# Book to movie-Worst adaptation **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 1, 2018, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710 "2018-01-01T21:23:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/41 "2018-01-02T03:46:11Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > When the movie adaptation of “The Firm” came out, all the critics said, “If you haven’t read the book, you will love the movie, and if you have read it, you won’t like it.” I had read the John Grisham thriller; the friend with whom I saw the movie had not. She loved it and thought it was one of the best movies she’d ever seen, whereas I said, “That’s not in the book!” so many times, a man sitting in front of us turned around and told me to shut up. :o Grisham’s, “Skipping Christmas,” was a fun little book. “Christmas With The Kranks,” was not a fun little movie. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/42 "2018-01-02T04:06:08Z")
I like the Starship Troopers movie significantly better than the book, so I can’t include it. One that’s not been mentioned so far is **The Tale of Despereaux**. The book is a lovely poetic Newbery-winner about an idealistic, dreamy, wimpy little mouse that has to confront his weaknesses and passivity in order to save the day–as well as a rat who must mend a broken heart, and a terribly-abused girl who must find the courage to speak her mind, and a few other excellent characters. It’s gentle and thoughtful and funny. The movie is about a wisecracking Indiana-Jones mouse who backflips off mousetraps and fights cats in set pieces. It ignores everything good about the book to make a quick, cynical buck. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/43 "2018-01-02T04:14:44Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Grisham’s, “Skipping Christmas,” was a fun little book. “Christmas With The Kranks,” was not a fun little movie. Another case of an author disinheriting the film version of their work. Grisham was increasingly disgusted as the film got made, to the extent that he got them to change the name. I’m betting he had to sue them. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/44 "2018-01-02T04:21:49Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **The Mind Parasites** is actually an unapproved version of Heinlein’s **The Puppet Masters**. If you thought the Disney version was bad, this one is awful. With Leonard Nimoy, believe it or not. Respectfully, I think you mean _The Brain Eaters_ (1958) with “Leonard Nemoy” in a very small role as an alien. Although IMDB lists a few alternate titles, “The Mind Parasites” is not one of them. _The Mind Parasites_ (1967) is the title of a Colin Wilson novel with Lovecraftian overtones, at least two-thirds of which was pretty good, as I recall. Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you had your interocittor tuned-up? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/45 "2018-01-02T04:56:43Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Not so fast, buckaroo-Your link says that the movie stunk like skunkweed, and that the book was horribly dated, but not that the former deviated much from the latter. I read _Even Cowgirls Get the Blues_ before seeing the movie, and IIRC (this was quite a few years back) the movie roughly follows the story of the book and preserves most of the major characters. Quite a bit is left out or watered down, but that’s usually the case for novel-to-movie adaptations. It’s my recollection that if anything the movie suffered from being _too_ faithful to the novel, which probably wasn’t the best candidate for a screen adaptation. I liked the book okay, but material that on the page had an off-beat, rambling charm turned into a weird mess onscreen. There’s a scene in the movie that particularly sticks in my mind when the main character (played by Uma Thurman) says to another character “When you say the word [cowgirl], you make it sound like it was painted in radium on the side of a pearl.” I literally _cringed_ at this, but that line is taken directly from the novel and hadn’t bothered me there. ---
**Author:** ![GinoC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f4b2a3/32.png) [@GinoC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GinoC)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/46 "2018-01-02T05:08:17Z")
“World War Z” by Max Brooks was an outstanding oral history of the zombie wars turned into a ho-hum Brad Pitt zombie flic. The only real resemblance between the two was having the same title. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/47 "2018-01-02T05:21:39Z")
There were dozens of them on MST3K. One of the worst was a picture in which a stock car racing driver seemed to have the ability to jump a few minutes in time. The credits said “Based on a novel by H. G. Wells.” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/48 "2018-01-02T06:21:50Z")
Not a book, but yesterday I watched a recent peplum called “Immortals”, supposedly based on the mythos of Theseus. It should have been preceded by the warning “any similarity with mythological characters, whether alive or dead, is an unintended coincidence for which the team apologizes profusely”. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/49 "2018-01-02T07:59:18Z")
Do comic books count? While I actually liked “V for Vendetta”, IIRC in the original comic V wasn’t a sympathetic character at all and the anarchism vs totalitarianism angle was presented as showing both sides being horrendously flawed and that one wasn’t necessarily better than the other. The movie decides to wrap a neat little bow on things by making V a hero and making it a generic “the heroes rise up against a dictatorship!” story with some pretty obvious George W Bush/War on Terror metaphors thrown in despite the British setting. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/50 "2018-01-02T10:14:08Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > When the movie adaptation of “The Firm” came out, all the critics said, “If you haven’t read the book, you will love the movie, and if you have read it, you won’t like it.” That should have been the warning on Kubrick’s movie version of Stephen King’s _The Shining_, too. ---
