# Worst Film Adaptations of Books?



## Jena (Dec 29, 2011)

Yeah, I know, I know: bitch and moan bitch and moan.

I don't know about you, but I love to complain. Finding the flaws in something and then tugging at them until the whole thing unravels is more satisfying than finding the good in it. At least in my opinion, anyway. But then again I'm a cynical bitch.

What do you think are the worst film adaptations of books? It could be because you hate the source material, because you thought the movie cut out too much, or because you hated all the changes.

Or maybe you just like to complain. It could always be that too. 





The worst IMHO was the _Golden Compass_ adaptation. It was too concerned with not offending the delicate sensibilities of the Christian audience that it forgot to keep the plot intact. And it was just plain shit.


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## Gnome (Dec 29, 2011)

Percy Jackson, not only did it suck, it was racist.


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## Stunna (Dec 29, 2011)

Percy Jackson was racist?

_Golden Compass_ is my pick off the top of my head.


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## Rukia (Dec 29, 2011)

The Hobbit.


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## Parallax (Dec 29, 2011)

The animated one?

yeah that sucked


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## Ennoea (Dec 29, 2011)

I am Legend was 2hrs visual rape of it's source material.


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## Vault (Dec 29, 2011)

Next, has to be that piece of shit


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## Rukia (Dec 29, 2011)

The recent Three Musketeers film.  If you want to call it an adaptation.


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## Stunna (Dec 29, 2011)

_I Am Legend_ doesn't belong in the top five worst adaptions.


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## Parallax (Dec 29, 2011)

yes it does

it's pretty terrible as one

The worst one that I've seen is V for Vendetta.  Talk about completely missing the point of the series.


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## Stunna (Dec 29, 2011)

If we're just comparing it to the source material, sure. But as a standalone film, no.


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## Parallax (Dec 29, 2011)

well that's what makes it an adaptation :|

the film deviates so much from the source material 

plus it's just not very good


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## Stunna (Dec 29, 2011)

It's not awful or anything. But strong deviation doesn't equal bad.

I'm sure that's not what you're implying, but in case you are.


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## Ennoea (Dec 29, 2011)

How is I Am Legend not an awful film adaptation? It's god awful, read the book.  In fact all the religious nonsense just disregards the source material completely.


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## Vault (Dec 29, 2011)

Stunna said:


> It's not awful or anything. But strong deviation doesn't equal bad.
> 
> I'm sure that's not what you're implying, but in case you are.



Not unless the source material is so much superior. 

Adaptations missing the point of the source material is the worst


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## Stunna (Dec 29, 2011)

Screw that. I'm not anti-reading or anything, but I'm not gonna read every single book that movies are adapted from just because they're superior. I acknowledge that it apparently misses the point of it's book, but I'm not judging it purely off that. I don't even do that to movies where I _have_ read the source material.


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## Ennoea (Dec 29, 2011)

Even disregarding the source material, I Am Legend was a third rate B movie anyway.


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## Vault (Dec 29, 2011)

You will come around Stunna, soon or later.


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## Stunna (Dec 29, 2011)

...

Most likely.


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## A r a d i a (Dec 29, 2011)

Interview with a Vampire and Queen of the Damned


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## Magnum Miracles (Dec 29, 2011)

Oh yeah, something I know plenty abot .

*Jurassic Park*- The book was decent, but the movie took away all the elements that made the book a decent sci-fi novel .

*Eragon*- I use to love the book, but now I hate it, because of all that description fantasy authors like to do. Anyway, the book was better than the movie. The movie is one of the worst movies of all time.

*Hostage*- Now this movie had REALLY bad acting, and pretty much flew through the whole novel. The book is very suspenseful, but I just didn't feel it with the movie. 

*Percy Jackson*- Even though I'm a teen, I don't think these books are that great anyway. That said, the movie was very boring, and practically made it a kid's adventure.

*Along Came a Spider & Kiss the Girls*- First of all, the books focused primarily on the villain, because Alex Cross is not that exciting anyway. Gary Soneji was very boring in Along came a Spider, and Casanova was incredibly boring in Kiss the Girls. Not too mention Morgan Freeman actually made Cross even more boring .

Seems like this series is doomed when it comes to casting choices, with Tyler fucking Perry playing as Cross in the upcoming movie "Cross". They better make a good casting choice for Michael Sullivan to make up for it. I will personally shoot everybody in the theater if my precious Sully is less than perfect . 

