Which Fantasy Movie?

[Shikoba]

I have to say Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because it's directed by Tim Burton, and, with the exception of the evil Oompa-Loompas, I really liked the old one.

:oegadzuks! I just realized I didn't put an option down for, "I don't look forward to any of them..."

Feel free to type that in, along with any other suggestions

[WolfGaidin]

Same here: "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". A marvelous book made into a movie with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka by Tim Burton! Can't wait to see it.

Besides: the other movies on your list don't ring a bell.

[Shikoba]

Yeah, a lot of the movies on the list are still in early stages and won't be released for a couple years.

But Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is going to SO good. I hope. I'll be very disappointed if it isn't. I'd probably start sending Tim Burton, my hero, hate mail or something. But I very much doubt it won't be great.

Now I'm making myself want to go read the book again.

[Terje]

The Witch, the Lion and the Wardrobe is what I look most forward to. It'll probably be a horrible disappointment, as I've seen the BBC mini series, but they might make a good film...

[Shikoba]

I'm a bit worried to watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for that reason...it'll probably end up about like Harry Potter, which won't be too bad.

:oBut I want to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the sheer fact that the Oompa Loopmas will be different. See, I love the old Willy Wonka, except the Oompa Loompas are one of my greatest fears & I can't watch them or hear their freakish little song without a shudder of horror.

[Terje]

I see lots of people having that problem with the Oopma Loomps... I never had, cos I didn't see the film until I was 14 or something...

As for HP, here's a little something I wrote about it at another forum:

Of course books are better than books than as films!
In a book, the author has more time to introduce and build the plot, and a good, exciting plot is 4/5 of the movie! the rest is just painting and wax.
As an example, you could compare the two first Harry Potter films with the newest (3rd).
The two first are silly, boring children's films, where the director has all his concentration on the action scenes. It seems as if he thinks that if it's not non-stop action, the kids will fall asleep or something. You can see this in the fact that in both of the 2 first films, they've included two almost complete games of quidditch, while in the 3rd film, they've included the plot-carrying part of one single game, a scene no longer than 5-7 minutes.
The lack of focus on action in this film gives the director much more time to character building, the creation of that special magical Harry Potter feeling, which until now could only be found in the books, and of course plot development.
Of course, the director didn't make the last one perfect, he left out a few important details that'd made the film make more sense to those (infidels ) who haven't read the books, but at least he tried to make a film that was something more than just a 2 hour long action scene, by letting it stay closer to the books.

Ehem, from this long monologue, we can conclude that books are, obviously far better than films, and that films based on books are better the closer to the book they are.
The same conclusion could be reached through comparing LotR: FotR, with LotR: TT. The first one, which is closest to the book, is by far the best one.
Any more that that I shall refrain from writing, since I guess you are all (those of you who bothered to read my post, at least) sick of my ramblings. Thank you for your time.

[Shikoba]

But you must realize that ROTK is my favorite LOTR movie for the sheer [and probably dumb] reason that Eomer is in it & has some small amount of screen time that he didn't get in TTT.

But I definately agree that the vast majority of movies based on books are not as good as the books.

I'm just not someone who can't enjoy a movie that's not as good as the book. Written Literature and Cinema are entirely different things.

[HammerOfGod]

Sometimes the films are better than the book that spawned them...