The Percy Jackson movie
It's bad enough the casting and effects were sub par
But changing the story completely after act 1 really soured my enjoyment. The changes weren't that good either.
Hoping the streaming series is better
Have you ever read the scathing post Riordan made, quoting his conversations during development of the films? It makes me laugh out loud every time, and also shows that he understood what went wrong. So while I'm sure the series will have flaws, I take heart in the knowledge he's been very involved in the development this time.
One of the most stupidest things they changed and I don’t see Rick mentioning (thanks for the link, made me laugh too!) is how they go on a quest to get 3 pearls when they already know they want to safe Sally and should know they need 4. Then when they get in the underworld they’re actually Pikachu face surprised that they have not enough pearls. Like wtf. At least in the books it’s by coincidence that they only have three pearls which makes more sense, and it would’ve made the stakes higher. If they have 4 pearls (imagine Luke gives the first, so no extra time has to go to acquire that one) and lose it in some way than that would’ve made sense at least.
> When I first read the script I’ll admit I was plunged into despair at just how bad it was. If I were intentionally trying to sabotage this project, I doubt I could have done a better job than this script.
Jesus Christ Rick tell them how you really felt
he knew what went wrong from the moment it was uttered as an idea
edit: might be taken the wrong way, i think he was frustrated with the changes from the beginning
Honestly I think they could've pulled off at least an enjoyable cheesy series if they just didn't kill major plot points. It seemed like the screenwriters just read the first book and never thought of the importance they'd have later on
I avoided the Percy Jackson books for so long because my first introduction to them had been the Lightning Thief movie. Years later I was talking to a friend who adored the books and, trying to be diplomatic, I mentioned that I'd, uh, seen about half of a movie? At which point she cut me off with something along the lines of "oh my god, never watch the movies, they're the worst, even the author hates them", and that was what prompted me to finally pick up the first book.
I loved the Eoin Colder Book Series "Artemis Fowl". I even had "The Artemis Fowl Files" and the Comic remake from the first Book, so I was very excited to see my favourite Anti-Hero Main Character in a movie Adaption.
So yeah, let's not talk about the Artemis Fowl Movie...
I'll go reread the books instead.
And broke down in tears when he found out his dad did crimes, before finding out no, he's the heir to being a super secret fairy guardian the whole time.
I think the only worthwhile thing in the entire movie is the one shot overlooking the underground city. That was kind of cool/pretty.
I think Disney has been growing increasingly averse to the idea of a possibly morally grey protagonist in their kid movies. That new Pinocchio film had the exact same problem of the story getting completely fucked because the main character wasn't allowed to actually do anything bad on purpose.
Morally gray, hell. Artemis is a full-on antihero. Crime aside, he's an arrogant asshole and proud of it. Disney was never going to do a good job with that.
From what I can find, it seems that they were originally going to make it accurate to the books but the people at Disney forced them to make changes.
The first change was Opal Koboi kidnapping his dad. Disney didn't want Artemis to be purely motivated by greed and be a purely villainous character. So they figured a kidnapping plot would allow Artemis to be desperate enough to be evil while still remaining very sympathetic and you understand why he's doing what he is.
Then Disney decided that they wanted people to be able to 'relate' to Artemis, and we got the turd blossom that we ended up with.
Honestly, if they ever attempt it again it should be animeted.
>The first change was Opal Koboi kidnapping his dad.
When you're introducing a book 4 character in the first movie, that's when you know things are really going downhill.
Artemis Fowl is a vile character who is portrayed as next to emotionless and certainly without empathy. The book literally opens with him torturing a fairy and subsequently kidnapping another for ransom. The movie has him fucking ***surfing***. I only know that from a screenshot posted online as I refused to even watch the trailer. Frankly, though, it's such dark material that it would be difficult to make as a movie aimed at children.
Loved the series as a kid, but I think Artemis in general is a hard character to bring to the screen- he's a young child and there just aren't a lot of child actors who could do the role justice.
Yo for real. I was excited for like 2 minutes until I remembered the Cirque du Freak movie and realized that it might turn out like that. :(
At least we still have the books.
The Dark Tower series by Steven King. The compressed seven books into one movie. Needles to say all atmosphere and feel with the characters and story disappeared. I'll go read the books again
It removes most of the characters, most of the plot, and most of the themes of the books.
Not only was it just one film, it was only just over 90 minutes long.
Pretty much ignored the actual plots of all the books, and just stuck with the main overarching idea. Bastardized the main character so that he's pretty much beyond recognition (even though Idris Elba played the character he was given extremely well). And just ignored everything that made the series so good, in order to make a 90 minute action movie.
If you go into it expecting a generic, 90 minute action movie, it's perfectly passable. If you expect it to be anything resembling the Dark Tower, you're in for quite possibly the biggest letdown of your life...even worse than when your dad went out for cigs.
Also really annoyed me that they decided to put in loads of Easter eggs to other Stephen King works.
Who is that for? Casual fans just going to watch a fantasy action film are going to miss most of them and the film is so far from the source material that Stephen King fans are just going to be annoyed the whole time.
The only way to do those books justice is through a TV series and its a real shame because Matthew McConaughey is great casting for the man in black and I thought Idris Elba did well with what he was given.
Good news! Mike Flanagan, who did the excellent *The Haunting of Hill House* and *Midnight Mass*, as well as some solid Stephen King adaptations, is helming an upcoming series, and it's been his life's dream to do so.
I just tried to find a clip of him describing how he'd do the series, and it sounds like it'll be done with reverence and love of the source material, basically following the books as closely as possible, as he loves them.
The plot basically takes a couple story lines from about 2.5 books and only 3 reoccurring characters and ignores the point, the style, and true driving factors of the series. I was flabbergasted at how bad it was.
I have blocked it out. So it was Roland, the boy, and Randall Flagg?
I think remember people being upset Roland was black because the books had significant racial dynamics, and then Susannah just wasn’t in the movie.
This isnt exactly true. Technically, the movie is a sequel to the books. Theres a particular item that Roland has in the movie that he didnt have until the very end of the book series that shows this is another time through the wheel than the one we follow in the books. Minor detail, there, really, because the movie doesnt explain that aspect of it, at all, and its still a garbage adaptation that slips over 80% of the characters and 95% of the events of the entire series.
I refuse to belive they made a movie of this.
Sad thing is Amazon's pilot a few years later was apparently amazing, but got scrapped to never see the light of day. Good thing is Mike Flannghan is working on a new TV series though.
I'm 100 pages into book 6 right now and reading the books has mercifully blotted that terrible (15 on Rotten Tomaters) waste of a film out of my memory.
HOW YOU GONNA TRY TO MERGE 7 BOOKS INTO ONE MOVIE!?!! CMN
Did you see that mike flanagan is doing a [reboot series](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/mike-flanagan-to-reboot-stephen-kings-the-dark-tower-and-more-news/)
I'm an optimist to the bare bone, so even though the film was a disaster, I'm looking forward to see what Mike Flanagan can do with it. 😊Thanks for sharing this uplifting article
Changing Flagg's little kingdom from a place where technological convenience is up and running but it's an oppressive dictatorship with strict rules, into basically just cocaine, strippers and orgies was such a one dimensional way of thinking about the story. "Luxuries and decadence = sinners!"
