Hatrack River Writers Workshop   
my profile login | search | faq | forum home

  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» Hatrack River Writers Workshop » Forums » Discussing Published Hooks & Books » Movies you hated because they got the book all wrong:

   
Author Topic: Movies you hated because they got the book all wrong:
dreadlord
Member
Member # 2913

 - posted      Profile for dreadlord   Email dreadlord         Edit/Delete Post 
so, anyone else angry because one of their favourite books got trashed by a movie?
I just got to see Eragon, and I think this is a worthy topic for the trashers out there.

Posts: 240 | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
rcorporon
Member
Member # 2879

 - posted      Profile for rcorporon   Email rcorporon         Edit/Delete Post 
Bicentennial Man.

Wonderful, magical short story.

Terrible, brutal hollywood crap.


Posts: 450 | Registered: Sep 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
mommiller
Member
Member # 3285

 - posted      Profile for mommiller   Email mommiller         Edit/Delete Post 
Not really a movie, in the classic sense, but what they did to the Earthsea trilogy was almost criminal. Just another reason not to replace the television when it finally goes...
Posts: 306 | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
arriki
Member
Member # 3079

 - posted      Profile for arriki   Email arriki         Edit/Delete Post 
Oh! SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW! They really messed up that movie. And, if you hadn't read the book, it probably made no sense at all.

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited February 16, 2007).]


Posts: 1580 | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Annabel Lee
Member
Member # 2635

 - posted      Profile for Annabel Lee   Email Annabel Lee         Edit/Delete Post 
'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. Or, How to take a great radio show and a wonderful book, and make a truly terrible movie.

Edit to add - David Lynch's 'Dune'. It makes no sense! It has Sting in it! They ruined the ending!

[This message has been edited by Annabel Lee (edited February 16, 2007).]


Posts: 22 | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Robert Nowall
Member
Member # 2764

 - posted      Profile for Robert Nowall   Email Robert Nowall         Edit/Delete Post 
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" took three character names and one line from the book. Other than that, it was a terrific movie.

"I, Robot" had nothing to do either with Asimov's robot short stories, or even Eando Binder's single story from which Asimov and his then-publisher swiped the title.

Any Tarzan movie.


Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
dreadlord
Member
Member # 2913

 - posted      Profile for dreadlord   Email dreadlord         Edit/Delete Post 
strange, I expected the first post to just scream HARRY POTTER cause thats the most famous one.
I didnt like the Dune series, so I can see how a movie would be crap.

Posts: 240 | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
RillSoji
Member
Member # 1920

 - posted      Profile for RillSoji   Email RillSoji         Edit/Delete Post 
My latest disappointment would be Eragon. The movie and the book had very little in common. I have also been disappointed with War of the Worlds and the last couple Harry Potter movies. I don't really care if they can't fit the whole book into a movie, as long as they don't change the story. I also hate it when I have to explain a movie to my husband. He is not a reader like I am. The first two Harry Potter movies he understood just fine. The last two he walked out saying "I don't get it". He did the same thing for Eragon and a few others that I can't think of right now.
Posts: 125 | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
rcorporon
Member
Member # 2879

 - posted      Profile for rcorporon   Email rcorporon         Edit/Delete Post 
"I, Robot" was a collection of short stories, and the start of the movie says "Inspired by..." not "Based on..."
Posts: 450 | Registered: Sep 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Max Masterson
Member
Member # 4799

 - posted      Profile for Max Masterson   Email Max Masterson         Edit/Delete Post 
I've just noticed this thread. I can't believe no one has mentioned Lord Of The Rings yet!!

The first film followed the book quite well but the second one was almost an entirely diferent story. As for the ending to the third film. How long does he spend on the hobbits and gandalf smiling at each other? I know it seemed like half an hour without a word spoken when I saw it at the cinema.
(Almost as long as King Kong takes to die at the end of Peter Jackson next film.)

One of the biggest deviations from the books of LOTR was when Faramir took Frodo to Osgiliath! Not to mention Frodo coming face to face with a Nazgul.