*The Golden Compass*- This is actually one of the few fantasy novels I like. It was turned into a terrible children's movie .

*Shutter Island*- One of my favorite books of all time, and Scorsese had to go and fuck it all up . The book was very funny, and deep, while Scorsese wanted to fly through it and make it more serious.  

*Inkheart*- Use to like this book to, The reason why the movie sucked compared to the book? Bredan Fraiser giogio.

* The Girl Who Played with Fire*- I have really big issues with this movie, mainly because all the espionage in the book is not included in the movie, with the secret police and all. Not too mention that Ronald Niedermann doesn't even have any screen time.

*The Bone Collector* -Lincoln Rhyme is not movie adaptation material . There is NOTHING you can do with the movie to capture all the detail of this famous crime series. I just pray a Coffin Dancer movie isnt made,cause that will really piss me off .   And Denzel Washington was a terrible casting choice, as well as Angelina Jolie.

 I've got plenty more, all I have to do is dig through all 165 books I've read, along with my RT account with 275 movies.


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## TetraVaal (Dec 29, 2011)

'The Scarlet Letter'

[/thread]


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## Jena (Dec 30, 2011)

> Eragon- I use to love the book, but now I hate it, because of all that description fantasy authors like to do. Anyway, the book was better than the movie. The movie is one of the worst movies of all time.


Oh God. 
I'm glad that I only sort of liked the book. The movie was unbelievably terrible.


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## Ennoea (Dec 30, 2011)

> 'The Scarlet Letter'



Which one?


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## TetraVaal (Dec 30, 2011)

The one with Demi Moore.


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## Time Expired (Dec 30, 2011)

Kuro_Death13 said:


> Interview with a Vampire and Queen of the Damned



Right?  Tom Cruise...as Lestat 

I don't think the book can be brought over.  The story is great, but Anne's writing makes the series - and that's something that can't be captured.  Watched a little of the first and that was enough. 

 *throws up a little*


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## Jena (Dec 30, 2011)

TetraVaal said:


> The one with Demi Moore.



That was really dumb. 
I'm no fan of the source material, but the movie butchered it completely.


Other film adaptations I didn't care for:
*Howl's Moving Castle*
I'm sorry, I love you Miyazaki but...just no. The personalities of the main characters, which was the most interesting thing about the book, are watered down, there's no reference to Wales, and the entire second half is completely different. Sophie was almost intolerable in the beginning ("I'm not pretty! Nobody likes me! Blarg!" the book Sophie had her moments of doubt, but she wasn't a moper). It misses that humorous "spark" that made the book great.

*Twilight* (as well as _New Moon_, _Eclipse_, and I'm presuming _Breaking Dawn_)
Say what you will about the source material, but it was like crack: bad for you but incredibly addicting. The movie had the first element down but failed at the second. The characters lacked personalities (and the acting is just bad), the effects were fucking terrible, and they removed most of the funny scenes.

*Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* and *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II*
DH PII wasn't _as_ bad an adaptation, but I didn't like the changes they made. OOTP was just inexcusably terrible. 

*Pride and Prejudice (2005 version)*
I don't _hate_ this one, but it deviates a lot from the source material. It almost feels like Sparknotes _Pride and Prejudice_. It goes by really fast and some of the dialogue is weird/inappropriate for the time period.


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## Hatifnatten (Dec 30, 2011)

Lincoln Rhyme said:


> *Jurassic Park*- The book was decent, but the movie took away all the elements that made the book a decent sci-fi novel .


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## A r a d i a (Dec 30, 2011)

Soul Assassin said:


> Right?  Tom Cruise...as Lestat
> 
> I don't think the book can be brought over.  The story is great, but Anne's writing makes the series - and that's something that can't be captured.  Watched a little of the first and that was enough.
> 
> *throws up a little*



I know. . . the first time I watched Interview with a Vampire, I saw Tom Cruise portray Lestat with brunette hair along with the entire movie being just as terrible. Even more from Queen of the Damned. 

Nothing from those movies will ever capture the detail and imagination of the novels.


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## Time Expired (Dec 30, 2011)

Kuro_Death13 said:


> I know. . . the first time I watched Interview with a Vampire, I saw Tom Cruise portray Lestat with brunette hair along with the entire movie being just as terrible. Even more from Queen of the Damned.
> 
> Nothing from those movies will ever capture the detail and imagination of the novels.



