Post here - Great Books/Novels ruined by their movie adaptation

Last night I was channel surfing and HBO had "The Firm" on TV. I loved that book but the movie was wretched. What's worse is they totally changed the end of the book to something totally unbelievable. Clearly whomever wrote that script doesn't have a fricking clue how the mafia works or reacts to stoolie lawyers who speak to the FBI.

What other books were totally ruined by their wretched adaptation?

The 2004 or 2005 version. Ugh.

Another one was 'Eat Pray Love' - not a "great" book, but a good book and a helluva lot better than the movie. In fact, the movie pissed me off so much I started to hate the book. :shrug:

I loved the book and the BBC broadcasts. I didn't get a chance to see the movie in the theater so I bought the DVD. Boy, was I pissed! That movie totally sucked. Totally.

:puke:

This old movie was on TCM the other night. I have always like Peter Lorre, but this version was so completely unlike the novel that I thought I was going to be sick. If you're an old movie fan and you like literature, avoid this movie if you can!

:puke:

I read that book in one sitting. It scared me so bad I went from room to room switching on lights until I got to my bedroom. The movie was wretched.

I disagree about The Firm, The Client, and Pelican Brief. They're three of my favorite movies.

They didn't change the story, but somehow a fascinating book about a Vietnam vet became a slog of a movie. My high school students loved the book, but surprisingly agreed with me that the movie was boring as shit.

They changed a few lines around at the end and changed the entire meaning of the book. The book's ending is about relativism and self-delusion, and the movie shifts the lines and adds one more line, and not only gives a happy ending to a book that was the classic on futility, but gives it a religious, moralistic ending completely the opposite of what the whole book was written for.

Makes you wonder if that's why Hemingway killed himself.

Film was unrecognizable.

a book. I'll have to check that out.

Written by Joseph Kanon- great plot, loved the characters.
The film doesn't do any character development and in some cases leaves out important people all together or makes them into villains when they were originally good guys.

keep the coherence and plot of the book. Sometimes it seems silly to make a film from a great book and totally miss the point... :crazy:

There was one acting nomination from that movie. A very small part played by Holly Hunter. She got a best supporting actress nomination but only spent about 5-6 minutes total in the movie. Ms Hunter lost the award out to Anna Paquin, who was the 11 year old girl in Holly Hunters other big movie of the year 'The Piano'; a movie for which Holly won the best actress award.

Next to "The Phantom Tollbooth", the most fun I
ever had reading to my children.

Beautiful language, hidden jokes, literary
allusions, fun, fun, fun, to read.

Jim Carrey RUINED that movie.

Whoever directed it ought to have been shot.

understand why they were so popular. I understood why the author would define words, but I found it annoying. I actually liked the film I saw, though. :D

Much prefer Phillip Pullman. Ironically, the films of the Dark Materials trilogy were ok and caught the mood of the books, but seemed to miss the point.

they only ever did The Golden Compass...

can't stand that man....

The movie didn't make much sense to me at all...

I read the book about a year after I watched the flick, a totally different experience.

I saw the David Lynch version when I was a kid, and only when I got around to reading the (fantastic) book did I realize how absolutely horrible Lynch's version was.

The Sci-Fi channel's miniseries was great, though, and very true to the book. You should check it out, if you haven't already.

Not that Lynch's version is much good either, but then, it's as much a DeLaurentis movie as much as it is a Lynch one.

I mean, it did have all the hallmarks of a Sci-Fi Channel miniseries (they all have the look of a Quantum Leap rerun, it seems), but it was still pretty good.

that it would be very difficult to do as a movie and make it both good & true to the book. I could see a 6-8-10 hour miniseries doing that, but SyFy quality is not usually up to snuff on this sort of thing.

to be a film version, though.

LOL! :D

I haven't posted on this thread yet only because I've got about 10 I can think of right now w/barely trying. I just don't know what I would consider to be the worst one. There are SO many badly done movie adaptations, that I yes, I predict you're right about this thread!

Good to see you BTW! It seems like it's been awhile. I hope all is ok w/you. I haven't been back to our little Maine forum lately because I can't bear to think about how horribly wrong things have become for us politically speaking. I don't know about you, but I'm even having a hard time watching our local news or reading our local papers. There's always something in there about LePage and the R's. :-(

LePage to try and take away my kids' MaineCare. :(

Hope everything is good with you, aside from our political fiasco!

The book was awesome, the movie sucked (except the soundtrack, which was exceptional).

