I’ve missed out on a lot of intriguing memes lately because I haven’t had the time to comment on lengthy lists of stuff, so when I spotted a fairly short one over at SF Signal, I figured I’d better grab it. It’s about sci-fi movies based on books…

[Update: Looks like I was having a moment of extreme dumbness when when I posted this last night — instead of doing as the third rule asks and italicizing only the movie titles for which which I started the book but didn’t finish it, I italicized all of the titles. Because they’re titles and you’re supposed to italicize those. Doh! Anyway, they’re fixed now, if it matters to anyone…]

The rules are pretty standard:

• Underline the movie titles you’ve seen.
• Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book.
• Italicize the movie titles for which you started the book but didn’t finish it.

I added the one about underlining the movie title, and I decided to remove the obligatory “tag five people” rule. If you like the look of this one, I invite you to do it. Otherwise, don’t worry about it.

And here’s the list (book titles that vary from the movie title are in parentheses):

1. Jurassic Park
2. War of the Worlds
   (Seen both versions of the movie. I prefer the 1953 one, although I didn’t think the Spielberg version was bad. Well, except for the lame-o Norman Rockwell coda.)
3. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
4. I, Robot
5. Contact
6. Congo
   (A rare case where I’ve read the book, but don’t recall ever seeing the movie.)
7. Cocoon
8. The Stepford Wives
   (Which version of The Stepford Wives? I’ve seen the schizophrenic 2004 remake, which couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a comedy spoof or a serious thriller; it seems like I’ve seen the 1975 original, but honestly, I don’t recall for sure. Haven’t read the book, obviously.)
9. The Time Machine
   (Seen both versions. Love the 1960 one, loathed the 2002 remake.)
10. Starship Troopers
11. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
12. K-PAX
13. 2010
14. The Running Man
    (I recall that the book is significantly different from the movie, but I no longer remember the particulars…)
15. Sphere
    (Another read it/didn’t see it scenario…)
16. The Mothman Prophecies
17. Dreamcatcher
18. Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
    (I remember being baffled when I was a kid because the book was so very different from the movie, which I didn’t really understand at the time anyway. I need to re-read this one of these days…)
19. Dune
    (Seen both variants of the movie as well as the SciFi Channel’s miniseries. They all have their pros and cons, in my opinion.)
20. The Island of Dr. Moreau
21. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
    (I had a copy of this novel, but lost it a couple years ago in the Great Water Filter Containment Failure and Basement Flood. I’d never gotten around to reading it. Also, I’ve seen the 1956 and 1978 film versions, and like both — the ’78 version still gives me the creeps — but I haven’t seen the 1993 version, Body Snatchers, or Nicole Kidman’s 2007 take on the venerable material, The Invasion.)
22. The Iron Giant (The Iron Man)
23. Battlefield Earth
24. The Incredible Shrinking Woman
25. Fire in the Sky
26. Altered States
    (One of the weirdest books I’ve ever read… and the movie was just about as weird, so I suppose you could consider it a faithful adaptation.)
27. Timeline
    (Even before Michael Crichton demonstrated what a colossal dick he is and I made the decision to wash my hands of him once and for all, I was losing my infatuation with him. This lousy novel/movie combination was a big part of the reason. Yet again, we had an evil corporation that’s cooked up a new technology, which The Man intends to use as a tourist attraction because it can’t think of anything better to do with it, and of course something goes horribly wrong and the running and screaming begins. It’s the same tired plot Crichton’s been recycling in one way or another since his screenplay for Westworld, and even though I liked Westworld and Jurassic Park, the formula was getting pretty thin by Timeline. Lazy, lazy writing, Mike…)
28. The Postman
29. Freejack (Immortality, Inc.)
30. Solaris
    (It’s very rare for me to not finish a book, but I came close with this one. I had to read it for a college course and found it to be sheer torture. However, I recently saw the Clooney-Soderbergh film version and actually kind of liked it, so maybe I’ll give the book another try some time.)
31. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
32. The Thing (Who Goes There?)
    (Seen both the 1951 film The Thing from Another World and John Carpenter’s gore-tastic 1982 version. I love both, but Carpenter’s version is one of my personal classics and is closer to the original concept.)
33. The Thirteenth Floor
34. Lifeforce (The Space Vampires)
    (Hm. I know own a copy of The Space Vampires, and it seems like I read it back in my highly impressionable early teens, but I honestly don’t recall for sure. I know I’ve never seen the movie, and I don’t why because I understand it includes both Patrick Stewart and gratuitous nudity… hopefully not of Patrick Stewart!)
35. Deadly Friend
36. The Puppet Masters
37. 1984
    (Read the book, never seen any filmed versions. I believe there are two, aren’t there?)
38. A Scanner Darkly
39. Creator
40. Monkey Shines
41. Solo (Weapon)
42. The Handmaid’s Tale
43. Communion
44. Carnosaur
45. From Beyond
46. Nightflyers
    (Before George R.R. Martin leaped into the lucrative market for long-running series of doorstop-sized fantasy novels, he wrote some pretty nifty space-based science fiction, including the short-story collection Nightflyers, which I’ve read several times.)
47. Watchers
48. Body Snatchers
    (Didn’t we cover this one already, up at number 21? Duh!)