Movies that are nothing like the book

[NeutralDrow]

Howl's Moving Castle. Similar events happen in the book and the anime, but Miyazaki added more of an anti-war theme, changed the characterizations of a few major characters (notably Sulieman and the Witch of the Wastes), and changed the ending.

They're both pretty darn good, though ultimately I prefer the book version. I like Diana Wynne Jones' writing style.

 

[Erja_Perttu]

Same with Sahara- watched that first, had a blast, read the book... awful!

I did it the other way round. Read the book, liked it well enough, watched the movie and wondered why they tacked the title of the book onto a different, if vaguely similar movie. Where did the funny go?

OT: Drive is pretty different to the film. It's a bit less ambiguous, so overall I liked the film better.

 

[Jaeke]

*reads Title thread*
*click*
ERAGON ERAGON ERAGON ERAGON ERAGON ERAGON ERAGON ERAGON!
IT'S A BASTARDIZED PIECE OF SHI...
*reads OP*

Damn....

Well yeah, I'm still sticking with Eragon. It's just so damn hopeless, there is literally no redeeming qualities about the movie and everything is just done so horribly that there is no sensible way to create a second, third, or fourth movie.

Hell it's like the Director just read the sleeve of the cover and made a movie about it!
It's just so bad....

 

[Kpt._Rob]

Pirates of the Caribbean. Those are based on books.

Actually I was under the impression (which Wikipedia has confirmed for me), the Pirates films were based on a theme park ride at a Disney park. So, while there is probably some difference between the source material (a ride) and the film, it's not like they butchered someone's book. And it probably improved on the plot of the ride.

OT: Well if you want to count comic books, there's that colossal slap in the face Green Lantern... what a horrible horrible butchering of any version of the Green Lantern story.

 

[Jaeke]

I Am Legend (fuck Will Smith). They had to go and produce an otherwise amazing film then completely ruin it with an out of place ending that doesn't make any sense.

Really? In what way?

I saw the movie without even knowing there was a book until about a year after it's release.
I saw the book at a Barnes & Noble and I always thought it was just an adaptation FROM the movie.

How's it different? I quite enjoyed that movie. Made me cry (I was 11 when I saw it).

Spoiler

WHY SAM WHY?!?

 

[shrekfan246]

Pirates of the Caribbean. Those are based on books.

Actually I was under the impression (which Wikipedia has confirmed for me), the Pirates films were based on a theme park ride at a Disney park. So, while there is probably some difference between the source material (a ride) and the film, it's not like they butchered someone's book. And it probably improved on the plot of the ride.

OT: Well if you want to count comic books, there's that colossal slap in the face Green Lantern... what a horrible horrible butchering of any version of the Green Lantern story.

Shit. It was only the fourth one that "drew inspiration" from a book. Forgot about that and extended it to the entire series. Whoops.

 

[Ghonzor]

I Am Legend (fuck Will Smith). They had to go and produce an otherwise amazing film then completely ruin it with an out of place ending that doesn't make any sense.

Everyone likes a hero's death, etc etc.
I've seen the deleted ending and I much prefer it. The whole point of it is that he (Smith) has become the stuff of their legends. Instead of fighting the supposed monsters, he became one. It was a much more powerful ending and I wish, just for once, the movie had avoided the cliche (and arbitrary) sacrifice.

 

[Rawberry101]

Has anyone mentioned the greatest adaptation of a novel/series ever?

The Godfather.

I mean, come on Escapist forum people, you guys are better than that. Enough with Eragon.

 

[floppylobster]

I Am Legend (fuck Will Smith). They had to go and produce an otherwise amazing film then completely ruin it with an out of place ending that doesn't make any sense.

Did you ever see the alternate ending? It was so much better


It starts about 12 seconds in.

Could do without the intrusive score though. But I guess it's needed to prop up Will Smith's acting. Could do without him too by the way. You know he has enough power to fight for which ending of a movie he wants, but he always goes mainstream.

OT: LA Confidential. The Beach.

 

[dangoball]

le Comte de Monte Cristo, though not so much in the main story, but the bits and pieces that surround it. Often changed (the big one being Albert as Edmonde's son, which is just ridiculous) or missed altogether, but it's a fucking colossal book so it's rather difficult to adapt to a film particularly well. Gankutsuou on the other hand...

Can't think of much else for now...

I don't know. I liked the modern film adaptation more than the anime. The anime kind of... petered off near the end.

Which adaptation do you speak of? The one with Gerard Depardieu is the only good one. I remember this one abomination where it finishes with the Count and Morcerf BRAWLING in a freaking field.

