abbadon420Which books have the worst video adaptation?
IonAddisHonestly, it’d be easier to say which books have GOOD adaptations, since the norm is poor adaptations and it’s hard to choose which one is the worst since so many suck in different ways.
BunnyKnucklesThe Princess Bride is the best movie adaptation I can think of off the top of my head. I fact, I’d argue that it was better than the book.
1996 Matilda was faithful to Roald Dahl and brought the trunchbull to life in a way only movies can. Rest of cast was great but Trunchbull aces it, one of my favorite cinema villains of all time.
Dade MurphySome Dean Koontz and Stephen King adaptations were pretty bad. Hideaway, Phantoms, The Dark Half, Sleepwalkers.
I really enjoy the movie Phantoms, but not because it's as good as the book. It's just a fun movie if you're into that genre. But we could definitely add almost every Stephen King adaptation to this list. Don't get me wrong--some of them I very much enjoy, but that doesn't mean they're not terrible (looking at you, The Stand (first one), Storm of the Century, and Tommyknockers).
I mean, Ben Affleck was da bomb in Phantoms, yo.
And Liev Schreiber!
Phantoms was by Dean Koontz.
I know. The comment I replied to discussed both Dean Koontz and Stephen King.
I couldn’t get past the first couple chapters of Hideaway
Langoliers
Going to have to second The Dark Tower. To say it was a letdown is nowhere near enough.
The Witcher show starts off pretty well but quickly gets worse and worse. That's probably my number two.
I also thought The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie was pretty disappointing, though not the worst of the worst.
I could probably think of a lot more if I browsed my book collection. Rare is the adaptation that meets the quality of the book. That would be a much shorter list. If we were looking at that question, the first movie that comes to mind is The Amityville Horror because that book had some of the worst writing that I have ever subjected myself to.
magnetosphereThe Dark Tower being such a train wreck was a real shame too, because I thought Idris Elba was an inspired, unexpected choice for Roland.
I really thought he would make an excellent Roland. And he probably still would, if he were given a decent script and director.
I don't know how you could do HGTTG well, because the nonsense narration is pretty much the whole point, and I kind of liked what it was, but it was definitely a letdown still. Zaphod's heads bothered the absolute shit out of me.
I’d say Foundation, but the show has been so far away from the books since literally episode 1 that the name might as well be a coincidence.
It feels more like an addition than an adaptation (it isn’t, but it’s the only perspective in which the show can be good). I’m a big fan of the books, and I’m also enjoying the show so far.
Semi-Hemi-DemigodThe show is so well done I don't even mind that it's not like the books
Even by itself, the show makes no sense.
From the first season I thought the Trantor stuff was awesome but the Terminus stuff sucked. Never have I had a show where I was more divided.
I was this close to skipping the Terminus stuff, I just couldn’t give a shit about it and was constantly waiting to see Trantor and the beefcake to do some boss shit
i mean lee pace fighting ninjas completely naked is a helluva plus, ya gotta admit.
I don’t have Apple TV, and I was irritated that I’d be missing Foundation. The more I hear about it, though, the less irritated I am.
seaQueueThe first two episodes are the most gorgeous sci-fi tv production I’ve ever seen. Beyond that it’s a bit shakier but it’s definitely watchable.
I tried to watch Foundation, mostly because Asimov is one of those writers whose style I can’t stand in his actual books (his characterization is really flat–you could tell he was far more interested in his ideas and the characters were just pawns on a stage), and I’ve had a few cases where books I couldn’t finish were very watchable on screen. Also, I was following Jared Harris from the Expanse to Foundation in the hopes of seeing something awesome.
But what I saw, and what I remembered from the books, didn’t add up. Nor did it suck me in on its own merits, like some other adaptations have.
They very much lampshade that with the whole outliers thing. Events spin off in wildly different directions.
If you want a direct translation of the books, no dice, but damn the shit they’ve pulled out of whole cloth with the Cleons is amazeballs.
The Cleons is literally the only reason I continue to watch the show.
Did some good stuff with Riose as well.
Not looking forward to them fucking up The Mule tho :/
I agree but a direct adaptation of the books would not make a good TV show.
The books are a series of vignettes spaced decades apart with no continuing characters and each is a separate short story. While they work in the written form, they would not on the screen.
Then do it as a series of vignettes, for example, as 6 episode series, with each series centred around each crisis.
That would give you 4-5 hours - or 2.5 Mrs Doubtfires - to do what Asimov does in around 60 pages (depending on crisis).
I don’t understand the argument that this is impossible to do, pretty much every film you will have ever seen will have had a shorter runtime than 5 hours, and handled all aspects of character introduction, motivation, conflict, growth, and resolution, within than time too.
