And the Worse Novel Adaptations

[Mr Trick]

Dune (although I love Lynch, and still maintain that there are good things in the film!)
The Hole (the film from 2000 with Thora Birch in)
The Great Gatsby (recent version)
The Secret Window
The Human Stain
The Dreamcatcher
Vanity Fair
The Fault in Our Stars (But then maybe the book would make me vomit, and maybe I should just except that it is not aimed at me😉)
Harry Potter (the first one whatever it was called)

 

[Lyri]

I LOVED The Maze Runner movie, I thought it was brilliantly done, the acting was great and the effects...amazing.

But it bore almost no resemblance to the book. I love the book, it was one of the best books I read last year, but they changed so much stuff for the movie that I was sitting there for the first 20 minutes getting more and more pissed off before I had to just put the book out of my mind and watch it as a completely separate project that just had a few things in common with the book.

I was disappointed, I was looking forward to seeing certain aspects play out on screen that just never materialized. It was hard to switch off.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Dune
The Dreamcatcher

Both of those I think are best suited for written word versus moving pictures. Dune especially would just be near impossible to be 'properly' translated to film.

 

[Blaze]

The Hobbit-and not listen to me, I actually really enjoyed the series as a whole, they were great movies (aside from the last one), but they were NOTHING like the book. If we see it as a separate entity, than it isn't haft bad...although the last one still sucks.

Okay, this isn't a book, but it's an adaptation from TV. Avatar, the Last Airbender F***** up everything. And I mean, like everything good about the show. First off they white washed the cast so much. Sure, just replace all of the Inuit/native descent character by white characters and cast middle eastern character as the bad guys. And then mess up everything about fan favorites like Iroh. And get a child actor who has no charisma to play one of the most charismatic character. Completely disregard the roots of bending with their associated martial discipline and try to pack a whole season in a 2h movie... Possibly the only good thing about the movie is Dev Patel.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

The Hobbit-and not listen to me, I actually really enjoyed the series as a whole, they were great movies (aside from the last one),

The last one was great! The best thing about it was knowing that there would never be anymore that I would have to suffer through just for the sake of watching a film to stay hip and relevant whilst at the same time allowing me to complain about it. All of the Hobbit moves were bad. Some more bad than others.

 

[Blaze]

The last one was great! The best thing about it was knowing that there would never be anymore that I would have to suffer through just for the sake of watching a film to stay hip and relevant whilst at the same time allowing me to complain about it. All of the Hobbit moves were bad. Some more bad than others.

lol I actually thought the first two were great. I mean, sure there was too much CGI, but the movies worked well as a continuation (well, as a prequel) to LOTR. The last one just didn't have a story and so many loose ends (how can you have loose ends in a 3h movie with no story?), which is why I disliked it.

 

[Mr Trick]

I'd much rather watch the Hobbit films than read the books. Just think that sort of genre works better in film. Jackson did such a good job with LOTR too, which is partly why I didn't rush to see the Hobbit films.

 

[white avenger]

I will make a broad statement and say that any time one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories was "adapted" into a movie, it was a total hack job. The only two exceptions to this were "Greystoke" starring Christopher Lambert as Tarzan/Lord Greystoke, in that they came close to capturing the spirit of Burroughs' story, if not the literal facts, and "John Carter," which made a tremendous effort at presenting what has to be 20th Century's most imitated action hero, but fell short commercially.

 

[Blaze]

I'd much rather watch the Hobbit films than read the books. Just think that sort of genre works better in film. Jackson did such a good job with LOTR too, which is partly why I didn't rush to see the Hobbit films.

Book, singular. That's the problem here, one 200p book doesn't warrant 9h of movies. I was quick to defend PJ before, I actually don't mind have 3 movies, but the problem was that the last film was based on maybe 50 pages, and as a result, the story was just one big bloated battle. If they had added more material, it would have been fine.

But for LOTR, I agree the adaptation was spectacular.

 

[Mr Trick]

Book, singular. That's the problem here, one 200p book doesn't warrant 9h of movies. I was quick to defend PJ before, I actually don't mind have 3 movies, but the problem was that the last film was based on maybe 50 pages, and as a result, the story was just one big bloated battle. If they had added more material, it would have been fine.

But for LOTR, I agree the adaptation was spectacular.

