Fantasy or Sci-fi books you'd Want to See Adapted - But you know would be butchered due to current year bullshit

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Seeing as fantasy and sci fi novel adaptations seem to be popular again. What are some fantasy or sci fi novels or series you always hoped might get an adaptation?
Even though deep down you know it'll never live up to the book and in current year will be downright garbage.

I've always wanted to see a good adaptation of Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series.

The whole concept is just kind of trippy and at some point in the series Richard Burton(epic explorer from the 1800's) battles against Herman goring and Nazis and shit on an eternal river where everyone who's every lived wakes up one day.

Or the Elric or Corum series, or any of the eternal champion books by Michael Moorcock. For a series that's been so influential in fantasy, everything from d&d, to games like nethack. The whole concept of alignment and the alignment system in d&d comes from those books and just about every game with an alignment system was inspired at some point originally by d&d. The stories themselves are dark, surreal and trippy. They span a huge multiverse across multiple time periods. If it were ever somehow done well it could make for a hell of a TV series.
 
There's this one story called The Deep from 1952. It's about non-human aliens (or "starfish aliens") who live deep underground on a dead planet around a dead sun. Using what's pretty much "psychic magic", they telepathically connect with people on a flight over Earth. The alien doing the telepathy finds Earthlings to be a very strange non-telepathic race, and the Earth still alive around a living sun amazes them. The telepathic connection is used to somehow teleport over this box thing that slips through matter and falls underneath an island. The story says the aliens will later use the box to somehow teleport themselves over to the island to renew their race.

A short film based on that short story could be fun to see if it's not made to be woke crap.
 
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I've always been a huge fan of James White's Hospital Station books, an adaptation would be nice to see. You'd get all the cool sci-fi stuff but then also a hospital drama to boot. You know I wonder if they were an influence on Babylon-5's creation.

David Drake's Hammer's Slammers would be a hell of a thing to see! Saberhagen's Berserker novels...man, so many good ones from the 60s, 70's and 80s...
 
I wouldn't mind an adaptation of CJ Cherryh Union series myself. The relatively hard sci-fi seen here as opposed to the soft ones we always see would be an interesting contrast.

Of course, Hollyweird gonna butcher it with their tokenism, but hope springs eternal I guess.
 
The Malazan Book of the Fallen, or rather parts of it, could be a good tv show. If they tried to make it a coherent whole it would flop, but if they took specific plots from the series it would be very good. I'm thinking of an anthology series where each season kind of stood alone but with some recurring characters.

Once upon a time there were rumours that there was a show a being made based on the Chain of Dogs plotline from the second book, Deadhouse Gates. Don't know what happened with that.

Seen as (no one) asked here is how I would do it:

The last third of the first book would be a good first season. (include the siege from the start of the book as episode one though, then skip everything until the Bridgeburners arrive in Darujistan)
Chain of Dogs would be a good second season.
Kalam, Fiddler, Apsalar and Krokus's story would be a good third season.
The first half of memories of ice (up to and including the fall of Capustan) would be a good fourth season.
The second half of memories of ice would be a good fifth season.
etc
 
I'd only want that out of spite for the IP, and the downside is that adaptations are always gateway drugs for insufferable normalfags, so there is nothing in it for me.
 
Legend by David Gemmell, or any of his books really. I just want to see a million Nadir throw themselves at the walls of Dros Delnoch. However, they really wouldn't get made in todays climate, or would be butchered horribly if they did, because all his stories are very masculine and mostly deal with themes of father and brotherhood.
 
Even though deep down you know it'll never live up to the book and in current year will be downright garbage.
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Juan But Not Forgotten dijo:
In this day and age - none.
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This is why I don't want anything I enjoyed to be adapted. But let me pretend for a moment that we don't live in Clown World and Hollywood and Netflix aren't run by greedy and self-serving tards that can actually write and care about being faithful to the source material while actually improving them...

Some stories I would like to see adapted as either films or mini-serials are:
1: Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, Amtor and Pellucidar Sagas: Barsoom and Pellucidar are his most recognized works aside from Tarzan but only the first books from each series have ever been adapted as films sadly. Supposedly Disney is making a series based on the other Barsoom stories for Disney+ but I have zero faith in Disney, even if their John Carter film was alright.

2: HP Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness goes without saying. I'm kind of mixed about adapting his other works though. And I doubt you could really capture something like madness incarnate in film as its described in the stories.

3: Obviously any of the tales from Christopher Tolkien's legendarium are worthy of praise and celebration, and naturally would deserve only the best adaptations. Beren and Luthien in particular would make for a good tragedy.

