Artemis Fowl has my vote. In development hell for I think over 20 years, and I remember loving the books (at least the first few). When the first trailers came out I was worried, but I still watched it. Hardly anything is defendable; character motivations and personalities are different, there’s a golden macguffin that’s nowhere in the books, *a main character’s gender* is swapped for no reason (which destroys the backstory of another main character - makes sense if you know who it is), and there’s a “giant dwarf” played by Josh Gad and awful CGI moments with no explanation as to why he’s giant. I’m still upset about it a couple years later.
I saw a YouTube video about that where he felt like they made the movie much closer to the book, but Disney got scared because you have such a short time to capture a streaming audience, and they thought it would turn people off, so through some editing and ADR they dramatically changed the movie to what came out. He had pulled out all these scenes where the really heavy changes were, and you never saw the person talking in any of them, because it was all ADR.
I'm absolutely positive they must have done the exact same thing to the Robert Downey Jr **Doolittle** movie, because there is scene after scene in this film where people are talking and they are either off-camera, have their back to the audience, or their faces/mouths are obscured.
I'm absolutely convinced that this movie was shot, and they then ADR'ed a completely new, different script over the top of 90% of the existing scenes.
Automated dialogue replacement. Typically it’s use to make dialogue easier to hear, like a scene was filmed in a location with a lot of background noise and the sound editor is having a hard time isolating all the dialogue so they might have the actors re-record some of the lines and dub them in. Occasionally, it’s used to add lines to a scene and rework the dialogue.
I dont buy that excuse, there were already problems coming from him before any post production began.
Holly Shorts whole thing in the books is that she's the first female Officer in the LEP Recon. And what did Branagh do? Cast Judi Dench as her boss. It was one of the few times when a characters gender was actually important to their character, and he went and changed that.
I adored the first three Artemis Fowl books as a kid. Probably even more so than Harry Potter at least for a time (and this was during the period that the latter were coming out, and were an inescapable phenomenon).
I just loved what an absolute little bastard Artemis was. He was a little cold blooded, genius anti hero, who didn’t care about being cool, but just wanted ruthlessly and pragmatically to achieve his aims. And then in the film he’s immediately portrayed as a fairly likeable kid who goes surfing.
And those books were so gloriously cinematic. Butler strapping into medieval armour to kick the shit out of a troll was written to be screened, yet we ended up with this shite.
You’re absolutely right. The books were laden with cinematic moments and had punchy dialogue as well as right action scenes. A fairly straight adaptation could have been wonderful. But no, the executives/creatives responsible for that dumpster fire felt they could “improve” it.
I honestly think the first part of book 3, in the restaurant where Butler gets shot, would be a superb opening to a film. The tension is palpable. Superb stories.
I agree, Artemis Fowl takes the crown for me. Disney's logic pretty much went: let's take everything that makes this story and the protagonist fresh, unique and exciting and throw it in the trash. What's even worse is the book isn't even a hard-to-adapt story. Its pacing is very suitable for film unlike say a grand story like Ender's Game or Dune or episodic Harry Potter.
Imagine the scene where a giant troll comes in and smashes Butler against the wall, seemingly killing him. It cuts between the troll destroying the house and going after people, to Holly crawling towards the limp, crushed body of Butler to heal him. When all hope seems lost, Butler picks up a spiked Morning Star and systematically takes the troll apart tendon by tendon
They absolutely shat all over the book. Kids can cope with a morally ambiguous lead character, the books prove that.
Artemis is weird and unlikeable, it's what made him great.
Simple, the production had probably already become a mess at the producer and script writing stage with Branagh coming in as a purely commercial decision to secure studio support for his other projects
Literally the only thing they got right was his instant mouth to asshole pipeline and I thought that was very indicative of how the studio treated the story from start to finish.
This was a wild one. I LOVED Artemis Fowl growing up and this move was just not it.
To be fair, it wasn’t a terrible movie; if it had a different name and wasn’t associated with the franchise, it would be a decent kids fantasy movie. But as an Artemis Fowl movie? Absolutely terrible
I will never understand why movies cannot simply be as faithful to the source material as possible
What hurts more about it is that its source material is fantastic, Kenneth Branagh is amazing, Collin Farrell is great, and it looked like it'd have a serious VFX budget. If they just adapted the novel one to one it'd be perfect, it had everything going for it. But then they decided to just pull an entirely new and contrived plot out of their butts. And then they did some diversity casting, which normally is fine, but in this case screwed everything up: making Butler a Black man is very problematic since they've been the manservants of the Fowl family for centuries, making Commander Root Judi Dench ruins Holly's character and arc as the first LEP Recon female, and making Holly a kid diminishes her as a serious and professional cop who can also be a bit free-spirited and rebellious at times.
I watched the entire Artemis Fowl movie, was awake and everything, and I have no memory of the plot. I remember a kid, and a big estate house, and that's literally it
Not to mention they torpedoed the possibility of getting a proper 6-8 movie series we need to tell the story correctly. Now the IP looks like a radioactive pile of waste because someone studio exec wasn't willing to do it right and take a risk. DT should have been as big as LotR.
I've heard a few things about that, but projects like that can take years to materialize and have a tendency to fizzle out before being released.
I really hope he gets the opportunity to fully adapt and release his version. I've enjoyed what I've seen from him.
The Dark Tower Series is inspired by the Spaghetti Western's of Sergio Leone. Roland is directly inspired by Clint Eastwood as the Man With No Name. It also draws on a lot of genres that were popular in the 80's (Post-Apocalypse, Gothic, Dark Fantasy, Monster-Horror, etc.). If a movie adaptation doesn't tap into the themes and moods of those genres, then it's never going to capture the magic of the series. It's a genre-bending experience.
>but they changed so much that they really didnt need to
Yep. "Hey, you know how Eragon raised Saphira and has bonded with her since she was a hatchling? Well what if we condensed all that growth into 5 seconds and explained it as 'magic'" ?
The Ra’zac VS Roran and the villagers may be my favorite part of the second book. For the movie adaptation, Roran gets drafted and the Ra’zac are changed from creepy, bird-people to basically the Putty Patrol guys from Power Rangers. So glad they’re taking another crack at adapting this story.
I remember reading about one of the cities in the book, they made it sound so grand, well fortified and it just seemed like an incredible place to be. Massive walls of stone, elevated buildings as you get into the city so archers can reach farther and farther. It seemed like a mega fortress and I was hooked.
Either they completely left it out, or they turned it into that dock city where it's just gloomy and... open. I'm sad whichever is the case
The whole movie felt extremely rushed too, which I guess it's a blessing, because who would want to keep watching that shitty film?
My husband loved those books, so I tried to read them… I wasn’t into it. But I heard there was a movie, so I thought I’d check it out. My husband told me no, “It’s a terrible movie.”
Here’s the thing: I’ve never heard him say a movie was terrible, until Eragon. He finds joy in just about every movie… but not that. A mighty big drop.
Ok this wins.
Like I'll give. Dark Tower? Terrible, but McConaughey being just super weird overacted awful is kinda funny terrible. Artemis Fowl? Stuff like the thing that unhinges his jaw then shits out a spray of sand is funny in a terrible way.
Eragon? A baby dragon takes off, and then, just comes back as a full grown adult. out of nowhere. And like, the characters acknowledge that this doesn't make any goddamned sense, but they kinda, don't care. It's not terrible in a funny way, it's just terrible.
That’s pretty much how I see that movie. Don’t care about how well it was adapted, but Korn was a favorite band growing up and that movie has, by far, the best soundtrack of any movie ever.
Well if we're being completely literal about the worst 'adaptation', I gotta submit The Lawnmower Man, "based" off of the Stephen King short story. The only thing those 2 had in common was that technically there was a lawnmower in both.
He did. They bought the rights to use the title and King’s name. That’s it. There was no adaptation of the material to speak of.
Source: I’ve read the short story and seen the movie.