Posts: 85 | Registered: Jan 2007  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Robert Nowall
Member
Member # 2764

 - posted      Profile for Robert Nowall   Email Robert Nowall         Edit/Delete Post 
One of the problems is that movies "show" and books "tell." Nearly every change in "The Lord of the Rings" came out of deciding to "show" rather than "tell." I regretted some of the variances from "The Lord of the Rings" the book in "The Lord of the Rings" the movie(s). But not all of them. Could you imagine how dull it would be to watch a straight filming of the Council of Elrond?

"Inspired by..." sounds like an excuse to try to suck some SF fans into the audience for a typical nihilistic Hollywood hack-em-up-hack-em-up explosion-explosion keep-things-moving movie job. Still the original "I, Robot" source material is still there to be taken advantage of. (There's also a Harlan Ellison screenplay of "I, Robot" kicking around---though, really, I thought it would make about as bad a movie as the one they did make.)

There's a movie just out that's a filmed version of "Bridge to Terabintha" (hope I'm spelling that right). The ads are promoting it as a fantasy...from what I remember of it, it's not a fantasy, really, though it has fantastic elements.


Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Annabel Lee
Member
Member # 2635

 - posted      Profile for Annabel Lee   Email Annabel Lee         Edit/Delete Post 
By the sounds of it from what people have been saying, the 'Terabithia' trailer is completely misleading, but the film sticks reasonably closely to the story of the book.

Resulting in a lot of parents taking their four year olds to see it, thinking it's a happy movie about magic and giants - and thus traumatising them.


Posts: 22 | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Max Masterson
Member
Member # 4799

 - posted      Profile for Max Masterson   Email Max Masterson         Edit/Delete Post 
I knew as soon as I read it for the first time that turning Lord Of The Rings into a film would be very hard. I expected it to be changed in lots of ways. However Peter Jackson made a huge thing out of insisting that he would be completely faithfull to the book. If he hadn't made such a ridiculous promise I wouldnt have been anywhre near as bothere about the divergance of the films.
Posts: 85 | Registered: Jan 2007  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Zero
Member
Member # 3619

 - posted      Profile for Zero           Edit/Delete Post 
Starship Troopers
Posts: 2195 | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Robert Nowall
Member
Member # 2764

 - posted      Profile for Robert Nowall   Email Robert Nowall         Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
However Peter Jackson made a huge thing out of insisting that he would be completely faithfull to the book. If he hadn't made such a ridiculous promise I wouldnt have been anywhre near as bothere about the divergance of the films.

True dat. For a more faithful version, try the BBC radio that starred Ian Holm as Frodo---though that, too, leaves some things out (like Bombadil), it doesn't really change much of anything...


Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
InarticulateBabbler
Member
Member # 4849

 - posted      Profile for InarticulateBabbler   Email InarticulateBabbler         Edit/Delete Post 
Hey now, Peter Jackson's version of the LOTR Trilogy was better than Ralph Bakshi's.

BEOWULF&GRENDEL

THE DA VINCI CODE

TROY

I thought the SciFi Channel's Miniseries version of DUNE was pretty good--except for Baron Harkonnen rhyming every time a scene ended with him. They made a few changes, but stayed true to the book's integrity. Now, the CHILDREN OF DUNE that SciFi did was not only a hack job of Children of Dune but Dune Messiah as well.

ERAGON was Hacked to pieces. My Seven- and Ten-year-old both came out of the theater complaining. My Ten-year-old son told me how they "crucified" it. My Seven-year-old daughter said, "Daddy, that wasn't how it was at ALL."

The Original THE SHINING

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

THE BOURNE SUPREMECY

and I'll probably hate THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM too. It's impossible to get that one right, when the wife died in the second movie, but he's protecting his wife and kid in the third!


