Novelizations and Tie-In Books - Yes, really

[Syaoran Li]

I'll admit it in public, I unironically enjoy movie novelizations and tie-in books.

There, I said it.

On a more serious note, I'll admit that novelizations are actually kind of neat and they actually made perfect sense in the era before home video and premium cable. Movies aren't the only things that get novelizations, although they are the most common ones. There's all sorts of novelizations of video games and TV shows too.

I even owned a few chapter book novelizations of Sailor Moon and Batman: The Animated Series when I was a kid, the former being based on the infamous 90's Cloverway/DIC dub, as well as the novelizations of Wild Wild West and the Alien franchise novels that Alan Dean Foster wrote back in the day,

I still occasionally read them despite the consoomer stigma partly out of nostalgia and because a lot of the times, the novelization will have stuff from the script that's not in the movie, like certain specific names and backstories or deleted scenes. It's even more interesting when the novel is working on an earlier draft of the movie and so there's entirely different sub-plots or even endings in the book.

They still make these things even today, though they aren't as common and I don't really read the newer ones.


There's also tie-in novels that are based on a franchise of movies or a show, but aren't direct adaptations.

 

[Prince Lotor]

There have been a series of tie-in Twin Peaks novels. I remember reading the first 3 as a kid and thought they were ok.

It looks like series co-creator Mark Frost wrote 2 more that came out in 2016 and 2017 that I might want to read.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks_books

The Pen & Paper RPG Paranoia had a few novels written for it I liked as a kid as well https://gamebooks.org/Series/825/Show

 

[the dubya]

I'll make the Turner Diaries real, you'll see it on tv

 

[The Shadow]

A few of the Star Wars tie-ins were pretty enjoyable. Ya did good, Timothy Zahn.

Joe Haldeman's Star Trek tie-in World Without End was enjoyable too, though I enjoy both Trek and Haldeman, so that fits.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

I even owned a few chapter book novelizations of Sailor Moon and Batman: The Animated Series when I was a kid

Remember those Tracey West Pokémon books? I had the first six books that were released, maybe a couple more, and it's like... I dunno man, I think that's what got me to wanting to write, even though they were just glorified paid fan fiction lol. I even had the first two Pokémon movie novelizations (still have Mewtwo Strikes Back in a box somewhere) and Pikachu's Vacation, I have no shame.

It wasn't just Pokémon, though, I also had the Powerpuff Girls movie novelization, which... yeah, actually that was the one that made me decide I wanted to write. Then I stopped getting those kinds of books for some reason, I dunno why. Then about a few years ago, I found out that Dragonheart had a novelization with added pieces here and there that couldn't be brought up or were only hinted at in the movie, and I went "Maaan, I wanna read it now." Currently, I'm slowly reading through the Godzilla novelizations which is honestly helping in expanding on the Monsterverse lore (should get Kong: Skull Island's novelization, too), and I think it clicked just how sad it is that we overlook movie novelizations. It sounds kinda hokey, really, but I wonder if there's a little more freedom (despite the schedule) when it comes to being hired to write a novel for a movie that was going to come out at about roughly the same time the book was scheduled to come out. It sounds like the author gets that early access to the script and has to have that imagination to fill in the gaps, and that's why they enjoy writing them and getting into the characters' heads.

I dunno, something about them is oddly fascinating looking into them, but almost so wish-fulfilling for a hobby that I have to wonder why it is I never got into it sooner, as a consumer or to prove myself to be the one to write one of those books myself.

I think there's novelizations of films based off of actual books, though, which I think is hilariously sad, but I might be misremembering things or am actually thinking about children's picture books of movies.

*quickly buys the Dragonheart novelization*

 

[Y2K Baby]

I'll make the Turner Diaries real, you'll see it on tv

Little late on that.

 

[DecimatedFerret]

I bought a novelisation of Dragonslayer without realizing that it was one. Pretty embarrassing since it says so on the cover. Haven't read it though.

 

[Mel Feasance]

For some reason, I decided to read the novelization of the movie "American Gangster" and it was fucking atrocious.

I remember the exact line that made me out it down. "Frank was sitting in the diner, eating his damn eggs, when a figure across the street caught his attention".

Why is the narrator cursing for no reason at all? I hate it.

