth a read?


I really would like to explore this "genre"...

Not quite on track for your question, but "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was originally written as a radio serial. Converting it to other media (books and TV) have frankly, from my point of view, NOT been successful!
The radio original was an excellent example of 'the pictures are better because they are inside your head' - which adequately dismisses the film/TV versions, but ought to have meant the books were OK; sadly they fell short.

As an Old who grew up in the 1970s & 80s, I read a lot of movie novelizations for the simple reason that if you missed the movie when it was in the theater and/or when it aired (badly edited and stuffed full of commercials) on network TV, that was your only way to experience the movie.

Alan Dean Foster, at the time, was the god of novelizations.

Ones I remember fondly include Alien and Outland (both of which I read because I was too young to actually see the R-rated movies in the theater) and of course Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (credited to Lucas but ghost-written by Foster) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which I always thought was written by Foster, but which apparently was actually written by Gene Roddenberry himself.

Novelizations of the movie, not continuations? For that the Capo di Tutti Cappa has to be the novel 2001, which follows the same story (but goes to Saturn instead of Jupiter) and provides a rather different take on the same events.

I'll provide an un-recommend for the novelization of Total Recall, which Piers Anthony seems to have dashed off in a weekend.

OTOH if you wanna go with continuation novels, I'll join you! I never read Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the first Star Wars book. Alan Dean Foster goodness, with a plot entirely thrown away by later movies! Tagged it in the library recently. It'll take about eight weeks to come in.

I'll disagree with Allen on the HHGTG books, but each to their own. And it may have helped the books that I read the books before hearing the radio plays. I agree with the others on 2001 (and that is a bit of unique one in this category, considering how it was written), and the 1977 Star Wars one.

At first I got confused and thought Taloni was talking about the PKD short story Total Recall was based on, but then realized I was mistaken. Sounds like that was an interesting game of telephone to get from short story, to screen play and movie, and then to novel.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Capo di Tutti Cappa"

The Boss of All the Range Hoods?

😂😆😂

Yeah, I also enjoyed the novel 2001 and it's sequels more than the movies.
Way, way back I read some adaptations of some episodes of the original Star Trek written by James Blish that were pretty good.

Jan wrote: "Hey Shields!

Do you have any recommendations for good science fiction or fantasy movie/tv novelizations? Preferably ones who stray a bit or more from the source material (but are not just new stor..."

The best novelization that’s not a continuation I’ve ever read is Escape from New York by Mike McQuay.

This book is the very definition of badass. It just drips with Mickey Spillane over-the-topness and is propulsive in ways the best noir thrillers are.

Consider the opening paragraph: “He was a cat. He was an ironbar fistload in a hard right hand. He was rough as a chisel and relentless as a jackhammer. He was Snake Plissken and he was running for all his worth.”

I mean, Got-Dang if that don’t throw down the gauntlet I don’t know what does. When they give Plissken his machine gun, McQuay writes, “Snake with a gun is like Samson with long hair.”

And, to fulfill Jan’s desire for adding more to the source material, we find out the Crazie that Snake encounters in the movie is actually… well, read it to find out. 😁

A youtuber HasteWriting recommended Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith (comparing it to Nophek Gloss).

The Red Dwarf novels I think fit your criteria.

I am very sorry I haven't replied yet, I have been sick the last few days!

Alan Dean Foster really seems to be the godfather of movie adaptations! Wow! Thanks for pointing me towards him! Alien and Star Wars sound like good candidates!

But Splinter in the Mind's Eye has me very intrigued even though it's not what I was originally looking for, 😅

And Escape from New York sounds like a pulp masterpiece!

Seems like a crazy world out there in adaptation land. I just read that in the Raiders if the lost Arc there is a post-coital scene with the female student with the writing on her eyelids. Not sure if I need things like that in my Indy adaptation, but it sure is a decision!

Jan wrote: "I am very sorry I haven't replied yet, I have been sick the last few days!

Alan Dean Foster really seems to be the godfather of movie adaptations! Wow! Thanks for pointing me towards him! Alien an..."

Hope you feel better soon. The ick this year has been awful.

One of the interesting things about novelizations is that they are almost always written long before the film is finished, sometimes even before filming begins and going off the script. So in the case of Alien, Parker says that the xenomorph has huge eyes. Which of course the final design by H.R. Giger didn’t, not having eyes at all. (Which makes it scarier to me.)

Coincidentally, this video just dropped on YouTube about where the original xenomorph costumes ended up: https://youtu.be/zvkPuYGiP8Y?si=gbgiA...-

I re-read Splinter of the Mind's Eye not too long ago and it reaffirmed that Lucas was making things up as he went along, given Luke and Leia’s relationship in it. It’s a solid enough story but it doesn’t feel “Star Warsian” as we’ve come to know it. It has a very 1970s SF feel to it. But I’m impressed with the story Foster turned in given the constraints he was under: don’t advance the relationships, don’t kill anyone from the movies, can’t use Han and Chewie, etc.

By the way, I found the Escape from New York book online in PDF form. Since Mike McQuay died way too young at 45 several decades ago and John Carpenter doesn’t get money from book sales, I don’t have moral qualms about reading it for free.

http://www.theefnylapage.com/pressefn...

Adding to my comment above, McQuay was working from the original screenplay, and the opening scene was cut from the movie. It doesn’t really add much to the story, but it’s cool to have in the novelization.

https://youtu.be/BsLT-zRWWdQ?si=8ruuo...

Yeah, the Star Wars novelization includes a number of scenes that didn't make the final cut of the movie, some of which got restored in the Special Edition (some of the Biggs stuff; Han confronting Jabba); and it also gives the Emperor's name as Palpatine somewhere on the very first page, so when I saw Phantom Menace many years later, I knew _something_ was up.

(Well, that and the fact that they cast the guy who'd played the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.)

Joseph wrote: "Yeah, the Star Wars novelization includes a number of scenes that didn't make the final cut of the movie, some of which got restored in the Special Edition (some of the Biggs stuff; Han confronting..."

I think most of these are also in the BBC/ NPR radio drama of it. And you even have Hamil and Daniels reprising their roles. Now it is also several hours longer then the original film, so it could include those. But I still love that production. Empire was also good, but closer to the film. And the ROTJ came out a decade after the movie, and did not have Hamil.

Another thing I've enjoyed reading is screenplays. Things like Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays.
I also have a early script from Star Trek VI. It was fun reading that before I saw the movie and noting the changes.

John (Nevets) wrote: "I think most of these are also in the BBC/ NPR radio drama of it. And you even have Hamil and Daniels reprising their roles. Now it is also several hours longer then the original film, so it could include those. But I still love that production. Empire was also good, but closer to the film. And the ROTJ came out a decade after the movie, and did not have Hamil.
"

Yeah, that first Star Wars audio drama expanded things even further than was in the book or the script, with more backstory for Leia and I think they actually showed the Death Star interrogation scene?

Joseph wrote: "Yeah, that first Star Wars audio drama expanded things even further than was in the book or the script, with more backstory for Leia and I think they actually showed the Death Star interrogation scene?"

They did. I remember it distinctly. It showed how Leia fought back against it.

I didn't remember that it was more than what was in the novelization. But I only read that once, a long time ago.

Audible is running a two for 1 credit sale. And I noticed the Alien and Aliens novelizations are included if anyone is interested.