When you see a 'based on' TV show or movie, do you look at the original source?

I do a lot of times. After I watched the Changeling, I did a lot of reading on the internet.

I did research after I saw “JFK,” which while interesting and plausible, was a mash-up of fact, fiction, rumor, innuendo, conspiracy theory and pure fantasy. Years earlier, when Kennedy was assassinated, I was working at a major NY newspaper and had access to a lot of information. In addition, I had an uncle in Dallas who was a Kennedy advisor and subsequently the same for Johnson, so from him I got a lot of interesting information, too. I’m not saying I know much if anything more than any of you were around then. But I do know that to someone who was too young to have remembered the assassination, that movie would have been terribly misleading. Case in point: sitting in the theater watching it for a second time, I overheard two young women in the row ahead of me saying, ’“I had no idea that’s how it!”

A hell of a lot of horror movies are book adaptations or ’‘actual events”. I also read a lot of horror books so chances are I might have read the book already…Like the movie Shutter Island, I actually read the book years ago, or again, most Stephen King books.
If I’m not familiar with the source though, I’m always interested in knowing, and it’s easy to do online.

For things like based on an actual event, I always seek out the source, so then I can laugh at people who think that the mock documentation in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is actual footage.
There’s such a world of difference when it comes to an actual event and the work based on it. It’s usually just inspiration, so much so that it’s worth informing oneself on the source.

I don’t watch much TV at all aside from The Simpsons and Xena. For The Simpsons it’s awesome though, because it’s fun discovering where all the satire comes from; political events, trends, stereotypes, it just never ends.

Yes, all the time. Two examples:
1.) The movie, Bottle Shock, which is based on a true story about a California winery. Curious about what liberties had been taken with the movie version, I found a website that explained what was true and what they changed.

2.) After reading The Bridges of Madison County and crying my eyes out through the whole 2nd half of the book, I headed directly to the library to seek out the edition of “National Geographic” that had the photo of Robert Kincaid with the necklace with Francesca’s name on it. A young male librarian asked if he could be of assistance. I started to tell him what I was looking for. He was kind enough not to roll his eyes when he explained that it was a work of fiction.

The last quote in my answer above should have read, “I had no idea that’s how it happened.”

It depends. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on how interesting the film is or how much I already know about the reality that’s it’s based. Usually if I do, it’s a film or show based on an historical event. I remember seeing a “made-for-television” movie, one of the absolute best I have ever seen, called When Trumpets Fade, about the Battle of Hurtgen Forest, during WWII. The film, the story, were so compelling that spent the next couple of hours after I watched the film researching the battle on the internet.

Usually I wait to see if I like the basic premise of the story, and then I might read the original.

If a story intrigues me, I always research its historical accuracy. I felt duped by “The Hurricane” with Denzel Washington, the story of Ruben ‘Hurricane’ Carter. Norman Jewison ignored many damning facts to portray Carter as not only honorable, but innocent. A little research proved he was definitely not the first, and probably not the second either. H..H..H.. Hollywood!

I do when the movie is interesting. Like you @YARNLADY I like to see how closely the movie followed actual events.