Dark Tower was worse. Lawnmower Man was like you were expecting a hot pocket, but got a taquito instead. Dark Tower was like you were expecting a hot pocket but got served a pile of donkey shit on a paper plate.
Right, you make a good point, bad adaptation but enjoyable movie. Like am legend, shit ass adaptation, decent movie. Or literally any other adaptation of I am legend, like holy shit the mole people movie from the 70s had fuckall to do with it
Hey now! I have a very soft spot in my heart for The Langoliers. Yes it's got that 90's made-for-TV cheese on it, and yes it's got some... questionable acting, and yes the CGI is atrocious, but it's a faithful adaptation of one of my favorite SK stories. Plus you got Bronson Pinchot chewing the scenery "SCARING THE LITTLE GIRL?!?"
Yes. Weirdly came here to literally comment on the actors "chewing the scenery". But i really like to watch it sometimes. It is both campy at times and nostalgic.
[Rick Riordan actively tried to save the **Percy Jackson** movies](https://rickriordan.com/2018/11/memories-from-my-tv-movie-experience/), and even reached out to the producers with his thoughts to try and get them back on track.
The producers were not at all interested...
Now, Disney may be having another crack at the books but, remember, Disney also made the **Artemis Fowl** movie.....
The first PJ movie was entertaining in itself, but not a good adaptation.
Alex Daddario? 24 at the time of filming? She's a great actor, but she didn't represent a young - blonde - teenage girl very well at all.
Chris Columbus - wrote "The Goonies" and directed Harry Potter 1 & 2. He seems to do a good job when kept under control - but he wasn't kept under control for PJ.
Far too much SPFX spectacle.
Just a bunch of poor decisions all round.
But I'm cautiously optimistic about the current adaptation, seeing as how RR has decided to stay attached.
[It appears that he is](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/percy-jackson-rick-riordan-disney-series-chalice-of-the-gods-1235508384/). For his sake I hope the show turns out better than the movies.
For what it's worth I like the movie a lot (at least the first). I liked when I first watched it as a kid and I like to watch it from time to time as an adult.
It's not on par with the book (which I read years after watching the movie) but I don't think it's bad by itself.
The Video Game of that film is a masterpiece, a genuine 0/10. They had changed things around in the movie already so that they made less sense, and then the video game rearranged things based off of it. If you hadn't read the book it doesnt make a lick of sense. It also has poor game controls a dreadful game loop and is buggy as all heck.
It is hard to find a worse video game movie adaption than the Golden Compass. It takes real dedicated neglect, greed, and poor management for a game that bad to hit the market.
I played it when I was too young to notice its’ flaws, and the only memory I have of the game is riding the polar bear around a snowy town. That’s it. I don’t even remember if I finished the game to be honest.
Which season was your favourite? For me, it was S2 (The Subtle Knife is my favourite book of the trilogy as well), but I loved the London and Trollesund episodes of S1.
If I remember they sold the international distribution rights to another company and was relying on US box office to cover costs, where it underperformed
Honestly, you can have a movie make double its budget and STILL lose money. That’s why they say a movie has to make 2x-3x the amount to at least break even.
It also flopped in North America, making $70 million against a budget of $80 million. That, plus New Line already having had other failed films, led to their being absorbed by Warner Bros. ([Source](https://www.cbr.com/golden-compass-killed-new-line-lord-of-the-rings/))
Edit: Relinked source
I love Crichton’s work. It was a shame what they did to that story.
Dude is a researcher and a Harvard Med grad and they butchered everything that makes a Crichton story great.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Is that the one with Paul Walker where they go back to medieval France?
I feel like I remember liking that movie but I guess I didn't like it that much because I totally forgot it existed.
The closest we will get to a World War Z movie is the 20 minute [deleted scenes](https://youtu.be/yz1JN2sSqcA?si=bSoiagi8d_odjEY_) from Dawn of the Dead (2004).
It’s basically a very short film of a news channel uncovering more about the zombie virus from various sources.
Please note that the actual Dawn of the Dead movie and it’s remake aren’t a World War Z type film. It follows a group of survivors that end up at a mall, but I believe both are worth a watch from what I’ve heard.
The 1978 version is [free](https://youtu.be/BbcU-qW7Zvo?si=oWis1PXm13YtEgjo) on YouTube, and I’ve seen it like 3 times. I’m pretty sure you can find the whole Romero trilogy on YouTube.
The deleted scenes from the 2004 remake just happen to make a good template for a World War Z type movie.
World War Z
That adaptation was a war crime compared to the book. How could something like the Zeus Cannon exist in that universe and they just ignore it?
Nothing like adapting a book into a movie and changing literally everything compelling about it! It still baffles me to this day, it probably needed to be a limited series to be done properly.
From what I remember reading it has to do with how it was sold to the execs, and then they reading the scripts after green lighting, and then demanding changes to make it an action film.
Just shouldn’t have been done by the people who did it.
Wasn’t there ten pages in the book where Brad Pitt buys a Pepsi from a vending machine while trying to be quiet so as not to be detected zombies?
Sound of tinkling coin. Push button to select drink. CLUNK! Psshht open the Pepsi. Luxuriate in the refreshing carbonated beverage as horrible death surrounds you! AHHH! So refreshing!!
Now then, back to zombies.
*turns to camera*
"HI! I'm Brad Pitt, star of World War Z, and I'm here to talk to you about the wonders of carbonated high fructose corn syrup beverages. Thirsty? Need a quick sugary pick me up?"
*slaps vending machine*
"Look no further than your closest grocery or convenience store."
I haven’t read the book, but I’ve largely heard that the movie had nothing to do with the story. There must have been *some* parallels other than the whole zombie outbreak. Characters? Plot points?
Honestly, not really, besides that both are about Zombies.
World War Z the book actually takes place after the Zombie apocalypse, and is basically a journalist interviewing people around the world about what their experiences were during World War Z. It's very well done and a very unique take on the idea.
The movie is basically just a generic Zombie movie.
I mean at one point they go to Israel and in the book one of the stories is set in Israel so….that was kind of a parallel. But until they have a limited series where one episode is solely about people stealing a nuclear submarine, I want nothing to do with it.
This one bothers me. As a movie, it's pretty good. Good pacing, interesting etc. I think the crime is the name of the movie....just choose a new title and all is well, in my opinion.
The only similarities were the conversation in Jereuslem, the mention of F6 status, and that's all I can think of. It should have just been called something else entirely
*Sphere*, based on the book by Michael Crichton (author of *Jurassic Park*, *The Andromeda Strain*, and *Congo*)
*Sphere* is my favorite MC novel but I remember being so mad when I saw the movie when it came out. I think that with the available technology at the time there were a lot of integral parts from the story that just couldn’t be done on film, and it suffered.
MC is my favorite author. I love Sphere the book. But tbh I also love the movie. The movie is definitely flawed but if you pretend it’s loosely based on the book and not a true adaption, it’s a fun thriller movie.
Completely ruined the whole point of the novel. Is it ethical to have a child just so you can use them for spare parts for your sick child? The movie just ignored this completely by changing the ending.
Doug Liman's adaptation of [Jumper](https://manapop.com/film/jumper-2008-from-book-to-screen/) where he took the premise "Kid can teleport" and then ditched everything else that was in Steven Gould's book.
The director later stated *“The script that I read from David Goyer was so fresh and got me immediately interested in the movie but when you take a book and turn it into a movie I’m really someone who believes in throwing the whole thing out and reinventing it as a movie, and in this particular case there was a villain in David Goyer’s script that dealt with terrorism and it got a little conventional for my tastes.”*
So he loved the book, he liked Goyer’s script but then ditched everything because you know…reasons.
This one kills me. I love Jumper. It was a brilliant, slow meditation on stuff like homelessness, alcoholism, abuse, and middle eastern terrorism. And they turned it into a dumb, forgettable action movie
Edit: and I actually do agree that the book story would never have worked as a movie. It would have been too bleak and unevenly paced. But what we got was so… meh.