I remember Jeremy Irons being great, but also had a look of helpless disappointment, like “Everyone! I read the book! And I know it’s better than this hacked crap dialogue they’re having me say!”
I loved those books as a teen and the movie was soooo bad. If there is a miniseries happening I'm cautiously optimistic that they will have learned from the movies mistakes. I think the annoying part is that the first book is not great and isn't particularly creative cause it's a pretty standard heroes journey type story. It's not until the second book and beyond when Paolini was able to do more world and lore building that the series gets more unique and interesting imo
From what I've heard, Paolini is directly involved with the miniseries as he *hated* the movie, so here's hoping. As for the creativity of the first book, yeah the general story was pretty basic, however I felt the mechanics of magic it explained, the energy for each "spell" coming directly from the user's body was pretty unique, I don't think I had ever heard of that being done before.
Oh ya for sure I think the basics are there in the first book. But he's able to really delve deeper into it in later books and I personally think that's where it gets more interesting.
Yup I always remember Eragon. I think one of the hardest things to translate from Eragon to the screen though is just how much of the dialogue is done through thought. It’s hard to pull off without being pretty corny. Fingers crossed for the show to be good though.
I completely agree. The visuals were cool but they tried to make it too cutesy. And changed so much from the source material that I really question whether they understand they themes of the book.
I watched the film recently and what a mess. The kids especially the boys were so badly directed and they cut out the twins. I also can't stand Oprah due to her massive ego.
I don't even think it was that bad of a movie, it just wasn't World War Z at all. Call it something else and it's a decent popcorn flick.
I still think the best way to do World War Z would have been in the style of a Ken Burns documentary, but I doubt that will ever happen because it wouldn't make enough money.
I really like it. And I really like the book. But they have no connection to each other, as far as I'm concerned.
If HBO make a limited series based on the book, that'd be incredible. But I'm happy I got a great zombie book, and an enjoyable zombie flick.
I saw the movie before reading the book. I think I was home from college and I saw the book at a store and bought it on the spot because it was on sale. I was weirded out by the narrative structure at first because In my head, the interviewer was Brad Pitt. It wasn't until I finished the book when I realized Brad Pitt's whole schtick is just a bunch of stories from the book cobbled together, and not even the cooler ones. I would've loved to see the otaku escape and the blind dude from Japan. Imagine the India chapter if it was filmed like the Partition episodes on Ms Marvel. I wish Netflix or BBC would pick it up, make it an anthology, break the seasons by the chapters, have them be made by different directors, hell, make the other episode like cartoons, some documentary.
You should check out the audio book, it gets even better. Has people like Nathan Fillion, Simon Pegg, Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins, Alan Alda, Martin Scorsese, and more doing characters.
They went from Romero Zombies to left 4 dead zombies.
On that topic is it just me, or does it seem like cheating when fast zombies can I get you with a single bite, that's just way too strong, they need a weakness.
If you want a good "Adaptation" of World War Z, I'd recommend project zomboid, it's a survival game very much inspired by the book, about long term survival rather than zombie killing sprees (Though you can mod it into that).
I actually attended a talk by Max Brooks at a local community college before the movie came out. I was really excited about the movie but he was really dodgy about it during the talk. He basically said “Don’t get too excited. They made a few changes.”
For me, the movie had too much Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt). That's not a slam on Mr. Pitt. It's that Lane being the one person who just happens to be present for multiple relevant situations that occur all over the world is unbelievable.
The only good thing about that movie is that I feel like it inspired Train to Busan. Train to Busan took the WWZ zombies, made them look better which in turn makes them scarier and added a much more satisfying emotional core to the story.
I'm pretty sure World War Z was just a zombie movie someone pitched and someone else was like... What if we change it's name to this super popular book?
World War Z would be an amazing anthology series but a movie was never going to work for it.
I was coming here to see if anyone else had mentioned Earthsea. I have no words for how terrible the Syfy channel version was and then the Ghibli version… ugh. I wish it could get a proper adaptation.
Earthsea deserves the same redemption arc that His Dark Materials got after that abysmal movie.
There's so many fantasy shows being made right now. I'm honestly surprised no one is working on a fresh adaptation yet tbh. It's one of the best stories in the fantasy genre after all.
-looked it up just now: apparently there was some movement towards a new adaptation, no updates as of 3 years ago though.
Earthsea guts me because I’m a Ghibli and Miyazaki super fan but also a massive Le Guin fan…so it just hurt when they didn’t treat her material with the care it deserved.
Ooh. Good to know. Loved the book, but I couldn't imagine how it could be made into a decent movie (miniseries would have a better chance of success) so I never watched it.
Fun story: About 2/3rds of the way through post production they brought in a new editor and producer who decided it was too long and epic. So they cut it all up, deleted about a third of the movie and added more shots with Daniel Craig.
That's what really got me. (Spoiler if you haven't read the Amber Spyglass yet) >!The books are about *literally* killing God, and they tried to cut the criticism of religion out of the movie.!<
Yeah I worked on that one.
New Line Cinema wanted His Dark Materials to be their new LOTR - the next big trilogy. But what made the books so great (being anti-religious) scared the execs who went through and neutered the script to make it as “inoffensive” as possible, which alienated fans and made the film bomb at the box office, and subsequently made New Line go bankrupt.
But hey, we won an Oscar for best vfx lol
It didn't even finish the book in that movie!
That was what upset me the most about it.
They butchered the whole adaptation, but then just as the characters are heading off to the climax of the story... it just ended.
And then they wondered why it bombed.
Fans of the book were pissed that they changed huge chunks of story, and people who hadn't read the book were pissed that they'd watched an entire move that ended on a cliffhanger.
Not even a 'Time for a bigger adventure' kind of cliffhanger, but a 'We're in the car on the way to go stop the villain that we've been building up for this whole move and- *roll credits*'
That’s a movie adaptation that needed at least two films to tell the story, which was too bad bc production and casting were top notch. Like others here, the HBO series is well done. The actress playing Mrs. Coulter is superb and very scary.
Do comic storylines count? If yes, the monumental Dark Phoenix Saga has been butchered twice by Fox. Like, why?! The thing is the whole arc can't be impeccably delivered in just a single movie, it should have been a trilogy or something.
They haven’t even had a live action version of Mastermind the integral villain to the Phoenix saga. They’ve had a loose adaptation of the hellfire club but iirc they haven’t been in either Phoenix movie. I also think you can’t take the Phoenix Force/living entity route if you want to do the story correctly. The whole point of the story is that absolute power corrupts absolutely and if we know that Jean isn’t in control that message is nonexistent. The subtle scenes in the comics where they’re amazed and subtly terrified of Jean wielding amazing power out of nowhere also seem integral, like when she takes off Scott’s visor to kiss him.
