Most disappointing movie adaptation of a book

wantacookie

its gotta be said books in general shouldn't be made into movies! everyone imagines somethin different when they read a book!
stuff like lord of the rings was great for the action scenes but thats it! they leave out key characters and sub plots like tom bombadil etc!

other books are like harry potter, philip pullmans dark materials. they should never have been made into movies its just a publicity stunt to get more interest in the books! :mad:

candy-gal1

not exactly a movie, and quite childish so sorry folks lol, but the jacqueline wilson movie adaption of her girls in love series of books was quite terrible really! they could have done much better!

one of my fave tv adaptions of a book would have to be Sugar Rush, brilliant!

as for books to movies, the best is harry potter!!

asdasd

Clearly no-one reads anything else except Tolkien, Stephen King, Dan Brown, and the Potter series.

wantacookie

asdasd wrote: »

Clearly no-one reads anything else except Tolkien, Stephen King, Dan Brown, and the Potter series.

not exactly its just that these are the easiest to bring to mind! mountains of books that we all know have been made into films and most are awful!

MikeC101

asdasd wrote: »

Clearly no-one reads anything else except Tolkien, Stephen King, Dan Brown, and the Potter series.

I'd imagine it's just the combination of some of the biggest selling authors on the planet and massive budget movies that means a lot more people have seen or read something by / based on the above, and thus comment on it.

Recently I've been disappointed by I Am Legend, as has been said before, completely misses the point of the book, but then it's not like that wasn't expected.

I, Robot was terrible, but then it wasn't really an adaptation to be fair - I think the script was already written and movie rights to I, Robot were just purchased to give it an extra selling point.

I have high hopes for the upcoming "The Road", I think it could work very well as a movie. Of course, it could equally crash and burn, but from trailers it looks like it might be good.

Mackman

For me, the I am Legend movie is a completely different story to the book. The only things that are the same are, the name, he's alone in New York, and

His dog dies,

Other than those similarities, they're two completely different stories.

I thought the movie was good, Will Smith was great IMO, the story in the book was much better though

teamB_macro

The Beach by Alex Garland. it's said to be gen X's lord of the flies (unfortunately havent read that yet) but even leo dicaprio + danny boyle couldn't just do it for me

Miss Lockhart

The Northern Lights/Golden Compass adaptation is a travesty.

I'm currently waiting to be disappointed by Dorian Gray.

wantacookie

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

The Northern Lights/Golden Compass adaptation is a travesty.

I'm currently waiting to be disappointed by Dorian Gray.

the fact that they changed the name of northern lights says it all!

Roisinbunny

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

The Northern Lights/Golden Compass adaptation is a travesty.

I'm currently waiting to be disappointed by Dorian Gray.

Couldn't agree more, I've seen the ads and think that will be more than enough

Roisinbunny

asdasd wrote: »

Clearly no-one reads anything else except Tolkien, Stephen King, Dan Brown, and the Potter series.

Feel free to diversify and enlighten!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Clearly no-one reads anything else except Tolkien, Stephen King, Dan Brown, and the Potter series.

I talked about Steinbeck and Ian McEwan.

Also, someone mentioned about books being made into TV shows. I think sometimes, or maybe all the time, this is a better way to go. Most books are too big in ideas and stories to be properly adapted into an hour and a half of film.
A TV adaption allows for more time to develop the stories and characters. Jane Austens books are a perfect example of this. I think most people will agree that the BBC 6 or 4 hour long adaptions of her books are better than any film version.

Madou

Has no-one mentioned Less Than Zero and closed the thread yet?

megadodge

In general I seldom watch a film of a book I've read as they just can't live up, but by far the most disappointing I ever saw was 'Angela's Ashes'.

Absolutely abysmal film. In spite of all the hardship the central theme to the book was always humour, with not even a shred of self-pity in it, but the film was just endless misery and rain doing it's best to make you feel sorry for the characters, with not even one decent laugh in the whole film.

Twilighter

Twilight and Harry Potter, terrible compared to the books. Really disappointing

I_am_Jebus

keeping with the Stephen King thing - one of my favourite SK books was Hearts in Atlantis. The film was absolutely appaling and should never have been made.

90 mins could never capture all that was required to bring the stories and lives of the characters in the book to life. I love david Morse too which made it even more disappointing.

Mellor

Mackman wrote: »

For me, the I am Legend movie is a completely different story to the book. The only things that are the same are, the name, he's alone in New York, and

His dog dies,

Other than those similarities, they're two completely different stories.

Well to be fair, that was the third time the film has been made, so it was obvious;y going to change alot. The older film is closer to the original book.

Joycey wrote: »

I couldnt read Fear and Loathing because id seen the film so many times that I knew every incident and every word that was spoken pretty much. I like Terry Gilliam as a director but I wish he hadnt stayed so "faithful".