Posts: 3687 | Registered: Jan 2007  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Robert Nowall
Member
Member # 2764

 - posted      Profile for Robert Nowall   Email Robert Nowall         Edit/Delete Post 
Actually, I liked the Ralph Bakshi version (though it wasn't as good as the book), but bitterly resented its stopping midway through things. I loathed a Rankin-Bass version of the end, a sequel to their "Hobbit" (which was better) that tied things up---boy was that thing awful.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
dreadlord
Member
Member # 2913

 - posted      Profile for dreadlord   Email dreadlord         Edit/Delete Post 
juat out of curiosity, did anyone else sign the "let the Hobbit happen" pettition?
Posts: 240 | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Max Masterson
Member
Member # 4799

 - posted      Profile for Max Masterson   Email Max Masterson         Edit/Delete Post 
yeah i've signed it. I was glad when Peter Jackson was removed from working on the Hobbit. Just by getting rid of him they must have halved the length of the film! For some reason he can only seem to make films that last over 3 hours.

And I think bourne identity was quite a good film. To take such an intensive book and boil it down into a film that worked was well done.

As for the third film not being able to be based on the book because they killed his wife off, what about the fact that the opponent in the third book (Ie: carlos the assasin) being killed in the first film? I think that that is a bigger problem for them to overcome if they want to base the third film on the third book. The bigest problem with turning bourne identity books into films was the fact that the main plot was about which of his identities he would keep, jason or david, and that is much better shown in a book then a film.


Posts: 85 | Registered: Jan 2007  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Rommel Fenrir Wolf II
Member
Member # 4199

 - posted      Profile for Rommel Fenrir Wolf II   Email Rommel Fenrir Wolf II         Edit/Delete Post 
Lord of the Flies to me was a dame fine book. Both movies however I thought sucked.
Another was Animal Farm good book, SHI*** movie.
Rommel Fenrir Wolf II

Posts: 856 | Registered: Nov 2006  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
KayTi
Member
Member # 5137

 - posted      Profile for KayTi           Edit/Delete Post 
Hope no one minds me joining the thread late.

Add me to the list of those annoyed by the movie treatment of Eragon. Did John Malcovich ever leave that one stone room with the tapestry on the wall? Seriously, why bother having a big name in the movie at all...no one must have mentioned to him that the bad guy is featured in name only in the first two books! I found that one in a long list of annoying deviations from the story that, to me, were completely unnecessary! The Shade and the bug-dudes were scary enough bad guys. The way they made a big deal out of showing the Brom character being gruff and grumpy was just way overdone. I hadn't read the second half of the book when I saw the movie and I couldn't make sense of the second half of the movie. Not a good sign!

At any rate, I found the whole thing frustrating because it seemed like such a filmable book. I like books from movies and movies from books, though I have to read and watch, then read and watch again. While I understand the frustration with the HP movies, I also was confused by much of movie 3 and some of movie 4 (I watched before I read the books) - now that I've read the books and watched the movies again everything makes sense. I love how they have some details ready in the movies now for things that don't come up for another book or two - I think it was HP3 that shows the horseless carriages taking the kids to Hogwarts at the beginning of the school year. In HP5 is when Harry can see the therestrals (though I think Rowling forgot that Harry saw his parents die at age 1 and should therefore have been able to see the beasts all along...but that's not the point I'm making, LOL.) I think that kind of attention to detail is nifty.

The other book/movie that I remember from a long while back being really disappointed in was I think House of Rising Sun, with Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery. The movie plot diverged in unneccessary ways, in my opinion.


Posts: 1911 | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
mfreivald
Member
Member # 3413

 - posted      Profile for mfreivald   Email mfreivald         Edit/Delete Post 
Another late-comer, I am.

I think there is an unreasonable tension between making a movie "true" to the books, and making concessions to adapt them to the screen. A movie is not a book, and when you try to make it a book you wind up with an unnatural contortion of things that attempt to keep certain supposed essentials of the text that do not fit well with the hopped up drama on the screen. Not to mention how other things suffer (like character development) by trying to fit everything in.

In most cases (not all), I think it has to be settled that you are going to write a completely new story that simply resembles the one in the text in order to get something reasonable and natural for a movie. That means, in order to honor a book properly the writers need to carefully consider the strongest themes and intentions of the book, and rewrite the story to reveal those themes and intentions in a new way.