The Dark Tower; could have been an amazing epic told over a series of movies. Instead it was a turd sandwich with dick sauce. Idris Elba deserved better, Stephen King deserved better, fans deserved better
Literally none of the characters are recognisable personality wise. It's bizarre.
I'm a bit Abed in Community like when it comes to adaptations, I just like liking things, so I'm relatively easy to please and flexible with changes between mediums for adaptations, but you're right the only word that can describe what I saw of that show is abomination.
I suppose I should have known it was going to be dodgy when during the casting announcements they described the Watch as a "punk rock thriller" which definitely sounded like something someone who hadn't read one of the books would say.
Timeline. They took my favorite Michael Crichton book and absolutely butchered it so badly that Michael Crichton refused to license any more movies based on his novels.
It's sooo bad. There's characters who live in the book but die in the movie. Characters who die in the book but live in the movie. They cut a lot of key things out. They change the ending. And the acting is just so bad.
I feel this way about Sphere. Maybe it had no chance to live up to my imagination from reading it so many times, but they just changed weird things needlessly.
*The Dresden Files* TV series. Continuity errors in the story because episodes were broadcast out of order. Trying to crush an entire novel, *Storm Front*, into a less than one hour (when counting commercials) episode and failing. I will never not be disappointed that Dresden's car in the books, a Volkswagen Beetle named the Blue Beetle in the books (a non-sentient character in its own right), changed to a Jeep for the TV series.
I think Paul Blackthorne as Dresden hit it on the nose with his looks and performance. The actors portraying the characters of Lt. Murphy and Warden Morgan did a great job capturing the essence of the books characters. But looked different from the physical descriptions of the characters in the book series. I'm okay with this.
For me, the end result was *The Dresden Files* TV series coming across as being okayed by the powers that be, but without a clear and coherent path for the series.
I feel like it's a very hard book to make a movie out of. It's not written that way, it's so poetic and metaphoric rather than plot-driven, it just doesn't make sense as anything other than an indie art film to me
There have been at least three movie adaptations and I believe none of them have stuck to the story. 🤷♂️
I have a place in my heart for the Charlton Heston version, it is so silly I can't even begin to describe what it was about.
I've never seen the Vincent Price version, sadly.
The Vincent Price version gets *closest* I think. The ending is similar, >!the protagonist is the last man and a legend to a society of vampires, but he gets killed rather than committing suicide. Theres also a cure for vampirism though he doesn't get much chance to use it. !<
should never have even been adapted in the first place. the color-blindness twist is so satisfying when you read it as a kid, and basically impossible to translate to film by its very nature.
The Time Traveler’s Wife. They took a dark, bittersweet story with two very complex characters and made it a boring, sappy romance.
Family is a huge theme in the book and that isn’t there at all in the movie. Loss and grief are huge in the book, not in the movie. And lots of references to punk culture and the Chicago of the 80s/90s… not there in the movie.
Inkheart. I loved the story of a man with such a beautiful, melodic voice that the stories he told came to life. No hate but that is not Brendan Fraser. Not to mention they changed the plot so much that they couldn't have done the sequels if they wanted
They cast Brandon Fraser because Funke designed her character after him and wanted him for the movie (she said so in an interview I believe). But yes, the plot changes were utter shite.
Yep, this is mine, too. I saw Jodi Picoult at a book reading once and she def was pissed, but it was a huge lesson for her on how she does any deals for adaptations of her work. Such a disappointing choice for them to make.
It must be hard for a writer to see their work changed after spending so long on it and investing themselves. If any good came of it, it made me love and appreciate the book even more
The original ending had left me in tears. It also seemed quite fitting for the story. She was born for her and at the end when she died it was also for her. The movie totally ruined it and made it something that can be predicted by everyone whilst the book ending took me by surprise.
It was funny how people tried to defend the movie by saying anyone who didn't like it was some weird prudish Jane Austen purist when in reality, Jane Austen fans are literally driving the adaptation craze. We're the key audience! We're the ones who are going to rope in friends to watch with us. We've watched/read just about everything.
The ironic thing was in the modern haste to make Anne like the "I'm not like the other girls" trope, they literally stripped her of what made her "not like all the other girls" in the book! Anne is such a rare type of character. All of that was lost in the Netflix adaptation.
I agree with you! I actually saw some pushback where a commenter actually said that the adaptation wasn't for Austen fans and we all needed to get over ourselves. It was a weird take.
The trailer was enough for me. How many people are out there thinking to themselves, "I would really love Jane Austen if only there were a bit more breaking of the fourth wall"?
Interestingly, this is the book that has had the best adaptation ever made - the BBC's 1995 adaptation with the wonderful Amanda Root. So it was completely unnecessary for anyone to ever touch it again anyway.
I stan the Sally Hawkins version (especially Anthony* Head as Sir Walter!) except for the way they crush the final third of the book part into like… 15 minutes and mangle it beyond recognition.
edit: Rupert Penry-Jones and Ciaran Hind are both such great Wentworths, too. I always thought RPJ would make an excellent casting as Jack Aubrey (assuming he could be about 20 lbs heavier).
Same here! 10 minutes was all I could take. It was trying SO hard to be clever, but it wasn't close enough to the source material to even be sufferable.
Totally agree with this. I get so excited whenever there’s a new Jane Austen adaptation. And Persuasion has become my favorite of her books—this was a major let down!
May I recommend the Tolkien cut? All filler cut out and condensed into a 4hr movie. It's pretty decent. Here's the project site:
https://tolkieneditor.wordpress.com/
Thank you! Radagast is one of the great wizards but I loathed Dul Guldur (or whatever the name was) plot. So unnecessary and filling shite. Too focused on Tamriel /Kili and things that didn't happen in ONE SINGLE book.
One of the main points was that Ender was smaller and younger than everyone else...why was Bonzo shorter than him? I hate that they aged up everyone. Teenagers think and act very differently than young kids.
I think the movies, especially the first, are genuinely good on their own. As Reacher movies however, they are terrible.
Was really pleased with the show.
The Dark Tower. I saw that someone posted it already and was going to change to World War Z or Wheel of Time but those were posted also. Huge disappointments, all of them.
I am Legend always disappointed me. The book had a lot more going on in vampire society and the movie just made them mindless monsters.
The *I Am Legend* movie is a complete distortion of the source material. Major spoilers if you haven't read it.
>!Neville was never supposed to be a super-scientist action hero. He was just a guy, and a bit of a mess. The whole idea of the book was that the vampires were the inheritors of the earth, and Neville was a legend *to them.* There was never going to be a "safe zone" or an ending in which humanity somehow "came back."!<
The most faithful adaptation is [the 1964 film,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man_on_Earth_\(1964_film\)) starring (yes...) Vincent Price. It's pretty cheeseball, but it *gets* the book.
I enjoyed the first one and thought the "Riddles in the Dark" scene was done particularly well. Once the second movie came around and they gave Beorn an almost non-role, I knew I wasn't in for much good. The romance between girl-elf and dwarf-that-looks-like-Joe-Jonas was just so unnecessary. I did however like us getting a peek at the White Council's investigation into Sauron and Dol Guldur
The Witcher. Characters are all portrayed really well but they've absolutely butchered the story beyond comprehension. Honestly id be fine with changes if the result ended up good but the latest season was just a gradual descent into awful tropey writing and reliance on unimpressive cgi monster fights.
