Give a Writer a Little Independence...

[Wifetheif]

One of my guilty pleasures is movie tie-in novelizations. Give a writer a little independence and they might very well improve the source material. The Movie tie-in novel for the 1980 Flash Gordon by Byron Cover is an R-rated take on a PG-rated film. The scene where Ming zaps Dale with his ring and is amazed at her response is a bit different in the novel. Cover has Dale flashback to her first time with the grey-haired father of one of her friends. There are scenes of oral love being exchanged in the emperor's seraglio and. at one point we are treated to Dale being picked up in an earth bar. She also informs Flash that kids are out of the question since she had her tubes tied so that she could live the party-girl lifestyle with no consequences. All of this is a novel intended for adolescent readers!
Currently, I am reading the novelization for the very bad monster movie Reptilicus. The author, Dean Owens decided to spice things up considerably. Its opening line is "Purpously she had worn the tight, gray wollen dress so he would notice the breasts he found so fascinating back in the Lapland village."
You can see where this novel is going later our hunky oil driller Sven is the object of lust by a pair of contrasting sisters. One is tall, willowy, and blonde. The other is petite, dark-featured, and envious of her older sister. Shortly after picking Sven up from the airport at the behest of her scientist father, she asks Sven, "Would you like to see me without my clothes?" She strips off and they make love in the woods, "Expertly she guided him, her body accomodating itself to the savage lance of his manhood, while the world around them spun in a riot sensation." Whew!
The producers of the movie were royally miffed at Owen as the novel was released before the movie hit the theaters and they thought that it gave the wrong impression as to what the movie was all about. If you have seen Reptilicus you know it features on of the most laughable monsters in all of cinematic history. The novelization however remains legendary and is far more entrtaining than the movie script that inspired it. Almost as legenday was the tie-in novel for "Jaws:the Revenge." That movie was so stupid and self-contradictory that the author made it about cocaine smuggling and a witch doctor who controlled the shark psychically. It all makes more sense than the plot of the actual movie where the shark has a personal vendetta against the Brodie family and follows them to Bermuda at faster than supersonic speed!
Have you ever encountered a novelization or a knockoff that was better than the original article?

 

[Voboy]

"the savage lance of his manhood"

This metaphor alone is enough to make me run and hide very far away.

 

[AchtungNight]

I like to think my fanfic stories enhance their inspirations but that’s a matter of opinion.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Almost good as the savage lance: "while the world around them spun in a riot sensation."

Yet it still gave the wrong impression to me. I keep thinking, which riot? The New York Draft Riots? Chicago in 1919? Rodney King? It's a metaphor that needs to be retired by now.

 

[SimonDoom]

I remember Reptilicus. Even for its day, when special effects for monster movies were laughably bad, it was especially bad.

Not as bad as The Giant Claw, however.

 

[NoTalentHack]

This metaphor alone is enough to make me run and hide very far away.

Shit. I always hate when I found out that someone’s used a phrase I planned for my next story.

 

[THBGato]

I think it's the other way around, but have you read Forest Gump? VERY different from the film.

 

[Wifetheif]

I think it's the other way around, but have you read Forest Gump? VERY different from the film.

Yes, the novel Forrest Gump is very odd. It includes a trip to the moon with an ape and the female astronaut, once they return to earth disappearing into the bush to become a sex slave of a native tribr. Plus Jenny gets her head shaved after she is arrested. It is remarkable they got a film script out of that mess. My original point however was about movie novelizations. Jaws is not a navelization of the movie, neither is Forrest Gump. Then there are the weird cases. Escape from Witch Mountain was a novel then a film and a film novelization. The author of the film novelization was the SAME author as the original novel! A neat little absurd circle but money is money.