What's the worst change made in a movie adaptation of a book?
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When they announced a movie with Brad Pitt, I knew it would be bad. The book reads like a multi épisode TV show without a main character (and it could be a great adaptation).
When I pirated the movie version... It was so bad I regretted wasting bandwidth for that
Loved the book. When I first watched the movie I hated it. as a movie by itself it's ok, sort of free on me. But then I thought the movie works if you treat it as a prequel
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Literally everything about World War Z. Absolute travesty. The book is a unique and genuinely thought provoking new take on the zombie genre. The movie is an insult to every bit of world building Max Brooks created.
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The most egregious that i remember must be Artemis Fowl.
I remember liking the book quite a lot for making fairies into the opposite of pushovers. It also had a mean edge to it that other teen fantasy lacked.
The movie is just... Not that.
I hated the fact that the movie steered away from the fact that Artemis Fowl was a frigging criminal mastermind and instead made him a mid rebel with a relatable motivation...
Have the same grouse about Ender's Game too -
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Maybe not the worst, but this one's personal: Edge of Tomorrow's take on the fantastic All You Need Is Kill (spoilers ahead).
- Making the movie PG-13. In chapter 2 of the manga, there is a brutal death scene showing how Keiji can't escape the Mimics wherever he goes. The series was quite bloody, and used that to its advantage.
- Casting Emily Blunt as "Rita Vrataski". One of her defining character traits was that she was unassuming, and that you wouldn't expect that level of combat skill from her appearance.
- While Keiji was in love with "Rita" in the original, it was unrequited–the change felt actively detrimental to "Rita's" character.
SIDENOTE: I feel like changing this was sort of unimportant, but you'll notice I'm using quotes for "Rita". That's because, in the original, her real name is unknown. She took someone else's identity.
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I'd say Moonraker, which might be my favourite of the first books, but the movie adaptation keeps little more than the title and changes pretty much everything else (and as a result ends up being quite bad, receiving noticeably lukewarm reviews and nowadays often appearing in lists of worst Bond films ever).
Just looked it up, and the titular Moonraker was changed from a missile to a space shuttle.
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I wouldn't call it a bad change, quite the opposite but when I read Fight Club, I was amazed how faithful the film was to the book. There are just two major changes I can remember.
In the book, Tyler Durden meets the narrator on a (nude?) beach where Tyler is erecting driftwood into the sand so that the shadow looks like a hand. (It's been a very long time since I read it, I think that's right.)
Secondly, the narrator struggles all through the story to remember the correct formula for the home made explosive. If he doesn't know, then Tyler doesn't know. Which means the explosives at the end don't go off. The buildings stay standing.
Didn't the author end up preferring the movie?
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Eh. I've been watching it, and I think it's a decent adaptation. Entirely faithful to the original? No. But the core trilogy of was written in the 1950s, and it's absolutely a product of its time. I for one am glad they left the misogyny back in the 1950s where it belongs. Also, the original books were very much in the "our friend the atom" era of nuclear power, the era where they were predicting power too cheap to meter and no one had ever heard of a nuclear plant meltdown. The inclusion of the genetic dynasty was an inspired choice. And frankly, I'm glad we're not depicting a far future where everybody is white.
But I think the TV series is faithful to the core themes of the books. It still explores the contrast between the "trends and forces" and "great man" theories of history. It still explores the fascinating concept of predicting the future mathematically. It still shows the slow and inexorable decline of a great galactic empire. And the Mule in the show is every bit a force of malevolent evil as the Mule in the novels.
Overall, is it a perfect one-to-one adaption? No, but that was never going to happen for a book like Foundation. It was long considered unfilmable. But some minor adaptations have allowed them to create a good series that explores the core themes of Asimov's work.
Does it get any better after season 1? The terminus plot was just incredibly stupid so I lost all interest. Empire was great though, especially as he didn't exist in the books
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The audiobook was good except for the Chinese characters. For some insane reason they decided to have white voice actors do a bad Chinese accent instead of just hiring actual Chinese voice actors.