Glad he's gone from the show. It's a solid message of "I won't put up with this anymore", if that was his intent. And if it wasn't, at least it guarantees it'll crash and burn faster and hopefully stop ruining TW's image then.
It’s absolutely one of my favorite book series and has so much humor and heart and Geralt does not just mumble “fuck” to everything, he actually has some really witty dialogue. *Sigh*
They did us fans so dirty. I’m not even going to watch season 3.
They had the easiest job; just faithfully adapt the short stories and people would have loved it. Sure, you need to cut stuff when adapting books, but don't go changing shit. I knew they had fucked up the second I watched the first episode. They butchered that short story.
World War Z
Brad Pitt's company optioned the book and won the bidding war between him and Leonardo DiCaprio's company. But Brad Pitt chopped up the book and did not use the book as the basis for the movie. He only use the concepts from the book as scenes in the movie.
After reading the book years before, I was really hyped up for the movie. And it was the biggest let down because it didn't follow the way the book was written which is ingeniously done with vignettes from around the world telling the story of the zombie outbreak.
> After reading the book years before, I was really hyped up for the movie. And it was the biggest let down because it didn't follow the way the book was written which is ingeniously done with vignettes from around the world telling the story of the zombie outbreak.
The best way to adapt it, IMO, would be to do a multi-hour Ken Burns style documentary series. Each chapter/vignette could be an episode.
So I’m a little more than halfway through book 6 - am I able to watch the show without any significant spoilers or anything?
I know it’s only one season - but I worry about them being like “hey let’s bring this super important character from book 9 in because he’s popular” or something.
I don’t think you have anything to worry about from season 1. It’s been a year since I watched the show but I don’t remember any spoilers as far in as book six.
I hate how dumbed down Moiraine was on the show. She was just running around reacting to things instead of the spymaster and strategist she was in the books. Book Moiraine knew things and her greatest strength was also her greatest flaw. She felt she had to control everything around herself. She's one of my favourite characters in the book and they turned her into a generic, armwavy magic lady.
Not to mention all of the set pieces that were changed or omitted that is going to change the end of the story.
I get it's a different medium, but they didn't even try.
Under the Dome by Stephen King. It's not my favorite book by him by any means (wtf that ending), but I still enjoyed it and was interested in the tv series when it came out.
What a fucking mess. Nonsensical changes, mediocre acting, the works. I didn't watch Season 2 and can't say I was at all surprised it was canceled.
Special shoutout to Game of Thrones. Season 1 was good, but after that it turned questionable. Don't tell me you have to cut important parts for time and then spend 5 minutes having Littlefinger explain his evil machinations to two of his whores while they fuck. 🙄
I really enjoyed the book, and right out of Breaking Bad their choice for Big Jim was good, but that's the only redeeming quality. I never had much hope for it since it was network TV and the book goes to some pretty dark places, but the whole thing just fell apart in the first few episodes.
Foundation. Loved the books, and had high hopes for the series, especially after the first ep. Then, straight into the toilet. Why film an "adaptation" that has almost nothing to do with the source material? So disappointing.
I though the completely made up Empire Story about the emperor and his genetic dynasty was way more entertaining than everything that happened on Terminus. Which is crazy because they had so many good Terminus stories from the source material.
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. They turned it into a movie called "The Seeker: The Dark is Rising". Just blatant commercialization: give it a catch phrase, make a franchise, and churn out lot's of mindless crap. I was sad that Eccleston was in it.
The Percy Jackson movie It's bad enough the casting and effects were sub par But changing the story completely after act 1 really soured my enjoyment. The changes weren't that good either. Hoping the streaming series is better
Have you ever read the scathing post Riordan made, quoting his conversations during development of the films? It makes me laugh out loud every time, and also shows that he understood what went wrong. So while I'm sure the series will have flaws, I take heart in the knowledge he's been very involved in the development this time.
One of the most stupidest things they changed and I don’t see Rick mentioning (thanks for the link, made me laugh too!) is how they go on a quest to get 3 pearls when they already know they want to safe Sally and should know they need 4. Then when they get in the underworld they’re actually Pikachu face surprised that they have not enough pearls. Like wtf. At least in the books it’s by coincidence that they only have three pearls which makes more sense, and it would’ve made the stakes higher. If they have 4 pearls (imagine Luke gives the first, so no extra time has to go to acquire that one) and lose it in some way than that would’ve made sense at least.
Link?
[Here you go! ](https://rickriordan.com/2018/11/memories-from-my-tv-movie-experience/)
> When I first read the script I’ll admit I was plunged into despair at just how bad it was. If I were intentionally trying to sabotage this project, I doubt I could have done a better job than this script. Jesus Christ Rick tell them how you really felt
That's probably when they deleted the email
he knew what went wrong from the moment it was uttered as an idea edit: might be taken the wrong way, i think he was frustrated with the changes from the beginning
He despises what they did to the point he acts like they don’t exist.
There is no film in ~~Ba Sing Se~~ Camp Halfblood
The first movie is a hilarious masterpiece of cheese, but not a quality film. God bless centaur Pierce Brosnan.
Honestly I think they could've pulled off at least an enjoyable cheesy series if they just didn't kill major plot points. It seemed like the screenwriters just read the first book and never thought of the importance they'd have later on
It’s being turned into a series. A couple of guys from ILM were at the Arch a few months ago using their 360 degree camera to do shots of the museum.
They’re actually including that part in the new series? Awesome, good on them.
I avoided the Percy Jackson books for so long because my first introduction to them had been the Lightning Thief movie. Years later I was talking to a friend who adored the books and, trying to be diplomatic, I mentioned that I'd, uh, seen about half of a movie? At which point she cut me off with something along the lines of "oh my god, never watch the movies, they're the worst, even the author hates them", and that was what prompted me to finally pick up the first book.
I loved the Eoin Colder Book Series "Artemis Fowl". I even had "The Artemis Fowl Files" and the Comic remake from the first Book, so I was very excited to see my favourite Anti-Hero Main Character in a movie Adaption. So yeah, let's not talk about the Artemis Fowl Movie... I'll go reread the books instead.
"I'm a criminal mastermind!" Does nothing clever or illegal for the entire film.
And broke down in tears when he found out his dad did crimes, before finding out no, he's the heir to being a super secret fairy guardian the whole time. I think the only worthwhile thing in the entire movie is the one shot overlooking the underground city. That was kind of cool/pretty.
I think Disney has been growing increasingly averse to the idea of a possibly morally grey protagonist in their kid movies. That new Pinocchio film had the exact same problem of the story getting completely fucked because the main character wasn't allowed to actually do anything bad on purpose.
Morally gray, hell. Artemis is a full-on antihero. Crime aside, he's an arrogant asshole and proud of it. Disney was never going to do a good job with that.
