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[HotHamBoy]

I was just browsing at the B&N and saw a novelization of the movie Wonder Woman and it reminded me that these things exist.

Why would you want to read a studio-commissioned book adapted from a movie? I mean, I get the other way around - obviously. But there's a zillion books out there you could read instead.

I don't get the appeal at all.

What really, REALLY throws me for a loop are novelizations of movies based on pre-existing novels!

The novelizations of Star Wars (1977), Alien (1979) and Star Trek:The Motion Picture (1979) sold millions of copies. Even after the advent of home video, film novelizations remain popular, with the adaptation of Godzilla (2014) being included on The New York Times Best Seller list for mass-market paperbacks.

 

[Slayven]

Some times they expend on the story and have whole other scenes. Hell the transformer movie tie in books make way more sense then the movies.

 

[elrechazado]

What's the point of movie adaptation of books? Who watches them???

 

[Zap Rowsdower]

Some times they expend on the story and have whole other scenes. Hell the transformer movie tie in books make way more sense then the movies.

They also can have scenes that were cut in the final movie or concepts that were passed on.

 

[HotHamBoy]

What's the point of movie adaptation of books? Who watches them???

Come on.

 

[adj_noun]

Hey, I have a few of those.

Have some of these bad boys too. Video game novelizations wooo!

Anyhoo, they're not always just beat for beat retellings. You can get some nice worldbuilding in there; the Pacific Rim novel had more detail about that world than the movie did.

(also, if you have parents who are a stickler about rated R movies, books are a good way to skirt the law)

 

[sarcastor]

What's the point of movie adaptation of books? Who watches them???

only the illiterate and the damned.

 

[Erico]

I used to in my Scholastic Book Club orders in elementary school. I ate these up.

 

[elrechazado]

Come on.

Different mediums homeboy. Terminator novelization was the bomb for example.

 

[liquidtmd]

The Alan Dean Foster Alien ones were aces.

 

[adj_noun]

only the illiterate and the damned.

 

[Phased]

The novelization of Revenge of the Sith is actually really good. It came out before the movie did, and it explained things so much better/had better dialogue that I was genuinely disappointed when I saw the movie because it does so little of what the book does.

I actually really recommend it.

 

[Lionel Mandrake]

 

[adj_noun]

 

[Rodney McKay]

I remember reading a few of those when I was a kid.

I was big into Godzilla and I ended up reading the novel based on the 1998 US Godzilla movie. Can't remember any others, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few more.
There were some Godzilla novels I actually was really into as a kid because they were easy reads and they were basically like getting really awesome Godzilla movies that would be way too high budget to pull off in a movie (Godzilla Returns, 2000, At World's End, and vs. Robot Monsters).

I had a friend really into Star Wars and they got really excited because I think the Revenge of the Sith book came out before the movie.

 

[Anth0ny]

is there a book adaptation of street fighter: the movie: the game?

 

[adj_noun]

(Godzilla Returns, 2000, At World's End, and vs. Robot Monsters).

Those were better than they had any right to be.

 

[The Sum of Zero]

Some times they expend on the story and have whole other scenes. Hell the transformer movie tie in books make way more sense then the movies.

This right here. Though I'm still pissed how they changed the ending for Dark of the Moon to be different from the novel. Novel end would have been good enough to end the movie-verse.

Also, +1 to the mention of the ROTS novel. I remember really liking the novels, more than the movies.

 

[Lionel Mandrake]

I'm really fascinated by some of these.

 

[Rodney McKay]

Those were better than they had any right to be.

Right? There was some cool shit in them. I liked the little details, like chunks of Godzilla's skin getting blown off causing people to get radiation poisoning. They did a really good job expanding on the details of the monsters and stuff, I read these multiple times as a kid.

Shame they never published the final book in the series (Godzilla and the Lost Continent). Apparently it was written but they lost the license and couldn't publish it. It's crazy that in this day and age nobody has leaked it online by now.

 

[TAJ]

"Teach him a lesson, Sea Bass!"?

Absolutely disgusting.

 

[ghostjoke]

Just wait until you delve into the video game novelisations. The original Resident Evil has one.

 

[FUME5]

The only one I've ever bothered to read was:

Because a book based on a film based on a short story was something I had to check out.

And Piers doesn't get a chance to get creepy iirc.

 

[Wozzly]

Just wait until you delve into the video game novelisations. The original Resident Evil has one.

The Resident Evil ones based on the games were pretty good though!

 

[TetraGenesis]

I'm really fascinated by some of these.

This is the first page I've ever read of any of these movie-to-book adaptations and I feel, fittingly, dumber having done so.

 

[onken]

I always knew these existed, I remember reading the novelisation of the Jurassic Park movie when I was a kid. But thinking about it now, yeah it's a really weird idea...

