Movies that are nothing like the book

[shrekfan246]

inb4 Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter!

Though I could be misremembering these, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and the various Chronicles of Narnia films. Well, I suppose they're still something like the books... hrm... ah!

Pirates of the Caribbean. Those are based on books.

Well I can understand the Lord of the Rings being different from the books. Atleast they only cut out unnecessary stuff unlike Eragon and the lightning thief.

Never got into Eragon, so I can't really comment on it, but a lot of people seem to get pretty incensed over the change of Faramir and Aragorn's characters, and the larger role Arwen was given. The removal of the sacking of the Shire, the death of Saruman, the removal of Tom Bombadil, and then there was this one particular guy on these forums who was just outraged by how the movies changed the Mouth of Sauron.

Personally, I need to read the books again, but I like the films enough to have all three extended editions and I occasionally marathon the bastards if I have enough free time (that's practically 12 hours that just gets flushed down the toilet). I think Peter Jackson and Co. did about the best they could given the source material and the time constraints they imposed on themselves while filming (considering they basically filmed all three movies back-to-back).

 

[Ambulo]

I've always been interested in this argument because people usually like the books better than the movies if they read them first. I just think those movies are always going to suck to you because its a tricky thing to adhere to the author's story when you're trying to cram that kind of experience into a ~2 hour film.

It seems to me that unless you're going to do voice-over narration, you're usually going to have to augment/add scenes and dialog to give the depth you need to give to characters that most moviegoers have never been introduced to before. And you're going to have to cut out a lot of contextual content to fit it into a single film.

There are some examples of movies that seem to really cater to their reader base, but most that want to bring in a new audience will sacrifice that authenticity to make the package nice and neat. That seems reasonable to me. If they ever do make those Foundation movies, I'll probably watch them, and try to appreciate the interpretation for what it is. It's probably going to be terrible, but I'll still have my copies of the books. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky.

Also, I didn't really think iRobot was that bad. It wasn't anything like the short stories, but I have trouble picturing any of Asimov's work in film form (BTW, has anyone seen Bicentennial man? I wondered if it was any good). I appreciated that they developed a separate story, sort of seems like they'd rather not risk sullying the original work.

 

[Crimson_Dragoon]

Starship Troopers. No Power Armour. No Intelligent Spider-Bugs. Completely different Mobile Infantry. The list goes on and on. Having said that, it's still a great film.

I'd say the biggest difference is changing the pro-war attitude of the book to a satire of pro-war. But yeah, still a good movie in its own right.

And that's the thing. Being a bad adaptation doesn't make it a bad movie. Way I understand (haven't read the book), Jurassic park is far removed from the books, but I'll be damned if it isn't a fantastic movie. Same with the Lord of the Rings movies (though I don't personally feel its as bad of an adaptation as others make it out to be). It's when you're a bad adaptation AND a bad movie, like Eragon or Percy Jackson, that you have problems.

 

[Kanatatsu]

I hope people don't actually say Lord of the Rings, because I thought that was an incredibly faithful adaptation.

Yes, yes, I know there were a few things "off", but they were MOVIES, not the books, and the series did a remarkable job of recreating the overall experience of the books (at least to me).

 

[Goofguy]

It was already mentioned but the Bourne series. You'd be hard pressed to find an other movie series that deviates as ridiculously far from the source material as this example.

There is a part of me that should like the Bourne movies but there' an other part won't allow me to as the books' content would have been so great to see on the silver screen.

 

[wintercoat]

I Am Legend (fuck Will Smith). They had to go and produce an otherwise amazing film then completely ruin it with an out of place ending that doesn't make any sense.

Did you ever see the alternate ending? It was so much better


It starts about 12 seconds in.

It's so much better because it's technically the original ending. Sometimes, focus testing can be a good thing. Most of the time, however, studios choose idiots for their focus groups and end up ruining what is a seriously amazing plot twist because they don't get it.

 

[Just_A_Glitch]

Choke is a mighty fine example of a poorly adapted book to film. The film failed to capture the book's dark sense of humor and the "mommy" flashbacks were handled poorly

Another Palahniuk fan! Yay.

I was going to mention Choke, though to be honest, I still enjoyed the movie. Not as an adaptation by any means, but I was able to separate it from its source material. I'm also a sucker for Sam Rockwell and thought that he was casted perfectly. That probably jades my opinion.

 

[A BigCup of Tea]

The vampires assistant, so many inaccuracy's it was unbelievable, i actually walked out of the cinema it was so bad

 

[SlaveNumber23]

I Am Legend (fuck Will Smith). They had to go and produce an otherwise amazing film then completely ruin it with an out of place ending that doesn't make any sense.

Exactly this. The ending of the book is so much better than the frustrating mess of an ending the film has. A defiling of Richard Matheson's work.

 

[JdA]

Wanted.

Comics: Secret cabal of supervillians run the world after killing off all the superheroes. Everyday working class guy finds out he's been born into this society. There's a character made entirely of poo.