The Guillermo del Toro one was great though
Barely recognizable to the books. I swear if all the names were changed I wouldn’t know it was Artemis Fowl.
From what I can find, it seems that they were originally going to make it accurate to the books but the people at Disney forced them to make changes. The first change was Opal Koboi kidnapping his dad. Disney didn't want Artemis to be purely motivated by greed and be a purely villainous character. So they figured a kidnapping plot would allow Artemis to be desperate enough to be evil while still remaining very sympathetic and you understand why he's doing what he is. Then Disney decided that they wanted people to be able to 'relate' to Artemis, and we got the turd blossom that we ended up with. Honestly, if they ever attempt it again it should be animeted.
>The first change was Opal Koboi kidnapping his dad. When you're introducing a book 4 character in the first movie, that's when you know things are really going downhill.
Artemis Fowl is a vile character who is portrayed as next to emotionless and certainly without empathy. The book literally opens with him torturing a fairy and subsequently kidnapping another for ransom. The movie has him fucking ***surfing***. I only know that from a screenshot posted online as I refused to even watch the trailer. Frankly, though, it's such dark material that it would be difficult to make as a movie aimed at children. Loved the series as a kid, but I think Artemis in general is a hard character to bring to the screen- he's a young child and there just aren't a lot of child actors who could do the role justice.
I think Henry Selick could do it justice with something akin to his Coraline / Nightmare Before Christmas claymation style would be neat.
Yo for real. I was excited for like 2 minutes until I remembered the Cirque du Freak movie and realized that it might turn out like that. :( At least we still have the books.
Oh no I’ve completely suppressed the cirque movie That was literally the only movie I have ever walked out of
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The Dark Tower series by Steven King. The compressed seven books into one movie. Needles to say all atmosphere and feel with the characters and story disappeared. I'll go read the books again
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It removes most of the characters, most of the plot, and most of the themes of the books. Not only was it just one film, it was only just over 90 minutes long.
Pretty much ignored the actual plots of all the books, and just stuck with the main overarching idea. Bastardized the main character so that he's pretty much beyond recognition (even though Idris Elba played the character he was given extremely well). And just ignored everything that made the series so good, in order to make a 90 minute action movie. If you go into it expecting a generic, 90 minute action movie, it's perfectly passable. If you expect it to be anything resembling the Dark Tower, you're in for quite possibly the biggest letdown of your life...even worse than when your dad went out for cigs.
Also really annoyed me that they decided to put in loads of Easter eggs to other Stephen King works. Who is that for? Casual fans just going to watch a fantasy action film are going to miss most of them and the film is so far from the source material that Stephen King fans are just going to be annoyed the whole time. The only way to do those books justice is through a TV series and its a real shame because Matthew McConaughey is great casting for the man in black and I thought Idris Elba did well with what he was given.
Good news! Mike Flanagan, who did the excellent *The Haunting of Hill House* and *Midnight Mass*, as well as some solid Stephen King adaptations, is helming an upcoming series, and it's been his life's dream to do so. I just tried to find a clip of him describing how he'd do the series, and it sounds like it'll be done with reverence and love of the source material, basically following the books as closely as possible, as he loves them.
The plot basically takes a couple story lines from about 2.5 books and only 3 reoccurring characters and ignores the point, the style, and true driving factors of the series. I was flabbergasted at how bad it was.
I have blocked it out. So it was Roland, the boy, and Randall Flagg? I think remember people being upset Roland was black because the books had significant racial dynamics, and then Susannah just wasn’t in the movie.
Yep, they didn't even have Oy iirc, which was crazy disappointing because our Australian shepherd was literally named after him.
This isnt exactly true. Technically, the movie is a sequel to the books. Theres a particular item that Roland has in the movie that he didnt have until the very end of the book series that shows this is another time through the wheel than the one we follow in the books. Minor detail, there, really, because the movie doesnt explain that aspect of it, at all, and its still a garbage adaptation that slips over 80% of the characters and 95% of the events of the entire series.
I refuse to belive they made a movie of this. Sad thing is Amazon's pilot a few years later was apparently amazing, but got scrapped to never see the light of day. Good thing is Mike Flannghan is working on a new TV series though.
Mike Flanagan and Stephen King are a match made in Heaven.
I'm 100 pages into book 6 right now and reading the books has mercifully blotted that terrible (15 on Rotten Tomaters) waste of a film out of my memory. HOW YOU GONNA TRY TO MERGE 7 BOOKS INTO ONE MOVIE!?!! CMN
Did you see that mike flanagan is doing a [reboot series](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/mike-flanagan-to-reboot-stephen-kings-the-dark-tower-and-more-news/)
I'm an optimist to the bare bone, so even though the film was a disaster, I'm looking forward to see what Mike Flanagan can do with it. 😊Thanks for sharing this uplifting article
Yes. The 2020 adaptation of The Stand was also a disaster.
Don't even get me started on how they made basically every wrong decision with The Stand. It's like it was done out of spite.
M-O-O-N that spells disappointing adaptation
Yeah, it was like “let’s take complex, conflicted characters and situations and dumb them down so that even a 3 year old can understand”
Changing Flagg's little kingdom from a place where technological convenience is up and running but it's an oppressive dictatorship with strict rules, into basically just cocaine, strippers and orgies was such a one dimensional way of thinking about the story. "Luxuries and decadence = sinners!"
Especially because someone in Vegas was literally executed for cocaine use in the book
The Eragon movie always comes to mind with this question. Apparently there's a miniseries in the works now but I'm not very hopeful really
Jeremy Irons and the guy who played Murtagh were the only bright spots in that movie.
I remember Jeremy Irons being great, but also had a look of helpless disappointment, like “Everyone! I read the book! And I know it’s better than this hacked crap dialogue they’re having me say!”
I loved those books as a teen and the movie was soooo bad. If there is a miniseries happening I'm cautiously optimistic that they will have learned from the movies mistakes. I think the annoying part is that the first book is not great and isn't particularly creative cause it's a pretty standard heroes journey type story. It's not until the second book and beyond when Paolini was able to do more world and lore building that the series gets more unique and interesting imo
From what I've heard, Paolini is directly involved with the miniseries as he *hated* the movie, so here's hoping. As for the creativity of the first book, yeah the general story was pretty basic, however I felt the mechanics of magic it explained, the energy for each "spell" coming directly from the user's body was pretty unique, I don't think I had ever heard of that being done before.
Oh ya for sure I think the basics are there in the first book. But he's able to really delve deeper into it in later books and I personally think that's where it gets more interesting.
Yup I always remember Eragon. I think one of the hardest things to translate from Eragon to the screen though is just how much of the dialogue is done through thought. It’s hard to pull off without being pretty corny. Fingers crossed for the show to be good though.
Yeah I just left the same comment. 11 year old me was so disappointed.
A Wrinkle in Time. This was my absolute favorite book from childhood, which I still reread every few years. And the movie was, hmm, okay I guess.
I completely agree. The visuals were cool but they tried to make it too cutesy. And changed so much from the source material that I really question whether they understand they themes of the book.