One example was "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." I don't think the screenwriters really took the time to understand the book. Instead of writing something that captured the feel and meaning of the book (another way to be "true" to it), they tried to fit in too much, tinkered with things they shouldn't have for effect, and completely sacrificed any reasonable amount of character development. The result was a movie that had only a vaguely superficial resemblance to the book. (Some of the things they tinkered with clearly contradicted the spirit of the book.)

The Harry Potter books adapted well to the screen because they are written much like a movie, and they don't carry as much meaning as LW&W or LOTR. They are filled with simple ideas that are closely tied to the action.

Eragon is similar to Harry Potter, but they just botched some things in making the movie. It wasn't so awful bad for what it was. Besides - my nephew loved the baby dragon.

Peter Jackson did some things well with LOTR, but he completely lost sight of the nature of Tolkien's characters, and transplanted it with a lot of gazing. The Tolkien themes were also largely unrecognizable in it. He completely butchered the ROTK, and I believe it was due to his desire for grand effects rather than being true to book and character. I don't think he or his writers made any good attempt to understand the work they were trying to represent.

It will be very interesting to me how our benevolent host's Ender movie turns out.


Posts: 394 | Registered: May 2006  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Max Masterson
Member
Member # 4799

 - posted      Profile for Max Masterson   Email Max Masterson         Edit/Delete Post 
mfreivald, you make a lot of good points. I think you have summed up the main issue I had with jackson's films. He completely changes Theoden and Faramir's characters from what they are in the book.
Posts: 85 | Registered: Jan 2007  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
InarticulateBabbler
Member
Member # 4849

 - posted      Profile for InarticulateBabbler   Email InarticulateBabbler         Edit/Delete Post 
Battlefield Earth
Faust
Catwoman
Pinnochio the Roberto Benigni version
Dreamcatcher
Whispers
Carrie
Christine
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Night Flier
Misery
Maximum Overdrive
Sahara
Mystic River
Gods and Generals
Red Dragon

just to name a few...


Posts: 3687 | Registered: Jan 2007  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Robert Nowall
Member
Member # 2764

 - posted      Profile for Robert Nowall   Email Robert Nowall         Edit/Delete Post 
Well, "Pinnochio" the Disney version seriously and substantially departed from the original Collodi story in a variety of ways---improved it, from my point of view. I don't know how Benigni's version handled things---I've seen too many versions that rip off Disney's version only, and as a result don't seek out any.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
dreadlord
Member
Member # 2913

 - posted      Profile for dreadlord   Email dreadlord         Edit/Delete Post 
you know, I really hope that they dont mess up Enders Game, as that is possibly my favorite books. one reason I dont like what they did with Eragon is that they completely destroyed any basis for a sequel. Roran was only mentioned, from what I remember, and Murtagh and Ajihad where minor characters.

looking back, I guess that some changes where unavoidable, but NO DWARVES AND NO URGALS, NOT TO MENTION THAT SAPHIRA HAD FEATHERS!!!


Posts: 240 | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
gooeypenguin
Member
Member # 2706

 - posted      Profile for gooeypenguin           Edit/Delete Post 
I was disappointed with Harry Potter Book 4 - Goblet of Fire. What I loved about the book was its numerous action sequences. I thought to myself, wow, how are they going to show THAT in the movie?? Turns out that they either cut it out or made it suck. Ie., the movie never showed how the other triwizard tourney contestants did on that trial where they had to get the egg from the dragon. They also didn't show the quidditch game between the professional teams in the beginning. Also, the maze at the end totally SUCKED. In the book, there was a Sphinx and areas in the maze where you get all disoriented, so you're not sure if you're upside down or right side up or whatever. The movie totally ruined the maze and just made it a bunch of big bushes that moved around. WOW. No entertainment there.
Posts: 23 | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
   

   Close Topic   Feature Topic   Move Topic   Delete Topic next oldest topic   next newest topic
 - Printer-friendly view of this topic
Hop To:


Contact Us | Hatrack River Home Page

Copyright © 2008 Hatrack River Enterprises Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.


Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classic™ 6.7.2