# Your nomination for the worst adaptation of another work **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [October 29, 2024, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415 "2024-10-29T18:30:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/1 "2024-10-29T18:30:15Z")
I decided to start this thread after watching the 2021 BBC/PBS miniseries of _Around the World in 80 Days_ with David Tennant. Note: spoilers for the book and series are blurred in the OP, but not after. Let me say that I am not a huge Jules Verne fan, much less a purist. And I understand that when transforming a work from one medium to another, changes must be made. That said, it seems to me that if you’re going to take a famous book and make it into a TV series, you really ought to use more than the title, the names of a couple of the characters, and the barest outline of the plot. But that’s _all_ that the creators of this version did. Here’s what the 2021 ATWI80D includes from Verne’s original novel: - The title. - The names of leading characters Phileas Fogg and Passepartout. - Set in 1872. - Fogg wagers he can circumnavigate the world in 80 days. - Newspaper reports say that the railroad across India is complete, but when they get there they find it isn’t. - The travelers’ train must cross a damaged bridge, but the series puts it in a different location and changes other details. - They chop up a wooden vehicle to keep their conveyance running. In the book it’s a ship, in the series a train. - At the end, Fogg believes he has lost the wager, but hasn’t because he gained a day by traveling eastward. That’s it. The series fills six 45-minute episodes with dozens of scenes that bear no resemblance to anything in the book, adds entirely new characters, and drastically changes the personalities of Passepartout and Fogg. I think it is the last that bothers me most. In the book the character of Fogg is practically the archetype of the Bruce Wayne/Tony Stark type superhero: mysterious past, wealthy, loner, extremely wide-ranging expertise, etc. But most of all, and somewhat unlike those two, an almost inhuman imperturbability. The very model of the British “stiff upper lip.” Tennant’s Fogg is insecure, weak, bullied, not very sharp, naïve, and damaged by a love affair gone wrong. It may be that the creators of the series felt that Verne’s Fogg was not relatable to today’s audiences, or would be seen as imperialist, or needed to have more of a character arc. It’s true that Verne’s character does not change very much from beginning to end. But he does change in a few key ways. Anyway, I could rant and rave about every idiotic, pointless, cliched, and absurd changes in the series, but that would take much too long. If you want a much more faithful version, see the 1956 film with David Niven, which, despite its ponderous length (three hours) and 1950s wide-screen travelogue feel, is quite true to Verne. Except for the balloon (which Tennant’s version uses, too) and the unnecessary (but not gory) bull-fighting sequence. (I haven’t seen the Pierce Brosnan/Eric Idle miniseries from 1989.) On to the point of this thread: what adaptations do you feel do unconscionable violence to their source material? They can be book or play to movie or TV show, or any other combination you can think of. The first one that comes to mind for me is _I, Robot_ (2004) with Will Smith. I’ve never seen it because, as an Asimov fan, I knew it couldn’t possibly bear any resemblance to the original stories. Although I have nothing against Bridget Moynihan, she is obviously not Asimov’s mousy, middle-aged Susan Calvin. I suspect others will mention _Starship Troopers_. (We need not deal here with titles that were applied to entirely different stories, like Alan Nourse’s _The Bladerunner_ made into the title of the film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/2 "2024-10-29T18:38:04Z")
I would say the recent adaptation of Anne of Green Gables that inserted a lot of political-social agenda into it. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/3 "2024-10-29T18:42:26Z")
Rings of Power of course. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/4 "2024-10-29T18:49:31Z")
But it’s not an adaptation, because they didn’t have any rights to the main written works, especially the Silmarillion, so they had to flesh out what happened in between that and the Hobbit. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/5 "2024-10-29T18:52:46Z")
We may be using different meanings of the word “adaptation”, to me RoP pretends to be an adaptation of Tolkien’s works in general, if we must point to one in particular is the appendix to the Lord of The Rings. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/6 "2024-10-29T18:53:09Z")
At the end of David Lynch’s _Dune_ it . . . rains? ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/7 "2024-10-29T18:53:31Z")