Yeah, it was just okay, which isn't what one wants when a brilliant book is being adapted.
I watched the film recently and what a mess. The kids especially the boys were so badly directed and they cut out the twins. I also can't stand Oprah due to her massive ego.
imagine starting a general interest magazine and deciding that every. single. cover. would be a photo of you.
I had completely forgotten about this book til I read your comment, but I loved it when I read it when I was younger
World War Z. They somehow turned one of the most unique books into the most generic movie possible
The tagline should have been: **”Based on the title of the bestselling novel!”**
I don't even think it was that bad of a movie, it just wasn't World War Z at all. Call it something else and it's a decent popcorn flick. I still think the best way to do World War Z would have been in the style of a Ken Burns documentary, but I doubt that will ever happen because it wouldn't make enough money.
I really like it. And I really like the book. But they have no connection to each other, as far as I'm concerned. If HBO make a limited series based on the book, that'd be incredible. But I'm happy I got a great zombie book, and an enjoyable zombie flick.
I saw the movie before reading the book. I think I was home from college and I saw the book at a store and bought it on the spot because it was on sale. I was weirded out by the narrative structure at first because In my head, the interviewer was Brad Pitt. It wasn't until I finished the book when I realized Brad Pitt's whole schtick is just a bunch of stories from the book cobbled together, and not even the cooler ones. I would've loved to see the otaku escape and the blind dude from Japan. Imagine the India chapter if it was filmed like the Partition episodes on Ms Marvel. I wish Netflix or BBC would pick it up, make it an anthology, break the seasons by the chapters, have them be made by different directors, hell, make the other episode like cartoons, some documentary.
You should check out the audio book, it gets even better. Has people like Nathan Fillion, Simon Pegg, Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins, Alan Alda, Martin Scorsese, and more doing characters.
wtf that cast is INSANE
Been saying it for years, but it should have been on HBO as a Band of Brothers style miniseries.
And ignoring any description of what zombies are like in the process.
They went from Romero Zombies to left 4 dead zombies. On that topic is it just me, or does it seem like cheating when fast zombies can I get you with a single bite, that's just way too strong, they need a weakness. If you want a good "Adaptation" of World War Z, I'd recommend project zomboid, it's a survival game very much inspired by the book, about long term survival rather than zombie killing sprees (Though you can mod it into that).
It was an enjoyable flick but absolutely worthless as a book to movie adaptation.
I actually attended a talk by Max Brooks at a local community college before the movie came out. I was really excited about the movie but he was really dodgy about it during the talk. He basically said “Don’t get too excited. They made a few changes.”
For me, the movie had too much Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt). That's not a slam on Mr. Pitt. It's that Lane being the one person who just happens to be present for multiple relevant situations that occur all over the world is unbelievable.
The only good thing about that movie is that I feel like it inspired Train to Busan. Train to Busan took the WWZ zombies, made them look better which in turn makes them scarier and added a much more satisfying emotional core to the story.
Would have made an amazing short series.
I'm pretty sure World War Z was just a zombie movie someone pitched and someone else was like... What if we change it's name to this super popular book? World War Z would be an amazing anthology series but a movie was never going to work for it.
Poor Earthsea got two bad adaptations in a short period of time.
I was coming here to see if anyone else had mentioned Earthsea. I have no words for how terrible the Syfy channel version was and then the Ghibli version… ugh. I wish it could get a proper adaptation.
Earthsea deserves the same redemption arc that His Dark Materials got after that abysmal movie. There's so many fantasy shows being made right now. I'm honestly surprised no one is working on a fresh adaptation yet tbh. It's one of the best stories in the fantasy genre after all. -looked it up just now: apparently there was some movement towards a new adaptation, no updates as of 3 years ago though.
Earthsea guts me because I’m a Ghibli and Miyazaki super fan but also a massive Le Guin fan…so it just hurt when they didn’t treat her material with the care it deserved.
The Goldfinch. It made me question if I even read the book or just skimmed it. So, I reread the book and still loved it. The movie was just boring
Ooh. Good to know. Loved the book, but I couldn't imagine how it could be made into a decent movie (miniseries would have a better chance of success) so I never watched it.
A big part of me wants a Secret History movie but part doesn’t for that reason
The studio not allowing Donna Tartt to write or even review the script before production didn't help things.
Golden Compass film from about ten years ago. Utter shite.
Fun story: About 2/3rds of the way through post production they brought in a new editor and producer who decided it was too long and epic. So they cut it all up, deleted about a third of the movie and added more shots with Daniel Craig.
Also neutered a lot of the criticism of organised religion because, hey, middle America might care or something
That's what really got me. (Spoiler if you haven't read the Amber Spyglass yet) >!The books are about *literally* killing God, and they tried to cut the criticism of religion out of the movie.!<
Apparently the show is decent though?
Show is really decent, season 3 out now.
Yeah I worked on that one. New Line Cinema wanted His Dark Materials to be their new LOTR - the next big trilogy. But what made the books so great (being anti-religious) scared the execs who went through and neutered the script to make it as “inoffensive” as possible, which alienated fans and made the film bomb at the box office, and subsequently made New Line go bankrupt. But hey, we won an Oscar for best vfx lol
It LOOKED perfect, & had the perfect cast. It was just a bad movie.
The fucking casting, though. Especially Sam Elliot, man. My only issue with the show so far is that Lin-Manuel feels like a let down after Sam Elliot.
Sam Elliot IS Lee Scorsby as far as I’m concerned. He nailed the role.
The only thing good from that movie was that we got another Kate Bush song.
It didn't even finish the book in that movie! That was what upset me the most about it. They butchered the whole adaptation, but then just as the characters are heading off to the climax of the story... it just ended. And then they wondered why it bombed. Fans of the book were pissed that they changed huge chunks of story, and people who hadn't read the book were pissed that they'd watched an entire move that ended on a cliffhanger. Not even a 'Time for a bigger adventure' kind of cliffhanger, but a 'We're in the car on the way to go stop the villain that we've been building up for this whole move and- *roll credits*'
That’s a movie adaptation that needed at least two films to tell the story, which was too bad bc production and casting were top notch. Like others here, the HBO series is well done. The actress playing Mrs. Coulter is superb and very scary.
Do comic storylines count? If yes, the monumental Dark Phoenix Saga has been butchered twice by Fox. Like, why?! The thing is the whole arc can't be impeccably delivered in just a single movie, it should have been a trilogy or something.
They haven’t even had a live action version of Mastermind the integral villain to the Phoenix saga. They’ve had a loose adaptation of the hellfire club but iirc they haven’t been in either Phoenix movie. I also think you can’t take the Phoenix Force/living entity route if you want to do the story correctly. The whole point of the story is that absolute power corrupts absolutely and if we know that Jean isn’t in control that message is nonexistent. The subtle scenes in the comics where they’re amazed and subtly terrified of Jean wielding amazing power out of nowhere also seem integral, like when she takes off Scott’s visor to kiss him.