Were you hoping for better with that second helping (Queen of the Damned)?


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## A r a d i a (Dec 30, 2011)

Soul Assassin said:


> Were you hoping for better with that second helping (Queen of the Damned)?



Nope. . .


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## Taleran (Dec 30, 2011)

Stunna said:


> Screw that. I'm not anti-reading or anything, but I'm not gonna read every single book that movies are adapted from just because they're superior. I acknowledge that it apparently misses the point of it's book, but I'm not judging it purely off that. I don't even do that to movies where I _have_ read the source material.



Here is why I completely disagree with this. I don't have a problem when something deviates from the plot of a book, movies and books are different things and have a different amount of time to get across their information. However if they are not even going to keep the characters consistent or the theme/tone/atmosphere of the original story the same at that point you are no longer doing an adaptation of a story you are doing your own story and have no reason to call it the name it is.

The V for Vendetta movie is in this camp. It works as a movie but not as a thing with that specific title.



My pick would be the SciFi Miniseries of Dune & Children of Dune.


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## SPN (Dec 30, 2011)

*Lord of the Flies (US version)* - They really shit the bed on this one. They added an adult on the island... WTF is that shit, the whole point was to show a world without order and rules. Throwing an adult in there totally fucks everything up. In grade 12 my teacher actually made us watch about 20 minutes of this version to show us how bad it was, then we watched the original one... a few too many half naked boys for me, but at least it was faithful to the book.


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## Slice (Dec 30, 2011)

I wanted to say "V for Vendetta" and "I am Legend" but since that is already covered next thing that comes to my mind is "The Spirit".
One of the most horrible things i have ever seen. This movie isn't even good when you know nothing about the source.


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## Taleran (Dec 30, 2011)

I am gonna disagree with that too, because that movie is AMAZING.


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## Rukia (Dec 30, 2011)

Did someone mention The Spirit?  Forget the Razzies.  I think it was a strong contender for worst film of the decade.


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## emROARS (Dec 30, 2011)

Yeah V for Vandetta and Spirit were kinds shit. :[



Lincoln Rhyme said:


> *The Golden Compass*- This is actually one of the few fantasy novels I like. It was turned into a terrible children's movie .



The books were amazing too. ;_;




Jena said:


> *Howl's Moving Castle*
> I'm sorry, I love you Miyazaki but...just no. The personalities of the main characters, which was the most interesting thing about the book, are watered down, there's no reference to Wales, and the entire second half is completely different. Sophie was almost intolerable in the beginning ("I'm not pretty! Nobody likes me! Blarg!" the book Sophie had her moments of doubt, but she wasn't a moper). It misses that humorous "spark" that made the book great.



I sorta forgive him because the art was amazing.

but howl jenkins ftw


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## The World (Dec 30, 2011)

I actually liked V for Vendetta's(except for Natalie Portman) cause I never read the novel. I guess I'll be sorely disappointed with the movie if I ever get around to buying/reading it.

Howl's Moving Castle is also a favorite movie of mine. Fuck the book.


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## Huntress (Dec 30, 2011)

All the Narnia movies.


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## Magnum Miracles (Dec 30, 2011)

It's true, the movie was nothing but a CGI whore-fest .


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## Whimsy (Dec 30, 2011)

Yeah, the dinosaurs were neat as a kid but the plot got utterly butchered. 

Not that I cared then because OH FUCK T-REX


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## Jena (Dec 30, 2011)

Eh, I still like both the book and the movie of Jurassic Park. 
I can see why people wouldn't like the movie adaptation, though. The kids are completely messed up (in the book not only is the boy older, but he's the one with the interest in both the dinosaurs _and_ the computer stuff while his younger sister is more interested in sports), Hammond is played off like a whimsical eccentric when he's a dick in the book, and they cut out a lot of scenes.

I can't help but still like the movie, though. I'm completely blinded by nostalgia on that one.



emROARS said:


> I sorta forgive him because the art was amazing.
> 
> but howl jenkins ftw


For that reason along, I can't bring myself to hate it. I dislike it, but I still watch it and enjoy it.
It's better if you pretend like it's a completely different movie cut off from the book. That helps. And the Howl and Sophie in the movie are like the mild-mannered cousins of the Howl and Sophie from the book.


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## The Bite of the She-Wolf (Dec 30, 2011)

Don't know about WORST EVER, but Stephen King's Firestarter irked me, and I hear the live sequel was much, much worse.

