Bad Book to Film Adaptations - or I expected nothing and I’m still let down

[Tranhuviya]

The Dark Tower. While I'm not of the opinion that Matthew McConaughey did an awful job as Randall, his performance is probably one of the best things about it for me. It's...not terrible, in my opinion. However, it's clearly trying to compress an entire series of books into an hour and 35 minutes.

 

[Red Hood]

Jodorowsky's Dune would have been a worse adaptation than Lynch's. Just getting that out of the way.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

The Dark Tower. While I'm not of the opinion that Matthew McConaughey did an awful job as Randall, his performance is probably one of the best things about it for me. It's...not terrible, in my opinion. However, it's clearly trying to compress an entire series of books into an hour and 35 minutes.

The Dark Tower is easily the biggest letdown on a Book-turned-movie IMO. There are plenty shit adaptations of others, but holy fuck... this was an absolute train wreck from beginning to end and only was so because of the adaptation itself. McConaughey and Elba are two solid, seasoned and talented actors. For there to be that much potential and it STILL sucked that bad...

 

[Tanti-Fanti]

The Diary of a Wimpy kid series. I know it's a bit spergy, but I used to be a big fan of the books when I was a kid so when I was in middle school I was excited to see the movie. Long story short it was probably the worst adaptation of a kid's movie book I've seen in theaters. They got EVERYTHING wrong. The main point being that the main character is a complete asshole but the entire point of the book is that we see Greg get his ass handed to him for being an asshole but we also see their thoughts leading to their stupid decisions so it makes some sense.

Of course as a movie you're limited to what you can do. You can't tell too much or else you'll bore the audience. So there was no way they were going to get a good script out of it.

 

[oldTireWater]

I know I'm going to get flak for this, but Fight Club is not a good adaptation from a narrative perspective. The way the film handles having a unreliable narrator ultimately tears the plot apart at its seams.

Maybe, but the truth is I don't even remember the book because the movie was so good. This is what Chuck Palahniuk said in an interview:

Now that I see the movie, especially when I sat down with Jim Uhls and record a commentary track for the DVD, I was sort of embarrassed of the book, because the movie had streamlined the plot and made it so much more effective and made connections that I had never thought to make. There is a line about "fathers setting up franchises with other families," and I never thought about connecting that with the fact that Fight Club was being franchised and the movie made that connection. I was just beating myself in the head for not having made that connection myself.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Book-to-film weeb edition: Never read the books, so I liked Tales from Earthsea until the last third when it just falls apart, but there's a reason it took Goro Miyazaki until Poppy Hill like six years-or-so later to regain his father's trust in directing a movie. Ursula K. Le Guin wasn't a fan of it from what I can tell, but I think she was more disappointed than upset. Diana Wynne Jones didn't like Howl's Moving Castle, either, but that movie's been a fan favorite for years.

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

Queen of the Damned. It was such a disappointment after Interview With The Vampire. It wasn't even Anne's best Vampire Chronicles book. The movie was a mess, the "love interest" was dull and Stuart Townsend was a horrible choice for Lestat. Especially since he refused to go along with the role and look the part. Tom Cruise was a better fit even though he was short. It also bugged me that they kept Lestat's maker alive when it was known that the character committed suicide.

The 2009 version of The Picture Of Dorian Gray was awful and the only reason people liked it is because of Colin Firth. Speaking of Colin Firth- I know Americans get a boner over Colin Firth because he's attractive and British, but he was a bad choice as Lord Henry. He doesn't look the part and he's too innocent looking to be a person who corrupts others.
People didn't like the 40's version of Dorian Gray but you know what? The actor who played Lord Henry was at least right for the part.
George Sanders had the voice and the look for it.

Colin's Lord Henry:

He looks like a man in a Victorian outfit. That's all. Just because he's serious sometimes doesn't mean he played the corruptible role right. He was boring.
Fuck off with the Colin Firth bullshit, he wasn't good.

 

[Bob Page]

Jodorowsky's Dune would have been a worse adaptation than Lynch's. Just getting that out of the way.

Yeah. While bad, Lynch's Dune at least tried to stay true to the book. One of the problems with that move from my perspective is that the book was BIG and compressing all that to a two to three hour film will make it fall flat. With the new one coming out, it should be a multi-parter.

