For one thing, I enjoyed Johnny Mnemonic. I thought it was interesting when I read the story afterward and compared the two, but it followed closely enough to be mostly the same story, and different enough to be entertaining onscreen.
For another, William Gibson wrote the screenplay himself.
My vote goes to ANY movie with Michael Crichton attached to it. Every movie I’ve seen that he was involved with has been a piece of crap. It’s really sad, but I’d rather eat bugs than watch a movie adapted from one of his books. Especially if it contains dinosaurs. Doubly so if it is a sequel.
But to be fair, I haven’t seen Andromeda Strain or The Great Train Robbery and I’ve heard they’re ok (?).
Just because Gibson wrote the screenplay doesn’t mean the movie didn’t suck tarantula ass. It did.
My vote for the absolute worst book to movie translation is another case of the author-of-the-brilliant-book-writing-the-screenplay-for-the-film-himself: Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerny. Still one of my favorite books ever, and a movie so bad I still suffer post-traumatic stress disorder-type flashbacks every time I see Michael J. Fox.
“Even Cowgirls Get The Blues”. Who the heck thought it would be possible, let alone a good idea, to try to make a movie out of a Tom Robbins novel? The only redeeming features were Pat Morita as a WAAAAY toned-down Chink and John Hurt as the Countess. The rest was just a huge mistake.
And then there was the latest version of “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” with Michael Caine. All i can say is, there isn’t enough alcohol in the state to dull the pain of it’s sheer badness.
Hey, Joe Cool - you gotta see “The Great Train Robbery”. I’m right behind you on the rest of the misbegotten Crichton crappola, but TGTR is sheer wonderfulness. If I haven’t completely misjudged your nature (after reading a lot of your GD posts), you will love this film.
“Even Cowgirls Get The Blues”. Who the heck thought it would be possible, let alone a good idea, to try to make a movie out of a Tom Robbins novel? The only redeeming features were Pat Morita as a WAAAAY toned-down Chink and John Hurt as the Countess. The rest was just a huge mistake.
And then there was the latest version of “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” with Michael Caine. All i can say is, there isn’t enough alcohol in the state to dull the pain of it’s badness.
Hey, Joe Cool - you gotta see “The Great Train Robbery”. I’m right behind you on the rest of the misbegotten Crichton crappola, but TGTR is sheer wonderfulness. If I haven’t completely misjudged your nature (after reading a lot of your GD posts), you will love this film.
Easy. Congo. No question. Great book, horrible movie.
Although I did think that while JP the book was at least 10 times as good as the movie, the movie wasn’t bad, either. Now, JP2…that’s a whole nother ball game.
Dune rocked! The book was awesome, too, but I love the movie.
All-time worst conversion? Lawnmower Man. I remember when I heard it was gonna come out, I was like, “That’s a six-page story! How the hell do you make a movie about that?” Answer: you don’t. I don’t even know why they kept the damn title.
Movie better than the book: Fight Club. The book just doesn’t do the movie justice, even if it did come first.
You didn’t like the book? It’s not a literary classic, or anything, but as stupid $5 paperbacks go, it can’t be beat. I was terrified the whole time, couldn’t put it down. I still think that it’s easily Crichton’s best.
The most recent A&E incarnation of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Every time they make an SP movie, it gets farther and farther from the original novel. I’d love to see someone do it the way she wrote it. But Richard E Grant as Percy? C’mon. Percy’s a blonde, and there’s no way a guy with dark hair can play the part. Especially when he looks as sinister as Richard E Grant does.
On the flip side - great movies that got made from really rotten books: one of my all-time favorite movies, which I watch every year during Spring Training, is The Natural. I love it. So I recently decided to read the original story. I HATED IT! Although, I suppose people who liked the book feel just the opposite, as the novel showed Roy Hobbs as kind of an anti-hero - exactly the opposite of the movie.
Everyone’s seemed to hit the high points - but I’m having synchronicity overload here. Right after I post a reply on one thread calling Ender’s Game (and the other Ender books) required reading for today, I come over here and pick up the news about…sob…Jake Lloyd maybe playing Ender. That alone is enough to make me declare Ender’s Game the worst movie adaptation ever - even before it gets made.
I’ve got to agree with adam yax on this one. Are you sure you haven’t confused this with some other book that didn’t make your eyeballs bleed when you read it?
I’ve read most of Crichton’s stuff and would rank Congo right at the bottom. Of course YMMV
Now, call me an optimist, but as long as Orson Scott Card has creative control over the project, I have absolute faith that he won’t let the fans down.
When the movie rights for Ender’s Game were bought back in 1987, the first Hollywood said was “Great, now all we need to do is find a 16 year old to play the part of Ender and we’re all set.” He fought like hell to get that changed, toot-sweet.
The Jungle Book. There are hordes of people who think that the story ends when Mowgli leaves the jungle the first time. They are wrong and horribly mentally disfigured because of it. Disney doesn’t get points for accuracy ever, but cutting 2/3 of the story? Just leaving it hanging? Pretending that the end of the first bitty part of the story is the end of the whole thing?
That’s worse than massivly twisting a story. Truncating it and calling it good is amazingly awful.
(For those of you who have seen the kiddie Jungle Book and never actually read the whole thing, do so. There is so much more to it… And while you’re at it, snag “Without Benefit of Clergy”)
I’ll second Dune, Jurassic Park and the Scarlet Letter. None come close to the horrors of Disney’s Jungle Book.
I have to agree, Dune is such a god-awful movie. Although I know of people who really love it (and some that even didn’t like the book but loved the movie!) I really can’t understand what there is to like about it. No offense intended to anyone, it’s just that enjoying that movie is a completely alien notion to me.
Oh, you beat me to it. I read the book years ago but only saw the movie last month. I was not the one who rented in. I almost didn’t watch it at all since I just knew there was no way anyone could make a good film adaptation of that book, but I didn’t have anything else to do that day. I was in physical pain when Uma Thurman delivered that “written in radium on the side of a pearl” line.
I’ll have to agree on Starship Troopers. The movie wasn’t all that bad for sci-fi fluff, but compared to the book it was utter shit in a can.
However, I’ll have to vehemently disagree with Blade Runner. Although the book was really good, the movie was at least good. Harrison Ford was a perfect Rick Deckard, and the depicition of technology was great.
I must admit that I am weird when it comes to this movie, because I seem to be the only person who thinks that the director’s cut was lame and the original version was a lot better. Without the voice-overs, the movie just isn’t the same. In any case, Blade Runner is one of the best sci-fi flicks of all time, right up there with 2001: A space odyssey and Aliens. I can’t believe that anyone would seriously think it sucks.
In other news, anything that is good in print by Clive Barker, is invariably a shitty movie.
Nightbreed (Cabal), Hellraiser (The Hellbound Heart), and Lord of Illusions (The Last Illusion), you name it they were all great in print but shitty on celluloid.
