This movie was NOTHING like the book - Angels & Demons (2009) Discussion

[–] DropDeadFredSnakes 15 years ago

Yeah, well, that's like, uh, your opinion, man.

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[–] chinawhite252 15 years ago

No, dude, it's not my opinion it's what those fools did to a fantastic book. That would be fact, not opinion.

Cult Leader my mind's frightening, I drink blood from a human skull like a Viking

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[–] yoshi_1554 15 years ago

I completely agree with you. I just finished watching this movie a little bit ago... I've been dying for ages to see it, because Angels & Demons is one of my favorite books. And they completely destroyed that book. Now, I can understand that in order to translate a book into a movie, there are things that need to be taken out or changed around, but the amount of changing was ridiculous. They changed things that didn't even need to be changed, and things that completely took out the deeper meaning in the book. Why did they feel the need to make Vittoria's father her lab partner instead? And thats just one change.

I'm honestly disgusted, because they could have done such a good job. It's nothing like the book, and I'm a little embarrassed that I asked my parents to watch this with me because I enjoyed the book so much, and they had to watch that.

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[–] Tom_Cruises_Testicles 15 years ago

No, dude, it's not my opinion it's what those fools did to a fantastic book. That would be fact, not opinion.

I agree this movie wasn't on par with the book but its opinion whether you enjoyed it as much or less then the film. There's no science involved to make it factual.

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[–] DropDeadFredSnakes 15 years ago

If they had done a straight-up adaptation of the book, just imagine how preposterous some of the elements would have seemed on the screen.

Sinkman was missed, of course, but most of the other changes the adaptation made were for the betterment of the plot. At the same time, the changes helped to define Angels & Demons as a movie sequel that wasn't just a complete rehash of the original with different characters/object of desire (as The DaVinci Code in book form quite honestly was).

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[–] yoshi_1554 15 years ago

Its completely understandable that in order to make a movie out of a book some things would need to be taken out or changed... some things just don't translate well to screen. However, I think they took it way too far with this movie. Even before I saw the movie I had heard that they had changed the camerlengo to be Irish instead of Italian (and removed his whole backstory)... as upsetting as this was (I have really enjoyed this plot twist in the book), I rationalized that it must not have worked well on film or something. But aside from specific plot points, I feel like they did not properly get across the feeling of the book/plot, and that is the biggest problem. By changing some of the essential plot points, it ruined the effect that the book has.

I just feel they took it too far, not that they shouldn't have changed anything at all.

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[–] chinawhite252 11 years ago

Okay, I see your point. Good call.

Cult Leader my mind's frightening, I drink blood from a human skull like a Viking

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[–] chinawhite252 11 years ago

No man,not the science, the quality of the book compared to the movie.

Cult Leader my mind's frightening, I drink blood from a human skull like a Viking

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[–] sepsism 15 years ago

No, dude, it's not my opinion it's what those fools did to a fantastic book. That would be fact, not opinion.

Dear oh dear.

That said, books are generally considered to be superior to films. Books simply fit more in and the necessity of a person's imagination to fill in the blanks, images etc makes reading a more personal and rich experience as opposed to having something presented to you in it's entirety.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and on the strength of that I will now seek out the book.

UNCOMPROMISING UNDERGROUND FILTH

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[–] chinawhite252 11 years ago

Very true, sepsism. Books are almost always better than the movie, I just saying, they did an AWEFUL job at it. They RIPPED the whole F&cking movie, almost all of the story is a horrible translation from the book.

Cult Leader my mind's frightening, I drink blood from a human skull like a Viking

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[–] sepsism 11 years ago

That's the great thing about IMDB! You can come back to something 4 years later and it doesn't matter.

I still haven't read the book, thanks for the reminder. On that note I have no basis for comparison and my opinion on film vs book is currently non-existent. In my experience so far though this has always been true (the film is always wildly inferior). American Psycho springs to mind, even though I liked the film for it's brilliant sense of the 1980s, soundtrack, Bale's performance etc, the violence and gore was offensively light. That said much of the violence in the book is probably unfilmable.

UNCOMPROMISING UNDERGROUND FILTH

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[–] chinawhite252 11 years ago

Yep, no Hassassin, no CERN guy n a wheelchair, NONE of that. They took it right out of the WHOLE story. They are really retarded.