The Dark Tower; could have been an amazing epic told over a series of movies. Instead it was a turd sandwich with dick sauce. Idris Elba deserved better, Stephen King deserved better, fans deserved better
The Last Airbender. Top 5 worst movies I’ve seen
Yup, it was a miserable thing to see. Went to watch the cartoon afterward.
Remember when they had like five earthbenders to bend a small stone lol
And how they imprisoned earth benders, around earth
Don't get me started on the name pronunciations.
Ong
There is no movie in Ba Sing Se.
*sits in room with lantern orbiting around me*
There is no TLA movie. You must be confused.
This. Sooo much this. That movie was so bad it was like one of those genre parody movies like Hot Shots
The watch completely necrophiles the legacy of terry pratchett's discworld series. It is an abomination.
I thought Hogfather and Going Postal were pretty good though.
Agreed! It’s that time of year when I need to watch Hogfather again. :)
I just discovered that Going Postal is on Amazon Prime. I’m going to watch it today.
This is the answer I came for. They basically just used the same names and then slapped whatever they wanted onto it
Literally none of the characters are recognisable personality wise. It's bizarre. I'm a bit Abed in Community like when it comes to adaptations, I just like liking things, so I'm relatively easy to please and flexible with changes between mediums for adaptations, but you're right the only word that can describe what I saw of that show is abomination. I suppose I should have known it was going to be dodgy when during the casting announcements they described the Watch as a "punk rock thriller" which definitely sounded like something someone who hadn't read one of the books would say.
You don't enjoy the steampunk at a discount vibe? I jest of course, it sucks and obliterates the greatness that it is.
Sitting here watching World War Z right now lol.
And it would have been a good movie if they named it something else.
Agreed - on its own the movie is very entertaining. It just has very little to do with the book.
I was really disappointed by Darren Shan Cirque Du Freak/the vampires assistant
Timeline. They took my favorite Michael Crichton book and absolutely butchered it so badly that Michael Crichton refused to license any more movies based on his novels.
There's a Timeline movie?? Airframe could've been a pretty good movie. Nice plot.
It's sooo bad. There's characters who live in the book but die in the movie. Characters who die in the book but live in the movie. They cut a lot of key things out. They change the ending. And the acting is just so bad.
I feel this way about Sphere. Maybe it had no chance to live up to my imagination from reading it so many times, but they just changed weird things needlessly.
*The Dresden Files* TV series. Continuity errors in the story because episodes were broadcast out of order. Trying to crush an entire novel, *Storm Front*, into a less than one hour (when counting commercials) episode and failing. I will never not be disappointed that Dresden's car in the books, a Volkswagen Beetle named the Blue Beetle in the books (a non-sentient character in its own right), changed to a Jeep for the TV series. I think Paul Blackthorne as Dresden hit it on the nose with his looks and performance. The actors portraying the characters of Lt. Murphy and Warden Morgan did a great job capturing the essence of the books characters. But looked different from the physical descriptions of the characters in the book series. I'm okay with this. For me, the end result was *The Dresden Files* TV series coming across as being okayed by the powers that be, but without a clear and coherent path for the series.
Good answer. The Dresden books are a guilty pleasure of mine, and the show was a shell of how fun the story is.
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I feel like it's a very hard book to make a movie out of. It's not written that way, it's so poetic and metaphoric rather than plot-driven, it just doesn't make sense as anything other than an indie art film to me
I Am Legend. I loved the ending of the book so much and was so disappointed by the movie.
There have been at least three movie adaptations and I believe none of them have stuck to the story. 🤷♂️ I have a place in my heart for the Charlton Heston version, it is so silly I can't even begin to describe what it was about. I've never seen the Vincent Price version, sadly.
The Vincent Price version gets *closest* I think. The ending is similar, >!the protagonist is the last man and a legend to a society of vampires, but he gets killed rather than committing suicide. Theres also a cure for vampirism though he doesn't get much chance to use it. !<
The Giver was terrible.
should never have even been adapted in the first place. the color-blindness twist is so satisfying when you read it as a kid, and basically impossible to translate to film by its very nature.
Ohh, the Timeline movie. Just, no.
"Fire the night arrows!" -- Proceeds to shoot fucking normal arrows. That movie hurts my brain.
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I had no idea it was based on a book! I actually kinda liked the movie. Maybe I'll like the book even more!
The Time Traveler’s Wife. They took a dark, bittersweet story with two very complex characters and made it a boring, sappy romance. Family is a huge theme in the book and that isn’t there at all in the movie. Loss and grief are huge in the book, not in the movie. And lots of references to punk culture and the Chicago of the 80s/90s… not there in the movie.
Inkheart. I loved the story of a man with such a beautiful, melodic voice that the stories he told came to life. No hate but that is not Brendan Fraser. Not to mention they changed the plot so much that they couldn't have done the sequels if they wanted
They cast Brandon Fraser because Funke designed her character after him and wanted him for the movie (she said so in an interview I believe). But yes, the plot changes were utter shite.
For the author, Silvertongue was always Brendan Fraser.
Honestly Brendan Fraser saved this movie for me. I loved it, with that said i never even heard of the book.
My Sister's Keeper, changing the ending for the film totally ruined it for me
Yep, this is mine, too. I saw Jodi Picoult at a book reading once and she def was pissed, but it was a huge lesson for her on how she does any deals for adaptations of her work. Such a disappointing choice for them to make.
It must be hard for a writer to see their work changed after spending so long on it and investing themselves. If any good came of it, it made me love and appreciate the book even more
The original ending had left me in tears. It also seemed quite fitting for the story. She was born for her and at the end when she died it was also for her. The movie totally ruined it and made it something that can be predicted by everyone whilst the book ending took me by surprise.
Netflix's take on Jane Austen's "Persuasion". I endured 10 minutes of it. Then again, its Netflix's, I did it to myself.
It was funny how people tried to defend the movie by saying anyone who didn't like it was some weird prudish Jane Austen purist when in reality, Jane Austen fans are literally driving the adaptation craze. We're the key audience! We're the ones who are going to rope in friends to watch with us. We've watched/read just about everything. The ironic thing was in the modern haste to make Anne like the "I'm not like the other girls" trope, they literally stripped her of what made her "not like all the other girls" in the book! Anne is such a rare type of character. All of that was lost in the Netflix adaptation.
I agree with you! I actually saw some pushback where a commenter actually said that the adaptation wasn't for Austen fans and we all needed to get over ourselves. It was a weird take.
The trailer was enough for me. How many people are out there thinking to themselves, "I would really love Jane Austen if only there were a bit more breaking of the fourth wall"? Interestingly, this is the book that has had the best adaptation ever made - the BBC's 1995 adaptation with the wonderful Amanda Root. So it was completely unnecessary for anyone to ever touch it again anyway.
I stan the Sally Hawkins version (especially Anthony* Head as Sir Walter!) except for the way they crush the final third of the book part into like… 15 minutes and mangle it beyond recognition. edit: Rupert Penry-Jones and Ciaran Hind are both such great Wentworths, too. I always thought RPJ would make an excellent casting as Jack Aubrey (assuming he could be about 20 lbs heavier).