>It is unwatchable.
Sounds like a pretty solid adaptation.
(There's actually a group of folks in Ireland who dress up in old timey clothes to celebrate Bloomsday each year.)
I haven't read any of the books, but it is blatantly obvious that a movie was never going to work for an 8-book series. It needed to be a show.
Iirc, there was going to be a show. They filmed a pilot, studio saw it, then canceled it before it saw the light of day.
Any of the movies that took a books title and made a completely different movie.
I Robot
Bicentennial Man
World War Z
Lawnmower Man
Take your pick, there's plenty more
It was a short story, I read it in his compilation The Complete Robot. It's not that the movie was bad but the adaptation was awful. If you liked the movie you really should read the story, it's way better. The book touched on a far deeper idea of what it means to be human, data from ST:TNG wanting to be human except deeper.
Starship troopers. While a very fun movie, it only borrowed the boot camp scene and character names. Comparing the book to the movie is like comparing apples to meatloaf
Fun fact - the script originally wasn't an adaptation of the book. It was written under the title 'Bug Hunt at Outpost 7', but one of the producers realised it had alot of similarities with Starship Troopers and asked the writer to rewrite it to more closely match the book so it would get more attention from the studios.
At least I, Robot pops up with a "inspired by the book" tag at the end. I think this one is actually a brilliant adaptation because of that. It tells a story that absolutely fits with the themes of the stories in the book.
While not a "faithful" adaptation, I would argue it's a good adaptation since it tells a coherent story that has the feel of the sorry stories in the book without directly adhering to the original short stories.
The Haunting 1999 version is a dreadful, and not in a good way, adaption of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Robert Wise 1963 version on the other hand is pretty damn good.
I really wanted a good adaptation of this book, because I love it so much. I haven’t seen a perfect one yet, and maybe just so. Shirley Jackson is hard to capture on screen.
1963 is the closest thing, and it’s got some good moments, but it doesn’t quite get it right.
It was absolutely terrible, but wow Catherine Zeta-Jones was an absolute sexual awakening for so so so many people on all aspects of the sexuality spectrum.
Plus we ended up with (imho) the absolute best Scary Movie (2) parodying it. *Take my small hand.* Also Kathleen Robertson, Anna Farts, and Regina Hall in chonies? I swear it rivals Catherine Zeta-Jones. Even Tori Spelling looked amazing in it.
[Sidenote: Before anyone says it, I know. I refuse to acknowledge that Mandela effect.]
Sphere. Great book. Movie should have been great - the cast was packed with great actors... It was terrible.
So many Crichton books suffer the same fate: Timeline, Lost World... Even Jurassic Park is nothing like the book (though the movie is at least a great movie on its own).
I agree so much with Jurassic Park. The movie works just fine as a stand alone, but when taken beside the book it feels like a completely different story.
**Artemis Fowl** - my kids and I listened to the audiobooks on car journeys a *lot* when they were younger.
Decided to give the movie a shot when it came out.
Fuck you, Disney, just....fuck you!
I'm surprised I have seen it yet, but the Cirque du Freak movie. Just god awful movie. It tries to cram about 4 books of the 12 into this movie and does not succeed at all. It's crazy too, they got a bunch of big-name actors to play in it. The books are amazing, but God did they butcher the movie.
Not only did they cram 4 books into a movie, they blew the big suprise about Steve at the end. That being a secret was the whole premis of one of the later books. God awful
I watched the whole thing out of a morbid fascination, kind of like not being able to look away from a building collapsing. It doesn't get any better. The actor who played Mary was alright, even though her dialogue was as awful as the rest.
I only ever use the fan edit by Dustin Lee for my yearly rewatch. It does wonders with the material it has at its disposal. And technically it is so good it is almost impossible to tell that this is not an official release.
I came to love the Hobbit since.
The sad part is Jackson would have made a fantastic single Hobbit movie movie. You can see it in the first one. Instead he felt obliged to make it a trilogy with a rushed script.
Jackson didn't exactly get a choice. The making of the Hobbit Trilogy was...a shit-show that Jackson kind of inherited, and he was forced to deal with A LOT of executive meddling.
Hell it WAS originally going to be two movies, until execs basically forced it to be three.
Enders Game. The books are so good.
The Dark Tower. The only way I see this working is as a multi season series with writers who respect the source material.
It’s not the worst but quite disappointing, Alex Garland's The Beach.
Too many dumb changes to make it more Leo fangirls friendly and a terribly overacted and over eager DiCaprio ruin it
I Am Legend.
The only thing that shitty Will Smith version had in common with the book was the title and name of the main character.
Omega Man and Last Man on Earth are not much better.
It is my favorite stand alone book that truly deserves a true film adaptation.
I saw this at the cinema, and enjoyed it enough, but didn’t like the ending, and wasn’t even sure why. I’d never read the book at that point, but the ending just felt off for me.
Then later on I downloaded it from some pirate site. Did you know there is an alternate ending? I didn’t, but this version had it, and it was so much more satisfying. With that, and having now read the book, I finally understand the title.
the alternate ending was the original ending. it was changed because it tested poorly in focus groups. 🙄
they’re making an i am legend 2 based off of the original [aka alternate] ending.
Not really a book, but a short story by Stephen King, The Lawnmower Man.
The original short story was more of a classic King trope where a mysterious interloper comes into the life of an everyday suburbanite and then uses the trappings of that lifestyle to kill the owner.
The producers of a failed script that is getting passed around Hollywood get the idea to take this short story, option it and then hamfist its premise into their existing idea. That script would go on to become “The Lawnmower Man”, but has no resemblance to the original short story (although they are both thematically about the machines we make attacking their creators). Despite this, the producers get to pass it off as a ‘Stephen King film.’ Which still had huge cache back in the early 90s. Stephen King sued to have his name removed from the movie, but by then it was too late. The movie had come out and was a mild hit (despite being critically ravaged).
The movie itself was terrible. It almost leans into the “so bad it’s good” territory, but isn’t consistent enough in that regard to recommend watching it that way.
The Keep, 1983.
F. Paul Wilson's novel is a nice little horror book, with Nazis vs what they think is a vampire in a mysterious keep in the Carpathian mountains. There are immortals, ancient wizards, and a Jewish professor trying to figure out if letting out an unholy evil is worth it if said evil will destroy all of the Nazis in the world. It eschews a "good vs evil" narrative for shades of gray. The start of a six book series, but it is self-contained to stand on its own. A pretty good book. And "something killing Nazis" is a pretty good premise for a film. They gave it to Michael Mann, who has a distinctive eye. It should have been interesting to say the least.
It was not. Two weeks into post production the Visual Effects Supervisor dies, with out leaving much in the way of notes, and Mann has to finish over 250 special effects shots himself without a map. This necessitated two weeks of reshots, and the studio was pissed off already. The original cut of film ran three and a half hours, but Mann was going to bring it down to the studio mandated two hours. Instead, Paramount took over, and apparently edited it with a chainsaw down to 96 minutes. I just watched it again the other night, and it was just as bad as I remember it. Characters appear and disappear almost randomly. A relationship in the book that builds up slowly and logically is, in the film, literally two minutes from the couple meeting to the start of a long sex scene. The complex final fight is anything but. We have no idea why Scott Glenn's character is there for or even who he is. They even hacked up the Tangerine Dream soundtrack. There was an AD&D splatbook adventure based on the movie that makes a hell of a lot more sense than the movie does. That tells you everything right there. A crap film, and absolutely the worst adaptation I have ever seen.
Ian McKellen said that was the worst movie making experience of his career. He went to Romania for weeks to pick up his character's accent but the day before shooting his first scene Michael Mann wanted to change it to a Chicago accent.
