« Do You Know Who Is Starting To Remind Me of Hitler? | Main | Twin Politicians »
June 17, 2005
Sahara Part 2
I went to see the movie Sahara earlier this week after finishing the book several weeks ago. I now understand why author Clive Cussler sued over losing control of the script.
The characters are all portrayed fairly close to how they were in the book, but the plot was put in a blender and nicely pureed and then rearranged some more. The book was a story about Dirk Pitt going to search for pollution coming from Mali that will end all life on earth and in the process stumbles upon a story about some mysterious confederate gold lost in the Sahara along with Abe Lincoln. The movie has Dirk Pitt going to look for lost confederate gold (without a kidnapped Lincoln) and then stumbling upon the pollution (which is only a minor subplot in the movie). Many minor details were changed like how the heroes meet the bad guys and how the bad guys meet their ends. Huge subplots like the UN Special Forces rescue teams and the slaves in the secret Mali gold mines were completely left out. Other major details are changed as well with NUMA (the agency Pitt works for) in the book being a federal agency, while in the movie NUMA's director is adamant about how NUMA will never be employed by the government.
The thing is all of these changes made the movie a lot more believable than the book and probably made it work better as a movie. A guy seeking a possible lost treasure is a lot more believable than an evil corporation whose pollution will destroy all life in the world in a matter of months. The movie is also action packed, with the action being on a smaller and more believable scale. This is not to say the action is believable, but it is not totally unbelievable for the most part. There is also a bit of dues ex machina in how they stumble upon the wrecked airplane, partly because the subplot involving why the airplane was there in the first place was left out of the movie. Overall the movie worked as a fun and completely forgettable summer movie and was a good example on how movies sometimes improve on books.
Posted by Pete at June 17, 2005 05:29 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.petetheelder.com/mt-tb.cgi/569