This thread is for asking questions about the differences between books, movies and/or video games (if it exists).
That means that this could have been created in any of these three areas, but I picked books because it would (probably) have the most details.
So for example, I have seen the Movie "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" and I have played the old DOS text video game, but I haven't read the book.
(I haven't seen all of the "TV series" but I wasn't really curious about that one)
In the movie the "towel" is used for a couple of things, like scaring away the Vogon Troopers by snapping it at them, and I thought I saw Ford briefly hide under one to avoid getting hit by "blaster fire".
In the DOS game, I only recall Arthur hiding under one to get by a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, because the beast is so stupid that it thinks if you can't see it, it can't see you.
I did do a search on Google and it mentioned the above beast and towel use from the book.
Did the two Vogon happen in the book?
Any other differences you can think of about the towel?
(Hopefully I won't just get a bunch of flames saying "Just read the %&%^&%^ book!!"
In the case of the Disc World books that have been made into (main stream) TV shows;
The Hogfather was pretty close to the book, they chopped out the Death of Rats for the most part which was a shame but lifted much of the dialogue straight from the book.
The Colour of Magic however was a mess, the TV show was two of the books (Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic) mashed into one and then blended... not good at all IMO.
As I recall, in the books the towel was more a joke concept, explaining it as almost like a Swiss army knife for the number of uses you can get out of it, more than it was actually used. The idea of knotting it to use as a weapon I recall as being in one of the Guide's entries, rather than anything that was actually done by Arthur or Ford. I can only remember one of two other uses - a blanket, for example, or a crude item of clothing.
I haven't played the old text adventure, but from the bits I've heard of it, it rather exagerates how much Arthur did to include more things from the book.
On a film to game note, I enjoyed playing through Goldeneye on the N64, which takes the original Bond film, and adjusts the storyline in little ways to explain why Bond was in places he wasn't in the film (for example, during the building of the Seranaya base, and later when it was destroyed by the first Goldeneye). By the end, there was the feeling that you'd seen the whole story through, and it was very satisfying. This is probably part of the reason it's seen as one of the best movie to game licences ever done.
It seems to me the story get reworked a bit from medium to medium. it's rather a necessity I think. Take LOTR's for example. Excellent books. Truly, truly fantastic. However, an exact retelling in film just wouldn't work out so well. It'd be waaaaay to damn long for one thing. But mostly, the visual story has to be different. There are different restrictions and requirements for those three mediums to be effective and successful. Cutting sections out of the book for time means that the character development and some of the dialog has to be displaced. This means other parts that are kept have to be rewritten. The Princess Bride did the same thing. Lines said by one character (who ended up getting completely cut from the movie) were given to another because we needed the line.
I read I Am Legend a right before the movie came out and i must say that the book and the movie were completely different even down to the very last detail. The book gives much more in-depth look into how the world has changed since the spread of the disease unlike the movie where it tell you nothing. If you liked the idea that the movie had but thought that the movie fell a little short then i would recommend reading the book because its way better.
The original ending to IAL (on the dvd or youtube it) is closer to the theory of the book. but still far off. but none of the films have hit the books idea to a T. they have taken the principal and... run with it.
Which was basically my point above. A movie is a RE-creation of a story. Not a reenactment of one. The basic story is taken and reinterpreted for the new medium and told as seen through those people's eyes.
I can't say about HP, but for LOTR I thought some things were done very poorly.
LOTR is still the best three movies I've seen (IMO), but changing the power of the ring was changing the basic story line, ans so a poor adaptation.
The ring only had influence over those who seeked power, according to the book. So, Faramir should have been able to resist it and not tried to take it to his father. (Which he also did not do in the book)
The movie needs to be different in some sorts (according the the producers) because if you do the exact same thing and follow the book 1 by 1 then it'd be too long, expensive, and odd. I remember watching the making of venom for SM3 and they said "Just because something looks good in a comic book doesn't mean it will look good in a movie". So basically the movie is just or should be a different version of the story from the book.
