Top 5 Wedesndays: TL;DR (Adaptations I Watched Without Reading the Book)

When I first saw this week’s prompt, I thought it would be really difficult to find books that would fit, but once I started, I couldn’t stop! For those who don’t know “TL;DR” means “too long, didn’t read” so I naturally assumed that it was specifically asking for books that were very long. Once I looked at the thread in more detail, I realized that it was actually asking about adaptations! There are so many books, especially classics, that I was first exposed to by adaptations. A ton of my knowledge of classics and even Shakespeare comes from shows like Bugs Bunny and The Simpsons. I decided to keep this post a bit on the shorter side (partly because things are really ramping up now at work!), and keep the details of the plots to a minimum, especially since most of these are pretty well-known stories already. Just for fun, I’ve linked the title of the book to the movie trailer or a clip, and the word “book” to the Goodreads link!

Top 5 Wednesday is a meme created by Gingerreadslainey on Youtube, and is now hosted by Sam at ThoughtsOnTomes. The official GoodReads group with the weekly topics can be found here.

1) Bicentennial Man, based on the book by Isaac Asimov – This is one of my favourite movies, and I had seen it so many times before realizing that it was even a book. The movie came out in 1999, and I did not read the book until I was in college, which wasn’t until close to 15 years later! By the time I read the book, the movie was so ingrained in my mind that I strongly preferred that version.

2) The Nanny Diaries, based on the book by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus – I went to see this movie in theatres when it came out in 2007, and I still have not bothered to read the book yet. I didn’t even know that it was based on a book until much later and only have a mild interest in trying it. I liked the movie, and most of the reason I even added the book to my TBR at all was because I’d seen the movie.

3) The Shining (episode of The Simpsons), based on the book by Stephen King – I think a huge reason I haven’t been that into Stephen King’s books is that I’m already so familiar with the storylines/twists from various adaptations. I’ve never seen the movie version of The Shining or read the book, but I know enough about it that I don’t know if I’d really find it scary by now. This has always been one of my favourite Treehouse of Horror segments (along with The Simpsons’ version of The Raven).

4) The Lord of the Rings series, based on the trilogy by JRR Tolkein – Very unpopular opinion, but I really didn’t care for the movies! I was in seventh grade when the first one came out and found it confusing. My high school took us to see the second one, and I came down with a very bad cold that day and could barely stay awake or really focus while watching, and literally all I remember of the third movie is desperately waiting for it to end so I could finally go to the bathroom. I read The Hobbit twice and didn’t particularly love it, so I haven’t been very motivated to try the rest of the books.

5) Les Miserables, based on the book by Victor Hugo – To be honest, I was first exposed to this story by an episode of Animaniacs (here’s a clip), and since then, I’ve watched the 2012 movie version and seen a stage production. This one specifically is a prime case of “TL;DR.” I’d love to try the book at some point, but I’m also a bit intimidated to even try picking it up.

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