Worst book to film adaptations

fretmeister

Total Recall
starship troopers.

i love both films. Great fun and over the top.

Neither follow the source material.

koneguitarist

Jack Reacher! 6'5"blonde intimidating ex US army Police played by, yep you guessed it perfect casting Tom Cruise! WTF 

kjdowd

Ender's game is a very good shout. Dune not a patch on the book, but still enjoyed it (see also v for vendetta). 

fretmeister

koneguitarist said:

Jack Reacher! 6'5"blonde intimidating ex US army Police played by, yep you guessed it perfect casting Tom Cruise! WTF 

If they had used a different name for the film no one would care. It was a perfectly good example of the genre.

But TC is not Reacher.

Strangefan

Whaaat I love a series of unfortunate events!

Nitefly

Another vote for "I Robot" here - film was utter tosh.

stickyfiddle

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory: The Burtoning

As usual, a weird Tim Burton movie dressed up as another familiar franchise so everyone feels comfortable going to see it. In reality, Michael Jackson and his oompa loompa clone army...

paulnb57

Both Jack Reacher films

Sporky

Strangefan said:

Whaaat I love a series of unfortunate events!

But have you read the books? They're genuinely brilliant. I don't have kids, but if I did they'd be getting that series read to them. A lot. With voices. More nuance and character development than most grown-up fiction.

I liked the film, it just wasn't a good adaptation.

WezV

jamiexsilver said:

I am legend.

Try Omega Man instead.   Much closer to the I am Legend book.

Strangefan

Sporky said:

Strangefan said:

Whaaat I love a series of unfortunate events!

But have you read the books? They're genuinely brilliant. I don't have kids, but if I did they'd be getting that series read to them. A lot. With voices. More nuance and character development than most grown-up fiction.

I liked the film, it just wasn't a good adaptation




I haven't read them but if you're saying they're thst good then I certainly shall 

Sporky

They start off quite simple, both in plot and language, but get more complex as they go on.

EricTheWeary

I read the Series Of books with my youngest, or at least started them with him and he read all the rest. Wonderfully written, miles ahead of the nonsense of Harry Potter. The film squashed several books together and lost all the wit.

Strangefan said:

Sporky said:

Strangefan said:

Whaaat I love a series of unfortunate events!

But have you read the books? They're genuinely brilliant. I don't have kids, but if I did they'd be getting that series read to them. A lot. With voices. More nuance and character development than most grown-up fiction.

I liked the film, it just wasn't a good adaptation




I haven't read them but if you're saying they're thst good then I certainly shall 

mikeyrob73

The Beach, Truelly amazing book, Film is just Leonardo running about in pants a lot

 The Stand  was made into some kind of Mini Series as well which was really bad. 

Pretty much most Stephen King stuff hasnt adapted so well 

boogieman

mikeyrob73 said:

Pretty much most Stephen King stuff hasnt adapted so well 

I'd say some, not most. The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, Green Mile, Christine, the original Carrie? All well done adaptations. Shawshank and The Shining are superb  films. 

DarnWeight

boogieman said:

mikeyrob73 said:

Pretty much most Stephen King stuff hasnt adapted so well 

I'd say some, not most. The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, Green Mile, Christine, the original Carrie? All well done adaptations. Shawshank and The Shining are superb  films. 

And ironically enough, The Shining is the one screen adaptation that Stephen King hates most of all.  And this coming from the guy who wrote and directed Maximum Overdrive!

For the record, I'm a big Stephen King fan, but the guy shouldn't be let anywhere near a screenplay.

DrJazzTap

boogieman said:

mikeyrob73 said:

Pretty much most Stephen King stuff hasnt adapted so well 

I'd say some, not most. The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, Green Mile, Christine, the original Carrie? All well done adaptations. Shawshank and The Shining are superb  films. 

Didn't Stephen King hate the film version of the shining? 

I would say Jurassic Park is a fairly faithful recreation of the book. (minus the raptors slicing a young girls chest open at the start of the book).

boogieman

DarnWeight said:

boogieman said:

mikeyrob73 said:

Pretty much most Stephen King stuff hasnt adapted so well 

I'd say some, not most. The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, Green Mile, Christine, the original Carrie? All well done adaptations. Shawshank and The Shining are superb  films. 

And ironically enough, The Shining is the one screen adaptation that Stephen King hates most of all.  And this coming from the guy who wrote and directed Maximum Overdrive!

For the record, I'm a big Stephen King fan, but the guy shouldn't be let anywhere near a screenplay.

Yup, just goes to show that just because you can write a great story, doesn't mean you can write a script. I used to be a massive SK fan too but his later stuff is very hit and miss. Pretty much a ratio of one decent book to two turds these days. The last really good one was Dr Sleep IMO. I'd like to see a film version of that. 

Myranda

Eragon - characters were changed so fundamentally as to say literally the opposite of what they said in the book

Needful Things - thankfully a terrible adaptation as the book ends like so many Stephen King books (badly)

Starship Troopers - the book is a right wing nutjob's AMERICA FUCK YEAH so the film being nothing like it is a good thing (Paul Verhoven apparently got bored by the second chapter so stopped reading and just made his own thing)

Bygone_Tones

DrJazzTap said:

I would say Jurassic Park is a fairly faithful recreation of the book. (minus the raptors slicing a young girls chest open at the start of the book).

 dont know about that. there is a lot more content in the book. what about the t-rex chasing them down the river on the raft, and the young raptors making it onto the boat outside of jurassic park - a big sub-plot of the book. the bird cage scene with the pterodactyls in jurassic park 3 is also taken from the original book.