Movies based on Short stories where the source is completed overwhelmed by additions

Cafe Society
1

I’ve often said (as have many others) that it’s better to take a good short story and flesh it out with details and texture than to take a large novel and pare it down to fit into the 2-3 hour time slot of a movie. Especially for science fiction or fantasy. They’ve been able to get away with trying to film novels in many cases (the Harry potter books, for instance), but failed utterly in others (Dune, where they cut out huge gaping chunks, and made the story incomprehensible).
The problem is that, in many cases when they do this, they end up clipping away so much of the story even so, and padding it rather than fleshing it out, that it becomes an entirely different animal, and you wonder why they bothered using the original story to start out with. I understand the needs of a cinematic story are different from those of the printed page, but there are plenty of counter-examples (especialy in non-genre fiction) where they did an admirable job of adaptation that it makes it glaringly obvious that they’ve been doing serious damage to SF, especially because the movie versions are far worse.

it has been done well, I have to admit – 2001 is far more than “The Sentinel” was. the day the Earth stood till goes way beyond what was in “Farewell to the Master”, and the 1951 Nyby/Hawks the Thing throws out most of Campbell’s “Who Goes There?”.
But in other cases they’ve screwed it up. “The Space Frame” was a clever little story wholly lost in Invasion of the Saucer Men. “Mimic” was buried and padded out of recognition in Mimic. They exhausted virtually all of “We Can Remember it for you Wholesale” in Total Recall within the first few minutes (padding it, I’ve maintained with stuff taken from Robert Sheckley’s “The Status Civilization” and a dash of Burroughs’ “A Princess of Mars”). It looks as if The Last Mimzy is going the same route with “Mimsy were the Borogoves”, but we’ll see.
Any other cases? Any non-genre cases where the film wanders off the plot of its nominal source?

2

Stephen King is a gold mine for this sort of thing, but I think the standout is Children of the Corn. The original story is all of, what, 10 pages?

3

I didn’t see Lawnmower Man, but that was an even shorter story and from the movie trailers, I can’t tell that they used *any * of it.

4

Well they used the title. I think there was a lawnmower in there somewhere. Other than that nothing.

5

This is probably a bad example, because it’s a series of made for tv miniseries/movies based on a series of books, but it fits your general description anyway.

Anne of Green Gables–the Continuing Story, featuring Megan Follows as Anne.

Anne of Green Gables follows the book quite well. A few details are altered, and some are left out, but in general it’s the story we know and love.

Anne of Green Gables–the Sequel tackles the rest of the books from the series, up until the point that Anne and Gilbert fall in love. It covers them in far less depth than the first movie covers the first book. I was a little irritated by the notion that in writing the screenplay there was an effort to make the movie a love story featuring Anne and Gilbert, because they do end up together. But, if you read the series, Gilbert plays a pretty small role for several books. Still, an enjoyable movie, true to the series, just compressed. Anne has many more adventures in the books.

And then we have the inexplicable creation called Anne of Green Gables, the Continuing Story. Marilla is dead, Anne and Gilbert move to New York City for a while, then on a visit home to Prince Edward Island, Gilbert is accused of being a coward. World War I has erupted. Gilbert ends up going overseas to fight World War I, goes missing in action, and Anne chases him overseas, finds him, and in the end, they live happily ever after.

I think the only things they kept from the books were the names (Anne, Gilbert, Marilla, Diana, etc.) and the fact that Prince Edward Island was were Green Gables was located.

In the books, Anne and Gilbert get married after Gilbert finishes his doctor’s training. They never live anyplace as big city-ish as New York City. Marilla comes to visit them with the birth of several babies. And (most importantly) World War I does not take place until Anne’s children are old enough that (at varying times) she send three sons off to fight in it. (Two come home).

