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[teruterubozu]

When going into watching the movie I tried to keep the book knowledge in check, I never claimed to be objective in my criticism, most of it is direct comparison. Objective criticism is completely pointless.

Well, if you want the authentic Ken Kesey experience then you probably have to take a hit of LSD and read the book again.

 

[gutter_trash]

this is the main reason why I don't read books. I don't want to ruin movie viewing experiences.

 

[Nappuccino]

When going into watching the movie I tried to keep the book knowledge in check, I never claimed to be objective in my criticism, most of it is direct comparison. Objective criticism is completely pointless.

Then why even bother?

 

[way more]

Then why even bother?

Lists look good when reviewing things, or that's what the internet tries to impress on us.

 

[Konka]

When going into watching the movie I tried to keep the book knowledge in check, I never claimed to be objective in my criticism, most of it is direct comparison. Objective criticism is completely pointless.

I mean you're perfectly entitled to your opinion it's just that your opinion goes against both popular opinion and nearly every movie critic on the planet so expect a pretty substantial push back and people disregarding your opinion as an outlier.

 

[agrajag]

never read the book, but thoroughly enjoyed the film

 

[AMUSIX]

• It is taking place from the perspective of a camera, not Chief Bromden. I can't logically expect them to keep that one intact given how hard it is to show a movie that is supposed to be taking place inside someone's head, but it was nonetheless very jarring,
• Nurse Ratched has normal sized tits. They go on and on about her disproportionately large breasts inside the book, you would think they would at least give it a shot. Nope.
• McMurphy is supposed to be ginger, and is supposed to have a big ass scar on his nose. I will give them leeway here because Jack Nicholson was probably the best man for the part, but I found that very jarring.
• There is no flashbacks. Considering the amount of time is spent reflecting on the past in the book, I assumed there would at least be a flashback to Chief Bromden when he was young, but nope there wasn't a single flashback in the whole thing.
• Cheswick doesn't die. This one bothered the hell out of me, one of the strangest and most interesting parts of the novel was how Cheswick died out of the blue, and how everyone reacted to it. Changing that is very noticeable.
• Not only does Cheswick not die, but he also accompanies McMurphy and Bromden to the disturbed ward.
• They don't even mention the shock shop before McMurphy goes in, it just happens.
• McMurphy hands a piece of gum to Bromden, when it was supposed to be one of the nurses.
• McMurphy escapes, comes back with a schoolbus, takes the acutes to a trailerpark, and then a dock, and they fucking steal a boat.
• The Doctor doesn't accompany them to the trip, they don't take his car either, and they don't go to the gas station.
• George doesn't become captain of the boat.
• As an extension of George not becoming captain, they never went to the showers to be cleaned of bugs or whatever else they may have acquired on their fishing trip, and McMurphy picks a fight with Washington for a completely different reason. It is nowhere near as dramatic.
• Washington is the lifeguard.
• McMurphy is made to look like much more of a belligerent asshole than he is in the book, and as a result he is almost more of an antagonist than the Big Nurse.
• They completely and utterly fail to antagonize the Big Nurse. Maybe an important aspect of the novel is that most of the evil the Big Nurse is supposed to be up to is imagined by Bromden, but come fucking on who wouldn't be angry if their ward was trashed for no apparent reason. She didn't even seem angry or evil when they were at meetings. At worst she was being a bit of a cunt really.
• At the end when McMurphy tries to strangle Ratched to death, he doesn't rip off her clothes. This is one that you can't reasonably expect them to add into the movie, as it is a completely brutal scene in the book, but it is still pretty disapointing that they don't even imply it happens, like that could have done by ripping off her clothes and panning to the acutes to see their reactions rather than the nude nurse.
• Probably many, many other things I haven't bothered to mention or don't remember.
• After coming back to the ward Ratched can speak fine.
• McMurphy randomly appears back at the ward with no explanation. They also left out the dramatic part about him being wheeled in on the cart labeled "Lobotomy."

I've just taken the list portion of your critique, and will now go back and bold every entry that is chalked up to "It's not the same as the book" and has absolutely nothing to do with it being a well made movie or not.


OK, just finished. To be honest, I really didn't expect to bold that much...

 

[Goddard]

double posted

 

[Goddard]

Then why even bother?

"bother" implies I have a goal, and that the goal has something to do with proving something, both of which are false, so no, go away.

I mean you're perfectly entitled to your opinion it's just that your opinion goes against both popular opinion and nearly every movie critic on the planet so expect a pretty substantial push back and people disregarding your opinion as an outlier.

That is basically why I made the thread. After reading the book the movie was so phenomenally terrible in almost every conceivable way to me, that it completely blows my mind that very very few people share this opinion. The expectation is that there will be some people replying to the thread that have watched the movie with the same context that I have, and that they will either agree with me, or explain to me why the movie is still a legendary classic even after reading the book, but for the most part it has just been people who have never read the book, or at least read the book after, and are simply writing off my opinion as invalid before they even try to explain why I'm wrong, so I'll sit around for as long as it takes for the shitposting to stop, it's an interesting topic to me.

I've just taken the list portion of your critique, and will now go back and bold every entry that is chalked up to "It's not the same as the book" and has absolutely nothing to do with it being a well made movie or not.


OK, just finished. To be honest, I really didn't expect to bold that much...

That is not the list portion of my critique, that is just a list of specific differences between the book and the movie, you would know that if you actually read the OP. "chalked up to "It's not the same as the book" and has absolutely nothing to do with it being a well made movie or not." No fucking shit its a list of differences. Bravo.

 

[adamsappel]

Drambit, the fact that you complained that Big Nurse didn't have Big Tits pretty much nullifies anything else you might have said. Although McMurphy not being a redhead comes close.