 

[Kosher Dill]

I only read novelizations of movies based on novels.

 

[XYZpdq]

I have the novel of Phase IV (the Saul Bass ant movie). In the novel there's five phases instead of the movie's four.
2001 is pretty cool. Metropolis (the silent movie) has an interesting book that used to be a lot further from the movie until they found Nobody In Particular's copy in South America

 

[Autumnal Equinox]

I remember reading (and surprisingly enough, enjoying) the novelization of The Phantom Menace back in the day. Terry Brooks (Shannara Chronicles author) wrote it and expanded on the lore quite a bit.

Gene Roddenberry wrote a novelization of Star Trek: the Motion Picture that wasn't half bad either.

 

[Chan Fan]

I only read novelizations of movies based on novels.

View attachment 1383822

I read this SOOOOOOOOO many times. Didn't read the book the movie was based on until two years ago but that was rad, too

I remember reading the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back as a kid and there were extra details in it that I loved

 

[Francis E. Dec Esc.]

I remember reading the novelizations for Annie and Home Alone 2 when I was a kid. The Home Alone 2 novelization had scenes that were cut from the movie, like a nightmare sequence where Harry and Marv go back to Kevin's house and get attacked by even more over the top traps, and Kevin buying a Sega Game Gear from Duncan's Toy Chest, which I guess was a promotional deal that fell through.

 

[BooneHelm]

When the subject of novelizations comes up I have to always plug the little known book, Ghostbusters: The Return by Sholly Fisch. It serves as a continuation after the events of Ghostbusters II. It's actually pretty good and serves well as a third entry.

Sadly finding a physical copy is pretty hard. If I remember correctly the publisher went bankrupt and only so many copies of the book were made. There was even supposed to be 2 additional books. Fortunately a digital copy can be found here.

 

[A Widdle Woach]

I read a lot of anime novelizations as a kid, especially Pokémon and Digimon. As I got older I found the novel for Dragonheart and while I admit I have a soft spot for the movie I really enjoyed the novel too.

 

[Someone in a Tree]

Has anyone attempted a YouTube series or podcast focusing on these? I always thought it could make for an interesting discussion

 

[Distant Stare]

Sadely I read that the Alita novelization was a shit show. The Halo novelization of Halo: Combat Evolved, "The Flood" was okay. The books that came after it, "First Strike" in particular, were 10/10 military science fiction classics.

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

Sadely I read that the Alita novelization was a shit show. The Halo novelization of Halo: Combat Evolved, "The Flood" was okay. The books that came after it, "First Strike" in particular, were 10/10 military science fiction classics.

The halo novelization was pretty decent when allowed to do its own thing and not adapting the events of the game. CE’s story was pretty bare bones since half of the levels don’t have much story content outside of the opening and ending cutscenes so it’s kinda hard to translate into a novel. I’ve heard Dietz’s Mass Effect book was a complete shitshow since it assrapes Mass Effect Canon harder than the ending of 3

 

[Kari Kamiya]

'Eyyy this came faster than I thought!

So fucking excited tbh.

EDIT: "Not my betrayal" should've been in the movie, unless I'm forgetting. Even though I love the biting wit, it's not like I memorized the entire script to my childhood film, y'know lol. But I like how Kara actually did stab Einon intentionally here than just by clumsily falling out of a window and knocking him into a convenient thorny pike. It's gonna make his confrontation with Kara even better since he was still screaming about her hair in his delusion.

If I have to laugh at something, it's this paragraph.

Lolwut, that's the literary equivalent of repeatedly pumping the breaks to be a dick. I hate this paragraph lol.

EDIT 2: I giggled way too much at this. Should've saved it for the marsh scene (much lulz was had, Draco's dignity became non-existent), but I can't let this one go until I do it.

 

[neverendingmidi]

They are a guilty pleasure of mine too. I remember as a kid it was difficult to go to the movies for me. My parents hated the theaters back then (tbf before stadium seating was a thing getting stuck behind a taller person sucked, and theaters-even high end ones- were dirty and sticky all the damn time), so I'd have to wait to see a new movie until it came out at Blockbuster, or was on TV.

Or if I was lucky, the grocery store would have the novelization that I could afford with my allowance. I collected a bunch of them.

They're popcorn books. The sort of thing you take on vacation to read.