What's the worst book to movie adaptation you've ever seen?

Question

I would have to rank The Lost World up really high. They cut out key elements from the book and changed character relationships. In short, it sucked.

Answer 1

I agree with the Lost World. Ugh.

I'll add War of the Worlds. The book made total sense, set in the late 1800s. In modern times, with the annoying kid (as much as I like Dakota Fanning in other movies, in this she was useless and irritating!) it was just pointless. And it lacked all the science of it, of the English scholars studying the cylinders as they fell from Mars.

I believe H.G. Wells must have spun in his grave fast enough to burrow a hole all the way across the Earth...

Answer 2

No doubt about it: Master and Commander.

If you only saw the movie, you might think it a good one. The action was exciting and realistic; Russell Crowe captured the character of Captain Aubrey; and the ship and seamanship were depicted accurately. But if you had read the original series by Patrick O'Brian, you realized that the movie is NOT based on the book Master and Commander but is a dim, truncated version of Far Side of the World, the tenth book in the series, though there are also some few elements from the first.

Of course, no single movie can be true to all the detail and subtlety of a good novel, but to try to include two as widely separated as these two in the series and in history is to do an injustice to the author, the reader, and the viewer. The story itself as it relates to the original is far from clear; the character of the other hero (or anti-hero), Maturin, the ship's surgeon, is flattened and oversimplified, and the richness of relationships among the various seamen only hinted at.

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series is one of the finest historical fictions ever written, probably the best with a nautical theme. O'Brian's artistry has been compared to classic British novelists like Jane Austen. Therefore, it is a shame that the books in the series were chopped up and pasted together in such a cavalier manner.

The BBC series on C. S. Forester's series on Captain Horatio Hornblower show how original stories can be honored, characterization maintained, and action scenes made gripping and authentic. If Hollywood had chosen one novel and followed it carefully, the result would certainly have been more effective -- and no doubt sequels, prequels, and the like would have been demanded by an appreciative public.

No so with this hodge-podge from the original.

Of the many bad movie adaptations of fiction I have seen, this has to rank as the worst.

Answer 3

There are so many good books that became lousy movies

Hannibal -- The ending was completely different and they left out so much

Jurassic Park/Lost World -- for the reasons previously mentioned, actually almost everything by Michael Crichton has been butchered

Little Alters Everywhere/Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood --They killed the movie by trying to combine 2 books into one movie

The Firm - They should've just given it a different title it was so far from the story

The Harry Potter Movies -- The books are too long, they are cutting too much as the series goes on

Angela's Ashes

Answer 4

I, Robot.

My objection is just with the fact that the movie storyline had ALMOST NOTHING to do with Dr. Asimov's actual book. They wanted an action movie, and "I, Robot" was a Thinking Book.

If they had Just Decided to Use the Asimovian Universe (example: the Star Trek Fan Films don't claim being canon) and written from THAT, I would not be so irritated.

Answer 5

The Princess Bride

Ella Enchanted

Harry Potter

Answer 6

Without a doubt "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

I found the satire hilarious, the characters engaging and the plot compelling (if ridiculous). The movie had NONE of those features - the humour fell flat on it's face, the actors had no empathy for their characters, and the story was both different, and derivative romantic slush.

Answer 7

The Tommyknockers by Stephan King. His books are so full of detail it's difficult to make a movie to live up to the book, but in the Tommyknocker case,well that movie was so far off from the book that it wasn't any good.They even cast an ex porn queen (Traci Lords),but it still didn't help the movie.

Answer 8

The Stand by Stephen King

Answer 9

The Divinici Code

Answer 10

The Beloved (book by Toni Morrison)
The Human Stain (book by Phillip Roth)