LALD (Film) vs. LALD (Novel)

JimmyBond0129

Talk about adaptation decay. The book and the movie couldn't be anymore different. You could tell that Live and Let Die was being played for laughs, instead of being taken seriously and it was probably due to Roger Moore's influence. The first four Sean Connery films had some dry wit but at least the plots were taken somewhat seriously. LALD: The Movie had some comic book strip violence. Mister BIG got inflated like a balloon and popped. Really the only good thing you could say about LALD: The Movie, is the black people at least talk like they finished grade school, where as the black people in LALD: The Book, are very much a product of their time.

Golrush007

Whilst obviously the book and film are very different, I love both. Some scenes from the book survive to a certain extent, such as the Table Z sequence but the film is an interesting curiosity in that it reflects the Blaxploitation phenomenon. Whilst this will obviously not be everyone's cup of tea, I really enjoy it. Also, the scenes filmed in Jamaica hark back to the Caribbean flavour of Fleming.

The book is very good, and in my opinion the film is very good as well, despite being completely different in tone and plot. Plus, George Martin's funky score helps as well!

- the only part I really don't like is the death of Kananga - terrible idea, and unconvincing special effect!

perdogg

Golrush007 wrote:

Whilst obviously the book and film are very different, I love both. Some scenes from the book survive to a certain extent, such as the Table Z sequence but the film is an interesting curiosity in that it reflects the Blaxploitation phenomenon. Whilst this will obviously not be everyone's cup of tea, I really enjoy it. Also, the scenes filmed in Jamaica hark back to the Caribbean flavour of Fleming.

The book is very good, and in my opinion the film is very good as well, despite being completely different in tone and plot. Plus, George Martin's funky score helps as well!

- the only part I really don't like is the death of Kananga - terrible idea, and unconvincing special effect!

Also, one should remember that elements taken from the book were used in LTK.

Golrush007

perdogg wrote:

Also, one should remember that elements taken from the book were used in LTK.

Yes, that was also very much on my mind. Also the keelhauling sequence was used in FYEO.

JimmyBond0129

You know I think one should point out that the brutal violence in the book is comparable to the violence in the Daniel Craig films. Because even Timothy Dalton and Sean Connery didn't get that violent in their respective movies.

Mister Greene

interesting thread, the book was agood read and I think in general I prefer the books to the movies, for the simple reason that with the popularity of the franchise, they started to make the movies for the era that was going on right then,whee as the books were written for the cold war, even back to the first one Dr. No. obviously in the early 70's the Blaxplotation films were in the rage at the time, in the late 70's with the influence of Star Wars we got Moonraker which was extremely far from the book, and imho the worst Bond film.
as for the brutal violence in the books, yeah I think that the DC era Bond has similar violence compared to the SC and TD era but I feel that is due in large part to the movies of the day. and i just dont feel the directors or producers could have hed the films released with that amount of violence. But with the books you could get away with it. anyway thats my .02-{

Blood_Stone

The film had a good boat chase and the hottest Bond girl in Solitaire. That was about it though. I'm just so mad we didn't get to see Bond's revenge until License To Kill.

JimmyBond0129

They could make an animated movie out of the Live and Let Die book and it would probably be a million times better than the live-action movie!!

CmdrAtticus

If they made it today they could still keep the New York/Florida/Jamaica locations, but make the plot about the treasure being used to finance Quantum or terrorists. They could have Big making blood money out of the Haitian earthquake (since that is where he is from). Big and the plot of LALD was really like CR - both Big and Le Chiffre were bad guys that were financing other bad guys (Big using the treasure money and Le Chiffre his brothels).