The hell OUT of it. That’s how you make jokes unfunny----by not proof-reading. That said, Congo was an alright, breezy vacation read that turned into a jaw-droppingly shitty movie. I thought About a Boy was a pretty loathesome adaption as well—I blame Hugh Grant.
Besides those noted above, I’d add most adaptations of H.G. wells, and a lot of spy/thriller novels:
The Osterman Weekend – I think this one may actually beat Starship Troopers and I, Robot for least similarity between book and movie
Ice Station Zebra – I’m amazed that they virtually jettisoned Alistair MacLean’s novel so completely, after Guns of Navarone did so well
The Fourth Protocol – Okay, they did it to condense the story down. I still didn’t like it.
You Only Live Twice, Diamonds are Forever, the Spy Who Loved Me, The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, The Living Daylights, Octopussy, a View to a Kill – aside from the first few Bond flicks and the wonderful anomaly For Your Eyes Only, they pretty much threw most of the Bond books out the window. actually, the Spy Who Loved Me probably wins the contest for least resemblance between book and film – Fleming apparently stated that they could only use the title. So it’s technically not their fault. On the other hand, considering what they did to the films before and after it, I doubt if they would’ve ebven tried anything like a faithful adaptation.
A Special Award for Badness goes to the Bo Derek version of Tarzan the Ape Man, which spends less time on Tarzan than on Jane.
And, while I love the film and have endless admiration for the screenwriter, you have to admit that there’s an awful huge chasm between T.E. Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” and Lawrence of Arabia.
There’s a special department for Films with Endings Changed from the Books, which might not have been so bad up until then:
The Scarlet Letter (Demi Moore’s version, of course.)
the Hunchback of Notre Dame – not just Disney, but practically every film adaptation there is. I understand one or two actually have been faithful
The African Queen
the Bridge on the River Kwai
the Little Mermaid
Fantasia 2000 (“The Steadfast Tin Soldier” segment)
I’m willing to forgive the “happy endings” added in the film versions of those last four – the screens would have been deluged with Milk Duds and Jordan Almonds and Popcorn, otherwise.
A Wizard of Earthsea, from that gawd-awful company that gave the wretched Merlin and that other one with Whoopi as Queen of the Leprechauns.
One of, if not the, best boy’s own sci-fi tales, and they managed to hack it up so badly that it was too painful to continue to watch.
Also: the Dungeons and Dragons movie. They take books that had random wench charts, and that is what they came up with?
Only because I didn’t see this thread earlier… That’s what I was going to post. For those who haven’t read the book, it’s about a bunch of guys in powered armor exoskeletons throwing nuclear hand grenades at aliens. Remember that forklift-thing Ripley used in the climactic scene in Aliens? Picture one of those, except built for battle, and with jump jets and fifteen bazillion types of weapons built in. I mean, it just screams summer blockbuster. There’s no way Hollywood could pass up that kind of brain candy! Or so I thought, at least.
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” was torn, stapled and mutilated every which way by Ron Howard & Jim Carey. No forgiveness.
Oh - and there was a TV version of “Animal Farm” with a happy ending tacked on!!!
Well, I would say Vampire$. But luckily they never made a movie out of it. Anyone who’s read this book knows how unbelievable cool it is - and what an amazing movie it would make.
What’s that? Oh no, no, no — you must be thinking of something else. They NEVER made a movie out of this book. Especially not one that stars James Woods and loosely follows a plot hacked out by drunken goth rhesus monkeys. Especially not one that cuts out a central character and for some reason, has Daniel Baldwin as a sidekick. I mean, Daniel fucking Baldwin?! Nope, never happened.
Sigh.
The Doctor
The Neverending Story by Micheal Ende… wonderful book… movie completely screwed it up… and then they had to make sequels (and a cartoon?) that did it even worse.
When they tried to sell us on this film at WorldCon, they showed us the bugs, and promised us armor. LIARS!
You think the movie sucks? It bears little resemblance (ok, it has the 3 rules and that’s it) to the book, but it’s a great story in its own right. I think I, Robot’s fate is to be regarded in the same class as Blade Runner and The Terminator (first one only, of course - not either sequel).
