Movies that Ruin the Book

Cafe Society
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I’m a reader. For at least 25 years I have been disgusted and appalled by the way they adapt books that I LOVE into shitty movies. Or sometimes the movies aren’t even shitty in and of themselves, but they just RUIN everything you loved about the book.

Watership Down - one of the best books I’ve ever read - ruined.

The most recent (and one of the most egregious, really, though not THE worst) travesty was “Dreamcatcher” by Stephen King. Oh I guess some people find him hackneyed and self-indulgent; whatever, I love the guy. I’ll read him as long as he writes. Anyway, this was certainly one of the best of his books from recent years, and what they DID with it…my god it was the lamest thing I’ve EVER seen. I’d read it to my kids and we all went, excited (we love Jason Lee, for one) and…we all left pissed off as hell. WTF were they thinking? The retarded savant character a Fking ALIEN? WTF? It didn’t even make sense from the standpoint of the MOVIE, apart from the book! Never mind if you’d read it!

WHY does he let them do this? WHY??? I mean I understand back in the Salem’s Lot days (one of the worst adaptations in history) when he wasn’t the huge power he is now, but he doesn’t HAVE to let this go on now. It doesn’t have to be that way, and The Stand proves THAT. Why crap on your fans that way? We don’t want to see that shit.

I remember well the first time an adaptation was done right and it was “Stand By Me”. I loathe Rob Reiner, BUT I have to admit he set a standard there for adaptations. The BBC version of Pride and Prejudice was flawless. Even Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy wasn’t bad (the BBC version.) There’ve been many adaptations of “A Little Princess” (Frances Hodgson Burnett) and they all suck ass except for a forgotten little BBC production from the 70s that you can’t find ANYWHERE. Captains Courageous was pretty good - the old one with Freddy Bartholomew.

Well anyway, I guess I could go on all day, and I’m not downplaying the difficulty of translating the printed page to the screen, but COME ON, I know it CAN be done, and if it’s going to be done, it SHOULD be done right, and if it can’t be done right it SHOULDN’T be done at all, or they should rename it, or for crying out loud warn us. I’m sick to death of getting excited that a loved book is going to be a movie only to be absolutely pissed off after I see it. There are LIMITS to the license they should take here. IMO.

Nominate all your favorite and least favorite adaptations here :slight_smile: Also explain why if you want to.

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How does a bad movie ruin a good book? Can’t you just ignore the movie? I do.

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Yeah, I know it’s phrased wrongly. Movies that suck ass if you loved the book and then when you go see them they are nothing like it or change everything that matters so it makes it seem like the book probably sucked ass but really it was a great book and you just wanted to see it come to life! But you were denied that pleasure.

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Clan of the Cave Bear. Ug. Double ug. Plewy and Blech.

It was so bad that Jean M. Auel has said she will not let any of the other books be made into movies.

Just fine by me.

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Well good for her! I don’t blame her a bit.

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I’m sorry, but I can’t have any sympathy for you. If you enjoyed a book so much, why do you insist that the ejoyment you get from the movie be a simple repitition of the same experience? You want the same experience again? READ THE BOOK AGAIN!

I will never understand the attitude that a multimillion dollar film production was accomplished SOLELY to give you an entirely redundant experience. WHAT A WASTE of your OWN time and money, let alone the movie studio’s.

Everyone who reads a book finds something of themselves in it. I would have NO RESPECT for a director who wasn’t committed enough to a project to inject some of his own art into it. NOT to do so is not to care about the book or its affect on him/her at all; not to do so is just to take a job as an hourly hack throwing images from the book, unconsidered and unexamined, up onto the screen.

Who the hell would pay $9 for that experience? Not me.

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Except that 99 times out of 100 the movie sucks ass all by itself, independent of what they did that completely trashed the book’s story. So if they want to adapt movies and change them, at least the movie ITSELF should be good.

I mean The Shining was a good movie all by itself; no it was nothing like the book (and in fact I like it better than the book) but it was at least GOOD. The movies I’m talking about SUCK. Even on their own. Plus a lot of these movies they don’t MAKE to be independent that way - there are things you wouldn’t understand unless you’d read it. Injecting something of himself and making interesting and valuable changes; going with a base story and doing something new with it - that’s fine. But it’s miles from what I’m talking about.

And I would certainly pay $9 to see something I have read and loved done well and done right. That’s why the LOTR are prospering so finely right now. It’s the main reason people go to see movies made from favorite books. They use the titles for a REASON, as a hook and a selling point. No I really don’t buy your reasoning; and the experience IS different (not just a repeat), even if they do it accurately.

