What's the worst change made in a movie adaptation of a book?
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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?
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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.
I, Robot was about as far from the source material as you could get.
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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.
I did not know the movie was based on anything. It’s one of my favorite scifi flicks, I always viewed it as based on a game player’s grind to get through a game by trying different moves after each death to succeed.
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The Hobbit
From the shitty shoehorned romance to wholesale elimination of plot points in the original story. Yeah, there was definitely some drama in the whole production of the film, but nonetheless it was crap.
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Honestly? Gotta disagree. It's been a long time since I've read the book but I remember being disappointed by it after seeing the movie. Maybe I'll give it a reread and see if my opinion's changed. ETA: fuck all the movie sequels though, no one needed that shit.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I have no idea what would’ve happened to me if I had done it in that order, but, unfortunately, for me, I read the book 1st, and based my expectations for the movie around that, rather than the other way around.
So, I’m not trying to discount your experience, I just don’t think it’s the same thing because of the order. Who knows? If I’d’ve seen the movie first, I might agree with you.
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Nice ! I should really read it. I consider JP my favourite film
Then you’ll enjoy the book more. Probably.
I’m not sure I can say the same thing for the lost world, as that book was written specifically so it could be turned into a sequel for Jurassic Park the film. It’s still very good, but not nearly as good as the first book.
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I want to take this opportunity to remind the audience that 2005's Sahara starring Matthew McConaughey exists. The second of two utter failures to adapt a Clive Cussler novel to the big screen.
It wasn't a good movie because of the studio and because of legal clashes with Cussler. I think you could have gotten it done.
Plot wise, I think making Dirk obsessed with the ironclad from the beginning was an unwise choice. They both made that a bigger factor in the overall plot, and yet diminished the whole point of it by removing its Very Important Passenger. They put so much shit in the runtime about the ironclad that the actual main plots of the gold mine and the waste disposal plant had to be pared down.
Also, casting. I actually think the movie is very well cast, McConaughey and Cruz were good, William Macy was an excellent Sandecker, Rainn Wilson was pretty good as Rudy Gunn, Lambert Wilson was the objectively correct choice for Massarde, and Steve Zahn was utterly incorrect for Al Giordino. I was about to say at least they didn't get Seth Rogan or Jack Black but Jack Black might actually have worked.
Remind?
I wasn't even aware that this movie existed until this very second. I'm looking at the trailer right now, it's impressive this never even made a blip in my radar, I was into this genre of adventure movies in my teens.
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Nononono, the singing dwarfes were absolutely true to the book. And Gandalph looking at Galadriel like a Schoolboy with a crush on his friends older Sister was definitely not in the books, but I loved it.
I was pretty hyped when the trailer had the dwarves singing in Bag End. Then the movie shit in my pants.
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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.
Robots take over humanity has been around since literally the first robot story. R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) is where the word robot was coined.
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I want to take this opportunity to remind the audience that 2005's Sahara starring Matthew McConaughey exists. The second of two utter failures to adapt a Clive Cussler novel to the big screen.
It wasn't a good movie because of the studio and because of legal clashes with Cussler. I think you could have gotten it done.
Plot wise, I think making Dirk obsessed with the ironclad from the beginning was an unwise choice. They both made that a bigger factor in the overall plot, and yet diminished the whole point of it by removing its Very Important Passenger. They put so much shit in the runtime about the ironclad that the actual main plots of the gold mine and the waste disposal plant had to be pared down.
Also, casting. I actually think the movie is very well cast, McConaughey and Cruz were good, William Macy was an excellent Sandecker, Rainn Wilson was pretty good as Rudy Gunn, Lambert Wilson was the objectively correct choice for Massarde, and Steve Zahn was utterly incorrect for Al Giordino. I was about to say at least they didn't get Seth Rogan or Jack Black but Jack Black might actually have worked.
This movie was the last hurrah for old school adventure movies like The Mummy, I wish it got popular enough to get good sequels
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Remind?
I wasn't even aware that this movie existed until this very second. I'm looking at the trailer right now, it's impressive this never even made a blip in my radar, I was into this genre of adventure movies in my teens.
It's...okay. Cussler himself hated it.
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tv series rather than film but: The Dresden Files
worst change? everything
harry's staff -- carved from a lightning struck tree from the property of his mentor, iirc, and carved with various runes -- is replaced with a hockey stick
bob the skull -- a constructed sprit of intellect bound to a skull -- is now a ghost of some guy
they made lt murphy a brunette
probably more idk I didn't get more than an episode in and that was years ago
Didn't even know it got adapted, must have been terrible if the studio didn't even bother to market it
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Not a movie, but a show. "Foundation".
Look, I get it, if you want to tell your own sci fi story that has nothing to do with Asimov, great! Good for you!
But don't pretend it's Foundation.
The coolest part of the show is the genetic dynasty stuff that wasn't even in the series
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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
wrote last edited by [email protected]It's not a show that I wait for with bated breath, but I will usually watch the episodes and they're alright. As someone who only read part of the first book, there's nothing there to be ruined for me.
The Mule stuff is kind of interesting. I think the genetic dynasty stuff is the coolest part, and apparently that wasn't even in the books.
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The Hobbit
From the shitty shoehorned romance to wholesale elimination of plot points in the original story. Yeah, there was definitely some drama in the whole production of the film, but nonetheless it was crap.
I like the Bilbo edit that removes most of the crap, and keeps the story shown to be from only what Bilbo sees. Gets the 3 movies down to 4 hrs I think.
