What's the worst change made in a movie adaptation of a book?
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Not a movie, but everything about the wheel of time show was a travesty.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
Personally, I'm still irritated at the end of Hannibal (the 2001 movie). Spoilers for the end of the film and book ahead:
In the book, Clarice Starling has gone as far as she can in her FBI career. She became famous for solving big cases, moved up the corporate ladder, but that glass ceiling kept her from advancing. Too many misogynistic "good ol' boys" at the top, who not only prevent her from excelling in her career, but take every tiny mistake and blow it up into a potentially career-ending scenario.
Enter Hannibal Lecter; the suave and highly intelligent cannibal serial killer. He's outraged that Clarice's coworkers and bosses are actively objectifying her and ruining her career.
Long story short, at the end of the book, Hannibal rescues Clarice and gives her misogynistic boss an impromptu (and tasty!) lobotomy. Clarice ends up running away with Hannibal, because she realized he's the only person who respects her as an intelligent human being and not a piece of ass.
The movie chose to keep her loyal to the FBI and combative against Hannibal, even though the FBI actively tried to destroy her life. Hannibal escapes alone and the film just kind of ends. It was a complete non-ending.
The whole point of Silence of the Lambs and its sequel, Hannibal, was that Clarice was a woman trying to survive in a "man's job," yet proved she could belong - and excel - through her own skill and intellect. Silence of the Lambs did a pretty good job showing that on the big screen, but Hannibal didn't get the point of the story and decided the hero shouldn't end up with a cannibal, period. They treated him as more of an irredeemable monster.
It's kind of the "man vs. bear" meme, except replace the bear with a cannibal serial killer, and the girl still chose the cannibal as the safer choice to her co-workers.
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EVERY SINGLE CHOICE made in Ready Player One. What a disappointment.
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They might not qualify as "crimes against mankind", but they definitely felt like it.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Seek the truth, always.
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It's still my favorite version. Though, I still wonder if Jowarsky's Dune would have been better.
Based on his comics I'm going to say it would be a classic, but mostly in a "can't believe they filmed that" sense.
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Wanted...
It was supposed to be full of knockoff versions of popular heroes like The Boys. But in a universe all the villains won and mindco controlled the heroes I to playing fictionalized versions of themselves as a joke.
The main character kind of got to keep their original power, but not really.
It was a good movie, but it desperately needs a remake that's faithful to the original comic. Probably something animated like Invincible because live action would need a crazy budget.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Invincible just kills it. Not only is it true to the comics, but you also get additional character arcs and backstory that perfectly fit in.
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EVERY SINGLE CHOICE made in Ready Player One. What a disappointment.
I actually liked it. The book was good too. I wasn’t completely disaffected. Agree to disagree.
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I'm a little surprised at that response because American Psycho is one of the most true to the source material movies I've ever seen. Whole passages were lifted and turned directly into dialog. Sure all of those white men were supposed to be corporate clones in the books but in a movie characters have to be visually distinct that's just the nature of the mediums
Would literal clowns not be visually appealing?
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Jurassic Park. The original was a horror/thriller that would have had to be unrated if they made it literally from the book. Instead, we got a PG-13 family film that really did not live up to the book.
In fact, it’s the first time that I read the book before seeing the movie, and I learned to never ever do that again.
The worst part of all these stupid spin off movies (besides how atrocious I’m assuming they are) is that they significantly reduce the likelihood we will ever get a movie that is faithful to the book.
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vaguely gestures at World War Z
I thought it was an entertaining movie, but I haven’t read the book. Ima go download it right now.
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vaguely gestures at World War Z
Oooo as someone who has seen the movie and never read the book, any sales pitch for me for the book?
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I actually liked it. The book was good too. I wasn’t completely disaffected. Agree to disagree.
A few of the visuals in the movie were stunning to me!
I also didn't mind it in either medium. It's not like it's a novel of a generation. Fun silly book, fun silly movie
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Would literal clowns not be visually appealing?
I mean, no? It would defeat the point of the story. The monoculture of white men destroying everything around them was what Brett Easton Ellis was talking about and making clowns would have made that a different story
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Oooo as someone who has seen the movie and never read the book, any sales pitch for me for the book?
