Quote:
Quoting Telecine:

Quote:


I'm not much of a fan of remakes and agree that Americans tend to remake everything. One observation that I would make is that Americans seem to like happy endings more than the rest of us. A case in point would be the remake of Spoorloos, remade as The Vanishing. The ending in the remake ruined the whole film as compared to the original.

An example of a film that was ruined by a happy ending is Bladerunner of course..    Apparently the bunch of american teenagers a) couldn't understand it (so we had a voice over) and b) wanted a happy ending.

Thank goodness they eventually threw off both of these monstrosities!!

Quote:
I might add also, that part of the problem is that people don't read either, so they are unfamiliar with much of the source material used in movies.  "Bladerunner" was based on a Ray Bradbury short story, for example.

Quote:
Quoting Rifter:

Quote:
so they are unfamiliar with much of the source material used in movies.  "Bladerunner" was based on a Ray Bradbury short story, for example.

I thought Bladeruuner was based on "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Phillip K. Dick?

I agree with that sentiment though, also so far as people not realising when they are watching a remake. I suppose that in a way is the excuse for doing remakes in the first place; to the general public, most stories has a limited shelf-life before it has to be reproduced to be relevant. It's only geeks like us that insist on digging up the originals!  I'm being flippant, but actually I'm slightly depressed by that thought ...

Quote:

How does an e-book make it harder to know a set of characters or tell a story?

Quote:
Quoting Astrakan:

Quote:

How does an e-book make it harder to know a set of characters or tell a story?

i think it's been 'proven' in tests that human beings take in a lot less information when read on a screen than when read off a page. Of course thhis may change as children grow up with reading from PCs etc but it may actually be a by-product of the medium for reasons that are not yet clear.

Quote:
You touched on it.  Its the tactile feel of linen and fine acid-free paper, and sometimes even leather.  The weight, the gold gilded page edges, the smell of shelves of old bound books mingled with leather upholstery.  Then there is the intrinsic value of old rare books and first editions. I was fortunate to have grandparents and parents who loved books and instilled a respect and love for them in me.  My most treasured books are a set of exact reproductions of some of the most important books in American political thought.  Leather bindings, moire endpapers, sewn - not stapled - backbone, exact copy of the original type face, etc.  Cost me a small fortune.  [For example:  "Common Sense" and "The Rights of Man" by Thomas Paine in one volume, "On the Constitution of the United States" by Chief Justice Joseph Story (1840), "The Federalist Papers", etc.]