I am not saying it has to be identical or a word for word adaptation - I have no issues what so ever with gender swapping Hardin - but as another poster points out, having Seldon live on (other than as recordings getting increasingly divorced from reality) directly rejects the core premise of the book, which is a refutation of the great man hypothesis.
I think the closest you get is B5’s Deconstruction of Falling Stars.
Haven’t read it but I hear Eragon was absolutely shat on. Without reading it, the movie was pretty ehh for me, great acting
Da_BoomThe movie isn’t anywhere near the same as the book.
And it shouldn’t be thought of as the same story - it’s not an adaptation but an interpretation of the first book.
Though in doing that it ruins a few key points needed to link the sequels, which never received movie sequels because the movie was just that bad.
The only thing I can complement is some of the actor choices. Particularly the choice for Brom Murtagh, and galbatorix (though the mad king doesn’t appear in the books till the last book at the final showdown)
It was pretty fucking awful. But also the books really lost me around the 3rd/4th soooo xD
That first Dune movie decades ago. Yikes.
Sting was great though
No one wears metal underwear better!
SanguineParI’m a huge David Lynch fan, but yeah, that movie is insane. Has some good moments, but not many!
This movie slaps if you watch it high. Like really high.
True of a lot of Lynch’s work. He definitely produces material aimed for a mind in an altered state
Rikudou_Sage- Dune (the old one, not the new one)
- Dark Tower
- Eragon
- Ender’s Game
- The Witcher (a real shame, it could have been such a good IP for Netflix)
Most adaptations suck, these are just some from the top of my head.
Honestly, I fucking hate the new Dune. The old Dune at least has charm for how goofy it can get. The characters and editing choices I have huge problems with. It's a very pretty movie and most scenes made it in but the characters just aren't there. Also the world isn't established properly. They don't even mention the Landsraad until the tailend of the movie but they're important to know about because they are why the Emperor takes the strategy he does.
I like at least the first season of Witcher, though it could’ve been more linear
The old Dune was just lol what the fuck
What about the middle Dune adaptation?
The mini series is fantastic. It's a lot closer to the book and handles the pacing extremely well.
What’s so bad about enders game. I don’t remember that being a bad adaptation, but it’s been a while.
It wasn’t a bad movie, I actually liked it a lot - but the book is significantly better and the movie left out a lot. If I had read the book before watching the movie I would probably have hated the movie tbh.
Also even picking that book to make into a movie was a mistake, enders game was only written to give backstory for speaker for the dead which is much better than the enders game book but never made it to becoming a movie itself
That’s the story of adaptations most of the time.
I read the book first and enjoyed the movie enough to buy it.
The book Ender’s Game has a psychological component that it’s nigh-impossible to nail in a visual medium with child actors. The story works in book form because books are the closest thing we have to telepathy, but it’s harder to do in a visual medium simply because visual storytelling is different from written storytelling.
You could probably do the movie with really good adult actors–but most of the cast are children. And really good child actors are rare to come by–you’re lucky to have one, much less multiple. And when the cast is made entirely up of children who are all supposed to be geniuses, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get the casting and talent you need.
The Ender’s Game movie wasn’t terrible–it was surprisingly watchable compared to other adaptations of other books–but it didn’t come close to nailing the feel of the book.
Oh God, I remember how disappointed I was when seeing the Eragon movie. After having read the trilogy I was having such high hopes, it could’ve been a LOTR alike trilogy, but instead we got this half baked… Stuff. At least the actors gave their best.
Kind of in the same line with the golden compass I guess?
I really enjoyed the Eragon books as a kid but they aren’t great themselves. It’s a mediocre book series adapted to a bad film.
Oh yeah for sure, they were great to child me, I haven’t read them in years.
I just thought of another example to the theme: I also really enjoyed the vampires assistant thirteenology or so, but the movie was horrendous!
Admiral PatrickPretty much every movie based on a Crichton novel except the first Jurassic Park and the original 1971 adaptation of The Andromeda Strain. Every other one has been awful (including The Lost World which is so far from the book it shouldn’t even get to be called “based on”).
I've never read Congo, but I enjoyed the movie.
I’ve read it but never seen the movie. lol. Based on the other bad adaptations, I assumed it was one as well. Will check it out sometime!
Haha. I was hoping you could comment on the movie. Oh well - I hope you do enjoy it!
Stop eating my sesame cake.
The lost city of ZINJ
The movie but may be ridiculous, but it is also fabulous.
NaNI’ve never watched Disclosure nor finished the book, but it seems like one of the few they should have been able to get right.