I'm really fascinated by some of these.

"Teach him a lesson, Sea Bass"

Why would you mangle the best line in that scene??

 

[Kevtones]

I have one for 2001 a Space Oyssey. Pretty cool and it's a first edition apparently.

 

[Lionel Mandrake]

There's a straight-up sequel to Good Burger in book form.

 

[GAMEPROFF]

At least a bit relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDefkW2z4VU

 

[Sgt. Kabukiman]

As a kid in the pre-internet days, I used to read a lot of them because I lived in the middle of nowhere, with only one very small cinema around and access to just 5 channels on television. So I ended up reading shit like the Blade novelization, a bunch of X-Files books, Alien, Independence Day, etc. I loved them, haha. Haven't read one in the 21st century though.

Fuck, I even remember reading the Avengers novelization back when I was like 12. The 90s one with Uma Thurman. That book was so goddamn horny, it was weird. The writer must have been a leather fetishist or something because those descriptions were weird and lengthy as hell.

As a sci-fi aficionado I wanted to watch Blade Runner so badly but it was never on tv so I ended up buying the Philip K. Dick book because it had the movie poster as its cover so I wrongly assumed that it was a novelization. And that's how I was introduced to my favorite writer

 

[dickroach]

"Teach him a lesson, Sea Bass"

Why would you mangle the best line in that scene??

Yippie-Ki-Yay Mr Falcon

 

[Einchy]

There's a straight-up sequel to Good Burger in book form.

Ah yes, the famous Good Burger extended universe.

 

[kottila]

When I was a kid I was a member of a book club where I received both the novemization of Beethovens 2nd and the new karate kid.

 

[ZackieChan]

Meh, I read them all the time when I was a kid. Karate Kid part 2, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, etc. Good shit. I read that Castlevania one someone posted above, too.
Sometimes you want more time in a world that you love, especially as a kid.

 

[broncobuster]

From primary school to junior high they were great for book reports.

 

[HotHamBoy]

I'm really fascinated by some of these.

What a terrible gig these writers have.

This is a step below writing for a shitty kids cartoon selling a toy line.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

I did when I was a kid for book reports. Made them super easy.

edit: beaten by broncobuster

 

[Simmins]

 

[LordOfLore]

The book version of TFU was great.

 

[stan423321]

I assume this started before VHS market. Still, novelizations have some use cases, I imagine reading one aloud to a blind person is easier than reverse engineering screenplay based on footage.

Since there are millions of other things to read, why would you write anything (fictional)?

 

[EBE]

I've got both Terminator novelizations.
And Doom. Much better book than movie. Surprisingly so.

 

[ghostjoke]

The Resident Evil ones based on the games were pretty good though!

I've heard that. It's still bizarre that someone looked at Resident Evil and thought "this script needs to be put in a form that speaks through words alone".

 

[Alphahawk]

I'm assuming the market is largely for children. I'm basing this purely on the fact that I was attracted to these things when I was younger, and a lot of them advertised on the cover things like black and white movie stills or, even once in a while, color. It's probably a great way to get kids into reading.

 

[HotHamBoy]

I'm assuming the market is largely for children. I'm basing this purely on the fact that I was attracted to these things when I was younger, and a lot of them advertised on the cover things like black and white movie stills or, even once in a while, color. It's probably a great way to get kids into reading.

They have Junior Novelizations. I think you are right about that aspect, but a lot of these books are squarely aimed at adults - just look at some of the subject matter.

I personally had the Junior Novelization of Jurassic Park, I was obsessed with that movie. But I also had the real book and read it at that time and even then I could tell the JN version was stupid.

Although I was always an avid reader from a young age and read beyond my peer level so maybe I'm an exception.

 

[PSqueak]

Much like tie in games or comicbooks, they're made for collectors and mega fans.

 

[SigmasonicX]

NPR had an editorial about this.

 

[slick7rick]

I remember buying Spider-Man because it was released before the movie (2002 version) and my classmates asking me why I couldn't just wait for the movie haha. But it had some scenes that were not part of the movie, so that was very cool.

 

[Fluffernutter Pancake]

The Star Wars Episode III novelization is actually pretty good. The way it covers the Anakin/Obi-Wan/Dooku scene at the beginning really fleshes things out and makes it an infinitely better scene than the one in the movie itself.

Sometimes novelizations can actually elevate above the source movie material by adding background & depth to otherwise shallow characters.

 

[zeemumu]

There's also a novelization of the 3rd Transformers movie where Optimus Prime and Megatron become friends at the end and take down Sentinel and then broker a truce between the factions instead of Optimus straight up killing them both.

 

[Warm Machine]

The Alan Dean Foster Alien film novels are excellent.