I feel like expanding The Hobbit into 6 hours of CGI battles didn’t do the book any favors.
I’ve said before that Robert Sheckley has to be the most ripped-off science fiction writer ever. But to add insult to injury, his stuff has been very badly adapted. The Italian film The Tenth Victim wasn’t a really great adaptation of his story The Seventh Victim, but I have to admit that I didn’t expect much from it. Still, it’s arguably a high point in adaptations. His wicked little Immortality Delivered (AKA Immortality, Inc.) got turned into the appalling Freejack, which wasn’t materially helped by the presence of Mick Jagger and Anthony Hopkins. His spy spoof The Game of X became the Disney movie Condorman . This became a cult film in its own right, but there’s practically nothing there of Sheckley’s aside from the North-by-Northwest schtick of an ordinary guy being mistaken for a secret agent.*
Worst of all was the “Masters of SCience Fiction” adaptaion of his story Watchbird. You’d think this story, published in the 1950s about the hazards of a too-watchful fleet of drones would be timely and interesting, but they managed to screw it up and give it a garbled ending in place of the twist Sheckley used. Fortunately, it wasn’t broadcast on US television with the rest of the package. I finally saw it on the hard-to-get DVD set, and was severely disappointed.
imdb lists several other adaptations, which I haven’t seen, but have little faith in, given the track record.
I see that they’ve announced a version of his Mindswap. I was never a fan of that book, so I won’t mind too much when they manage to screw that one up, too.
*The Pixar Toy Story short Small Fry has a fictional “Condorman” Happy Meal toy in it:
Totally right.
On the other hand, making it into a Rankin-Bass TV movie didn’t do it any favors, either.
Oddly enough the parts I liked best about The Hobbit were the scenes that were not part of the book. I also disliked the CGI battles but enjoyed the musings of the council and the adventures of Gandalf and Radagast.
However, I do think they missed the tone of the books: it is much more like a fairy tale than LotR. Epicness was appropriate for LotR. Too much scope and explanation kills the feel of a fairy tale. The desolation of Wilderland works well in this context, and having too much explicit side action makes it feel overly “lived-in” for the tone of the story even if the events actually did take place. But taken alone, the journey of Gandalf to the stairway/tomb/crypt in the first movie was my favorite scene in the trilogy.
Wow…Johnny Depp played the chocolate factory?
^ No, ya silly goose, Charlie!
(Or was it Michael Jackson?)
Some cable station aired a half hour version of Wheel of Time a few years ago, buried at like 3am in the morning. I can’t imagine it was any good, not that I actually saw it. Apparently just a quick POS churned out to retain the rights.
I wouldn’t hold my breath-The last press release from SYFY about this was back in late 2016.
I did not see a movie because I could not get my brain around it.
A long time ago I listen to audio-books when I used to drive endless hours and liked Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books
I knew Jack as a 6’5" big tough guy. The thought of Tom Cruise playing that part just won’t work. It is also interesting that I would read those books but do not really see those kinds of movies in general. Maybe people enjoyed the movie but I can’t ruin the Jack Reacher in my mind.
When you say “worst”, do you mean worst job following the book or just the worst result? There is, to be sure, some correlation there but the two are not the same thing. For instance, “The Dead Zone” didn’t exactly follow the book, but I thought the movie pretty decent. (Maybe even prescient.)
Worst job following the book.
I agree about books by King.
On one hand, some of them (e.g., The Dead Zone) turn out pretty well, even though they depart significantly from the book.
On the other hand, The Dark Tower needs to be destroyed with fire. The whole shift to concentrate on a (deservedly) minor character in order to appeal to YAs made me want to hurl.
“Contact”, the film and book had a fair amount of both similarities and differences, but the most egregious difference was in the resolution. In the books final scene, Ellie Arroway finds mathematical/scientific proof of God. In the movie, she asks the Congressional committee to “take me on faith” in regards to whether she actually took the trip.
I agree!!
Both are pretty faithful adaptations of their source material, and decent movies.
I get that Tom Cruise isn’t huge and blond. I just don’t think that’s super essential to the character or stories.
I think adapting Lord of Light into a movie about a hostage rescue mission veered a bit too far. 
While I agree they don’t follow the books (sometimes at all) I do like a lot the movie adaptions that became The Natural, Freejack, Forrest Gump, The Princess Bride, and RAH’s The Pupper Masters. I’m sure it helps that I never read the books.
I read and enjoy I Am Legend but I also love the Omega Man. It’s so different it’s really a different story, plus they did the book the honor of not using the title, unlike that Will Smith abomination.
I did read The World According to Garp, and Irving would probably strangle me for saying this, but the movie was WAY better. The book is a mess. The movie cleaned it up, and added touches that I would argue improved the story.
Project Moonbase isnt bad, just dated.
No, many of his Juveniles would work well. Have Spacesuit will Travel. The StarBeast.
I just reread SiaSL, and also tMiaHM, and the amount of rather incoherant, inconsitent and quite frankly wrong political monologging turned me off, and they used to be a couple of my faves.
But yeah, altho Starship Troopers can be fun if you think of it as a film that just happenes to have the same title as a RAH novel, it is a horrible adaptation.
Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, the best HPL film is one NOT based on any of his tales- *Cast a Deadly Spell. *
Yes, and that horrible love match.
But I still love the film due to the much needed inclusion of the White Council vs the Necromancer, which was actaully the “story behind the story” for the Hobbit.
Not to mention some great acting and scenery.