I Loved, loved, loved that book. When they put tom cruise and brad pitt in it I was very disappointed to say the least. What a waste of what could have been a decent movie had they cast it right. Hated the movie.

Armand was supposed to be young (16). Antonio isn't very young.

But the movie wasn't as much of a trainwreck as "Queen of the Damned."

was much worse than Cruise. I thought of Lestat as a cocky arrogant bastard, and Cruise has made a career of playing those types...

I think Pitt has become a better actor since, but I thought that role needed somebody that could really hold the screen - like a Sean Penn or Edward Norton.

It was so wretched that it put me off seeing movies based on books.

(One might also put some of the Harry Potter movies in this list, too. But not the last one, which I liked. :D )

so glad the 1963 version by Bob Wise is timelessly good

Demi Moore's The Scarlet Letter, for instance, has done little to tarnish the original :)

"Easy A" was pretty funny. Although it was not based on "The Scarlet Letter" it had elements taken from the book. It was kinda like "10 Things I Hate About You" - it was a teenage adaptation of "The Taming of the Shrew".

Anyhow the lead actress comments about "The Scarlett Letter" and talks about how you ahve to rent the original copy and not that crappy version with Demi Moore doing a fake British Accent.

I laughed all the way through "Easy A". And I watched it twice. Emma Stone is my favorite new young actress and I have completely forgiven Stanley Tucci for murdering Susie. Even Mr. Gut watched it once, and laughed at the family interaction. Family interaction scene: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1617008921/
"I gotta a pocket full of sunshine" http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1851889945/

After our mentees read Tom Sawyer a couple years ago we watched the movie OMG was it awful.

Often times I can like both versions. If I like the story and the characters to begin with, the movie can give an alternate take. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Usually I will see the movie first, and if I like it, I'll seek out the book (the Harry Potter series comes to mind), for a more in-depth experience. I might end up liking one version better than the other, but I don't mind if they're different.

Even Sam Waterston's excellent Nick Carraway couldn't save this dog.

The film completely missed the point of the book, which is an allegory representing the individual vs. society. The film reduces the book's narrator to just a bit character with no impact, and thus loses the narrator's progression towards mental health as the book progresses. The movie turns a great novel into a comic book. Ken Kesey hated the film version.

Based on the children's book The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, a great Midwinter's tale steeped in British history. I understand that not everything in a book can make it into a two hour movie, but the changes they made totally pulled it out of the bigger context of the 5 book series. And the young actor playing the lead was not up to the task. What, neither Freddie Highmore or Thomas Sangster were available?

a Michael Crichton book. Although, CONGO, came pretty close to being close to the book.

...they're regular gorillas who've been trained to kill people with death lasers. That was one heck of a plotline twist.

It was the main characters who came up with the idea of using the crystals for the laser to get out of there, after many in their party were being killed. The Gorillas never were trained to use lasers, they were however trained to kill humans.

All of the ones I've read are little more than a cool-ish idea wrapped in several hundred pages of substandard writing.

:shrug:

John Hammond and Ian Malcolm were caricatures of the Greatest Generation and the Boomers respectively with regards to technology.

One of the few books that actually terrified me- amazing plot completely changed and not even a little scary

Terrible casting.

great book, terrible casting. Even if they had a great script & director, the cast might have ruined that movie.

A perfect choice. Should never have been a movie.

...in the beginning there is a scene featuring the character who plays Darren McGavin's son, who is preparing to testify against the mob. Agents have him in a "safe house" way the hell out in the woods.

The mob finds him, blows away all of the agents. One of the mobsters walks up behind the guy, positions him in front of a mirror, puts a gun to the back of his head, says "You want to be a witness? Witness this" and blows his brains out.

That's basically how the mafia works and reacts to stoolie lawyers who speak to the FBI. They don't spend days and days and days playing cat and mouse with the stoolie. They just send him on an immediate dirt nap, bada boom, bada bing.

There really is no way to blame all the problems on organized crime, the size of law enforcement would make it not possible for them to have social control unless people were also part of those organizations in places of power, or were intimidated or remained quite when seeing things wrong.

I do wonder where the lines are between corruption in private sectors and public, and things like organized crime are. Some groups had the doctrine any power must be correct, and from that I wouldn't doubt if some did not go against some of those groups.

Use of intimidation and coercion is not the best way for societal rule. although it is not much different then a military just a different social set with different goals and values.

I don't know anything about the mob, so don't really know accept tv movies, but they never corrected beer and travel money issue either, so I got issues with them if they read my posts and had much money, and I disagree with their methods of requirements of loyalty and use of intimidation, secrecy, and violence.