Y’all have hit all the ones I’d want to hit (Grinch, Earthsea, Dortmunder, Mnemonic), including several that I was excited about until I heard more details, and have therefore refused to see.
But you’ve also included some that I wouldn’t. Starship Troopers ties with The Stars Like Dust as the worst book I’ve ever read–and that’s including a half-dozen or so other Heinlein novels. It fails on more levels than most books have. The movie failed too, in my opinion–Verhoeven forgot halfway through that he was making a satire–but it wasn’t as bad as the book.
Compare to Frankenstein, the book, which is brilliant, with a totally different movie–but the movie itself is a decent one, just with a different central theme.
Martin Lawrence as Dortmunder? Is there any actor out there who would be a worse Dortmunder? Hell, Keanu Reeves could carry the role better!
Daniel
I’m trying, but I can’t understand this sentence.
I, Robot started off as an unrelated story by the screenwriter set in the universe of Asmov’s three laws of robotics. But then the studio got hold of the rights to I, Robot, and figured on trading on Asimov’s fame. So they rechristened some characters with Asimov character names (like Dr. Susan Calvin), even though they had nothing to do with the characters as written, and tried to pass the whole thing off as Asimov’s book. too bad. The script has some good ideas and some good lines, even if it does fall into the “Robots Try to Take Over” trap that damned near every robot movie falls into (and which isn’t the same as Asimov’s stories about the Zeroth Law, like some try to claim it is.) So, despite my sympathy for the screenwriter, I’m still apalled by the movie. They shoulda filmed Ellison’s adaptation, dammit. It was Good, and it had asimov’s blessing. And it was refreshingly different from the usual Hollywood SF drivel.
B;ade Runner was based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep/, and was significantly changed from Dick’s book, and used a title borrowed from Alan E. Nourse that made no sense in context but sounded cool. The film is original and interesting enough that a lot of people – me included – are willing to forgive it. Very different from the case of I, Robot.
the Terminator was an original story by Cameron. He admitted influence from Harlan Ellison, which Ellison parlayed into getting himself screen credit. I love Ellison and his diatribes, but I don’t agree with him in this case – Cameron used ideas that were in “Soldier” and “Demon with a Glass Hand”, but they were in tons of stories from the 1950s pulps. Ellison didn’t have exclusive rights to them, and you could make a case that he borrowed ideas and imageery too. the Terminator was not an adaptation of ellison’s story “Soldier” or of either of his “Outer Limits” scripts, so there’s no original print version here to compare with the film at all. You could make a good case that a portion of the film owes a great deal more to Philip K. Dick’s story “Second Variety”.
I am required by my membership in the Tolkien Geeks of America to say RETURN OF THE KING.
Well, I disagree with you about the relative worth of both film and movie, but by the criteria of the OP, this movie definitely qualifies, whether you like it or not. It’s easily the most extreme case of political, artistic, and stylistic disagreement between the source material and the film that I’ve ever seen.
I think About a Boy is a great adaptation.
Disney did not make an adaptation of Hunchback.
Nor of Tarzan.
Certainly not of The Little Mermaid.
These rumored movies DO NOT EXIST. Those who claim otherwise are not to be trusted.
The movie adaptation of Minority Report was considerably less interesting than the short story. In the short story,
The main character commits murder, even though it means he’ll be sent to prison for the rest of his life, to ensure that Pre-Crime SURVIVES.
But I can’t say I’m surprised by the revision – Spielberg does like his happy endings, doesn’t he?
And extra demerits because of the existence of Ellison’s script for it. Ignored, of course.
I’m suprised that no one has mentioned the TV movie travesty of the Flood story, with Lot running around in Noah’s time as a villain. I’m an atheist but really! I guess the screenwriters figured that no one has actually read the original. :rolleyes:
The original Thing from Another World is another example. While not a bad movie, Who Goes There is all about our identity - not about hunting down killer vegetables.
The movies were made… in some cases beloved… People just need to get over it.
You’ll understand why I find it difficult to trust you, Push. 