tdalton,
Even if i agreed that CR wasn't a great adaptation of the novel, it is still a far far better adaptation that any of the other movies (with perhaps only FRWL coming close, but that movie threw out the great high concept first part of the novel and the breathtaking cliff hanger ending).
However, in CR i personally feel they did a good job keeping so much that was great from the novel, but managing to sell it very successfully to a modern audience with all their expectations of an action-thriller met (much like the Bourne trilogy had done, proving an action film could also be a great thriller).
Sure, there's elements i'm sad they dropped, such as the extent and specifics of Fleming's the truly gruelling torture scene; the explosion which Bond miraculously escaped unscathed thanks to a lucky palm tree; and as you rightly say, the paranoia of the final act of the novel.
The biggest let down was the throwaway fashion in which they chose to deliver the final line of the book, "The bitch is dead", as though afraid of alienating the audience. After all, that alienation, to a certain extent was doubtless Fleming's intention - to state clearly and bluntly how much Bond had changed by the story's end - how dangerous and focused he'd now become - the moral question of cowboy's and indians left behind with Vesper.
Now, as McCartney said 'If you've got a job to do you gotta do it well', and Bond's job is now vengeance on SMERSH. Fleming new just how much that would make readers yearn for the next book.
In the movie the essence of this was only partially rescued by the cold blooded take down of Mr White in the epilogue.
But despite all this, the CR movie is easily the best adaptation of the series and if you don't think it's a good adaptation then what does that say about the rest of them?
Edited by Odd Jobbies, 21 April 2013 - 05:15 PM.