That's a cock up by you imo. Should of read the book first. The film is faithful, but leaves alot out, and imo its the best version that could of been made (was the third try or so).
ultimately, they are different media, the film is good, it is was it is. But the book truely works well, its not the story, but the way its told. Reading the book allows you to pick up on all the bizarre quirks that occur in an instant in the film.
Read the book again imo

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

On the subject of Stephen King adaptions, Stand By Me was pretty good no?

One of SKs better films, but to be fair, it was only a short story not a novel.

Elevelyn wrote: »

IMO every Stephen King movie I have seen is terrible (besides Shawshank) Misery really annoyed me but the worst IMO is IT - terrible film

Seriously, you think only Shawshank is good? What about;

Stand by Me
The Green Mile
Children of the Corn (the original is one of the best horrors ever)
1408 Pretty good adaption to film imo


I'm not saying these are all better, or even as good as the books. But they are all good movies.
I still can't think of any film that was better than the original book.

daveyboy_1ie

The Stand by yes you guessed it, Stephen King. Best book I ever read and read it every couple of years, but the film was so bad its a crime, even though it had a fairly good cast in it.

I kind of liked most adaptations of his books, I know most people will disagree but this one was so bad it was painful. I keep on hearing that J.J Abrams is going to make the version of the dark tower series, if he does he better be careful, most King fans will take it personally if that series is messed up.

Elevelyn

Mellor wrote: »

Seriously, you think only Shawshank is good? What about;

Stand by Me
The Green Mile
Children of the Corn (the original is one of the best horrors ever)
1408 Pretty good adaption to film imo


I'm not saying these are all better, or even as good as the books. But they are all good movies.
I still can't think of any film that was better than the original book.

I havent read Stand by Me or the Children of the Corn, liked them but cant compare them.

1408 was good imo too and the Green Mile i was a bit dissapointed with tbh, but i never like the films.

daveyboy_1ie wrote: »

I keep on hearing that J.J Abrams is going to make the version of the dark tower series, if he does he better be careful, most King fans will take it personally if that series is messed up.

He has the rights to the Dark Tower, dont think ill be going to see it because the films are always a dissapointment and i really love these books.

Hrududu

The best one I've seen was the BBC adaptation of Iain Bank's The Crow Road. It just captured the tone of the book perfectly. BBC4 are currently repeating it.

Stephansplatz

I see a film adaptation of the Kerouac's On the Road is in the pipeline .. reckon that will be an addition to this thread when it does appear

daveyboy_1ie

He has the rights to the Dark Tower, dont think ill be going to see it because the films are always a dissapointment and i really love these books.

Yeah, they are King's masterpiece alright

Mellor

daveyboy_1ie wrote: »

Yeah, they are King's masterpiece alright

I believe he refers to the series as his magnum opus. By most accounts he is right, I'm trying to find a copy of The gunslinger, and its proving difficult.

Blush_01

I'm sure I mentioned this somewhere else, but for the life of me I can't remember where. The Time Traveller's Wife is an excellent book, and a dreadful movie by comparison. I'm not sure whether it's genuinely an awful movie, the book is merely so enjoyable that the movie couldn't help but lack - but they changed so many central elements to the book that were unnecessary - if they had been left as was the movie would have had much more power and been more accurate too.

narrowgate

The recent Brideshead Revisited film was extremely poor and quite a dissappointment. ITV's adapation still remains the best with Jeremy Irons being a brilliant Charles Ryder

LiamMc

Jay P wrote: »

A Clockwork Orange. The book was amazing, one of my favourites of all time. But the film was fairly average, I didn't really enjoy it and didn't watch the last twenty minutes.

The last chapter in the book that Anthony Burgess wrote wasn't added to the film. This caused Burgess some pain as the book was inspired by a personal tradegy suffered by Burgess.
The film's new audience just attracts tossers who expect to see an early 'hooligan' film.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving about destiny and self-fulfillng prophecies. Simon Birch the movie isn't, but has a bit of a cult following in the states.

There's also a cliché that Elmore Leonard novels are poorly transferred to the screen. Having read or seen I few, I don't like either film or books.

Mellor

LiamMc wrote: »

The last chapter in the book that Anthony Burgess wrote wasn't added to the film. This caused Burgess some pain as the book was inspired by a personal tradegy suffered by Burgess.

Not quite.

The film is based on the American version of the book. This version doesn't have the last chapter. Burgess agreed this with his publisher long before the film was made. He may have wished the chapter to be used in the film, but again he was aware it wouldn't mbe and had nothing to do with Kubrick.

What exactly was the books final chapter based on, admittedly I haven't read it but am aware that it is basically a common enough repentance, or am I missing something

turgon

If I recall its where Alex meets some of of his gang later on in life, and shows how differently they have evolved through maturity.

Procasinator

baileyjackson wrote: »

THE KITE RUNNER - Just dont watch it, read the book. So much better and emotional.

Agree completely. The film even cuts out important bits.

It doesn't show the suicide bit, or even make reference to it!

happyoutscan

Angelas Ashes, a fantastically brilliant book that just doesn't translate to the big screen as well as it could have.