Not that the book is any masterpiece, but it meant a lot to me back then.


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## Pseudo (Dec 30, 2011)

The Shining.


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## Vault (Dec 30, 2011)

Lol psuedo


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## CrazyMoronX (Dec 30, 2011)

IT
Bag of Bones


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## Parallax (Dec 30, 2011)

wait what no

not even


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## CrazyMoronX (Dec 30, 2011)

Charcan said:


> Don't know about WORST EVER, but Stephen King's Firestarter irked me, and I hear the live sequel was much, much worse.
> 
> Not that the book is any masterpiece, but it meant a lot to me back then.


I actually liked that movie. 


Helped that loli Drew Barrymore was in it.


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## Pseudo (Dec 30, 2011)

Vault said:


> Lol psuedo



Kubrick raped Stephen King's novel without any remorse. Over twenty years later Stephen still has the butt hurt to prove it .


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## The Bite of the She-Wolf (Dec 30, 2011)

CrazyMoronX said:


> I actually liked that movie.
> 
> 
> Helped that *loli Drew Barrymore* was in it.



I saw this post coming.


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## CrazyMoronX (Dec 30, 2011)

You  you wouldn't hit that?


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## The Bite of the She-Wolf (Dec 30, 2011)

Mutie loli on the run, sounds HOT amirite.


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## Ennoea (Dec 30, 2011)

> Kubrick raped Stephen King's novel without any remorse. Over twenty years later Stephen still has the butt hurt to prove it .



King needs to give it a rest. The Shining was fine.


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## Pseudo (Dec 30, 2011)

Ennoea said:


> King needs to give it a rest. The Shining was fine.



That's the problem he has with it. He can't handle the fact that that Kubrick's version is actually superior.


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## Parallax (Dec 30, 2011)

The Shining was better than fine Eno


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## The Bite of the She-Wolf (Dec 30, 2011)

King, such a hater sometimes, and then such a liker, like for The Mist.


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## Vault (Dec 30, 2011)

The movie?


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## The Bite of the She-Wolf (Dec 30, 2011)

Vault said:


> The movie?



Yeah I heard King preferred that new ending to his novella's.


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## Golden Circle (Dec 30, 2011)

Jurassic Park and The Lost World

Both films were nothing like the books.


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## Vault (Dec 30, 2011)

Charcan said:


> Yeah I heard King preferred that new ending to his novella's.



I agree, the movie i would rate an 8/10 based on some of the issues it raised rather than the movie itself. Also datending


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## Ruby Moon (Dec 31, 2011)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.  So many things were wrong with this movie, and it was made from the ones who worked on the Harry Potter films.


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## Stunna (Dec 31, 2011)

Just the first two to be fair.


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## Jena (Dec 31, 2011)

_The Black Cauldron_ 
Can't believe I forgot about that one. I know that Disney isn't exactly known for sticking the source material, but they usually make up for it by being entertaining. This was just a hot mess. I still liked the movie as a kid just because I was such a fan of the books that I was excited to see any film version of it (no matter how crappy) but now it's unwatchable for me.


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## Grape (Dec 31, 2011)

Harry Potter.

/thread


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## Gaawa-chan (Dec 31, 2011)

It's worth pointing out before I post that I try to avoid a lot of the movies that people have mentioned here (Inkheart, The Golden Compass, etc) so yeah, I'm no judge on what is the 'worst' but a couple of them have offended me more than others, so... the ones that really bug me are the ones that are well-recieved or praised as good screen adaptations when they unashamedly trample all over the source material.

Okay...


Oh, god there are so many bad ones... children's movies are usually the worst offenders (Disney's Hercules and The Hunchback of Notre Dame spring instantly to mind) but that is understandable to an extent because they are... well... children's movies... >_>



There's more than one adaptation of The Shining... I actually found the less accurate one to be better/scarier for some reason. 




Jena said:


> *Howl's Moving Castle*
> I'm sorry, I love you Miyazaki but...just no. The personalities of the main characters, which was the most interesting thing about the book, are watered down, there's no reference to Wales, and the entire second half is completely different. Sophie was almost intolerable in the beginning ("I'm not pretty! Nobody likes me! Blarg!" the book Sophie had her moments of doubt, but she wasn't a moper). It misses that humorous "spark" that made the book great.