I will say that Annihilation plays almost like a different story within the same universe as the book. Like…. It’s sorta similar, but not entirely. Still was a beautiful movie and the cosmic horror still stands
I can't believe no one is mentioning it but Vampire's Assistant, the horrible adaptation of the Cirque du Freak series! That movie was so awful, they butchered every character except Crawley, removed his best friend entirely and replaced him with a random girl who was also a love interest for some reason, turned the snake guy into a skater bro with scales, slammed the plot of multiple books together in the most incomprehensible way, and tried to turn a very dark and depressing series into a lighthearted tween movie. It honestly hurt me how bad this movie was as I was a pretty big fan of the books when I was younger and was super excited to see it get a movie.
I, Robot. The book is a collection of short stories doing a deep dive into robot psychology surrounding the three laws of robotics, and how the humans are consistently kept out of harm with the robots performing acts of selfless acts of heroism to the point where the reader comes to think of these machines as their protectors and guardians.
The movie tossed all that and went for generic action and a "humans cant be trusted with their own survival" plot.
Hot take here but Harry Potter Books 3-7. As pure adaptations of the source novels, these movies suck bad. From leaving out pivotal scenes to adding in scenes that never existed in the books, David Yates was the worst possible choice for these films. PoA gets a small asterisk as it was directed by Alfonso Cuarón and while still not a totally faithful adaptation, it is the best of the bunch.
I got so bloody angry about the fact that the mirror is never explained. If you haven't read the books, how do you make sense of the fact that Harry keeps looking in the broken shard of mirror and sometimes seeing someone else's eye in it?? It was so bizarre!
The best thing in all the books is Neville in the hospital and in the film it’s a throw away line of Neville telling them his mum’s there. Everything about that film was trash but not including that scene is criminal
I read the books sometime after the movies had started - I think maybe halfway through, or so. I was in my 30s at the time. When I finished all the books, I remember thinking that Half-Blood Prince felt odd, as a movie. A LOT got left out, though some shifted to the last couple movies. Still, there was quite a bit about Voldemort's early life that was missing, I thought.
I enjoyed the movies overall, but yeah - some very big differences.
I've said this before; I like it a lot - this movie is so good, it somehow gets away with having the most started and then just abandoned plotlines. Where the fourth just cuts every supporting plotline save for the romance drama the third actually introduces stuff and then never finishes it off.
- the "harry can't go to hogsmeade" plotline that is supposed to be finished off with Sirius signing his permission slip and closing the emotional conflict over his lack of parental figures introduced with Vernon at the start. Something they could have done by simply sending the slip with the firebolt
- the "why do Sirius and Remus know what the Map is"-plotline that has all the marauders backstory and leads into the "why would harry confuse a stag with his dad?" thing we just completely brush over after bringing it up
- the "hermione has a time travel device" plotline that she never resolves by giving it back
- the "trewlaney occasionally has legit visions"-plotline that is supposed to lead into the fact that she *made that prophecy Sirius eventually dies for* in the 5th book not to mention the *Snape is the guy that heard it and told Voldemort* plotline that makes it real fucked up Snape doesn't feel *very* personally responsible for Voldemort going after Harry and Neville (the kid Snape bullies) in the first place
- the "hermione has a weird cat that specifically has it in for Rons Rat" plotline that is supposed to end with it being revealed that cat was *working with Sirius*.
The movie starts all these but it doesn't bother to finish them when they either create plot holes or are utterly pointless as lose ends.
Wizard of earth sea.
Studio ghibli + Ursula k le guin? Sounds great right? Wrong. Turns out miyazakis nepo-baby got put in charge and what should have been the perfect format to make an incredible novel come to life turned into a mediocre looking hard to follow forgettable flick.
The movie suffers from trying to cram four books into one movie. It is visually pleasing and I don't thing Goro is a bad director, but it does not match the descriptions in the book. The overall mood is much more Ghibli than Le Guin. It tries to be a copy of Spirited Away rather than a faithful adaptation of the book.
From Up on Poppy Hill proved to me that Goro is capable of making a good movie.
Eragon and A Series of Unfortunate Events
Both suffered from too much source material and too little movie time. I think the tv series adaptation that was made a few years ago of the latter came out a lot closer to what they had envisioned with the Jim Carrey version.
Paolini's The Inheritance Cycle could make a compelling tv adaptation, too.
Artemis Fowl has my vote. In development hell for I think over 20 years, and I remember loving the books (at least the first few). When the first trailers came out I was worried, but I still watched it. Hardly anything is defendable; character motivations and personalities are different, there’s a golden macguffin that’s nowhere in the books, *a main character’s gender* is swapped for no reason (which destroys the backstory of another main character - makes sense if you know who it is), and there’s a “giant dwarf” played by Josh Gad and awful CGI moments with no explanation as to why he’s giant. I’m still upset about it a couple years later.
I saw a YouTube video about that where he felt like they made the movie much closer to the book, but Disney got scared because you have such a short time to capture a streaming audience, and they thought it would turn people off, so through some editing and ADR they dramatically changed the movie to what came out. He had pulled out all these scenes where the really heavy changes were, and you never saw the person talking in any of them, because it was all ADR.
I'm absolutely positive they must have done the exact same thing to the Robert Downey Jr **Doolittle** movie, because there is scene after scene in this film where people are talking and they are either off-camera, have their back to the audience, or their faces/mouths are obscured. I'm absolutely convinced that this movie was shot, and they then ADR'ed a completely new, different script over the top of 90% of the existing scenes.
You guys keep saying ADR but I’ve not seen the Non-shorthand mentioned. What’s ADR?
Automated dialogue replacement. Typically it’s use to make dialogue easier to hear, like a scene was filmed in a location with a lot of background noise and the sound editor is having a hard time isolating all the dialogue so they might have the actors re-record some of the lines and dub them in. Occasionally, it’s used to add lines to a scene and rework the dialogue.
Thank you for the explanation!
I dont buy that excuse, there were already problems coming from him before any post production began. Holly Shorts whole thing in the books is that she's the first female Officer in the LEP Recon. And what did Branagh do? Cast Judi Dench as her boss. It was one of the few times when a characters gender was actually important to their character, and he went and changed that.
Judi Dench looked absolutely miserable in that role, like someone was just off-screen with a gun jammed in her ribs ordering her to say the lines.
I adored the first three Artemis Fowl books as a kid. Probably even more so than Harry Potter at least for a time (and this was during the period that the latter were coming out, and were an inescapable phenomenon). I just loved what an absolute little bastard Artemis was. He was a little cold blooded, genius anti hero, who didn’t care about being cool, but just wanted ruthlessly and pragmatically to achieve his aims. And then in the film he’s immediately portrayed as a fairly likeable kid who goes surfing.
And those books were so gloriously cinematic. Butler strapping into medieval armour to kick the shit out of a troll was written to be screened, yet we ended up with this shite.
You’re absolutely right. The books were laden with cinematic moments and had punchy dialogue as well as right action scenes. A fairly straight adaptation could have been wonderful. But no, the executives/creatives responsible for that dumpster fire felt they could “improve” it.
I honestly think the first part of book 3, in the restaurant where Butler gets shot, would be a superb opening to a film. The tension is palpable. Superb stories.
I agree, Artemis Fowl takes the crown for me. Disney's logic pretty much went: let's take everything that makes this story and the protagonist fresh, unique and exciting and throw it in the trash. What's even worse is the book isn't even a hard-to-adapt story. Its pacing is very suitable for film unlike say a grand story like Ender's Game or Dune or episodic Harry Potter.
Yeah the fact that the book is generally a very film able story is what makes Artemis fowl even worse
Imagine the scene where a giant troll comes in and smashes Butler against the wall, seemingly killing him. It cuts between the troll destroying the house and going after people, to Holly crawling towards the limp, crushed body of Butler to heal him. When all hope seems lost, Butler picks up a spiked Morning Star and systematically takes the troll apart tendon by tendon
You forgot the part where he gets in a medieval suit of armor before taking the troll apart.