4: I think the works of AE van Vogt could work as anthology-style shows. His story Monster in particularly is interesting and deals with beings exploring a forsaken world that's fallen to ruins which is actually Earth having been ravaged by an unknown disaster which these aliens seek to uncover only to find out that some things truly are best left unknown.

5: And speaking of Vogt, that reminds me; many of the stories by lesser known authors in Astounding Science Fiction and Thrilling Wonder Stories are just waiting to be tapped for ideas and could easily work as anthologies too. Even the shittier stories like Three Thousand Years can be polished into gems under the right creative hands.

6: Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston's Star Wars: X-Wing novels: A series of novels focusing on Wedge Antilles and his Rogue Squadron comrades that's less about the jedi-sith drama and more about the foundations of the new republic, ongoing wars, space battles against the remnants of the empire, the threat of a truly fiendish fat bastard and exploring civilian life in this galaxy far far away that is steeped in political difficulties. An overall fun experience with memorable characters in a favorite setting of mine. The Thrawn Trilogy might also be nice but would be impossible to do right unless animated.

7: John M. Ford's Star Trek: How Much for Just the Planet?: An utterly ridiculous yet potentially usable Star Trek story set in the continuity of The Original Series, where Kirk and his crew must compete with the Klingons for the rights to mine a baffling planet that is an ode to the many colorful musical films of the 60s. That's right, bidding for a Sound of Music planet where there's always music in the air and which is prone to comedic misadventures. Kind of like the opposite of that mafia episode except the ending is more disappointing, but other more clever writers could make it work into something that's both hilarious and an ode to a classic musical genre, and where the realm of scifi is forced to confront the unstoppable power of musical whimsy.

8: Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain: They've never been properly adapted and its only adaptation cursed the saga forever. A proper adaptation that has all its characters look and act accordingly while using the actual main villain would be appreciated.

9: David Drake's Hammer's Slammers is scifi war tanks being epic and led by a guy named Hammer. It doesn't get more badass than that.

10: Lewis Caroll's Wonderland Books and Poems: I've never been too fond of Disney's animated or live action adaptations of Caroll's books, nor the edgy video games and the 1933 film (although some adaptations were "interesting" for a lack of a better word but not what I wanted), so I would love to see an adaptation of his works by people with more vision. Closest thing to what I'd like to see be done with these books is the 1977 film Jabberwocky by Terry Gilliam but even that's not perfect since its set mostly in the real world and has little in common with the books other than being nonsensical and the titular Jabberwock. A whole Wonderland trilogy by him after he finished his trilogy of imagination would have truly been something else. I also know there's a 1980s anime adaptation with 50 episodes, but the character designs and aesthetics don't seem to look as good as the other works in the World Masterpiece Theater, so I'm kind of hesitant.

L. Frank Baum wrote many books but I'm only interested in seeing three be adapted.
11: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz: The story revolves around Dorothy and her cousin running into the Wizard of Oz again while in California. Shortly after their reunion a massive earthquake hits and sends them deep underground into a disturbing subterranean world of multiple suns and other horrors. Throughout the whole adventure they explore different underground universes filled with creatures that want to kill them on sight and all the while the Wizard shows off a more heroic nature and some genuine badassery as he kills most enemies they encounter with his foldable sword and other tricks.

12: The Tin Woodman of Oz: Probably the most gory Oz book and details the Tin-Man's origins as a former human who was cursed to lose his body parts bit by bit, eventually losing his heart and his ability to love the woman of his dreams. The story revolves around him seeking to reunite with his old fiance and meets another victim of the same curse along the way who has also replaced his body with tin. Its rather surreal since it shifts from campy and fairy tale-ish to gory instances like Tin-Man's origins and the fate of his body parts, along with a weird instance of existential doubt raised by the fact he comes face to face with his old and still living severed head. It also explores the nature and creation story of Oz itself.

13: The Emerald City of Oz: This was intended to be the true final Oz book and would deal with Dorothy permanently moving to Oz with her family after their farm became repossessed, and them having to deal with the fact that their niece was not insane, and eventually dealing with a war caused by the return of the Nome King. Could've been an ideal sequel to the 80s film Return to Oz.

There's other obscure stories I'd love to see adapted but I'm having a hard time remembering some of the titles. One I'm really trying to recall was about a prototypical space hero who practically inspired a lot of the space hero genres like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, among others. Its nothing stellar per se but being the pioneer for a genre should be rewarded in some way. There's also one about a bizarre flying war fortress that featured these weird spaceships that looked like eyeballs but I can barely remember it. Also another story I remember liking was called Storm or something (I think maybe it was written by Vogt) and introduced a race of centaurian cat people.
 
