This is precisely what I came in here to say - the ending of Contact was definitely dumbed down to the lowest denominator and the ending of the movie, philosophically, is 180-degrees opposite from what was meant in the book. In the book, one person searches for God by means of reason and science… and finds evidence pointing towards a Creators existence. In the movie, however, this person glibly tells Congress (or whatever), “Well, hu-yuck, I guess you gotta take me on faith, yuck-yuck”, which is an approach Sagan argued against in the book.
They could have always got around that by not mentioning it, like they did for Octopussy.
The cartoon came along slightly later than the first few waves, otherwise the Joes would’ve all been dressed in military green (other than Snake Eyes and Scarlett) and the Cobras would’ve all been the same generic blue clad soldiers.
Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow might not have been the central crux at the time of the first miniseries, but they were getting there, and by the time the ongoing cartoon started they certainly were the most popular part of the line, both in the comic and with the toys (just try finding a Snake Eyes or Storm Shadow on the shelves back then, it was near impossible, and quite frustrating to my younger self). It was unforgivable to some of us kids how their whole story was completely ignored.
You can say Snake Eyes looked drab, I guess because he was all in black, but where he might not have been colorful, he still looked really cool, and coolness overcomes lack of color. As for not talking, that right there makes my point that it’s dumbing down. It’s not like he could talk in the comic either (not even thought bubbles) yet he still had the best storylines. But they had to dumb things down for TV, so that mute guy, yeah, let’s marginalize him to the point where he could be replaced by Quick Kick and nothing would change on the show.
That’s not even getting into how incredibly dumbed down (or more accurately dumbed up) the origin of Cobra Commander was on the toon compared with the comic. Snake people, wtf?
Jurassic Park III, Dr. Grant, a paleontologist, calls an aviary a “birdhouse”.
I know there was no novel that it was based on, but it seemed obvious the scriptwriters thought the average moviegoer wouldn’t know what an aviary is.
But then we get that awesome line. “It’s a birdhouse.”
“For WHAT?”
BIRD ATTACK!
Whatever, n00b, this nails the tone of the original graphic novel.
Funny–I never thought of it as “dumbing down.” I always saw it as describing a woman who is so self-centered that she’s oblivious to the concept of loving and caring for her mother, so into her own little world that she’s never heard of the phrase TLC and has to have it explained to her. I saw the scene in light of the fact that her mother had in fact been, until recently, constantly sedated, so that it was natural for Mary Fisher to assume that the manager was suggesting a new and better medication.
I would say that the whole stupid U.S. “She-Devil” movie was a profound dumbing-down from the brilliant British “Life & Loves of a She-Devil”.
Sometimes it’s simply acknowledging the fact that in a book, you can stop and digest what someone has just said and go look up a word that you aren’t familiar with if you need to. In a movie, if you throw the audience something too unexpected, you either have to stop and explain it or risk the audience missing the next 15 seconds of dialogue while they try to process whatever their ears tripped over. Variety of wine notwithstanding, I daresay most laypersons would trip over someone describing wine as “big.”
Starship troopers,the original Heinlein novel contained some radical ideas,the main character was not an out and out hero,the troopers actually used tactics when fighting,the enemy although alien had a structured,believable society whereas the the movie wassssssssss
,yes tripe,total unashamed tripe.
An insult not only to the author but to the viewers intelligence as well.
And then the sequel…
Talk about twisting the knife.
I think in a way the film of Empire Of The Sun is a “dumbing down”.
In the book, part of what makes it so interesting to read is that the boy very much identifies with his captors, he respects the Japanese, and their brutality IIRC. This was alluded to in the film but never really explored.
It would not at all surprise me if a producer really did expect American vocabularies to be so deficient, but I think “License to Kill” is ultimately a better title. “License Revoked” takes a non-Bond fan a moment to figure out (if they recall that Bond has a special sort of license at all) whereas “License to Kill” is immediately meaningful.
I remember, as a kid, thinking the Ghostbusters movies were dumbed down from the cartoon. 
The cartoon did often have mythology references, a more developed universe, and the plots did vary quite a bit in how our heroes saved the day, but looking back I’m not sure if I’d really count it as being a smartening up either.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
On the one hand, you’ve got Victor Hugo’s tragic novel with its themes of social justice and religious fanaticism.
OTOH, there’s the Disney cartoon.
I watched this film the other day, and his respect for the Japanese was a main feature of it.
He bowed down before the camp commander, stood saluting as the kamikaze pilots were ordained and sang a song in honour of them, and often spoke about how much better Japanese planes were and how he thought they’d win. At the end, his friend was a Japanese boy, albeit briefly.
I haven’t seen the film or read the book in recent years but IIRC it was much more explicit and problematic in the book and I think there’s even sections where in contrast he describes his disdain for the Chinese. Those sections in the film can be interpreted as childish interest in pomp, soldiers, aeroplanes and the like. I probably should reread and rewatch the respective works though.
TBF, I haven’t read the book, so I can’t make any comparisons. It’s just that his adoration of the Japanese (especially Japanese pilots) is so obvious in the film that it’s hard to imagine it coming over stronger in the book. He even wants to join the Japanese air force himself.
I think perhaps you can more fully realise the implications of this adoration in the novel as compared with the book. Damn, I need to get my hands on both again. 
My friend, who studied film science, refers to it as “chunking”. At least when it comes to pieces of dialogue that are meant to fill in the viewer of past events, in ways that are often quite strained.
“How are you, Alice.”
“Well, after that horrible accident last week, the one in Chicago in which I lost both my parents, I have been quite sad.”
“I see. Just like how I was saddened shortly after, when I lost my job.”
Of course, this is not dumbed down as much as it is sloppy writing. However, the “As you know Bob” trope, where a biologist explains to another biologist what photosenthesis is, is dumbed for sure.