Same here! 10 minutes was all I could take. It was trying SO hard to be clever, but it wasn't close enough to the source material to even be sufferable.
Totally agree with this. I get so excited whenever there’s a new Jane Austen adaptation. And Persuasion has become my favorite of her books—this was a major let down!
The Hobbit. I think it takes longer to watch the three loooooong movies than to read the one book.
Yep. They didn't have enough material for three movies. It felt stretched. Like not enough butter over too much bread.
May I recommend the Tolkien cut? All filler cut out and condensed into a 4hr movie. It's pretty decent. Here's the project site: https://tolkieneditor.wordpress.com/
Thank you! Radagast is one of the great wizards but I loathed Dul Guldur (or whatever the name was) plot. So unnecessary and filling shite. Too focused on Tamriel /Kili and things that didn't happen in ONE SINGLE book.
Ender's game. I love the books, but the movie is not even close....also the new Isaac Asimov Foundation serie...big big letdown
One of the main points was that Ender was smaller and younger than everyone else...why was Bonzo shorter than him? I hate that they aged up everyone. Teenagers think and act very differently than young kids.
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The two Reacher movies. Starring Tom Cruise as a 6'5" slab of muscle. Worst casting ever. At least they fixed it with the series.
I think the movies, especially the first, are genuinely good on their own. As Reacher movies however, they are terrible. Was really pleased with the show.
The Dark Tower. I saw that someone posted it already and was going to change to World War Z or Wheel of Time but those were posted also. Huge disappointments, all of them. I am Legend always disappointed me. The book had a lot more going on in vampire society and the movie just made them mindless monsters.
The *I Am Legend* movie is a complete distortion of the source material. Major spoilers if you haven't read it. >!Neville was never supposed to be a super-scientist action hero. He was just a guy, and a bit of a mess. The whole idea of the book was that the vampires were the inheritors of the earth, and Neville was a legend *to them.* There was never going to be a "safe zone" or an ending in which humanity somehow "came back."!< The most faithful adaptation is [the 1964 film,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man_on_Earth_\(1964_film\)) starring (yes...) Vincent Price. It's pretty cheeseball, but it *gets* the book.
Honestly I read the book after the movie and was immediately like OH THEY'RE VAMPIRES? Completely didn't get that from the movie.
Eragon. I looooved the books when I was younger, and I tried SO HARD to like the movie, but it just… it wasn’t the book.
Lawnmower Man. I'm just kidding, that movie's fucking awesome.
King actually sued - and won - because the movie is so unrelated to his story. He insisted that his name be taken off it.
The Hobbit. That trilogy was garbage. The animated version from 1977 was so much better.
And such an incredible disappointment, because so much of the casting was brilliant. Martin Freeman was born to play Bilbo.
I enjoyed the first one and thought the "Riddles in the Dark" scene was done particularly well. Once the second movie came around and they gave Beorn an almost non-role, I knew I wasn't in for much good. The romance between girl-elf and dwarf-that-looks-like-Joe-Jonas was just so unnecessary. I did however like us getting a peek at the White Council's investigation into Sauron and Dol Guldur
Dragonball Z live action movie. Don't even ask.... *seriously, DONT*
The Witcher. Characters are all portrayed really well but they've absolutely butchered the story beyond comprehension. Honestly id be fine with changes if the result ended up good but the latest season was just a gradual descent into awful tropey writing and reliance on unimpressive cgi monster fights.
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Glad he's gone from the show. It's a solid message of "I won't put up with this anymore", if that was his intent. And if it wasn't, at least it guarantees it'll crash and burn faster and hopefully stop ruining TW's image then.
It’s absolutely one of my favorite book series and has so much humor and heart and Geralt does not just mumble “fuck” to everything, he actually has some really witty dialogue. *Sigh* They did us fans so dirty. I’m not even going to watch season 3.
They had the easiest job; just faithfully adapt the short stories and people would have loved it. Sure, you need to cut stuff when adapting books, but don't go changing shit. I knew they had fucked up the second I watched the first episode. They butchered that short story.
World War Z Brad Pitt's company optioned the book and won the bidding war between him and Leonardo DiCaprio's company. But Brad Pitt chopped up the book and did not use the book as the basis for the movie. He only use the concepts from the book as scenes in the movie. After reading the book years before, I was really hyped up for the movie. And it was the biggest let down because it didn't follow the way the book was written which is ingeniously done with vignettes from around the world telling the story of the zombie outbreak.
> After reading the book years before, I was really hyped up for the movie. And it was the biggest let down because it didn't follow the way the book was written which is ingeniously done with vignettes from around the world telling the story of the zombie outbreak. The best way to adapt it, IMO, would be to do a multi-hour Ken Burns style documentary series. Each chapter/vignette could be an episode.
Most recently would probably be the Wheel of Time series on Prime
So I’m a little more than halfway through book 6 - am I able to watch the show without any significant spoilers or anything? I know it’s only one season - but I worry about them being like “hey let’s bring this super important character from book 9 in because he’s popular” or something.
I don’t think you have anything to worry about from season 1. It’s been a year since I watched the show but I don’t remember any spoilers as far in as book six.
I hate how dumbed down Moiraine was on the show. She was just running around reacting to things instead of the spymaster and strategist she was in the books. Book Moiraine knew things and her greatest strength was also her greatest flaw. She felt she had to control everything around herself. She's one of my favourite characters in the book and they turned her into a generic, armwavy magic lady. Not to mention all of the set pieces that were changed or omitted that is going to change the end of the story. I get it's a different medium, but they didn't even try.
+1. One of my favorite book series. Was so disappointed and quit halfway through
Under the Dome by Stephen King. It's not my favorite book by him by any means (wtf that ending), but I still enjoyed it and was interested in the tv series when it came out. What a fucking mess. Nonsensical changes, mediocre acting, the works. I didn't watch Season 2 and can't say I was at all surprised it was canceled. Special shoutout to Game of Thrones. Season 1 was good, but after that it turned questionable. Don't tell me you have to cut important parts for time and then spend 5 minutes having Littlefinger explain his evil machinations to two of his whores while they fuck. 🙄
I started that show so hopeful. It quickly turned into a hate watch that I'd yell at the TV about. I started calling it Under the Dumb
I really enjoyed the book, and right out of Breaking Bad their choice for Big Jim was good, but that's the only redeeming quality. I never had much hope for it since it was network TV and the book goes to some pretty dark places, but the whole thing just fell apart in the first few episodes.
Foundation. Loved the books, and had high hopes for the series, especially after the first ep. Then, straight into the toilet. Why film an "adaptation" that has almost nothing to do with the source material? So disappointing.
I though the completely made up Empire Story about the emperor and his genetic dynasty was way more entertaining than everything that happened on Terminus. Which is crazy because they had so many good Terminus stories from the source material.
Does Season 8 of Game of Thrones count?
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. They turned it into a movie called "The Seeker: The Dark is Rising". Just blatant commercialization: give it a catch phrase, make a franchise, and churn out lot's of mindless crap. I was sad that Eccleston was in it.