Worst book to Movie/Mini-series ever

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'All The Pretty Horses' was completely butchered by the studio, it was Billy Bob Thornton's first film and apparently he filmed a 2.5 hour masterpiece following almost exactly the Cormac McCarthy book, but the studio turned it into a 90 minute bullet point outline guide to the story.
 

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sydney eagle said:
David Lynch's laughable movie adaption of "Dune" deserves a dishonorable mention !
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Correct.

The mini-series was better, but not much better. Dune just isn't a book/series that translates well to movies.

Paycheck is a very good Philip K. Dick short story that was an awful movie.
 
Mint Condition said:
Agree 100% ... the movie was absolutely terrible. Not only did they cut out half the book, but they added in that stupid love story that was never in the book at all! One of the biggest characters in the movie didn't even exist in the book!!
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It did seem strange to me that all the Jewish characters were cut or changed.
 
Legend of the Seeker. It took all of the opening scene for it to start butchering the book. And it's kept on from there.

Lets see half way through the first episode and:
- Kahlan's sister dies riding alongside her instead of her finding her raped and
dying.
- Zed is a crazy old coot to Richard, instead of his best friend.
- He has a step mother now.
- Kahlan knows who Zed is.
- Richard sees her use her power and she just blurts out what a Confessor is.
- And he gets handed the Book of Shadows instead of memorising from a child.

Why bother making an adaptation of a book if you are going to change every key element of it?! :rolleyes::mad: Who is the target audience of this series? Anyone whose read the books is going to hate it. I won't be watching from episode 2 onwards.
 
Andre said:
Legend of the Seeker. It took all of the opening scene for it to start butchering the book. And it's kept on from there.

Lets see half way through the first episode and:
- Kahlan's sister dies riding alongside her instead of her finding her raped and
dying.
- Zed is a crazy old coot to Richard, instead of his best friend.
- He has a step mother now.
- Kahlan knows who Zed is.
- Richard sees her use her power and she just blurts out what a Confessor is.
- And he gets handed the Book of Shadows instead of memorising from a child.

Why bother making an adaptation of a book if you are going to change every key element of it?! :rolleyes::mad: Who is the target audience of this series? Anyone whose read the books is going to hate it. I won't be watching from episode 2 onwards.
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Yes, it get's worse as well. An absolute abomination compared to the book series. Goodkind strongly dislikes it.
 
placebo said:
Yes, it get's worse as well. An absolute abomination compared to the book series. Goodkind strongly dislikes it.
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Hmm, well by the end of the first episode can add in 'Thane' killing his father instead of Darken Rahl, Gar attack happening in Westland, Richard angry all the time and 'Thane' pretending to be from the midlands instead of Michael meeting with the D'Harans as D'Harans as being so power hungry he'll deal with anyone.

Now I'm not one of those who think a movie/mini-series adaptation should be 100% accurate, obviously for the screen things need to change, but in the few dozen books I've read then since seen as movies/mini-series this has had more key plot points changed then any 10 (conservatively) put together. With LOTR done as movies (brilliantly - the benchmark of how to adapt fantasy to the screen, besides being the masterpiece literary work all others are compared to), the three series I'd wanted to see on screen most were Sword of Truth, Fiest's Magician and The Wheel of Time. I'd hate to think what the creators of this would do to the other two :eek:
 
Andre said:
Hmm, well by the end of the first episode can add in 'Thane' killing his father instead of Darken Rahl, Gar attack happening in Westland, Richard angry all the time and 'Thane' pretending to be from the midlands instead of Michael meeting with the D'Harans as D'Harans as being so power hungry he'll deal with anyone.
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Yes, the Gar thing annoyed me especially as they don't come in to it for quite a while. And Richard just seems like an angry whiny teen. Oh well, there's always that risk with adaptions that it won't work out.
 
Richo for PM said:
Didn't know I Am Legend was a book. Whats it like?
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It's a great book although very short, and as already stated, nothing like the film. I thought the film was good though if watched as a movie in its own right without comparing it to the book.

The Omega Man was also based on the on the novel and is also completly different.

I know alot of people liked it, but I thought Blade Runner was an ordinary adaptation of a book I really enjoyed.
 

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Fever+Pitch.jpg


"Hey, let's take the ultimate football fan novel - nay, bible - a semi-autobiographical piece de resistance about the totally consuming experience of being a true sporting fanatic, and turn it into a crappy lightweight romcom about baseball."

****ers.
 
The Sultan said:
The general rule of thumb for stephen king book/movies,

Horror books = s**t movie

Non Horror Books = good movie (stand by me, Shawshank, green mile, Misery)
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In general I'd agree (some exceptions). The Stand most notably was a great adaptation of a horror novel, although that was done as a mini-series. I think the above hold trues though largely as his non-horror movies have generally been based on short stories rather than full length books, so they aren't hacked to fit in a neat 2 hour-ish timeframe.
 
Apparrently the SAHARA movie was based on a book by Clive cussler and they followed the book to a certain extent then did their own thing, also anyone who is a fan or likes the james bond movies here is a bit of trivia in the Ian flemming's book THE SPY WHO LOVED ME apparrently JAWS original name was HORROR and the movie producers changed it because they thought it would scare kids, what a load of crap i think horror would have been a better name really.

I think the Jurassic park 1 + 2 were good book to movie adaptations same with the harry potter movies
 
CatmanForever said:
Battlefield Earth the book is actually a decent read as a sci fi novel. Probably the only Hubbard book I'd ever recommend. The Movie made by Scientologist money and John Travolta actually butchered the whole thing into the worst movie ever made.
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Soon as I saw this thread I thought this one had to be here. Was a really good book, and I was very interested to see how it would translate, but to be fair, to encompass the whole book it would almost need to be a trilogy! Was as big a balls up from book to movie as i have seen!
 
Andre said:
In general I'd agree (some exceptions). The Stand most notably was a great adaptation of a horror novel, although that was done as a mini-series. I think the above hold trues though largely as his non-horror movies have generally been based on short stories rather than full length books, so they aren't hacked to fit in a neat 2 hour-ish timeframe.
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Surely you jest? Although I've got the mini-series on DVD and quite enjoy it, it's not even a patch on the book.

I'm going to nominate two that people might think a bit odd.

Jaws and The Godfather. Both are among my favourite movies of all time but I still think both books are better than the movies.

Another one in which I'll go the opposite way. Contact by Carl Sagan. At primary school in the 70s we used to watch Carl Sagan's series called Cosmos. It fascinated me. When Contact was released I couldn't wait to read it. Boy, it was the toughest read I've ever had, jeez it was boring. I did however like the movie.

One that definitely fits in with the OP is A Shining Bright Lie. A brilliant book by Neil Sheehan about a man named John Paul Vann who was first a soldier and then a civilian in Vietnam from the very beginning, before the war officially started. It was made into a movie with Bill Paxton. Absolutely diabollical.
 
Worst: Hitchikers guide to the galaxy, The League of extraordinary gentlemen. Both were terrible translations

Decent: Watchmen

Better than the book: Apocalypse Now
 
Herne Hill Hammer said:
Surely you jest? Although I've got the mini-series on DVD and quite enjoy it, it's not even a patch on the book.
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It's not as good as the book - notably the (partial) redemption of Harold is barely touched in the mini-series, before he dies, but it's still at the high end of adaptations (which admittedly given how woeful most are to those who have read a book being adapted doesn't mean much).
 
The Company by Robert Littell. They put in Alfred Molina in as the Sorcerer, but them put Chris O'Donnell as Jack....for shame.

Snorefest from a great book.
 
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