Movie: Secret cabal of assassins find their targets because of a loom. Everyday working class guy finds out he's been born into this society. Morgan Freeman swears at people.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

You're never ever going to get a movie adaptation of anything that is EXACTLY like it's source material. It just isn't possible to do. And it's certainly not going to happen when going from book to film. The best you can hope for is that they keep the most important elements as consistent with the source material as they can.

 

[Nubrain]

I am going to have to agree with the OP on this one and say Lightning thief again. the funny thing is that I saw the movie first and enjoyed it so much that I went and got a box set of the first three Percy jackson books. After reading Lightning thief the movie seems so much worse in comparison and then as I read the others I realized how many things they cut out that were vital for the later books.

Thalia is not even mentioned. Grover's quest to find Pan never mentioned. Various gods like Mr D. not mentioned. Any of Luke's motivations outside of daddy issues: not mentioned. On top of that the whole 5 book series has this prophecy about a half blood turning 16 and all of the "kids" in this easily looked older than that. I don't know what age they were actually but it looked more than 16 and the guy that played Percy did Gamer either right before or right after that and his character has to be at least 18 in that one maybe even early 20s.

I can normally let book adaptations go with a bit of slack because it's hard to condense a whole book into 2 hours and keep the relevant stuff and I'm normally okay with the inclusion of stuff that wasn't in the book if it lest you tell the same story more quickly. With this one though it just really feels like they didn't want to make this movie or they at least didn't want to make a second one so they shot themselves in the foot by taken out all the elements of the world that would need to be carried forward into the next movies. Which is a shame because I really would have liked to have seen the other books adapted as well as the new Heroes of olympus series as it's turning out even better.

On the other hand my favorite book to movie adaptation has got to be Watership Down hands down. yeah they play around with the timeline a little mostly with Holly and where he was before meeting up with the others but it just help condense the story without changing the characters or theme. It's quite impressive considering it's a book about rabbits that they are able to stay so close to the source material.

 

[ImSkeletor]

I Am Legend (fuck Will Smith). They had to go and produce an otherwise amazing film then completely ruin it with an out of place ending that doesn't make any sense.

Have you seen "The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price? It is supposed to have a far closer ending to the book than I AM LEGEND. And IMO its a pretty fantastic little movie.

 

[TheNaut131]

Jumper.

I understand that the movie can't exactly be like the book, but this movie didn't just deviate from the material, it has this obnoxious tendency of doing the exact opposite of what's stated in the book.

In the book, it's stated that David is pretty much the only jumper.
In the movie, it is made evident that the world is plentiful with jumpers.
In the book, David attempts to meet up with an old schoolmate but is pretty much rejected.
In the movie, she actually hooks up with him and becomes the main love interest in the movie.
In the book, it all ends in the desert.
In the movie, it all ends in fucking winter.

See what I mean? Also, it's obvious the whole Paladin thing was an excuse to get a big name celebrity on board. (Samuel Jackson)

At least Griffin was pretty cool...

Oh, and the Cat in the Hat.

Though, I kinda like this movie in a sorta demented way.

 

[Olas]

Beowulf:
Grendel's mother was supposed to be hideous, Beowulf was supposed to kill the *****, and the Fire Drake was NOT supposed to be his secret love child. They made Grendel really weird too for no reason.

The Matrix:
They pretty much completely changed Neo's character and made the agents a bunch of pussies. Just kidding, there's no Matrix book, at least not one that predates the movies. Did I getchya? A novelized version of the matrix would suck wouldn't it?


Sleepy Hollow:
Honestly it would be easier to list the things the movie does have in common with the book. Both have a character named Ichabod Crane in them and both feature a horseman who, at least initially, lacks a head. That's about it.

 

[Fappy]

le Comte de Monte Cristo, though not so much in the main story, but the bits and pieces that surround it. Often changed (the big one being Albert as Edmonde's son, which is just ridiculous) or missed altogether, but it's a fucking colossal book so it's rather difficult to adapt to a film particularly well. Gankutsuou on the other hand...

Can't think of much else for now...

I don't know. I liked the modern film adaptation more than the anime. The anime kind of... petered off near the end.

 

[The_Echo]

Uh, Fight Club.

It follows the book fairly well (some lines are said in different places, which isn't very important), but where the book sort of feels like you're in the narrator's head, the movie feels like you're watching from afar.

 

[Squilookle]

Really? Nobody has mentioned James Bond? Changes for the better, I would say.

Same with Sahara- watched that first, had a blast, read the book... awful!

 

[BeeGeenie]

Oh, and the Cat in the Hat.

Though, I kinda like this movie in a sorta demented way.

No! Bad TheNaut131! This is why we can't have nice things! We do not speak of this... desecration of the memory of Dr. Suess.

 

[asylumsweetie]

Has anyone mentioned Ella Enchanted yet? The names are pretty much all the book and the movie have in common.