I couldn't stomach that movie for these reasons; I don't think it's a 'bad' movie but it's a horrid screen adaptation.  In Miyazaki's defense, he never pretended that he was being true to the book, unlike Peter Jackson with LotR.  If you watch the commentary to Fellowship of the Ring, he will point out his 'favorite part of the book.'  The part in question?  _It wasn't even in the book._

On that note, every film adaptation of Tolkien's work. Let's not even go into the animated The Hobbit or Return of the King, just thinking about them is...
The Ralph Bakshi version I can stomach because I'm familiar with the source material and it was relatively faithful to the source material in terms of characterization and plot but it is... not a great adaptation by any means.  Voices were good in that movie, so that's something.
The Peter Jackson films spat all over the source material's plot, characters, and themes (Visually the movies are great for the most part and the music was good though inaccurate and the casting/acting was good for the most part but the script/directing dragged those down horribly). Whose idea was it to turn the metaphorical Eye of Sauron into some sort of magical searchlight? That was just fucking retarded...

And damn it, I'm not unpleasable/unreasonable when it comes to my wish for a LotR adaptation!  While it's got a few little things about it I'm not crazy about (Legolas' voice, Saruman's voice, Lord of the Nazgul's voice, that horrific eagle song... and that's it) the BBC audio dramatization was really good!


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## Grape (Dec 31, 2011)

One book I would like to see a movie made out of, can not for the life of me remember the title, but basically it takes place on a farm of sorts, and everywhere outside of the farm has been engulfed in severe radioactive death. Wish I could remember the name, it could have been a good flick. Not too much for them to screw up.


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## Stunna (Dec 31, 2011)

Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Though I still like the movie.


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## CrazyMoronX (Jan 3, 2012)

Charcan said:


> Mutie loli on the run, sounds HOT amirite.



My erection has never been bigger.


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## Batman4Life (Jan 4, 2012)

Eragon....


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## Magnum Miracles (Jan 4, 2012)

That Eragon movie was worse than Percy Jackson's .


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## Narcissus (Jan 5, 2012)

Every single failed attempt at making a movie adaptation of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series.

Studio Ghibli failed miserably in an attempt to combine the last two books of the series while giving vague references to the first two. The animation was the only good thing about  Tales from Earthsea.

And don't get me started with that garbage SciFi channel produced. It raped her work beyond repair, also in a failed attempt to combine the first two books in the series and completely, utterly missing the lessons Le Guin weaved into her story so masterfully.

Both of these also left out some of the best parts of the books.

Awful adaptations of a great book series.


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## CrazyMoronX (Jan 5, 2012)

Hearts in Atlantis is a fairly poor adaptation of the book, but still a very good movie.


Does that count?


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## Lucifer Morningstar (Jan 5, 2012)

Constantine is definitely up there.


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## KamiKazi (Jan 5, 2012)

A Series of Unfortunate Events

It's one of those movies where even if you haven't read the books you'd still like to pretend it didn't happen.


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## Jena (Jan 5, 2012)

Goobikazi said:


> A Series of Unfortunate Events
> 
> It's one of those movies where even if you haven't read the books you'd still like to pretend it didn't happen.



Jim Carrey 
Whyyyyyyyy?

Have I mentioned _Cirque du Freak_ already? If not, then, yeah, that was shit. The characters were randomly much older, which only served to make them look retarded (A 12 year old boy obsessing over a spider? yeah. A 16/17 year old boy obsessing over a spider? Wtf), they tried to shove too many books into one movie, John C. Reiley as Crepsley (?), some random monkey girl that served no purpose, and the wtf ending.


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## Sann (Jan 5, 2012)

Batman4Life said:


> Eragon....



Agreed
That movie was...I don't think I can find the right word for it..bad just doesn't do the job. Though I have to admit that baby Saphira was such a cutie 

Also the Twilight movies are...well...yeah...crap. Okay, I've read the books 3 or 4 years ago, but I don't remember them to be that cheesy.
The acting is the worst performance I've ever seen.


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## CrazyMoronX (Jan 5, 2012)

Timeline is another atrocious movie adaptation.


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## Narcissus (Jan 5, 2012)

To be fair, Eragon wasn't any amazing material to work with for a movie, and Twilight is terrible in both books and film.


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## The Bite of the She-Wolf (Jan 6, 2012)

Grape Krush said:


> Harry Potter.
> 
> /thread



My brain reshaped those to fit Alan Rickman Snape.

Haven't watched the post-Goblet ones though.


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