Cult Leader my mind's frightening, I drink blood from a human skull like a Viking

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[–] !!!deleted!!! (6571724) 10 years ago

Agreed, that was horrible. The whole "11th hour Samaritan" thing with Kohler was a great twist in the book and a great suspense builder...and nowhere to be seen.

The Hassassin was god awful...he looked like a model, hardly a big hulking battle-tested killer like he was supposed to be.

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[–] joolztoolz 15 years ago

No, dude, it's not my opinion it's what those fools did to a fantastic book. That would be fact, not opinion.

No. Its still your opinion--cause the book fell down at the end for me.

I was digging the whole inside story of the inner workings of the Vatican and the history and statues and documents and security thing. I went along with the sexy scientist and Langdon again.

Until about near the end--without spoiling the book for anyone, I can say that all of a sudden I felt as though I was reading about one of Dan Brown's 'wet dreams'. Anybody who's read the book knows what scene I am referring to.

I don't think it was necessary and wouldn't have mattered if it had been watered down a bit. Or alot.

I hear its not part of the movie and I think I can guess why. No women would be particularly happy with the Hassasin's actions near the end. They simply couldn't do that sort of thing in the movie and expect a large audience to flock to it.

That said, I always get po'd when they do change a book's ending and am still trying to get over the Hollywood ending of Hannibal by Thomas Harris (I think). One of my favorite stories.

However, in this instance, I'm glad they did take that particular part out. I found it offensive and unnecessary...and I guarantee you that I'm no prude by any stretch of the imagination. It takes alot to offend me--in fact, I don't know when I've been more turned off ever--and I can get down and dirty like nobody's business.

It wasn't a masterpiece of fiction--it was an engaging read for a couple of days.

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[–] chinawhite252 11 years ago

You make a great point, the end was way off. I also think the Hassassin would have been real cool, but nope they just leave the whole part out all together.

Cult Leader my mind's frightening, I drink blood from a human skull like a Viking

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[–] reostzombie13 15 years ago

Russel Crowe can't act. If anything Hanks was too involved. In the book Langdon seemed to there just to narrate he didn't really play the heroic role like in the film.

Life's a bitch that's why I married her!

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] reostzombie13 15 years ago

I guess. I wish I knew why I was making the comment but it's gone. Obviously I am not better than the oscar critics but to me they seemed like a bunch self crediting hacks that knows whats better for everyone else when they always choose stuff the we either have never heard of or is about some political issue.

Life's a bitch that's why I married her!

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[–] kile32 15 years ago

The book was ten times better. I don't like how they twisted the ending. And Harrison Ford would of been my answer for Langdon's character.

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[–] EyesRed 15 years ago

Enough with the book!
For those of you who think the book was better than this film or didn't stay on the book's track then stop going to these types of movies. All you do is complain. The same thing is said about most films that originated from a book.
Just quit going to the movies and keep to your books then.

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[–] yoshi_1554 15 years ago

I think its perfectly reasonable to be disappointed with a movie that is nothing like the book it is about. Now obviously movie goers need to expect that its not going to be 100% like the book, and I accept that. The amount of changes that they made were so extensive that it goes above and beyond the generally accepted level of changes found in movies made from books.

Also, books are usually made into movies because the books were popular, meaning that they hope that people that liked the books will like the movie and the movie will also make a lot of money. I feel like if they are going to undertake that project, they need to stay true to the feeling of the book and not just change things for the sake of changing things.

For Angels & Demons specifically, I simply didn't enjoy the movie (although it was a well done movie, if that makes sense), because a lot of the plot points that they took out were things that made the book what it was, and without it, it was obviously lacking.

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[–] Griever_2112 15 years ago

I got to say, I thought this was better then the DaVinci Code. yes there were changes, but not as bad as they did in the first movie. I thought it was a good movie. Great, no, but it was good.

Sorry, two's company, and three's an adult movie.

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[–] mviedirctr 15 years ago

I read the book and liked it. Saw the movie and I loved it. It might have ate up too much time to provide a back story for the Assassin. And it would have been one character too many to have the CERN guy, Maximilian Kohler. I kinda wanted the brand of the Illuminati Diamond. But I think they still needed to discover it in time. I loved the movie as much as I did the book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFk_NBY_ytY
(And check out the following episodes with this link.)

