# Adaptations: movies that ended drastically different from their literary counterpart **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 1, 2004, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377 "2004-11-01T18:44:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/61 "2004-11-02T01:44:01Z")
> [@Katisha](#): > > Both stage and film versions of _My Fair Lady,_ while retaining the structure and a lot of the dialogue of Shaw’s _Pygmalion,_ change the ending: in the musical, Eliza goes back to Higgins at the end, but in the original play she leaves him for feckless but loyal dork Freddy Hill. That change first appears in the 1937 film version of _Pygmalion_, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/62 "2004-11-02T02:12:10Z")
Does _Adaptation_ count as an, uh, adaptation of _The Orchid Thief_? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/63 "2004-11-02T02:17:42Z")
> [@Tentacle Monster](#): > > 1. Some of the character names. > 2. The concept that it would be televised. > 3. Put it in PLEASE tell me you’re an Excel Saga fan! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/64 "2004-11-02T02:19:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by Katisha > Both stage and film versions of My Fair Lady, while retaining the structure and a lot of the dialogue of Shaw’s Pygmalion, change the ending: in the musical, Eliza goes back to Higgins at the end, but in the original play she leaves him for feckless but loyal dork Freddy Hill. > That change first appears in the 1937 film version of Pygmalion, actually. As a big fan of Shaw’s, I agree – this is how the Leslie Howard/Wendy Hiller film ends. —But— 1.) Shaw wrote notes for adapting his play into a film (they’re in my edition of the play) and he has the film ending the same way his play did (of course). Shaw _hated_ the idea of a “romantic” ending that had Eliza ending up with Higgins, and wrote a lengthy afterward to his published edition telling how things turned out between Eliza and Freddy. 2.) In the published version of the script of **My Fair Lady** Lerner (or is it Loewe?) apologizes for changing the ending to the one in which Eliza ends p with Higgins, and asks Shaw to forgive him. But he doesn’t acknowledge that the 1937 film ended that way. – So who changed the ending from Shaw’s for the first film? And why didn’t the My Fair Lady bunch acknowledge him? ---
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/65 "2004-11-02T02:58:45Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > PLEASE tell me you’re an Excel Saga fan! HAIL ILPALAZZO! ---
**Author:** ![melondeca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@melondeca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melondeca)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/66 "2004-11-02T03:11:45Z")
I would consider any Disney movie that was based on a fairy tale to be an excellent example. The changes made in most of those movies were understandable considering that most fairy tales are pretty morbid and the movies are marketed to children but it may be exactly what you are looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/67 "2004-11-02T03:19:04Z")
Shite, nobody’s mentioned \*Lord of the Rings \* yet? ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/68 "2004-11-02T03:22:25Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > As a big fan of Shaw’s, I agree – this is how the Leslie Howard/Wendy Hiller film ends. > —But— > > 1.) Shaw wrote notes for adapting his play into a film (they’re in my edition of the play) and he has the film ending the same way his play did (of course). Shaw _hated_ the idea of a “romantic” ending that had Eliza ending up with Higgins, and wrote a lengthy afterward to his published edition telling how things turned out between Eliza and Freddy. > > 2.) In the published version of the script of **My Fair Lady** Lerner (or is it Loewe?) apologizes for changing the ending to the one in which Eliza ends p with Higgins, and asks Shaw to forgive him. But he doesn’t acknowledge that the 1937 film ended that way. > – So who changed the ending from Shaw’s for the first film? And why didn’t the My Fair Lady bunch acknowledge him? 1. True. In fact, I considered posting the ending (which isn’t quite how **Katisha** describes it. 2. Lerner, as the librettist, is the likely suspect. The [IMDB credits](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030637/fullcredits#writers) identify four people (in addition to Shaw) involved in writing the film. (BTW, I got the year wrong- it’s 1938). Any of them could have been responsible. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/69 "2004-11-02T05:10:29Z")
I was astonished that in the most recent adaptation of “Les Miserables” (the one with Liam Neeson as Valjean), Jean Valjean lives at the end! ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/70 "2004-11-02T06:07:37Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > **Sampiro** - I know nothing of this book called “Troy” of which you speak. However, in The Iliad, the poem on which Troy is solely based, Cassandra barely exists as a character. Her part in the siege of Troy is in the works of Euripides, Vergil and Aeschylus. Criticise for the rest if you like, but not for that. The OP doesn’t call for a “book”- it calls for a literary work. _TROY_ is a collage of several literary works but in many ways ends differently than any of them. (Whenever you patronize another poster, God electrocutes a baby squirrel.) ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/71 "2004-11-02T08:41:13Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > The OP doesn’t call for a “book”- it calls for a literary work. _TROY_ is a collage of several literary works but in many ways ends differently than any of them. No, Troy is a loose adaptation of the Iliad. That’s why it focuses on Achilles and why Homer is the only Greek poet to get a writing credit. Yes, the movie does nod briefly to the Aeneid (and one or two other poems), but it is not an adaptation thereof and so is not subject to criticism for omitting things not contained in the Iliad - not in this thread, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/72 "2004-11-02T09:15:33Z")
Two other Stephen King works _Insomnia_ and from the short story _Lawnmower Man_ The titles were the only things they had in common with their respective movies. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/73 "2004-11-02T09:50:00Z")