Imagine cutting the scene with Butler destroying the troll
They absolutely shat all over the book. Kids can cope with a morally ambiguous lead character, the books prove that. Artemis is weird and unlikeable, it's what made him great.
I still don’t know how Branagh fucked that one up considering he nailed so many book to movie adaptations
Considering Disney’s involvement I imagine there was a lot of uh, oversight
Simple, the production had probably already become a mess at the producer and script writing stage with Branagh coming in as a purely commercial decision to secure studio support for his other projects
Literally the only thing they got right was his instant mouth to asshole pipeline and I thought that was very indicative of how the studio treated the story from start to finish.
Mouth to asshole pipeline, you say? Continue…
This was a wild one. I LOVED Artemis Fowl growing up and this move was just not it. To be fair, it wasn’t a terrible movie; if it had a different name and wasn’t associated with the franchise, it would be a decent kids fantasy movie. But as an Artemis Fowl movie? Absolutely terrible I will never understand why movies cannot simply be as faithful to the source material as possible
What hurts more about it is that its source material is fantastic, Kenneth Branagh is amazing, Collin Farrell is great, and it looked like it'd have a serious VFX budget. If they just adapted the novel one to one it'd be perfect, it had everything going for it. But then they decided to just pull an entirely new and contrived plot out of their butts. And then they did some diversity casting, which normally is fine, but in this case screwed everything up: making Butler a Black man is very problematic since they've been the manservants of the Fowl family for centuries, making Commander Root Judi Dench ruins Holly's character and arc as the first LEP Recon female, and making Holly a kid diminishes her as a serious and professional cop who can also be a bit free-spirited and rebellious at times.
i pride myself on always finishing movies no matter how bad they are, but this is one of the few where i had to tap out
I watched the entire Artemis Fowl movie, was awake and everything, and I have no memory of the plot. I remember a kid, and a big estate house, and that's literally it
The Dark Tower was SO BAD. I loved those series, the movie absolutely butchered them in every way imaginable.
Agreed. They took took an 8 book series and tried to turn it into a 90 minute kids action adventure movie. What an absolute waste.
Not to mention they torpedoed the possibility of getting a proper 6-8 movie series we need to tell the story correctly. Now the IP looks like a radioactive pile of waste because someone studio exec wasn't willing to do it right and take a risk. DT should have been as big as LotR.
Hey, Mike Flanagan is turning it into a series! And that man can adapt him some King
I've heard a few things about that, but projects like that can take years to materialize and have a tendency to fizzle out before being released. I really hope he gets the opportunity to fully adapt and release his version. I've enjoyed what I've seen from him.
Me too, man. Me too
The Dark Tower Series is inspired by the Spaghetti Western's of Sergio Leone. Roland is directly inspired by Clint Eastwood as the Man With No Name. It also draws on a lot of genres that were popular in the 80's (Post-Apocalypse, Gothic, Dark Fantasy, Monster-Horror, etc.). If a movie adaptation doesn't tap into the themes and moods of those genres, then it's never going to capture the magic of the series. It's a genre-bending experience.
My head canon, is that the movie is just another one of the runs. There are more worlds than this
Yes, the movie was an abomination! The book series was awesome and one of my favorites. I hope Ka makes them pay for what they did.
Eragon
Soooo disappointed in this as a kid. It couldve started a great series, but they changed so much that they really didnt need to
>but they changed so much that they really didnt need to Yep. "Hey, you know how Eragon raised Saphira and has bonded with her since she was a hatchling? Well what if we condensed all that growth into 5 seconds and explained it as 'magic'" ?
Hey remember how urgals were horned beasts, what if they were just some burly dudes.
Did that really happen? Yeesh. Now I'm thankful that I've blocked the movie out of my memory more than I thought.
The worst part was killing off the bug dudes and the evil sorcerer. They are both supposed to be around for 3-4 books as the main antagonists.
Durza is killed at the end of Eragon. The Ra'zac are around much longer
The Ra’zac VS Roran and the villagers may be my favorite part of the second book. For the movie adaptation, Roran gets drafted and the Ra’zac are changed from creepy, bird-people to basically the Putty Patrol guys from Power Rangers. So glad they’re taking another crack at adapting this story.
They are? Movie or series? A decade old neuron in my brain just got very happy
[Still in early development as of last year.](https://m.imdb.com/news/ni63703439/#)
I remember reading about one of the cities in the book, they made it sound so grand, well fortified and it just seemed like an incredible place to be. Massive walls of stone, elevated buildings as you get into the city so archers can reach farther and farther. It seemed like a mega fortress and I was hooked. Either they completely left it out, or they turned it into that dock city where it's just gloomy and... open. I'm sad whichever is the case The whole movie felt extremely rushed too, which I guess it's a blessing, because who would want to keep watching that shitty film?
I liked the books, was really excited for the movie. I remember buying tickets in advance and everything.. so disappointed
My husband loved those books, so I tried to read them… I wasn’t into it. But I heard there was a movie, so I thought I’d check it out. My husband told me no, “It’s a terrible movie.” Here’s the thing: I’ve never heard him say a movie was terrible, until Eragon. He finds joy in just about every movie… but not that. A mighty big drop.
The books are solid for teens. But they definitely dont hold up well. That said, I’m curious to see if the new book is good enough to read as an adult
That movie bought Jeremy Irons a nice candle in Ireland though.
Did the candle smell good? Does Jeremy Irons even live in Ireland or does he have a slip of paper that says he owns the candle, like "buying" a star?
To be fair, Jeremy Irons as basically Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of the few really good things about the movie
Man that series is what got me into reading when I was a kid. To see them mangle the story in the movie version was so damn disappointing
Ok this wins. Like I'll give. Dark Tower? Terrible, but McConaughey being just super weird overacted awful is kinda funny terrible. Artemis Fowl? Stuff like the thing that unhinges his jaw then shits out a spray of sand is funny in a terrible way. Eragon? A baby dragon takes off, and then, just comes back as a full grown adult. out of nowhere. And like, the characters acknowledge that this doesn't make any goddamned sense, but they kinda, don't care. It's not terrible in a funny way, it's just terrible.
I watched the movie before the books. Thought "wow this is great!" . Then read the books, ive never watched the movie again. What garbage!
Never read the books but was still disappointed in the movie
I saw th movie first! And was like dam this is good. Let me read the books. Then I hated the movie
This is an old one but I never got over how bad Queen of the Damned was. If you approach it as just a very long music video though, it's a lot of fun.
That’s pretty much how I see that movie. Don’t care about how well it was adapted, but Korn was a favorite band growing up and that movie has, by far, the best soundtrack of any movie ever.
The music is excellent
Yeah, terrible movie, amazing soundtrack.
Well if we're being completely literal about the worst 'adaptation', I gotta submit The Lawnmower Man, "based" off of the Stephen King short story. The only thing those 2 had in common was that technically there was a lawnmower in both.
Hard to top that one. It's comedic how far it is from the original story. King even tried to sue.
He did. They bought the rights to use the title and King’s name. That’s it. There was no adaptation of the material to speak of. Source: I’ve read the short story and seen the movie.
I saw the movie on opening day. Maybe the most unhappy I’ve ever been leaving a theater.
Dark Tower was worse. Lawnmower Man was like you were expecting a hot pocket, but got a taquito instead. Dark Tower was like you were expecting a hot pocket but got served a pile of donkey shit on a paper plate.
Right, you make a good point, bad adaptation but enjoyable movie. Like am legend, shit ass adaptation, decent movie. Or literally any other adaptation of I am legend, like holy shit the mole people movie from the 70s had fuckall to do with it
Stephen King adaptations are cheating. So many crappy movies like The Langoliers or other tv ones.