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[–] XResidentXEvilX 15 years ago

God when I thought movie-goers couldn't become anymore retarded. First of all, Ron Howard has nothing to do w/ development of the SCREEN PLAY. Go whine and complain to the writer whom went on strike in 2007 about that. Second of all in the book his name was HASSASSIN not Assassin as you so like to claim. Third I'm surprised you didn't cry about the fact that the Particle Collider wasn't in the book. Seriously quit your damn bitching and moaning and crying about the lamest details!

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[–] yoshi_1554 15 years ago

I'm not going to reread the whole threat so I don't know for sure, but I don't believe anyone specifically pointed out Ron Howard as the source of the bad book to movie translation. I certainly know I didn't. And if you had read pretty much any of the posts you would have seen that it wasn't every single detail that we were expecting, but that the amount of things that were changed seemed TOO extreme. And there is nothing wrong with posting our opinions about how the movie was different from the book, so I really think you need to relax and possibly grow up.

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[–] drxcreatures 15 years ago

People can make comparisons about the book and movie. Opinions are what these boards are for.

I wish they would have kept it as her losing a father and not a lab partner.

I wish she would have been more agressive. She seemed so quiet in the movie. Almost passive.

I wish they would have written in about Langdon jumping in the helicopter etc...

Plus, I wish they would have used The Pope-was-REALLY-your-father twist, at the end.

Even those, who had not read the book, would have found it interesting.

Ron (if he had read the book) who have noticed these items missing, either way.

Just 2 or 3 cool things kept in, would not have killed them.

http://www.cgonzales.net & http://www.drxcreatures.com

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] kurgan-10 15 years ago

That, and avoid Muslims protesting the film (changing the Hassassin), and for marketing purposes (so it wouldn't seem like a complete rehash of DVC, as the two stories are remarkably similar, with similar characters, etc).

As before, they scaled back some of the more ridiculous things about the story. In the DVC they had Langdon disputing many of Teabing's assertions about history and they made a lot of the claims more generic. In A&D they adjusted the scientific claims a bit, and took out the scene of Langdon using a tarp as a parachute to escape the exploding helicopter at the end (and landing in water).

http://www.historyversusthedavincicode.com/
History vs. the Da Vinci Code

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[–] KiramidHead 12 years ago

I loved both the book and the movie, but I get where you're coming from. I'll go point by point:

1)This change was inevitable. Vittoria's backstory in the book was quite good, but the problem is that Brown recycled it completely when he wrote the Da Vinci code. The only reason he wasn't immediately called on it is because A&D wasn't a huge bestseller, and more people read the Da Vinci Code first, including myself. Since DVC was made into a movie first, the filmmakers probably figured they had to change the setup for the A&D movie to make things less blatant.

2)I could honestly go either way with this one, since both takes on the character were fine by me.

3)What I said for the last point is pretty much how feel about this. Langdon's improvised parachute stunt was cool, but I didn't miss it in the film.

4))The dropping of the pope twist was my only real disappointment with the film. I can see why it was left out, but it added a fair bit of depth and nuance to the Camerlengo's character. Dropping the twist makes him into any cliche anti-science zealot.

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[–] ctemple-5 13 years ago

Not only was Ron Howard the director he was also the producer.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] cwilson-46 15 years ago

I agree. I watched this movie knowing it was nnot going to be based on the book completely. But the book was so much better than the movie. Usually, the movie is better than the book, because you can do so much more with a movie than a book. But I couldn't put the book down. This movie, I went to the bathroom and got food every so often. I don't usually do that to good movies.

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[–] WeAllKilledLauraPalmer 15 years ago

I can't really agree about Ron Howard as he wasn't responsible for the screen adaptation, but overall what I saw of the movie was disappointing. I don't know what it was, but nothing flowed. The book was way better.

I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way.

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[–] aaronping 15 years ago

I am smart enough to understand that you can't take a 500 or so page book and covert into a reasonable length movie. However this was one of the worse book to movie adaptations I have seen since some of the early Steven King productions. To leave out central characters completely to tale out the twist at the end of who is your father, even if it is a little "Luke I am your father" type. Change where the final death scene takes place, but whatever. The movie was horrible.

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[–] forbidden10 15 years ago

I just watched the movie. Oh, they destroyed one of my favorite books.

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