It happens all the time in the movies, but there's not been a single case in the entire history of the FBI's witness protection program where the relocated witness has been discovered. Of course stories about government competence tends to ruin the shtick for Randian solo-man-of-action superheroes like Schwarzeneggar and Chuck Norris.

in the len davis case, where NOPD officer davis was sentenced to death (he was never executed and his sentence has since been changed to life in prison) the FBI got davis on the phone planning the murder of the witness

instead of alerting the witness and spoiling their case, they allowed davis to kill the witness and then they nailed him for capital murder

so that's one well documented case where the FBI did stand down and allow a witness to be killed

now if you want to claim that has never happened to someone in the formal witness protection program, that the FBI only allows "civilians" to be murdered in cold blood, let me ask you this...how would YOU know????

Bill Paxton was totally wrong for the role.

Too tall, amongst other things.

The movie changed the ending and completely left out the brother/sister changing relationship. The grandmother was more evil in the book too.

and honestly, the incest was a bit creepy

No one says, "I read the original Italian ballade of Romeo & Juliet... and man that Shakespeare dude just fuckin' butchered the plot." A book and a movie are two entirely different genres offering two entirely different audience experiences and forms of interaction. The way they reveal their truths require different storying techniques. My college American Lit professor told me that and I shall never doubt her words. Never, damn you. Sydney Pollack's Mitch McDeere doesn't have to be the same guy as John Grisham's. The point of the story remains the same: pretty people can beat the mafia and the FBI by working hard and being really pretty.

Of course the Demi Moore version of "The Scarlet Letter" is like the poster child for "didn't get the point."

(or literature courses for that matter) I had to develop that ideal on my own. Another thing we agree on, though by different methods :)

But if you meant what books had completely wretched adaptations in relation to their source material, then "The Postman" is up at the top of my list.

I agree, the movie doesn't change to book. However, the film can change what the author hoped to communicate. The movie is an acceptable crib note, the easy way. Not everything is a conspiracy, but some things are.

if you don't believe me, refresh your memory of "endless love"

a wonderful book spoiled, a gifted writer's career mostly spoiled, because of a truly embarrassing movie made from his work

Postman is one of my all-time favorite movies!

Embrace the suckage!

Adaptation ought to have been called Lord Rambo.

It was a very good effort, but there is no way that a movie could ever capture the scope of John Irving's novel.

Loosely based on 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' by Irving.

..so Garp cuts out all of the subplot about Vienna and the aging prostitute, much as the film version of "The Cider House Rules" cut the lesbian relationship storyline out. "Cider House" came about as close as one can to being faithful to an Irving novel. I have not seen "The Door in the Floor", which is the movie that is based on the first half of "A Widow for One Year." I'm told that it's good.

Sad, sad, sad -- as in, lame -- movie.

Then it all makes sense.

Although she was quite fetching in Empire dresses. And Mel Ferrer was very nice as Andrei.

I guess my biggest problem was accepting Henry Fonda as a Russian.

It's pretty to watch, though.

i'm sure grisham himself would be the first to say "the firm" was not a great book, it was one of his fun airplane books, not one of his attempts at any sort of "greatness"

a truly beautifully written book is scott spencer's "endless love" but the movie adaptation pretty much destroyed his career, you didn't even want to say that you liked scott spencer or even knew who he was after that, the movie was sooooo embarrassing

In both cases, the movies were visually stunning, but the screenplays just didn't translate well, and the stories dragged. Another candidate would be "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" which became "The Mambo Kings" with (IIRC) Armand Assante. The movie tried hard, but the book was more or less unfilmable.

Complete pissing on Asimov's grave who, by the way, must be turning about 7200 RPM.

The movie "We Were Soldiers" (Mel Gibson and others) adapted only the first half of the book, and changed the ending (and outcome) of the battle completely.

:hi:

but the movie was a wreck. Armand Assante was actually well cast - and believable as the elder brother. But Antonio Banderas - who I like in other roles - was miscast. Despite all the rich material in the book, and an amazingly captivating story, the movie just didn't work. The emphasis was to much on the love stories - and not enough on the immigrant experience and the music.

Maybe not ruined for everyone else but I enjoyed the book so much more than the movie.

I think movie will almost always ruin the book they are based on because when you read you create your own image of what happens and their movies are the vision of the director.

All those bright white teeth during the middle of what was, essentially, a famine. I couldn't get past the pretty surfaces.

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