OT: Gotta say this one adaptation of The Dune. It had several, some better than others, but this one implemented some fucktard "sonic blaster" handgun and the duel between Paul and young Harconnen was decided by Paul yelling so much that Harconennens chest popped open. Sure, who cares about epic blade duels...

 

[drthmik]

this is easy

all of them

every single one

which doesn't NECESSARILY mean the movie is inferior (though this is usually the case)

 

[Ickorus]

Tales From Earthsea by Studio Ghibli

I'll quote Ursula Le Guin here just to give you an idea of how different it is:

"Much of it was, I thought, incoherent. This may be because I kept trying to find and follow the story of my books while watching an entirely different story, confusingly enacted by people with the same names as in my story, but with entirely different temperaments, histories, and destinies."

 

[Sean Hollyman]

inb4 Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter!

Though I could be misremembering these, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and the various Chronicles of Narnia films. Well, I suppose they're still something like the books... hrm... ah!

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. That "drew inspiration" from a book. Though I never actually read the book in question so it may have been more faithful than I think, despite being a Pirates film... what a predicament.

As far as I remember the A Series of Unfortunate Evenets movie was SOMEWHAT like the book, but they did make a few changes that pissed me right off.

Finding out straight away that Olaf burned the mansion down, for example.

 

[imagremlin]

That would be Dune

 

[edudewired]

Shrek & Minority Report the book of those are nothing like their films, they have almost no elements the same and both books are only 20 pages long.

 

[chadachada123]

I Am Legend (fuck Will Smith). They had to go and produce an otherwise amazing film then completely ruin it with an out of place ending that doesn't make any sense.

Really? In what way?

I saw the movie without even knowing there was a book until about a year after it's release.
I saw the book at a Barnes & Noble and I always thought it was just an adaptation FROM the movie.

How's it different? I quite enjoyed that movie. Made me cry (I was 11 when I saw it).

Spoiler

WHY SAM WHY?!?

Heavy spoilers (obviously):

Spoiler

In the movie, you see the zombie leader become obviously distressed by the comparatively-hot zombie girl being kidnapped by Will Smith. You can see, really easily, that the zombie guy just wanted to get the zombie girl back, but this doesn't come to a head in the theatrical (altered) release. Instead, he just blows himself and them up when they come to rescue the girl from his house.

In the original version, during this assault on his house, he realizes that HE is the monster, that he has been attacking these new-humans and has become the stuff of their legends. That is where the title comes from. These new-humans don't want to fight the surviving humans, but just want to continue living by themselves, but he's been attacking them with guerrilla warfare.

 

[Amaror]

I go with eragon too.
I am still convinced the producer of the film got all his info about the book by listening to a guy, who had a friend, whose brother read the wikipedia article on the book, while he was drunk.

 

[Sam Eskenazi]

I Am Legend (fuck Will Smith). They had to go and produce an otherwise amazing film then completely ruin it with an out of place ending that doesn't make any sense.

Really? In what way?

I saw the movie without even knowing there was a book until about a year after it's release.
I saw the book at a Barnes & Noble and I always thought it was just an adaptation FROM the movie.

How's it different? I quite enjoyed that movie. Made me cry (I was 11 when I saw it).

Spoiler

WHY SAM WHY?!?

I still don't understand why they changed it!

Spoiler alert!

Spoiler

Throughout the ENTIRE FILM, there were several hints that the vampire-zombie infected people guys were, in fact, intelligent people; they actually laid traps AGAINST Will Smith, demonstrating intelligence and cognitive thought. The original ending of the film has the "butterfly" thing ACTUALLY MEAN SOMETHING, wherein the infected-leader makes a shape of a butterfly on the glass, demonstrating that he wants his mate back, the girl-infected whom Will Smith had captured. Will Smith essentially relealizes that he is the stuff of THEIR legends, and he is, in fact, the monster who has been attacking these people. He gives the girl up, with the leader-infected calming his followers, and they part ways amicably. It actually utilizes ALL OF THE HINTS that were peppered throughout the movie. The mainstream change was just bollocks, and added nothing yet took away the whole POINT OF THE FILM ARGHHHH.

 

[StashAugustine]

My two favorite books are Starship Troopers and Brideshead Revisited. The first is about the duties that a soldier has to live up to in order to protect his country, and the second is a fictional conversion story of an English agnostic to Catholicism. The movies are respectively about how war turns us all into fascists and how religion ruins your life. I don't think one could miss the point of the source material harder.