I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to make the movie they did–I didn’t think it was a very good movie in it’s own right, but I was thoroughly baffled by the changes they made. I mean, part of why Anne of Green Gables–books and movies-- are still enjoyed is the idea that they show a simpler time. When just about anyone who wanted to could teach school for a year or two with limited education past the one room school house. Where the Doctor’s wife was a step up the social ladder from the farmer, but would be grateful to recieve a bushel of potatoes as payment for a doctor’s bill, etc. None of that quaint charm is captured in the Continuing story movie.

sorry, this has turned into a rather long, and not very on-topic rant. But it’s hard to think of a worse overwhelming of the source material. And it’s not Science Fiction or Fantasy.

6

Psycho and Vertigo. Neither are much like the original; Hitchcock in both cases used the book as a framework to go off in the direction he wanted.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) bears no resemblance at all to the source material: Allen took just the title and a few of the questions. It is by far the biggest divergence for a best selling book title, since movies of best sellers try to stick to the book.

7

Another King story, The Running Man, was changed a lot from the original.

8

A.I. was a long film based on Super-Toys Last All Summer Long. I count 2,762 words when I copy it into Word.

9

While I thought the movie was a fun bit of fluff, I think a good movie could be made from that story.

10

With the original ending, where the dying hero (his intestines dragging on the floor) flies a jumbo jet into the corporate headquarters of the bad guys? I don’t think that’s gonna play in Peoria.

11

Re: Stephen King: IIRC, the short story “Children of the Corn” ended about when the couple arrived in a town that seemed strangely abandoned. Lawnmower Man used only the title, presumably so that they could use Stephen King’s name. “The Running Man” was about a futuristic gameshow, but instead of being in a studio arena, the “contestant” was running and hiding all over the country, with regular citizens/viewers expected to turn him in (or kill him? It’s been awhile since I read it.) IMHO, it was different enough that SK couldn’t sue if he wasn’t given any credit for the movie.
[edit:] Apparently others remember “Running Man” better than I do, so I’ll just shut up about it now.

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I think this thread would be remiss if nobody pointed out that anything resembling an Isaac Asimov short story was utterly lost in I, Robot

13

Are you sure about Vertigo? I’ve been meaning to track down a copy of the book (“Sueurs froides” a/k/a “D’entre les morts”) since the last time I saw the film. My understanding was that it was pretty similar to the film.

14

Oh yeah, and how about that Jim Carrey atrocity The Grinch? The horror, the horror. A Who key party. Good God.

15

And speaking of children’s books, there’s the creepy, CGI’ed-to-death Tom Hanks version of The Polar Express. The beautifully illustrated, almost wordless children’s book is a lovely staple of Christmas reading in our house. The movie… makes me shudder.

16

Yeah, well, I’m not looking for stories where they changed everything – just where the padding they added overwhelmed the original (which you can still discern somewhere under there). That’s why I didn’t include I, Robot or Starship Troopers or This Island Earth in my OP. Or a lot of the James Bond movies, for that matter.

Even PBS has done this. Look at Overdrawn at the Memory Bank or the Sherlock Holmes episode The Last Vampire, which includes oodles of time-wasting padding not to be found in “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”.

17

You win. Now I’ve got to make myself forget about that all over again!

18

So wait, are you telling me that there are not giant tits roaming the country milking pour souls to death?

And that my sperm cell do no live in perpetual fear that any ejaculation is merely masturbation?

And next you’ll tell me that one of the guys from the odd couple is not in my brain on a quest to get me laid at all costs?

[mild hijack] Living In New York my entire life, I can indeed verify that NYU chicks are quite easy [/MH]

19

I have to chime in with the folks who mentioned “The Grinch” - Talk about padding to ruin an absolutely lovely story. I have not forgiven Opie for this. It’s probably my most hated movie. I even hate more than all the misogynistic torture-porn that’s floating around these days.

20

It hasn’t come out yet, but Meet the Robinsons looks like it may have taken some character design inspiration from William Joyce’s A Day With Wilbur Robinson and that’s about it. Of course, the original picture book doesn’t have much of a plot (Protagonist hangs out at the Robinson house for a day and sees weird stuff) so additions had to be made just to have a movie. There definitely wasn’t any Snidley Whiplash lookalike.