Two of my favorite books—Jack Finney’s Marion’s Wall and Gail Parent’s Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York—were turned into heinous movies.
The Beach. Alex Garland’s book was something else, a really bizarre creepy book in a genre all of its own. The movie sucked arse.
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Funny, poignant book, if a little cheesy. It seemed to lend itself well to film adaptation but they produced an absolute piece of crap. The decision to cast Nicolas Cage in the title role was just bizarre.
In the non sci-fi/classic literature category, I’d have to go with What’s the Worst That Could Happen? I’ve always wanted to see a Donald Westlake Dortmunder book get made into a movie. But they turned this into a sub-IQ Martin Lawrence vehicle. Dortmunder’s capers don’t typically involve dressing up in outrageuos costumes and getting into silly fights.
I thought casting John Leguizamo in the movie was a good sign, but they have him masquerading as German auctioneer most of the time, and nothing like his counterpart in the book.
Donald Westlake must have just taken his check and completely looked the other way while this film was being made and patiently waited for it to fade from theatres. I hope if there’s another Dortmunder adaptation, the filmmakers won’t think they have to star the comedian-of-the-month and make it a 90-minute long skit.
Ah, but “Battlefield Earth” the book is a novel of legendary badness. So you could make the case that the film is an excellent adaptation of the book
I’ve got to say, Battlefield Earth was a good adaptation of a horrible book. It was faithful and true to the source, and the actors clearly had fun making it.
Utter crap, but not unfaithful at all.
Mists of Avalon on TNT. My SILs and I were so looking forward to it, we even had a MOA party, sitting around the coffee table munching on crackers, chocolate, fruit, caviar and wine.
I even taped it, thinking I could keep the movie for posterity.
At the end of Part 2, I said, “Well, shit,” got up, rewound the tape and taped over that monstrosity at the earliest opportunity.
Why oh why do producers attempt to squeeze a long book into basically 3 hours and 15 minutes (without commercials)? To do justice to a book, give it at least six hours. (**Shogun, The Stand, Roots, **etc.)
If you can only give it four hours, don’t even try.
The Stand! Ugggh maybe it was a faithful adaption and I just didn’t realize that all that “Walkin’ Dude”, “Laws Yes”, “M-O-O-N Spells Dumb”, talk just doesn’t work coming out of the mouths of real people.
Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings. Sucked! Badly animated, huge gaps in the story and it ended 2/3 of the way through the books. What the hell was that about?
If it matters, Tom Cullen was mildly retarded, so that could explain his colloquialisms.
The Shining
Shelley Duval, paging Shelley Duval. Will Shelley Duval please pick up the white courtesy telephone please…
“Hello?”
“Yes, Ms. Duval? You suck.”
Bless the Child is the most wretched “adaptation” of a decent book that I’ve ever had the displeasure to experience. It’s an even worse adaptation than Kubrick’s The Shining. If a director wants to include 75% of their own ideas, rather than the author’s, why don’t they skip everything from the novels, and write an orginal screenplay instead?
Yeah, but Jack Nicholson was GOOD.
But, the kid sucked too, so he was outnumbered.
As for my vote, Starship Troopers gets it.
Wow. Nightfall. I had managed to blank my mind of this disaster. Truly one of the most stupefying movies ever to waste good film stock.
I’ve never seen Nightfall. Or The Bicentennial Man. What does anybody think about that one?
I haven’t read Asimov’s story but the movie of Bicentennial Man was pretty good. If only all on-screen artificial life forms could be like the ones from Asimov.
I loved the short story The Bicentennial Man and hated, loathed, was nausiated by, and couldn’t stand the movie.
Err…nauseated, even.
Strip Tease. Excellent book, execrable movie.
Great book but made into a movie that is utter crap? That’s easy…
“Casino Royale”!
Ugh…painfully not funny.