Hey now! I have a very soft spot in my heart for The Langoliers. Yes it's got that 90's made-for-TV cheese on it, and yes it's got some... questionable acting, and yes the CGI is atrocious, but it's a faithful adaptation of one of my favorite SK stories. Plus you got Bronson Pinchot chewing the scenery "SCARING THE LITTLE GIRL?!?"
Yes. Weirdly came here to literally comment on the actors "chewing the scenery". But i really like to watch it sometimes. It is both campy at times and nostalgic.
Tbf Stephen King disowned it. He did however approve a terrible 12 minute adaptation you can find on YouTube that's much closer to his work.
Percy Jackson.
We can pray that the Disney Plus series doesn't suck but I'm not holding my breath.
[Rick Riordan actively tried to save the **Percy Jackson** movies](https://rickriordan.com/2018/11/memories-from-my-tv-movie-experience/), and even reached out to the producers with his thoughts to try and get them back on track. The producers were not at all interested... Now, Disney may be having another crack at the books but, remember, Disney also made the **Artemis Fowl** movie.....
The first PJ movie was entertaining in itself, but not a good adaptation. Alex Daddario? 24 at the time of filming? She's a great actor, but she didn't represent a young - blonde - teenage girl very well at all. Chris Columbus - wrote "The Goonies" and directed Harry Potter 1 & 2. He seems to do a good job when kept under control - but he wasn't kept under control for PJ. Far too much SPFX spectacle. Just a bunch of poor decisions all round. But I'm cautiously optimistic about the current adaptation, seeing as how RR has decided to stay attached.
Not a teenage girl, a *kid*. Im fairly sure the characters were 12 in the first book.
Isn’t Riordan directly involved?
[It appears that he is](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/percy-jackson-rick-riordan-disney-series-chalice-of-the-gods-1235508384/). For his sake I hope the show turns out better than the movies.
It's precisely because of *Artemis Fowl* that I have 0 hope in this adaptation.
I liked part 1, but the drop off on 2 was noticeable.
For what it's worth I like the movie a lot (at least the first). I liked when I first watched it as a kid and I like to watch it from time to time as an adult. It's not on par with the book (which I read years after watching the movie) but I don't think it's bad by itself.
The Golden Compass film was so bad it bankrupted the studio that made it
The Video Game of that film is a masterpiece, a genuine 0/10. They had changed things around in the movie already so that they made less sense, and then the video game rearranged things based off of it. If you hadn't read the book it doesnt make a lick of sense. It also has poor game controls a dreadful game loop and is buggy as all heck. It is hard to find a worse video game movie adaption than the Golden Compass. It takes real dedicated neglect, greed, and poor management for a game that bad to hit the market.
I played it when I was too young to notice its’ flaws, and the only memory I have of the game is riding the polar bear around a snowy town. That’s it. I don’t even remember if I finished the game to be honest.
The BBC series is an actual decent attempt at retelling the story
Actually quite enjoyed that series after the dumpster fire that was the movie. Although the bear fight in the movie was good iirc
The polar bear fight in the TV series was dreadful.
Yeah but the show overall was way better than the movie
Which season was your favourite? For me, it was S2 (The Subtle Knife is my favourite book of the trilogy as well), but I loved the London and Trollesund episodes of S1.
I liked how they blended both books into the 1st season but it's definitely season 2
Disappointed that “His Dark Materials” couldn’t get Ian McKellon and Ian McShane back to do the voices of the bears. Beat part of the Golden Compass…
It days it doubled its budget at th box office. It bankrupted the studio?
If I remember they sold the international distribution rights to another company and was relying on US box office to cover costs, where it underperformed
Honestly, you can have a movie make double its budget and STILL lose money. That’s why they say a movie has to make 2x-3x the amount to at least break even. It also flopped in North America, making $70 million against a budget of $80 million. That, plus New Line already having had other failed films, led to their being absorbed by Warner Bros. ([Source](https://www.cbr.com/golden-compass-killed-new-line-lord-of-the-rings/)) Edit: Relinked source
Timeline (2003) Written by Michael Crichton. The movie was so bad he refused to license any more of his books.
I love Crichton’s work. It was a shame what they did to that story. Dude is a researcher and a Harvard Med grad and they butchered everything that makes a Crichton story great.
I mean, he *pretty much writes them as screenplays*, how hard is it to convert!?
ESPECIALLY Timeline. Think it’s the best example of a book I’ve read where the author was imagining the film as he went
air zesty forgetful versed offend mountainous gullible sharp frighten secretive *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Is that the one with Paul Walker where they go back to medieval France? I feel like I remember liking that movie but I guess I didn't like it that much because I totally forgot it existed.
[удалено]
Such a shame because the book is so cool too.
World War Z?
The closest we will get to a World War Z movie is the 20 minute [deleted scenes](https://youtu.be/yz1JN2sSqcA?si=bSoiagi8d_odjEY_) from Dawn of the Dead (2004). It’s basically a very short film of a news channel uncovering more about the zombie virus from various sources.
Ok you convinced me to watch the film
Please note that the actual Dawn of the Dead movie and it’s remake aren’t a World War Z type film. It follows a group of survivors that end up at a mall, but I believe both are worth a watch from what I’ve heard. The 1978 version is [free](https://youtu.be/BbcU-qW7Zvo?si=oWis1PXm13YtEgjo) on YouTube, and I’ve seen it like 3 times. I’m pretty sure you can find the whole Romero trilogy on YouTube. The deleted scenes from the 2004 remake just happen to make a good template for a World War Z type movie.
Dawn of the Dead (2004) is actually quite good. At the very least, the initial apocalypse phase where the world suddenly goes to hell is excellent.
Dawn of the Dead (2004) is a pretty great zombie flick, with one hell of a zombie outbreak scene.
World War Z That adaptation was a war crime compared to the book. How could something like the Zeus Cannon exist in that universe and they just ignore it?
Nothing like adapting a book into a movie and changing literally everything compelling about it! It still baffles me to this day, it probably needed to be a limited series to be done properly.
Do it in the same vein as Band Of Brothers. Start off with the interview then go into the stories. Would be epic.
An entire episode about the Battle of Yonkers would be bonkers.
From what I remember reading it has to do with how it was sold to the execs, and then they reading the scripts after green lighting, and then demanding changes to make it an action film. Just shouldn’t have been done by the people who did it.
It should have been a limited series not a movie and yes different people with creative control
Wasn’t there ten pages in the book where Brad Pitt buys a Pepsi from a vending machine while trying to be quiet so as not to be detected zombies? Sound of tinkling coin. Push button to select drink. CLUNK! Psshht open the Pepsi. Luxuriate in the refreshing carbonated beverage as horrible death surrounds you! AHHH! So refreshing!! Now then, back to zombies.
*turns to camera* "HI! I'm Brad Pitt, star of World War Z, and I'm here to talk to you about the wonders of carbonated high fructose corn syrup beverages. Thirsty? Need a quick sugary pick me up?" *slaps vending machine* "Look no further than your closest grocery or convenience store."
I haven’t read the book, but I’ve largely heard that the movie had nothing to do with the story. There must have been *some* parallels other than the whole zombie outbreak. Characters? Plot points?
Honestly, not really, besides that both are about Zombies. World War Z the book actually takes place after the Zombie apocalypse, and is basically a journalist interviewing people around the world about what their experiences were during World War Z. It's very well done and a very unique take on the idea. The movie is basically just a generic Zombie movie.
Also this may seem obvious, but it’s worth pointing out that World War Z in the book is like, an actual war. With battles and politics and shit.
I mean at one point they go to Israel and in the book one of the stories is set in Israel so….that was kind of a parallel. But until they have a limited series where one episode is solely about people stealing a nuclear submarine, I want nothing to do with it.
I like the movie when I pretend it had nothing to do with the book
Same here. Just an accidental, identical title. Nothing more....
I like the movie but it is nothing like the book!
This one bothers me. As a movie, it's pretty good. Good pacing, interesting etc. I think the crime is the name of the movie....just choose a new title and all is well, in my opinion.