This is true and is partly why I have not seen the Hobbit films yet. And because Jackson did such a great job with LOTR which itself spent 9 1/2 hours in that world then I would have just preferred if he had left it there.

 

[RoxySilver]

Eragon... I'm a huge fan of Paolini's Inheritance Cycle.
The movie was... awful, at best (in my opinion). I do not understand how you can crash so efficiently a story. It actually demands talent. I'm still not over it.

 

[The Bronze]

I'm not a big novel reader but I'll speculate that The Mortal Instruments must be amongst the worst adaptations. I enjoyed the Harry Potter and Hunger Games films based on popular book franchises so I figured I'd give City of Bones a try. It's a shocker of a movie so I'm guessing the books must be better.

 

[Taake]

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Now, this is one of my absolute favorite books, I own several editions and read it at least once a year.
Yet, I wasn't the slightest bit worried when I went into it, mostly because I trusted and approved of the casting choices, and I just couldn't conceive of the pain that was to come for me and my friend (who loves it equally). To this day someone can just mention it and we will both groan in agony. It's become our unit of measurement of how bad a movie can be (along with "The Covenant")

I remember at one point my brother running in to ask what we were screaming about. Enough to say (in Simpson comic book guys voice😉 pretty much... worst.movie.ever.

I actually avoided reading the book for a year or more after seeing the movie because I wanted to repress it from my mind so nothing from the movie would seep into my subconscious as I read the book again.

 

[RoxySilver]

@Taake Oh my, I forgot about this one. It is indeed a painful memory. My philosophy high school teacher had us watch it. The book is so special, the movie is all kind of wrong.

 

[Mr Trick]

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Now, this is one of my absolute favorite books, I own several editions and read it at least once a year.
Yet, I wasn't the slightest bit worried when I went into it, mostly because I trusted and approved of the casting choices, and I just couldn't conceive of the pain that was to come for me and my friend (who loves it equally). To this day someone can just mention it and we will both groan in agony. It's become our unit of measurement of how bad a movie can be (along with "The Covenant")

I remember at one point my brother running in to ask what we were screaming about. Enough to say (in Simpson comic book guys voice😉 pretty much... worst.movie.ever.

I actually avoided reading the book for a year or more after seeing the movie because I wanted to repress it from my mind so nothing from the movie would seep into my subconscious as I read the book again.

Take it the film you saw was the recent one? I did hear it was bad. There is also a 40s version with George Sanders in which is much better. You should check that out.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

Even though I like the movie, the first Percy Jackson was very different from the book. I love the book and was disappointed that they didn't add in the overall story arc. They try to correct this in the 2nd movie but the franchise is dead now. I also didn't like changing the Grover character in the movies, but I do understand why they made the changes they did. I think for a stand alone movie that isn't connected to the book, it's a good movie, I still enjoy it. 
RoxySilver: I watched the movies but haven't read the books. Are they worth it?
I personally love the books, it's the first series that I read. I know a lot of people that like them as well. I hear it's not as good as Harry Potter, but that it's still a good series. If you like Greek Mythology, which I do, then it's a good fictional read. If you liked the movies then you will like the books. If you didn't like the movies, then you still might like the books because they are better and it has a really cool overall story arc that only gets brought up in the second movie.

 

[Taake]

@Fuffy Baith

At least The Covenant has hot guys for me to look at. lol

Haha, that was pretty much why we watched it actually. 😀 The real mistake was watching the commentary with the director bombastically claiming that everyhing was a "Covenant kind of concept" as if it was some kind of great movie. Which it really wasn't... 😉 

Take it the film you saw was the recent one? I did hear it was bad. There is also a 40s version with George Sanders in which is much better. You should check that out.

I don't think I dare to after the modern take. I'm happy with my book 🙂

 

[Skanky Vamp]

I didnt even KNOW there was a modern version of Dorian Grey.. I am googling now though.

edit: oh.. I see.

 

[Mr Trick]

@Fuffy Baith

Haha, that was pretty much why we watched it actually. 😀 The real mistake was watching the commentary with the director bombastically claiming that everyhing was a "Covenant kind of concept" as if it was some kind of great movie. Which it really wasn't... 😉 


I don't think I dare to after the modern take. I'm happy with my book 🙂

Trust me the 40s version is really good😛