# Most bastardized work from book to screen? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 13, 2006, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876 "2006-01-13T20:50:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![iluvurmom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iluvurmom/32/7276_2.png) [@iluvurmom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iluvurmom)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876/81 "2006-01-19T13:17:36Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > **Starship Troopers** has been mentioned already, but the current adaptation of Heinlein’s **Glory Road** is even more removed from the book. It’s like the filmmakers never even heard of the novel… You do realize that the movie that is currently out is not at all based on Heinlein’s book, correct? It is about the journey of the '66 Texas Western basketball team on their way to winnning the NCAA championships…that might explain why it looks nothing like the novel. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876/82 "2006-01-19T15:14:35Z")
> [@Corii](#): > > It’s been a while since I’ve seen \*The Shining \* but I was pretty sure that he wasn’t insane in the beginning of the movie. Was it supposed to be that way and I just missed it? I think a better question might be, has Jack Nicholson ever _not_ looked at least halfway to batshit insane? The man’s a good actor, but if I wanted to depict a slow descent into madness, I’d probably choose someone else. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876/83 "2006-01-19T16:49:48Z")
True, good ol’ Jack does seem… off-center at the best of times. So maybe that wasn’t so much the fault of Kubrick’s direction as it was Nicholson’s intensity. But at any rate, the movie does a very poor job of conveying the basic decency underneath Jack’s alcoholism. He begins the movie as a screaming asshole and ends it as a screaming asshole squared. No real development as a character, and no real descent into madness. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876/84 "2006-01-19T16:51:16Z")
I should clarify that by “Jack’s alcoholism,” I meant Jack the character, not the actor portraying him. That’s the first time I’ve noticed that the actor and the character have the same first name! ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876/85 "2006-01-19T21:40:55Z")
Has anyone mentioned yet the bastardization of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” by Ron Howard & Jim Carrey. I for one have not forgiven them for it. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876/86 "2006-01-19T21:57:59Z")
> [@well he's back](#): > > Has anyone mentioned yet the bastardization of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” by Ron Howard & Jim Carrey. I for one have not forgiven them for it. I with you on that! ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876/87 "2006-01-19T22:05:31Z")
> [@RenMan](#): > > 5 word: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. > > I was stunned by how amazingly, mind-bogglingly, jaw-droppingly bad the adaptation was. OK, the ending was pretty skewed, but I liked it overall. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876/88 "2006-01-19T22:40:54Z")
> [@Kythereia](#): > > OK, the ending was _pretty skewed_, but I liked it overall. 😛 Inventing a woman who didn’t exist in the book (whatever that bimbo’s name was that Zaphod supposedly dumped ages ago), Arthur and Trillian going off together, Trillian being arrested and sentenced to death by being fed to the Bugblatter Beast of Traal…I cannot count the ways in which that movie pissed me off. If you’ve never read the books it’s probably a fun movie, at least my kids thought so. I just sat there and fumedandfumedandfumed. > [@ivylass](#): > > Mists of Avalon on TNT. A more ham-handed, watered-down, miscasted mess I don’t think they could have done (well, they could have cast Britney Spears as Gwyenhfar, but I digress). My SILs and I loved the book, we made two nights out of it while I taped it for future enjoyment of viewing. We dined on caviar, wine, cheese and crackers, and were somewhat bemused after the first night, but assumed it would get better. > > After the final credits rolled, I said, “Well, shit,” and got up to rewind the tape. No way I was keeping that mess. A co-worker and I hugged each other in horror and sympathy the next day. > > It was such a beautiful book, epic and detailed in its character development. TNT was pure crap. It was, and I share your pissed-offedness. It’s been one of my favorite books since it came out. And what pissed me off the most was that they didn’t even take the narrative as being written from Morgaine’s POV into account. They once again slung her into the “bad guy” role, even though _the entire damn book_ was supposed to be Morgaine’s explanation of what happened and why she did what she did. The whole storyline of the Druids and how Merlin was father to Morgaine’s mother and the Lady of the Lake and what’shername was dropped, which well and truly sucked, because it explained the orchestration of getting Arthur on the throne in the first place! GAH!!! ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876/89 "2006-01-19T23:34:56Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Same with the mention of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” - that example doesn’t fit this thread at all. The movie wasn’t great, but the story was generally true to the book. Aside from the enhancement of the romance between Arthur and Trillian, it was the same beginning, same ending, same story in between. Retaining basic plot points isn’t a foil against complete bastardization. Bastardization doesn’t _always_ involve the introduction of new elements. It’s [first sense](http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=bastardize) is: > [@](#): > > to reduce from a higher to a lower state or condition What gives _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ its quality? Not the overall story, which is more or less an _ad hoc_ affair. It’s the characters, and especially the witty dialogue – elements which were compromised beyond redemption in the film. For example: > [@The radio series](#): > > Mr. Prosser: The plans had been on display at your local planning office for the last nine months. > > Arthur: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them. > > Prosser: That’s the display department. > > Arthur: With a _torch._ > > Prosser: The lights had probably gone. > > Arthur: So had the stairs" > > Prosser: You found them, didn’t you? > > Arthur: They were on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.” > [@The Movie](#): > > Mr. Prosser: These plans have been on display at the planning office now for a year. > > Arthur: On display? I had to go down to a cellar. Now, of course you need to tighten things up when you’re trying to squeeze things into a smaller format like a two-hour film— _but_… If you want to write an adaptation that respects an original work, you don’t include the _set-up_ for a great joke and then throwaway the _punchline._ That’s reserving the bathwater and throwing out the baby. Totally inept. If anything, the last line should have been included, omiting the greater part of the back-and-forth. It is, after all, the one that gets quoted all the time. The way to tighten it up without destroying the actual joke is to have Arthur’s first response be "They were on display in an unlit cellar at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.” If there simply isn’t room for a line of this length, that get rid of the set-up for it, because it’s _chaff_, and it’s not funny. Same thing with one of the most of grievous sins in Disney’s _Alice_. Take an elegant joke involving a stopped watch: “I _told_ you butter wouldn’t suit the works.” “But it was the _best_ butter!” Leave off the punchline, and simply have the Hatter put _more_ inappropriate things into the watch. The watch runs faster because someone’s put butter, tea, sugar, jam, and mustard in it. More, evidently, is funnier, and _clever_ logical absurdities count for nought. :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-bastardized-work-from-book-to-screen/339876.md?page=4)