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The Cities in Flight books by James Blish could work well as a mini series. They would not be ruined by woke shit so much but everyone working in film and television in current year is too fucking stupid to grasp the material. It's too complex and heady for your typical Netflix soy so they would butcher it.

Non-stop by Brian Aldiss I could very easily see getting woke shit shoehorned into it in an adaptation for no reason.

Fortunately neither are that well know in the mainstream and the chances of them getting raped are slim (I hope).
 
Stanislaw Lem's Futurological Congress could be made into an amazing black comedy. And The Invincible would be a really clever alien movie.
 
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Considering how absolutely shite any adaptation is now, I would rather not see anything I cared about be touched. There's a few series I would probably have a legitimate aneurysm if they announced them being made into anything.

But for a series I'm not that connected too and wouldn't mind seeing because at least a TV show would finish it, it would be The Kingkiller Chronicle. Like, let's be real, Patrick Rothfuss is not fucking writing the last book. At least a television series could give it some ending. It may not be a good ending, as we've seen with Game of Thrones, but it would be something. Plus, if it rage motivates Rothfuss to get off his fucking lazy ass to finish the book, we all win.
 
for the last two years i’ve been hearing mentions of an adaptation of Illuminatus! by RAW that is stuck in development hell. i would be extremely interested to see this only because i want to know if any human being could possibly pull off adapting that novel to the screen, it seems unfilmable- probably why it is in development hell.

First Law trilogy seems ripe for adaptation. i saw pictures from a supposed story-boarding a few years ago but never heard anything since then. my personal least favorite thing they do with these GoT-style adaptations is add in a bunch of gross and unnecessary sex and rape scenes (such as the bizarre orgy scene in the Witcher) and i think that, besides the few canon sex scenes, these books are rather protected from that kind of meddling, because of the plot. i just don’t see a lot of places where they could cram that shit in. coomers gonna coom tho so they could always surprise me

also this is more a regular fiction book than a true sci-fi/fantasy but i want to see a well done adaptation of Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins so badly.
 
From a more realistic perspective, the Rama series by Arthur C. Clarke would make for excellent adaptation material. It has a solid start, themes of pacifism and fear of the unknown that sell well, and the sequels are not especially appreciated, leaving the writers with more options for where they want to carry the story without having longtime fans sperg about changes.
 
@The Gangster Computer if I had imagination this strong, I would've been a screenwriter, but ok, let's pretend that we are like 50 years ago, CGI is good enough and studios are ready to throw their money into something good. In this case, my picks are:

1. Starship Troopers. No, that movie is stupid and doesn't do any justice to the book. You want to show that militarism isn't great? Ok, just left the hints that military economy requires constant wars, that non-military people hate the state of things and don't want their children to die in a war in some shithole far-far away and that some soldiers realize that someday they're gonna fuck with enemy out of their abilities and will get railed. Don't turn it into a fucking travesty about cartoony propaganda, brain-sucking bugs and shared shower rooms. And then give me fucking exoskeletons, crazy epic warfare and some citizen-grade heroism. There! You can leave the music though.
2. For capeshit my pick is Batman: Vampire Trilogy. Movie or cartoon - doesn't matter much. Movie can do better job with acting, while cartoon will be better with grotesque visuals. No Snyder though, it should be a actual director who knows how to show protagonist's deterioration, like Darren Aronofsky or David Fincher.
3. For chinese porn coloring books my pick is, eh, fuck it, 14-sai, just because this shit is absolutely bonkers and no one is ever going to make an anime out of it. I mean, where else Earth gets absolutely demolished by a series of events that make Egyptian plagues look like a bad day at grocery store and then american president says "fuck it, I'm legalizing weed"? Can't say I liked it much, but I just couldn't stop reading it, because I wanted to know how insane it's going to be next.
4. Martian chronicles. I know it's not even close to strong science fiction, but I can't help myself, I love it.
5. Roadside picnic. No, "Stalker"(not the cheeky-breeky one) does 0 justice to the book and even authors hated it. All the mystery, all the feeling of visiting another world while not leaving ours and the story of a man who suffered so much that he doesn't know what to wish for turned into pretentious slog. Some time ago they made a pilot for a series, but the protagonist was black and janitor... I am so happy it didn't go anywhere.
6. The First Law. Well, absolute failure of the last GoT season made sure that it's not gonna get raped for some time, but then Shitflix manipulated the numbers of The Witcher enough and later Amazon's Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time will arrive, so... I am not even going to hope for it to end up in good hands.
 
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