The book is wonderfully written, and actually fairly insightful from a disaster preparedness and policy standpoint. It's been a while since a read it so forgive me if the details aren't exactly correct. Its written from the viewpoint of a journalist traveling the world post zombie apocalypse. He is collecting stories from survivors of various major events that happened during the zombie outbreak. Each chapter details a different event conveyed by a different witness, so it's not a cohesive single plot story. More like working notes of someone preparing to write a history of a major global disaster. It highlights some of the mistakes made and lessons learned as events unfolded.
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Zendaya just plays an immature, "rebel without a cause" New Yorker instead of Chani, a strong and intelligent Fremen young lady who falls in love with and follows her Muad'dib, not just because of his prophetic abilities but also/mostly because of his character. But, in the current Western cultural understanding, that just wouldn't fly as strong means selfish and reactive and intelligent means rebellious and lippy. She's awed by Paul, as would be anyone surrounding him (to Paul's chagrin when it changes those around him to more "robotic" beings as it does with Stilgar), but also understands him deeply and is his emotional pillar, while Paul's the pillar to his entire community. They just wanted a "girl boss" and that's what we had in Denis' Dunes.
Calling Zendaya’s Chani a girl boss New Yorker seems incredibly misogynistic to me.
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Calling Zendaya’s Chani a girl boss New Yorker seems incredibly misogynistic to me.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I don't understand what "woman hating subtext" you read from my comment but, if you read the books, it will just seem appropriate.
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I thought it was an entertaining movie, but I haven’t read the book. Ima go download it right now.
The movie isn’t very interesting, but it’s not outright bad - unless you were hoping for a faithful adaptation. The book has a MUCH more interesting storyline.
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I don't understand what "woman hating subtext" you read from my comment but, if you read the books, it will just seem appropriate.
I’ve read all of them after Foundation it’s my favorite science fiction series.
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Zendaya just plays an immature, "rebel without a cause" New Yorker instead of Chani, a strong and intelligent Fremen young lady who falls in love with and follows her Muad'dib, not just because of his prophetic abilities but also/mostly because of his character. But, in the current Western cultural understanding, that just wouldn't fly as strong means selfish and reactive and intelligent means rebellious and lippy. She's awed by Paul, as would be anyone surrounding him (to Paul's chagrin when it changes those around him to more "robotic" beings as it does with Stilgar), but also understands him deeply and is his emotional pillar, while Paul's the pillar to his entire community. They just wanted a "girl boss" and that's what we had in Denis' Dunes.
I get where you're coming from, and I do feel like Chani really suffered from the adaptation, but I felt like it was more due to screentime and not having internal thoughts than changes made. I felt her being skeptical at the beginning was both a great change to her character (it feels like she falls in love with the Muad'dib Paul becomes, not the Atreides he was) and a really good way to carry themes of anti-messianism into the movie where the book relied on philosophical asides. It also provides a natural foil to Stilgar's zeal and Jessica's manipulation, presenting Chani as more aligned with Paul himself.
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The Dark Tower. Good movie in its own right, especially if you like Idris Elba.
First, they took 8 Stephen King books, some of which were like 2" thick, and decided to turn it into a 90-minute PG-13 film. A single film.
Second, because the racist element was so offensive (a Black woman taken out of the 1970s, who has personally experienced racism toward her, is taken to a foreign world, an alternate reality, where she basically is led by an old white man (modeled after Clint Eastwood) and naturally she feels a certain type of way about that) they decided they were going to change it up. Make her white, and him Black. Hence casting Idris Elba as a guy based on Clint Eastwood. Then they dropped her character entirely. I will argue that Elba made a hell of a Gunslinger, but the reason they cast him was because they wanted to turn the whole racism plot on its head. For no good reason. It was fine in the books (this would be The Drawing of the Three, and The Waste Lands, the second and third books).
But for all that, it was an entertaining action flick with a bunch of Stephen King references. I quite like it. As a reader of the books and a fan of Stephen King, I shouldn't, but the movie itself was good.
Honestly that the movie exists at all is the worst change, though.
I only read the first three or four books, but the movie didn't include a single thing I remember from thee early books that I liked. No crab taking fingers, no giant robot bear, no talking train, or anything else. It seemed to me like they had some other script and slapped a Dark Tower veneer on it.
