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Movie novelisations, would you like some more?
The first proper paperbacks I ever read, as a ten year old, were novelisations of films. They were a way of re-living the popular movies of the time. Most of the none-Fleming Bond films had tie-in novelisations, from The Spy Who Loved me from Christopher Woods, through to Gardner or Benson, right up to Die Another Day, which Benson wrote.
Casino Royale had the original Fleming as a tie-in (with great cover art), but QoS and Skyfall haven't had book tie-ins. I wonder if it's because people are simply reading less books?
I'd like to see a Spectre tie-in. Do you think they should do further novelisations, or is it a thing of the past, now films appear on DVD seemingly months after the movie's been seen on the big screen?
Casino Royale had the original Fleming as a tie-in (with great cover art), but QoS and Skyfall haven't had book tie-ins. I wonder if it's because people are simply reading less books?
I'd like to see a Spectre tie-in. Do you think they should do further novelisations, or is it a thing of the past, now films appear on DVD seemingly months after the movie's been seen on the big screen?
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Oh, and by the by Quantum of Solace did actually have a tie-in short story collection of the same name:
Indeed, that is the general consensus and I agree with it.
Basically, this. I read all the Bond movie novelizations, and had I not read them, nothing would have changed, really.
TSWLM provided a backstory for Jaws, which was nice, and a torture scene which did feel like something Fleming would have written, but that's it.
MR removed the Dolly character, making Jaws' betrayal nonsense.
LTK had a painfully boring novelisation, made me love the movie even more (and it already was awesome!)
GE had a nice scene at the beginning of the book, and also explained why Natalia didn't get rid of her watch despite being faulty.
TND and TWINE added some interesting villain backstories, but that's pretty much it, as far as I remember.
DAD expanded the prison scene at the beginning, but I can't remember anything remarkable about it.
I would rather walk over hot coals and have burning needles shoved in my eyes that see another one of these worthless endeavours clutter our book shelves or cyber halls!
I suppose they provide an opportunity to flush out characters or whatever, but if you want to write a story about Elliot Carver's childhood, then just do that. I don't need to read "Bond then smiled as he piloted his BMW from the side of the road".
Despite the popularity of tie-ins in the pre-home video world, most of these books were written by writers that were little more than amateurs, but were capable of churning out this rubbish quickly and in large quantities. Very rarely did the subject film-maker or T.V. company have any control over the finished work and many leading producers, such as James Cameron, have gone on record to describe movie tie-ins of their work as "downright reprehensible". The reason for this is mostly that the authors of tie-ins need to flesh out the characters and give them backstories in ways that are not often apparent in the source material, or nothing like the original screenplay author or producer intended. Also, some characters are often edited out or added, often in the interests of brevity, in ways that spoil plot elements (such in walecs mentioned earlier). This is even when a "name" author is used -- whether they are using a pseudonym or not.
In an age when, for only a little money more than a novel (electronic or otherwise), you can buy a perfect digital copy of your favourite movie, buying this tie-in trash makes no sense at all, unless you are a completionist fan that collects movie memorabilia.
I prefer to do my own fleshing out of the characters on a movie screen, rather than let some unimaginative character-murdering hack do it for me. To me, this is a fundamental part of the movie experience.
Despite the fact that there are some exceptions, such as the Allan Dean Foster and Christopher Wood books mentioned by SaintMark above, these tend to be extremely rare jewels amidst an ocean of junk.
So no, I don't buy tie-ins these days -- certainly not Bond ones. To me, the movies should speak for themselves.
From what I understand the Fleming novel was hugely different than the film. I haven't read Fleming's TSWLM yet though.
Some say The Spy Who Loved Me film was a re-write of the You Only Live Twice movie, and it's true there are a lot of similarities.
By the way, when Casino Royale hit the screens, the original novel was used as a 'tie-in'. I re-read it at the time, and was surprised at how well it worked alongside the movie.
Yes, I can confirm that that's indeed correct. The film of TSWLM has no similarities to the original novel thereby per Fleming's request, aside from a few trivial similarities like a villain called Sol 'Horror' Horowitz with steel-capped teeth (Jaws) and a villain (Sluggsy Morant) coming out of a wardrobe like Jaws on the train in the film.
Back on topic, I think Darius is right in calling film novelisations a relic of a bygone age. I do think it's a bit of a shame though. As I said, the first novels I ever read were the books of films.
I tell some of the story here in more detail if you are interested. It transpires that Fleming didn't want any paperback edition of TSWLM released either:
http://www.thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/james-bond-novels-that-were-edited.html
The original novel of The Spy Who Loved Me was written from a woman's first person point of view (Vivienne Michel). Although she is credited as co-author, Fleming did, in fact write the whole book.
It is the story of Michel's journeying and the various lovers she had, including Bond, who does not appear until about two thirds in. Bond saves Michel by killing the book's two villains, before promptly disappearing.
As mentioned above, the original book is nothing like the movie or it's (admittedly) good tie-in by Christopher Wood, who also wrote the screenplay to TSWLM. Seen in this light, Wood actually penned an original Bond legacy novel.