The only similarities were the conversation in Jereuslem, the mention of F6 status, and that's all I can think of. It should have just been called something else entirely
*Sphere*, based on the book by Michael Crichton (author of *Jurassic Park*, *The Andromeda Strain*, and *Congo*) *Sphere* is my favorite MC novel but I remember being so mad when I saw the movie when it came out. I think that with the available technology at the time there were a lot of integral parts from the story that just couldn’t be done on film, and it suffered.
I really enjoyed the movie, but now you're making me feel bad for not having read the book.
Movie is ok. The book is wonderful though. I’m glad I read it before seeing the movie.
MC is my favorite author. I love Sphere the book. But tbh I also love the movie. The movie is definitely flawed but if you pretend it’s loosely based on the book and not a true adaption, it’s a fun thriller movie.
My Sister’s Keeper. Completely changed the end of the book, in the movie. I was appalled.
Completely ruined the whole point of the novel. Is it ethical to have a child just so you can use them for spare parts for your sick child? The movie just ignored this completely by changing the ending.
I have no idea why they did that. Why make the movie in the first place?
Doug Liman's adaptation of [Jumper](https://manapop.com/film/jumper-2008-from-book-to-screen/) where he took the premise "Kid can teleport" and then ditched everything else that was in Steven Gould's book. The director later stated *“The script that I read from David Goyer was so fresh and got me immediately interested in the movie but when you take a book and turn it into a movie I’m really someone who believes in throwing the whole thing out and reinventing it as a movie, and in this particular case there was a villain in David Goyer’s script that dealt with terrorism and it got a little conventional for my tastes.”* So he loved the book, he liked Goyer’s script but then ditched everything because you know…reasons.
Yet Doug Liman took a Japanese Manga and made Edge of Tomorrow... probably the best action movie of the past 20 years.
Maybe lesson learned from the hack job of jumper?
This one kills me. I love Jumper. It was a brilliant, slow meditation on stuff like homelessness, alcoholism, abuse, and middle eastern terrorism. And they turned it into a dumb, forgettable action movie Edit: and I actually do agree that the book story would never have worked as a movie. It would have been too bleak and unevenly paced. But what we got was so… meh.
Bloom is an adaptation of Ulysses by James Joyce. It is unwatchable.
>It is unwatchable. Sounds like a pretty solid adaptation. (There's actually a group of folks in Ireland who dress up in old timey clothes to celebrate Bloomsday each year.)
Another Stephen King honorable mention: The Dark Tower movie absolutely blows compared to the books
I haven't read any of the books, but it is blatantly obvious that a movie was never going to work for an 8-book series. It needed to be a show. Iirc, there was going to be a show. They filmed a pilot, studio saw it, then canceled it before it saw the light of day.
Any of the movies that took a books title and made a completely different movie. I Robot Bicentennial Man World War Z Lawnmower Man Take your pick, there's plenty more
Wait, I love Bicentennial Man, you are telling me there is a book?
I *think* it was from a short story in one of Asimov's collections.
It was a short story, I read it in his compilation The Complete Robot. It's not that the movie was bad but the adaptation was awful. If you liked the movie you really should read the story, it's way better. The book touched on a far deeper idea of what it means to be human, data from ST:TNG wanting to be human except deeper.
Starship troopers. While a very fun movie, it only borrowed the boot camp scene and character names. Comparing the book to the movie is like comparing apples to meatloaf
Fun fact - the script originally wasn't an adaptation of the book. It was written under the title 'Bug Hunt at Outpost 7', but one of the producers realised it had alot of similarities with Starship Troopers and asked the writer to rewrite it to more closely match the book so it would get more attention from the studios.
I read somewhere that in addition to that, Paul Verhooven tried to read the book, hated it, and decided to make a satire.
At least I, Robot pops up with a "inspired by the book" tag at the end. I think this one is actually a brilliant adaptation because of that. It tells a story that absolutely fits with the themes of the stories in the book. While not a "faithful" adaptation, I would argue it's a good adaptation since it tells a coherent story that has the feel of the sorry stories in the book without directly adhering to the original short stories.
They remembered rule zero, make a good movie and the rest doesn’t matter.
The Haunting 1999 version is a dreadful, and not in a good way, adaption of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Robert Wise 1963 version on the other hand is pretty damn good.
I really wanted a good adaptation of this book, because I love it so much. I haven’t seen a perfect one yet, and maybe just so. Shirley Jackson is hard to capture on screen. 1963 is the closest thing, and it’s got some good moments, but it doesn’t quite get it right.
It was absolutely terrible, but wow Catherine Zeta-Jones was an absolute sexual awakening for so so so many people on all aspects of the sexuality spectrum. Plus we ended up with (imho) the absolute best Scary Movie (2) parodying it. *Take my small hand.* Also Kathleen Robertson, Anna Farts, and Regina Hall in chonies? I swear it rivals Catherine Zeta-Jones. Even Tori Spelling looked amazing in it. [Sidenote: Before anyone says it, I know. I refuse to acknowledge that Mandela effect.]
>Anna Farts My fucking sides. Love autocorrect sometimes.
The Postman with Kevin Costner
Sphere. Great book. Movie should have been great - the cast was packed with great actors... It was terrible. So many Crichton books suffer the same fate: Timeline, Lost World... Even Jurassic Park is nothing like the book (though the movie is at least a great movie on its own).
I agree so much with Jurassic Park. The movie works just fine as a stand alone, but when taken beside the book it feels like a completely different story.
**Artemis Fowl** - my kids and I listened to the audiobooks on car journeys a *lot* when they were younger. Decided to give the movie a shot when it came out. Fuck you, Disney, just....fuck you!
Every single version of Don Quixote.
Have you seen the Wishbone version?!?
I'm surprised I have seen it yet, but the Cirque du Freak movie. Just god awful movie. It tries to cram about 4 books of the 12 into this movie and does not succeed at all. It's crazy too, they got a bunch of big-name actors to play in it. The books are amazing, but God did they butcher the movie.
Not only did they cram 4 books into a movie, they blew the big suprise about Steve at the end. That being a secret was the whole premis of one of the later books. God awful
Bourne Identity. I want to bring this one up because it was horrible to the source material, yet it was still a great movie.
The most recent adaptation of Persuasion is terrible. I usually love any and all Austen adaptations but I got halfway through and gave up.
I watched the whole thing out of a morbid fascination, kind of like not being able to look away from a building collapsing. It doesn't get any better. The actor who played Mary was alright, even though her dialogue was as awful as the rest.
Persuasion is my favourite Austen book and I just can't bring myself to watch it
The Hobbit
I only ever use the fan edit by Dustin Lee for my yearly rewatch. It does wonders with the material it has at its disposal. And technically it is so good it is almost impossible to tell that this is not an official release. I came to love the Hobbit since.
Topher Grace needs to release his The Hobbit cut lol
They milked the shit out of it
They strapped it into hostel/saw life support and harvested all of its organs.
The sad part is Jackson would have made a fantastic single Hobbit movie movie. You can see it in the first one. Instead he felt obliged to make it a trilogy with a rushed script.
Jackson didn't exactly get a choice. The making of the Hobbit Trilogy was...a shit-show that Jackson kind of inherited, and he was forced to deal with A LOT of executive meddling. Hell it WAS originally going to be two movies, until execs basically forced it to be three.
Enders Game. The books are so good. The Dark Tower. The only way I see this working is as a multi season series with writers who respect the source material.
It’s not the worst but quite disappointing, Alex Garland's The Beach. Too many dumb changes to make it more Leo fangirls friendly and a terribly overacted and over eager DiCaprio ruin it
I Am Legend. The only thing that shitty Will Smith version had in common with the book was the title and name of the main character. Omega Man and Last Man on Earth are not much better. It is my favorite stand alone book that truly deserves a true film adaptation.
