10 Films Substantially Different From Their Source Material

Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Christopher Priest's novel is possibly the director's finest offering, despite excising almost all of the novel's gothic horror in the process. The result is incredibly interesting, as you can quite easily watch the film and then still read the book without knowing what will happen.

The major twist is common to both, though arguably the first person prose of the diary entries in the book do a better job with this, and there's some consistency between Priest's book and Nolan's film. That is, until you begin to consider the horror.

Nolan's interests plainly lie with the book's science fiction ideas, rather than its gothic ones. As such, rather than a failed trick, the reason for the feuding magicians lies in a fraudulent séance and the resulting miscarriage and suicide. Beyond this, there's the manner in which the Tesla machine goes wrong. In Nolan's film, the trick 'goes wrong' by having Robert Angier become trapped in a water tank. A far more ghoulish and extended consequence is to be found in the book from the mishap with the machine. Add to that the present day frame narrative, and there's plenty reason for fans of the genuinely creepy to pick up a copy.