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Never had a movie ruin the book for me, but I’ve seen plenty of movies where deviations from the book ruined the movie.
Examples that come to mind are:

The Sum of All Fears–it wasn’t that bad a flick, but changing the Middle Eastern terrorists from the book to neo-Nazi Europeans was idiotic.

Starship Troopers-may Paul Verhoeven die of gonnorhea and rot in hell.

Wyatt Earp-I know, it was just a novelization of the original script, but the novelization was perhaps THE most historically accurate popular fictional tellings of Wyatt Earp’s life…and then they cut most of it out when they made the movie and it wound up being half the story.

Phantoms-The movie was doomed from the start when they hired Affleck to star, but the thing that killed it was lack of characterization…and the reason there was no characterization was because they cut it out of the book to fit the movie into the time allotted.

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The original and awful attempts to translate The Hobbit to the screen.

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Rik; that’s really what I mean; the book is still wonderful but the movie sucks and didn’t do the book justice. There, I think that says it better heh. You finally put it the way I should have :slight_smile:

I had heard that about the Sum of All Fears - how LAME was that??? Sheesh! I will possibly read the book now though.

Oh Chefguy - The Hobbit animated simply SUCKED LOL - it was a Rankin Bass thing - ICK ICK ICK. However, Bakshi did a pretty good job; the only problem is he stopped in the middle of the trilogy and never finished!

One classic that was done well - Charlotte’s Web

One classic that’s almost NEVER been done right - Alice in Wonderland

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As for great adaptations, you left off the best Steven King put to film - The Shawshank Redemption. Interestingly, taken from the same book as The Body, which you already mentioned as being well-made into Stand By Me. But Shawshank was fantastic.

As for bad adaptations, I’m sure there were many…

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Yes Shawshank was phenomenal. No doubt there. And it was indeed from Different Seasons; one of the collections of 4 novellas.

Interestingly, one of the worst adaptations was from another collection of 4 novellas (under the Bachman name) and it was one of the best stories I’ve ever read…but the movie was entirely unrelated - “The Running Man”.

HIGHLY recommended reading :slight_smile:

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I thought that was based on the radio series, not the book.

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Agreed. They should have at least let Ah-nold run around the entire country instead of confining him to West Edmonton.

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I liked Lord of The Rings (part I) better than the book. Both had worthless linear plots: and then a fight, and then a fight, and then a fight. But at least the movie had costumes and special effects. Still fairly empty, though, so I won’t see an sequels.

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I had planned to see Contact, based on the novel by Carl Sagan, but I heard the movie ruined the book so much that I decided against it.

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As someone earlier mentioned, watch “Alice in Wonderland” doesn’t matter which one.

Some good movies can ruin the book, too. When I see the movie first, the differences are enough, and the movie images are implanted enough, that I can’t read the book-it seems “wrong.” Examples: Wizard of Oz (I read at least 20 books in that series. but still can’t read the original) or (for me, at least) Oliver!

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A romance novel I once read was made into a TV movie. The book was named “For the Roses” and the TV movie was called “Rose Hill” (starring a pre-Alias Jennifer Garner).

Now I was not expecting great literature or cinema, but puh-leaze! The novel was an enjoyable read, but the movie was so terrible. The hero and heroine from the book fall in love and get married, but the movie decided to make them long-lost siblings who didn’t get along. (And there were other significant changes.)

Why? Why alienate that part of the population that might enjoy seeing a film adaptation of a book (especially when the film was promoted in that manner), by crapping on it like that? If you didn’t like the romance, just write your own screenplay with brand new characters.

By the way, Anniee, do you mean that “The Little Princess” did not include song and dance scenes performed by a curly-headed moppet? What is this world coming to?

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I have read that reading Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, though the book is ‘better’ than the movie, is nonetheless diminished by having seen the movie first. Since I know the movie basically by heart (it being one of the finest films ever made) I can see how it’s true…how will I ever read MacMurphy without seeing Jack? Or Martini without seeing Danny DeVito? Or Tabor without seeing Chris Lloyd? Or ANY of that absolutely amazing cast? Or the events, even? I am not sorry; as I’ve loved the movie very much, but I know I’ll be missing something that people who read it first didn’t miss.

Now I see that my original question was totally back-asswards! But also I see that it can be accurate as well; thanks :slight_smile:

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Kubrick’s the Shining pretty much molested the book. And no, I didn’t find it to be a particularly good on it’s own, either.