 

[SelmaHendersen]

I'm gonna have to second 'Queen of the Damned'. MTV Films parent company was running out of time with the book's license, so they made...that; poor Aaliyah. I will also second David Lynch's 'Dune', but I don't think I can blame them for not being able to translate 'Dune' into a film. The 'Dune' miniseries is far superior to the film. 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' is an absolutely abysmal adaptation of Alan Moore's comic book.

 

[Kunta Kinte]

With the new one coming out, it should be a multi-parter.

*Ring-ring* The year 2000 just called.
It wants its shitty TV adaptation of Dune back.

 

[Slap47]

I've only been burned by a film once in my life. That first Hobbit movie was disappointing as hell... some good scenes but I went into expecting a masterpiece.

Apparently the next two are worse and even rushed garbage.

What was the film from last year that had Oprah Winfrey in it? That was a fucking stinker because they couldn't be arsed to even adapt it correctly.

But isn't the book absolute dogshit?

 

[Bob Page]

*Ring-ring* The year 2000 just called.
It wants its shitty TV adaptation of Dune back.

That adaptation was ass. It got the multi-part factor down but the overall design, script, and casting were abominable.

 

[Y2K Baby]

But isn't the book absolute dogshit?

A woman wrote it.

 

[Ruin]

The Dark Tower. While I'm not of the opinion that Matthew McConaughey did an awful job as Randall, his performance is probably one of the best things about it for me. It's...not terrible, in my opinion. However, it's clearly trying to compress an entire series of books into an hour and 35 minutes.

The biggest problem with the Dark Tower movie is that they wanted to make it PG 13 in order to grub the maximum amount of shekels and 99% of the series would be extreme for an R rated film. It's like demon rape and bloody massacres the books.

 

[Kunta Kinte]

...but the overall design, script, and casting were abominable.

They were, indeed.


The mighty Sardaukar!


The mighty sandworm!

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

ISN'T Lord of the Rings

It's especially not the Hobbit either, since Bilbo shouts that he's having an adventure more often than he does actually have one.

It's sad that I can point to this ancient adaptation as a superior attempt. Peter Jackson's adaptation was a tryhard version of Lord of the Rings & that defeats the whole "biting off more than you can chew" aspect of the Hobbit. Every moment of those three movies revolves around building up the Lord of the Rings like it's an upcoming event that hasn't happened yet when the Hobbit should be treated as an isolated event. Peter did know that the origin of the One Ring was an afterthought to the Hobbit, right?

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

I'm gonna have to second 'Queen of the Damned'. MTV Films parent company was running out of time with the book's license, so they made...that; poor Aaliyah. I will also second David Lynch's 'Dune', but I don't think I can blame them for not being able to translate 'Dune' into a film. The 'Dune' miniseries is far superior to the film. 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' is an absolutely abysmal adaptation of Alan Moore's comic book.

That's the only reason QOTD is remembered. Because Aaliyah died during filming. Otherwise the film is forgettable.

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

I've only been burned by a film once in my life. That first Hobbit movie was disappointing as hell... some good scenes but I went into expecting a masterpiece.

Apparently the next two are worse and even rushed garbage.

The last one in particular isn't even a Tolkien film. It shits all over the source material and then uses the Simarillion to wipe. The orcs come riding in on Mongolian Death Worms with a giant army of trolls and monsters. The dwarves have machine-gun crossbows mounted on war chariots and fire giant spinning bolas from their ballistae to block an elven archery line. Lake Town is turned from a normal village full of realistic people into a cartoon that's literally on the lake and is ruled by an R-rated version of fucking Burgomaster Meisterburger (who, in a deleted scene, dies in drag when a troll sits on him). Bard and the Black Arrow go from a story of an ordinary man slaying a dragon through both luck and skill to a guy using a goddamn ballista to fire a giant dwarven anti-dragon arrow.
It's trash.

But isn't the book absolute dogshit?

I liked it as a kid. I feel it has a bit of a niche audience but is decent.

 

[Bob Page]

The mighty sandworm!

Carlo Rambaldi made an amazing sandworm design for the Lynch adaptation

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

The Dark Tower. While I'm not of the opinion that Matthew McConaughey did an awful job as Randall, his performance is probably one of the best things about it for me. It's...not terrible, in my opinion. However, it's clearly trying to compress an entire series of books into an hour and 35 minutes.

Never read the books but that movie gave me the impression that the books were crap.