You're right some were a miss. but the concept was cool.
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I'm not even looking at it, I really liked the old one with Tom Cruise and Garret hedlund.
They should've checked the solenoid.
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No hamster scene though.
I remember it being a rat unless we're discussing different parts but that's just the reality of what you were able to get away with in 2000s media. The movie would have been NC-17 if all of the violence from the book made it in
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OK, here's the thing. Overall, Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy is extremely good. I think it's the best Tolkien adaptation we're likely to ever get.
HOWEVER.
The random "Arwen is dying!" subplot was incredibly fucking stupid and while it didn't ruin the movies for me, it did dampen my enjoyment of them. There had to be a better way to get more screentime for Liv Tyler, surely.
For me it's elves at Helm's Deep. Totally unnecessary.
Although I always laugh out loud when Sam says "We shouldn't even be here" in Osgiliath.
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Literally everything about World War Z. Absolute travesty. The book is a unique and genuinely thought provoking new take on the zombie genre. The movie is an insult to every bit of world building Max Brooks created.
I thought the movie was pretty enjoyable but it shouldn't have been named after the book. It would have been a decent zombie movie on its own.
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I read it 3 times. When I was like 12. Chaos theory and science were certainly aspects; aspects of an exciting, edge of your seat, smart, well-plotted thriller, with engaging and relatable characters. It wasn’t a kids book, and doesn’t need to be a kids movie. This may shock you, but movies don’t have to be for kids in order to be successful.
This may shock you, but movies don’t have to be for kids in order to be successful.
I'm not shocked, because I never claimed this point at all, but I appreciate your attempt at insulting me for no reason.
The formula that is Jurassic Park is complicated and has many variables. I'm sure the movie you would have preferred to get would have been great, but it wouldn't be the universally recognized franchise it is today.
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Please don't fuck up project hail mary.. please don't fuck up project hail mary..
The trailer shows Stratt doing karaoke soo... adjust your expectations accordingly.
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I love the Dark Tower series and hadn't seen the movie yet. They dropped Susannah out ENTIRELY? Seriously???
No Eddie either. The movie is from Jake's perspective.
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Question for fans of the Russian film/books "Night Watch":
The first movie was amazing, it adapts roughly the first 1/3rd of the first book, I thought it was very well done. Went out, bought the books and caught up.
"Day Watch" comes out. I can't tell if it's legitimately a shitty movie or if it's just shitty compared to the books?
p.s. The author is now problematic because of the whole Russia/Ukraine issue, but the books were completed before even the Crimea invasion in 2014.
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No, no, Dennis Haysbert was good in it as the father Roland never forgot the face of, though I don't remember his father being in the books. Seeing President Palmer teach Luther the gunslinger creed was awesome to me.
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I love the Dark Tower series and hadn't seen the movie yet. They dropped Susannah out ENTIRELY? Seriously???
Yes, her and Eddie both (and Oy). His only companion is Jake.
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I, Robot.
Asimov was explicitly trying to get away from the trope of "robots take over humanity". To be clear, the first short story that became I, Robot was published in 1940. "Robots take over humanity" was already an SF trope by then. Hollywood comes along more than half a century later and dives head first right back into that trope.
Lt Cmdr Data is more what Asimov had it mind. In fact, Data's character has direct references to Asimov, like his positronic brain.
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The most egregious that i remember must be Artemis Fowl.
I remember liking the book quite a lot for making fairies into the opposite of pushovers. It also had a mean edge to it that other teen fantasy lacked.
The movie is just... Not that.
I watched the movie first. The only good thing about it is it inspired me to read the book to see what the movie missed. Upon reading all the books, I think the vest way to adapt them to screen would be an animated series that is beat for beat faithful to the books.
My biggest issue with the film is, if they didn't want a villain protagonist, why adapt a book with a villain protagonist?