**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:** [January 2, 2018, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/51 "2018-01-02T12:12:51Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > Respectfully, I think you mean _The Brain Eaters_ (1958) with “Leonard Nemoy” in a very small role as an alien. Although IMDB lists a few alternate titles, “The Mind Parasites” is not one of them. > > _The Mind Parasites_ (1967) is the title of a Colin Wilson novel with Lovecraftian overtones, at least two-thirds of which was pretty good, as I recall. > Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you had your interocittor tuned-up? It’s what I get for posting late at night without checking to verify the facts. Carry on. …and my Interociter is just fine, thank you. And it doesn’t have that dopey triangular screen like in the movie. It’s got its proper square block of glass with the SpectraColor coating on it. ---
**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:** [January 2, 2018, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/52 "2018-01-02T12:20:19Z")
…Which brings up an excellent point. _This Island Earth_ may not be a great science fiction novel, but it’s light-years ahead of the silly movie they purportedly made out of it. They jettisoned most of the original novel and substituted something that appeared to be cobbled together from a quick perusal of pulp science fiction magazine cover art. Even when they were relatively faithful to the book – in the opening section where Cal builds the Interociter, they managed to screw it up. In the movie the Metalunans thoughtfully sent him the schematics as well as the parts, as if it were an interstellar Heathkit\*. But it was supposed to be a test of Cal’s abilities. In the book, he had to dope out what the parts did and how they fit together from the descriptions in the “catalog” (which was clearly a sort of encrypted set of plans). He screwed up while doing it and actually had to rebuild one of the parts. You also got to see the “qualifying exams” the Metalunans sent to some of the other scientist-engineers. It would’ve been better if they filmed it more as written, but they chose instead to dumb it down. (And, of course, the Metalunans didn’t want Earth Scientists to do their R&D for them – they were looking for skilled labor to help with their war effort) \*and how many Millennials are going to get _that_ reference? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/53 "2018-01-02T12:25:46Z")
_Stuart Little_ is another one whose melancholy, small-scale wistfulness was converted into yet another formulaic, animated, hyperkinetic, awful action film. A childhood friend’s father had a go at directing Joyce’s _Ulysses_ in the mid-70s. It wasn’t well reviewed, but it’s not a bad film, really. He did get some praise for making a brave attempt at the impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Mavic\_Chen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mavic\_Chen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mavic_Chen)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/54 "2018-01-02T13:05:16Z")
Any film version of “Gulliver’s Travels”. Films: Gulliver is a giant in a world of tiny people. Book: Four parts with significantly different worlds, including sentient talking horses. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/55 "2018-01-02T13:20:03Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > I dread the day somebody tries to make a movie of _Stranger in a Strange Land_. [Your dark days are here](https://nerdist.com/the-stranger-in-a-strange-land-tv-series-will-live-or-die-by-how-much-it-groks/). One adaptation that comes to mind for me is the YA novel _City of Ember_. The book involves a city isolated from the world–the city itself is lighted by electricity, but the rest of the world that they can see is pure darkness. What keeps the people from leaving the city is legends and fear of the unknown. The movie involves a city isolated from the world–the city itself is lighted by electricity, but the rest of the world that they can see is pure darkness. What keeps the people from leaving the city is aggressive, man-eating mutant moles the size of houses. ---
**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:** [January 2, 2018, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/56 "2018-01-02T13:24:56Z")
> [@Mavic\_Chen](#): > > Any film version of “Gulliver’s Travels”. > > Films: Gulliver is a giant in a world of tiny people. > > Book: Four parts with significantly different worlds, including sentient talking horses. Actually, the Hallmark TV version starring Ted Danson actually managed to include material from all the books. It’s an interesting rewrite, and manages to hit the high points of the book, while preserving a lot of the satire. (Ray Harryhausen’s version, while not all that faithful, at least includes the visit to Brobdingnag) Another one that annoys me – someday I’d like to se an adaptation of Mark Twain’s **a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s court** that contains more than a handful of incidents in the book, and which manages, for once, to convey Twain’s sense of humor and sarcasm. Every single version I’ve seen is terrible – either a vehicle for the star, playing to his strengths (Bing Crosby, Will Rogers) or a bowdlerization trying desperately not to offend (animated versions, the PBS adaptation, fer cryin’ out loud!), or a complete rewrite that just takes the idea of a modern person dropped into the world of Camelot. PLEASE give me a version that gives us Hank Morgan blowing up Merlin’s Tower, and the Restoration of the Holy Well, and Hank Morgan’s rescue by Lancelot and his knights mounted on bicycles, and the Final Siege and Battle. Give us a version that shows Hank Morgan’s faults as well as Camelot’s, one where Morgan can say “Morgan le Fay had no idea what it meant to _photograph_ anyone, but it was just like her to try and do it with an axe.”, where Clarence tries to start his own newspaper, and the knights are talked into wearing advertisements on their armor. I want the real off-kilter sense of humor of Mark Twain. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/57 "2018-01-02T13:30:47Z")
Either of the Jack Reacher movies. Tom Cruise just doesn’t cut it, even when they found a leading lady who didn’t tower over him. In the realm of disappointing movies based on Stephen King novels, my pick is “Christine”. After a (mostly) excellent opening sequence in the auto plant, it descended into predictable crappiness (along the way, destroying all the insights into growing up and attempting to shed ugly duckling status). ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/58 "2018-01-02T14:01:30Z")
> [@GinoC](#): > > “World War Z” by Max Brooks was an outstanding oral history of the zombie wars turned into a ho-hum Brad Pitt zombie flic. The only real resemblance between the two was having the same title. This, and it was a real shame. I thought the novel cried out for a fake documentary format, and didn’t need any stars. Just ordinary looking actors in differing segments. But, that would not have been box office, so we got a standard issue adventure movie. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/59 "2018-01-02T14:22:43Z")
After the first adaption of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, nobody should have remade it. Especially with Johnny Depp in the title role. eTA: Speaking of Stephen King, what about Children of the Corn? ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710/60 "2018-01-02T14:28:02Z")
Neither [_The Last Man On Earth_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man_on_Earth_(1964_film)) (with Vincent Price) nor [_The Omega Man_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omega_Man) (with Charleton Heston) attempt to use the title from Richard Matheson’s [_I am Legend_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(novel)), but they seem to have more in common with the original work than [the Will Smith movie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(film)) that does. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-to-movie-worst-adaptation/805710.md?page=4)