 

[Moondrop]

I agree with the OT's general point, but not the specifics. The book is a masterpiece and the movie is just Nicholson chewing scenery. The movie's probably good on it's own, but I acknowledge I can't judge it objectively having read the book first.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Never read the book. Movie is awesome.

99% of your OP is "it's different from the book" though you seem to be trying to say that's not what you had a problem with.

 

[Goddard]

Drambit, the fact that you complained that Big Nurse didn't have Big Tits pretty much nullifies anything else you might have said. Although McMurphy not being a redhead comes close.

You clearly haven't read the book, don't bother posting here. The comicly large tits and the details of McMurphy are actually pretty important plot details in the book. Obviously they aren't necessary but they are important.

Never read the book. Movie is awesome.

99% of your OP is "it's different from the book" though you seem to be trying to say that's not what you had a problem with.

My problem is not that it is different than the book, people are just straw manning me into that, my problem is that they didn't change any of the major plot elements of the book very much, but they completely shit all over everything that happened between them, and in some cases they ruined the event itself in comparison. It's not that the book is more detailed alone, it's just way better in every single way the story is told.

 

[Corpsepyre]

I haven't read the book, but the film is one of the best films out there. Excellent acting by all involved among a lot more.

 

[adamsappel]

You clearly haven't read the book, don't bother posting here. The comicly large tits and the details of McMurphy are actually pretty important plot details in the book. Obviously they aren't necessary but they are important.

I've read the book. If they aren't necessary, how are they important? If they aren't necessary, why are you bitching that they're not in the movie?

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Another important point I could make, I guess, is that when I tried to look at the movie as a standalone, as if it wasn't an adaptation but it's own original thing, nothing made any sense. There is no context. If I never read the book I would have no idea why Cheswick was making such a big deal about the cigarettes, no idea why they don't just walk out the fucking door, no idea why the control panel they try and lift is so significant, no idea why ratched is strangled at the end, and probably many other things that make absolutely no sense without context. With context they still don't make sense because they fucked with too much of the important plot details. It's a lose-lose.

...

Any thoughts, GAF? Apparently this film is universally acclaimed, but I absolutely cannot see why, I think it is terrible.

1) It's not universally acclaimed by people who have read the book, I've heard your opinion echoed a lot.

2) I saw it without reading the book and had no problem with the things that you claim would make no sense if you hadn't read the book.

I recall liking it well enough, but it was ages ago and I don't know if it holds up. But it clearly had problems as an adaptation from the reactions I have read. I might well have hated it if I had read the book.

EDIT: and I just read the whole thread and see everyone has said these things already.

 

[Goddard]

I've read the book. If they aren't necessary, how are they important? If they aren't necessary, why are you bitching that they're not in the movie?

They are important because they help contribute to what made the book excellent in the first place, they were things that made the characters really really interesting. Ratched is made fun of in the book for having comically large breasts, which builds up to the end when McMurphy rips off her clothes to reveal them, which had a lot of buildup in itself. McMurphy was ginger with a big ass scar on his nose, a tattoo of a poker hand, and really aggressively destroyed hands.

They are not necessary because they vary between extremely difficult to impossible to pull off properly in a film. Objectively speaking if I watched the film first I obviously wouldn't have cared so I'm not trying to claim that relatively minuscule details like that have a big impact on the movie, but the absence of them after reading the book is more jarring than one would expect generally.

 

[Nappuccino]

"bother" implies I have a goal, and that the goal has something to do with proving something, both of which are false, so no, go away.

You sure are spending a lot of time and effort for something without a goal.

 

[adamsappel]

They are important because they help contribute to what made the book excellent in the first place, they were things that made the characters really really interesting. Ratched is made fun of in the book for having comically large breasts, which builds up to the end when McMurphy rips off her clothes to reveal them, which had a lot of buildup in itself. McMurphy was ginger with a big ass scar on his nose, a tattoo of a poker hand, and really aggressively destroyed hands.

They are not necessary because they vary between extremely difficult to impossible to pull off properly in a film. Objectively speaking if I watched the film first I obviously wouldn't have cared so I'm not trying to claim that relatively minuscule details like that have a big impact on the movie, but the absence of them after reading the book is more jarring than one would expect generally.

Books aren't movies.

If they are not necessary, stop complaining about them.

Really, read what you're bitching about. Scars, breast size, hair color, tattoos? Did you want Nicholson to have his hands broken before shooting began?

 

[RoyaleDuke]

I prefer the film over the book, like someone else in the thread mentioned how the adaptation of A Clockwork Orange transformed a merely awesome book into something else and gave it even deeper meaning, the same can be said for the film Adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

 

[inm8num2]

One of the first "classic" movies I saw as a teenager. Loved it. Read the book. Loved it.

 

[AMUSIX]

That is not the list portion of my critique, that is just a list of specific differences between the book and the movie, you would know that if you actually read the OP. "chalked up to "It's not the same as the book" and has absolutely nothing to do with it being a well made movie or not." No fucking shit its a list of differences. Bravo.

You put the list up as the main body of your critique. A list of examples of destruction, as you put it. You stated that these changes ruined the movie. Then you called the movie a steaming pile of shit, while providing little other criticism than your list. Heck, you even called Nicholson's Oscar-winning performance bad, with the reasoning that the character was different from the book (yet you hold up his Shining performance as good).

The ONLY critique you made of the film is that you believed there were a number of elements presented without context at all, and so, become meaningless. However, it's obvious that, within the confines of the film, a number of these elements do have meaning (after all, audiences, most of whom never read the book, understand that they can't walk through the door, and why Nurse Ratched was strangled).


So, yeah, my initial post might have been a bit off, since I missed that your list was a list of differences, but that doesn't change the fact that your entire criticism of the film gets chalked up to "It's not the same as the book."