Yeah, I think you are probably right. Heck, when the first Dune movie came out decades ago I thought to myself, there is no way you can cram that into a couple of hours and have it still make sense.
I’m not perfect, but I sure got that one right.
I read my first James Bond book from the 50’s a couple of years ago. It was ridiculously simplistic and at a 7th grade reading level. But it was a perfect story for a film. Just like many popular songs are a few chords and seven or eight lines of text, half of them repeated. But look at the words of old Genesis songs. I love ‘em, but they are way too wordy to ever be truly popular for the masses.
It’s why Ringworld can’t be a movie, though maybe it could inspire a simple movie script. But even then, you can end up with what happens in the auto industry: The concept car is amazing, but when you remove an inch here, a couple inches there to make it something mass producable, it completely changes the look to be downright repulsive. As exhibit A I offer the pointiac Aztec. Beautifu concept car, ugly final product.
I think the same thing happens often when putting a beloved book to film. It’s best that it is constructed in your mind, rather than the screen.
7th grade reading level for 1950s 7th graders.
Today, many high school graduates would have trouble getting through it.