The film **Circle of Friends** has a pretty conventional happy, romantic ending. The Ugly Duckling heroine forgives her Big Man On Campus boyfriend for his sins, and then an implied Happily Ever After. In the novel, the ending is also happy but in a different way – the heroine realizes that, even though he’s cute and nice, she’ll never really be happy with the BMOC because she can’t trust him. (The boyfriend’s sins are significantly reduced in the screen version.) She also realizes that she’d made him the center of her life in a rather unhealthy way, and that even though he’s the first guy who ever found her attractive he isn’t the only one. So she goes for “let’s just be friends” instead. **The Hunger** (mediocre movie, pretty lousy novel) has more dramatically different endings in terms of the actual events, although I think the tone in both is similar. In both versions of the story, vampire queen Miriam leads reluctant newly-turned vampire Sarah to drink her own boyfriend’s blood. He dies. Realizing what she’s done, Sarah stabs herself. But vampires can’t really die, they’re just reduced to zombie-like beings or conscious corpses. Then the endings diverge. In the book, Miriam puts Sarah away in a coffin like her other former lovers. She moves away and takes up with a man, vowing to stay away from mortal women in the future because they get too emotional. In her coffin, Sarah thinks of her dead boyfriend and dreams of being able to truly die herself so she can be with him again. In the movie, Miriam starts to put Sarah away in a coffin, but is attacked by her zombified exes. They “kill” her to the extent that she can be killed. This seems to be the ending of the film, but then there’s an additional scene that reveals that Sarah (now the new queen vampire) recovered from her injuries, moved away, and took up with both a man _and_ a woman. Meanwhile, she’s stuck what’s left of Miriam in a box, where she mentally screams for Sarah. ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/74 "2004-11-02T09:54:26Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > No, Troy is a loose adaptation of the Iliad. That’s why it focuses on Achilles and why Homer is the only Greek poet to get a writing credit. Yes, the movie does nod briefly to the Aeneid (and one or two other poems), but it is not an adaptation thereof and so is not subject to criticism for omitting things not contained in the Iliad - not in this thread, anyway. The _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ – a lot of the action in the movie wasn’t taken from the _Iliad_ (which itself only covers a few weeks of the ten years in Troy) but the _Odyssey_, in which the story of the end of the war (and Agamemnon’s fate, etc. etc) was related to Telemachus by Menelaus and Odysseus by the spirits in the underworld. ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/75 "2004-11-02T09:58:02Z")
> [@SPOOFE](#): > > Christ, I hate _The Time Machine_. And the book was so great, too. The first _Time Machine_ movie (made in the sixties) is pretty faithful to the book, albeit a little campy. I agree that the new version totally sucked. Pretty much any movie based on a short story will not be totally faithful to the source material, since so much will have to be added to flesh it out to a full-length movie. Philip K. Dick has already been mentioned, but I just have to reiterate: _why_ do they keep adapting his short stories when he wrote three dozen perfectly good full-length novels for them to murder? The short stories are awesome, of course, but they’re one-note, like all short stories. The novels describe an entire _world_. They’re supposedly making a movie out of Ray Bradbury’s story “A Sound of Thunder.” I don’t know how that’s going to work, seeing as how the original story was only something like ten pages long, but I bet it won’t be faithful. When I read the _Forrest Gump_ book, I had to check the copyright to make sure it wasn’t just a parody of the character. I thought for sure someone had written a satire featuring an “evil” Forrest. Nothing from the book except the character’s names made it into the movie. I heard _I, Robot_ had nothing to do with _The Caves of Steel_ but I’ve not seen or read either one. _Blade Runner_ had almost no relationship to _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ but it’s still one of my favorite movies ever. Weird, that. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/76 "2004-11-02T10:03:47Z")
> [@continuity eror](#): > > _why_ do they keep adapting his short stories when he wrote three dozen perfectly good full-length novels for them to murder? The short stories are awesome, of course, but they’re one-note, like all short stories. I’ve heard it said a number of times that a short story is the best fodder for a movie, not a novel. A novel is very dependent on perspective, which is hard to transfer to a movie, and its plot may not be ‘movie-ish’ enough. A short story has atmosphere and the germ of an idea, which you can use in the movie. It actually works better because you have to flesh it out and develop it instead of just picking what to drop and what to change. What happened to some of Dick’s stories sounds pretty bad, though. Given what I’ve heard about some of his novels, I don’t know how they’d make movies out of them. ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/77 "2004-11-02T10:10:00Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > Two other Stephen King works _Insomnia_ and from the short story _Lawnmower Man_ The titles were the only things they had in common with their respective movies. Regarding _Insomnia_, if you’re referring to the [Al Pacino/Robin Williams murder mystery](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0278504/) that takes place in Alaska, it has no relation whatsoever to King’s novel. That movie is a remake of a [1997 Norwegian film.](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0119375/) _The Servants of Twilight_, based on Dean R. Koontz’s _Twilight_, made a minor yet significant change to the ending: Yes the boy really IS THE SON OF SATAN!!! A bit cliche, but I actually liked it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![melondeca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@melondeca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melondeca)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/78 "2004-11-02T14:35:47Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > (Whenever you patronize another poster, God electrocutes a baby squirrel.) 😃 Someone really needs to put this on a tshirt. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/79 "2004-11-02T17:00:26Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > (Whenever you patronize another poster, God electrocutes a baby squirrel.) Then I’m going to be even more patronizing in the future. The little buggars are digging up the bulbs in my garden. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377/80 "2004-11-02T17:13:00Z")
**Carrie** In the movie, Carrie simply goes home after destroying the high school. In the book, I think she goes through the entire town and blows up gas stations and takes a lot more lives. Also, in the movie Carrie kills her mother by throwing knives at her, and in the book she makes her mother’s heart stop with her mind. **The Silence of the Lambs** The film ends with Lecter calling Clarice during her award ceramony. In the book, she ends up having sex with the bug guy from the museum. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adaptations-movies-that-ended-drastically-different-from-their-literary-counterpart/272377.md?page=5)