The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 enjoyed a blockbuster opening last weekend, but none of the sparkly vampire flicks in the series made the cut when we asked Wired readers to name their favorite movies based on books.
Maybe there just
aren't enough Twi-hards among our snarky readers, who had plenty to say about other memorable book-to-screen crossovers. Most divisive: David Lynch's phantasmagoric 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert's sci-fi novel
Dune.
Wired's readers didn't stop at that books-based experiment gone wrong (or right, depending on your position). Click through our gallery for other speculative-fiction movies that commenters couldn't help but dissect. (For the record? The only reason we passed on Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange in our original list, "
Novel Approaches: 10 Books That Became Great Sci-Fi and Fantasy Films," was so the director didn't hog the spotlight with 2001: A Space Odyssey.)
Above:
Dune
I love the Dune saga, and would kill for a good film adaptation. David Lynch has made some very interesting-looking movies, and I like a lot of them, but as a Dune fanboy, his film adaptation of the book is atrocious.
—LHL2500
Which version have you seen? If you're talking about the original theatrical release, that was actually hated by Lynch himself, as the film company forced him to excise a lot of it to get within a specific running time. It's why he had his name withheld as director on it, and stuck the name "Alan Smithee" on instead, a tradition amongst directors who don't like the finished product.
—Beeblebrox888
How can you miss David Lynch's Dune from Frank Herbert's classic? Although maligned by critics, IMO it ranks as one of the best sci-fi movies ever.
—rpensotti
Lynch effectively invented the visuals associated with universe, even while deviating from the text's description significantly at times. I think that two consequent attempts of bringing Dune to the screen only highlight how much work was put into visuals.
—LoudRambler
Worst ever? Dune. Great book, terrible movie.
—Damian Brennan