I have a nomination for worst adaptation of another work! [The Star Wars Holiday Special](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Holiday_Special)! I mean it adapted a movie (franchise in evolution at that point) to a variety show, and even with the participation of the key actors (briefly) it utterly failed to realize ANY of what made the source material interesting or fun. It was the sort of adaptation that only happens when most of the people at the top have No Idea at All of why a property is popular, and just slap the title and a few details into a new format, which _seems_ to be the main criteria of the OP. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/8 "2024-10-29T19:23:59Z")
As cheesy 1980s sword-and-sorcery movies go, _The Beast Master_ is one of my favorites. But I have to admit, it bears no resemblance to Andre Norton’s novel. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/9 "2024-10-29T19:24:43Z")
“Worst” in what way? If you mean “least faithful to the source material,” my first thought was _Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory_, but in the end, I have to say the _Starship Troopers_ movie. The Version I Heard Was, the script was a modification of one that had nothing to do with the book. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/10 "2024-10-29T19:28:48Z")
I’m going with the latest _All Quiet on the Western Front_. I might have been a good war movie but there are a ton of those now. And it had nothing to do with the book other than following the German Army during WWI ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/11 "2024-10-29T19:31:05Z")
A childhood friend’s father directed the film adaptation of James Joyce’s _Ulysses_. It was not a success overall, but (and others) would say he did the best he could. I mean, it’s _Ulysses_! ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/12 "2024-10-29T19:34:53Z")
_I, Robot_. What the hell was that I saw on screen?? ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/13 "2024-10-29T19:41:31Z")
_Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil_ utterly failed to capture the mood of the book, which was delightfully spooky and positively reeked of the mists and Spanish moss of Savannah. Clint Eastwood appeared not to have noticed any atmosphere at all, focusing on just the murder and the trial. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/14 "2024-10-29T19:47:37Z")
The 1967 version? I haven’t seen it, but forty years ago I spent six weeks reading and discussing the book in a preceptorial my senior year of college. I’m very glad I read it that way, because otherwise I could never have made head nor tails of it. The '67 film was nominated for an Oscar, some BAFTAs, and several other top awards, so it can’t have been all that bad. But I’m amazed anyone would even try to film it. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/15 "2024-10-29T19:52:51Z")
Oh, there are so many! Of movies that weren’t close to the source material but I like them, if maybe even prefer them, include The Natural The World According to Garp Forrest Gump The Omega Man Planet of the Apes (1968) Soylent Green Of ones that weren’t close but I thought they sucked I Am Legend Dune (Lynch) I, Robot Planet of the Apes (2001) And in the “I don’t know what to do with this, but it references the OP” category The Saturday Morning cartoon of Around the World in 80 Days ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/16 "2024-10-29T19:57:31Z")
I think the only thing _World War Z_ had in common with the book is: - Zombies - Takes place at various locations around the world - Israel built a wall at some point to keep the zombies out ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/17 "2024-10-29T19:58:27Z")
_ **The Lawnmower Man** _ I win! ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/18 "2024-10-29T20:09:46Z")
World War Z. The book is presented as a series of interviews with people about the zombie war in a similar manner as we might see in a book about World War II. The book emphasized that it took the collective effort of many people to defeat the zombies and there wasn’t any single hero who saved the day. In the movie, Brad Pitt is the big damned hero who pretty much single handedly saves the day. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/19 "2024-10-29T20:26:19Z")
The movie _The Dark Is Rising_, which bears not all that much resemblance to the iconic British Arthurian fantasy of the same name. It got rid of all the Arthurian parts of it. And got rid of all the parts that were moving about the book. And all the parts that were mysteriously beautiful about the book. And the actor for the main character was Canadian, and playing an American boy living in England??? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415/20 "2024-10-29T20:33:10Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > The 1967 version? Yup, that one. Director was Joseph Strick. I’m glad to learn that it actually won some awards. (A few years later, Joe directed Joyce’s _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_, with my childhood friend as Stephen Dadelus as a baby). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-nomination-for-the-worst-adaptation-of-another-work/1009415.md?page=2)