Movies: Novel Adaptations That Failed To Keep True To The Novel

[Aries_Omega]

Two words....Starship Troopers. Book was WAAAY better. Makes me cringe at the idea of Stranger in a Strange Land being adapted to the big screen.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Two words....Starship Troopers. Book was WAAAY better. Makes me cringe at the idea of Stranger in a Strange Land being adapted to the big screen.

I haven't read the book, but I really found that movie enjoyable. Sure, some scenes were cheessy, but the satirist tone in many scenes were nice. I am not sure I would have liked a movie where were each trooper was armed with a personal nuke or whatever the book had.

"The mobile infantry made me the man I am today" *rolls on a wheelchair and shows off his missing limbs*.

Maybe I shouldn't judge movies on their "memorable quotability", but sometimes, that's what I do. It is basically the "long-term"-enjoyment these movies bring to me and my friends. Just like Punisher wasn't really good, it still fulfilled its memorable quote quota. "Who brings a knive to a shoot-out" (paraphrasing, I only remember the German text ).

Ultimately, the novel adaptations that I dislike most are those that do not only fail to be faithful to the original, but who are also bad in their own right. And then there are those that are faithful and suck nevertheless.
But I think slapping on a novel or comic book title and still fail to make a good movie is just an extra-insult (adding insult to injury?) - as if they tried to rescue their bad movie with a good title, or if they believed a good title didn't require them to give some effort.

I think that's why the LotR movies are so successful - you can see the love for the originals, even if some scenes are cut or changed, and the movie is just well-done (for the most part) and stands on its own.

 

[love.christine]

Just to save you a small bit of ribbing in the future - the word you want is probably "canon".

Please forgive my spelling error.

 

[love.christine]

Two words....Starship Troopers. Book was WAAAY better. Makes me cringe at the idea of Stranger in a Strange Land being adapted to the big screen.

Actually, theres a book I have not yet read. I have seen the movie and definitely enjoyed it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Please forgive my spelling error.

That's impossible. I am afraid you will have to regret this for the rest of your life. If Umbran doesn't ensure it, I certainly will.

 

[Merkuri]

At the moment I cannot think of any movies that deviated from the book bad enough to make me upset, but I know I've experienced quite a few. More recently, though, I've come to the realization that books and movies are entirely different mediums, and they both have their own flaws and strengths. When you take a good book and make it into a movie you have to play to the strengths of the movie medium or you will have a poor movie. If that means the story has to deviate from the story of the book, then so be it.

Coming at it from the other angle, The Green Mile was the closest movie adaptation I have ever seen. Aside from the fact that the movie is told linearly and the book is not there's very little left out, and I don't think anything actually in the movie deviates from the book at all.

And coming at it from yet a different angle I actually liked Stardust the movie much better than the book. I did see the movie first, which is unusual for me, but I loved the ending of the movie and was disappointed when the book didn't really make much of an attempt. I mean, as soon as I heard that whoever possesses the heart of a star would live forever I just knew that

Spoiler

when she fell in love with Tristan he would live forever because he "possessed" her heart.

It seemed such an obvious and perfect end that I was really disappointed that the author hadn't thought of it. Maybe he thought it was too corny, but I liked it.

 

[Welverin]

Honestly, I think we'd have a smaller list of movies that succeeded.

I can think of two The Princess Bride and Fight Club. Of course that's probably it.

The LotR movies fall in the bad adaptation category (yet are good movies in spite of it).

 

[Crothian]

I can think of two The Princess Bride and Fight Club. Of course that's probably it.

The Princess Bride wasn't like the book that much. It skipped large backstory sections and descriptions of the countries. It was a father reading to his son and there was a lot more of that in the book as well.

It was a great movie, but it didn't really follow the book.

 

[Ranger REG]

The Bourne Trilogy based on Robert Ludlum's novels, or so they say.

Still, I like the movie version.

 

[Umbran]

Comic book to movie translations suffer the most.

I submit that the Witchblade TV series (well, the first season, anyway) was superior to the comic in most ways one would care to mention.