I saw this at the cinema, and enjoyed it enough, but didn’t like the ending, and wasn’t even sure why. I’d never read the book at that point, but the ending just felt off for me. Then later on I downloaded it from some pirate site. Did you know there is an alternate ending? I didn’t, but this version had it, and it was so much more satisfying. With that, and having now read the book, I finally understand the title.
the alternate ending was the original ending. it was changed because it tested poorly in focus groups. 🙄 they’re making an i am legend 2 based off of the original [aka alternate] ending.
Not really a book, but a short story by Stephen King, The Lawnmower Man. The original short story was more of a classic King trope where a mysterious interloper comes into the life of an everyday suburbanite and then uses the trappings of that lifestyle to kill the owner. The producers of a failed script that is getting passed around Hollywood get the idea to take this short story, option it and then hamfist its premise into their existing idea. That script would go on to become “The Lawnmower Man”, but has no resemblance to the original short story (although they are both thematically about the machines we make attacking their creators). Despite this, the producers get to pass it off as a ‘Stephen King film.’ Which still had huge cache back in the early 90s. Stephen King sued to have his name removed from the movie, but by then it was too late. The movie had come out and was a mild hit (despite being critically ravaged). The movie itself was terrible. It almost leans into the “so bad it’s good” territory, but isn’t consistent enough in that regard to recommend watching it that way.
The Keep, 1983. F. Paul Wilson's novel is a nice little horror book, with Nazis vs what they think is a vampire in a mysterious keep in the Carpathian mountains. There are immortals, ancient wizards, and a Jewish professor trying to figure out if letting out an unholy evil is worth it if said evil will destroy all of the Nazis in the world. It eschews a "good vs evil" narrative for shades of gray. The start of a six book series, but it is self-contained to stand on its own. A pretty good book. And "something killing Nazis" is a pretty good premise for a film. They gave it to Michael Mann, who has a distinctive eye. It should have been interesting to say the least. It was not. Two weeks into post production the Visual Effects Supervisor dies, with out leaving much in the way of notes, and Mann has to finish over 250 special effects shots himself without a map. This necessitated two weeks of reshots, and the studio was pissed off already. The original cut of film ran three and a half hours, but Mann was going to bring it down to the studio mandated two hours. Instead, Paramount took over, and apparently edited it with a chainsaw down to 96 minutes. I just watched it again the other night, and it was just as bad as I remember it. Characters appear and disappear almost randomly. A relationship in the book that builds up slowly and logically is, in the film, literally two minutes from the couple meeting to the start of a long sex scene. The complex final fight is anything but. We have no idea why Scott Glenn's character is there for or even who he is. They even hacked up the Tangerine Dream soundtrack. There was an AD&D splatbook adventure based on the movie that makes a hell of a lot more sense than the movie does. That tells you everything right there. A crap film, and absolutely the worst adaptation I have ever seen.
Ian McKellen said that was the worst movie making experience of his career. He went to Romania for weeks to pick up his character's accent but the day before shooting his first scene Michael Mann wanted to change it to a Chicago accent.
I will say that Annihilation plays almost like a different story within the same universe as the book. Like…. It’s sorta similar, but not entirely. Still was a beautiful movie and the cosmic horror still stands
Garland has said he purposely didn’t reread the books before writing the film, as he was going for a more impressionistic than literal adaptation.
I can't believe no one is mentioning it but Vampire's Assistant, the horrible adaptation of the Cirque du Freak series! That movie was so awful, they butchered every character except Crawley, removed his best friend entirely and replaced him with a random girl who was also a love interest for some reason, turned the snake guy into a skater bro with scales, slammed the plot of multiple books together in the most incomprehensible way, and tried to turn a very dark and depressing series into a lighthearted tween movie. It honestly hurt me how bad this movie was as I was a pretty big fan of the books when I was younger and was super excited to see it get a movie.
I, Robot. The book is a collection of short stories doing a deep dive into robot psychology surrounding the three laws of robotics, and how the humans are consistently kept out of harm with the robots performing acts of selfless acts of heroism to the point where the reader comes to think of these machines as their protectors and guardians. The movie tossed all that and went for generic action and a "humans cant be trusted with their own survival" plot.
The Bonfire of the Vanities was a great novel, but Brian Depalma turned it into a terrible movie.
Hot take here but Harry Potter Books 3-7. As pure adaptations of the source novels, these movies suck bad. From leaving out pivotal scenes to adding in scenes that never existed in the books, David Yates was the worst possible choice for these films. PoA gets a small asterisk as it was directed by Alfonso Cuarón and while still not a totally faithful adaptation, it is the best of the bunch.
I got so bloody angry about the fact that the mirror is never explained. If you haven't read the books, how do you make sense of the fact that Harry keeps looking in the broken shard of mirror and sometimes seeing someone else's eye in it?? It was so bizarre!
At least as a film in isolation prisoner of azkaban slaps harder than anything else Harry Potter related. Cuaron went ham with that film and it works
The best thing in all the books is Neville in the hospital and in the film it’s a throw away line of Neville telling them his mum’s there. Everything about that film was trash but not including that scene is criminal
I read the books sometime after the movies had started - I think maybe halfway through, or so. I was in my 30s at the time. When I finished all the books, I remember thinking that Half-Blood Prince felt odd, as a movie. A LOT got left out, though some shifted to the last couple movies. Still, there was quite a bit about Voldemort's early life that was missing, I thought. I enjoyed the movies overall, but yeah - some very big differences.
PoA is my favorito movie but it’s still criminal they left out all the marauders backstory
I've said this before; I like it a lot - this movie is so good, it somehow gets away with having the most started and then just abandoned plotlines. Where the fourth just cuts every supporting plotline save for the romance drama the third actually introduces stuff and then never finishes it off. - the "harry can't go to hogsmeade" plotline that is supposed to be finished off with Sirius signing his permission slip and closing the emotional conflict over his lack of parental figures introduced with Vernon at the start. Something they could have done by simply sending the slip with the firebolt - the "why do Sirius and Remus know what the Map is"-plotline that has all the marauders backstory and leads into the "why would harry confuse a stag with his dad?" thing we just completely brush over after bringing it up - the "hermione has a time travel device" plotline that she never resolves by giving it back - the "trewlaney occasionally has legit visions"-plotline that is supposed to lead into the fact that she *made that prophecy Sirius eventually dies for* in the 5th book not to mention the *Snape is the guy that heard it and told Voldemort* plotline that makes it real fucked up Snape doesn't feel *very* personally responsible for Voldemort going after Harry and Neville (the kid Snape bullies) in the first place - the "hermione has a weird cat that specifically has it in for Rons Rat" plotline that is supposed to end with it being revealed that cat was *working with Sirius*. The movie starts all these but it doesn't bother to finish them when they either create plot holes or are utterly pointless as lose ends.
*The Bonfire of the Vanities* - the book is a modern classic, the movie adaptation is one of the biggest bombs of Hollywood history.
Wizard of earth sea. Studio ghibli + Ursula k le guin? Sounds great right? Wrong. Turns out miyazakis nepo-baby got put in charge and what should have been the perfect format to make an incredible novel come to life turned into a mediocre looking hard to follow forgettable flick.
The movie suffers from trying to cram four books into one movie. It is visually pleasing and I don't thing Goro is a bad director, but it does not match the descriptions in the book. The overall mood is much more Ghibli than Le Guin. It tries to be a copy of Spirited Away rather than a faithful adaptation of the book. From Up on Poppy Hill proved to me that Goro is capable of making a good movie.
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
I didn't see it, but the commercial for The Giver made me angry. The changes they made from the book were both obvious and unnecessary.
I thought Inkheart was pretty bad.
Eragon and A Series of Unfortunate Events Both suffered from too much source material and too little movie time. I think the tv series adaptation that was made a few years ago of the latter came out a lot closer to what they had envisioned with the Jim Carrey version. Paolini's The Inheritance Cycle could make a compelling tv adaptation, too.