Can I ask why you two always down films cause they don't follow the damn books? you can put more in a book then a film. you can't expect them to follow the book every time, they'll improvise like every movie people make and I watched and heard from others that it was a great film and a big hit.
Because we read the books first and if a movie is going to be truly based off the book, then it should keep elements from the book. There are only a couple of films I know of where the book version and the movie version actually are very close to each other, and ironically, the films were cel animated. They are:
1.) Watership Down (by Nepenthe Productions)
and
2.) The Animals of Farthing Wood (ok its a tv series, but they didn't stray from that first book much at all)
It is true, that sometimes in film you cannot keep everything the book has to offer so you will end up with a very different film. That happens more often then it doesn't.
On the flipside, if one saw the film version of Dinotopia before they read the books, wouldn't they also whine about the differences? Their stance falls flat because its not the author's fault that the person read a different story. The book came first, so therefore, if anyone knew about Dinotopia before this tv thing came along, they're aware of the Dinotopian culture and way of life based on the BOOKS. Anything else, is not how the author originally presented the idea.
Malte explained it clearly: the directors of the film seriously changed the Dinotopian culture from book to film. I mean, seriously!!! These aren't minor changes, Wayne. These paint a very different picture of the utopia James Gurney gave us in 1992.
Now, we're not bashing a film we haven't seen. We're going after the series made for tv in 2003. The reason I have not picked up this "Quest for the Ruby Sunstone" is because after seeing the preview and other's reviews, this too goes far from the books. See the pattern? Until a film company using either animation, or live action/CGI blend decides to make one that doesn't deviate so much from the book, then I am not going to be pleased. WD in film was not a perfect book copy, but its pretty darn close. It can be done for Dinotopia...but nobody has tried it yet.