Movies that pissed on the books they were based on.

[PlayMSTie]

During my last year in college, one of my literacy classes had me read The End of the Affair. We then had to watch the movie version with Ralph Fiennes in it. The movie was pretty accurate to the book up until the "key moment" (you know, the moment in a novel where the plot condenses into a choice of  two opposing directions, each direction dictating where the rest of the story will go), where the movie went in the complete OPPOSITE DIRECTION to the novel. Needless to say, the entire rest of the movie was ruined for me and the entire point of the novel was lost.

I heard the same thing from a co-worker of mine, for which reason I stayed far away from that version. However, there is a 1950s version with Deborah Kerr and Van Johnson that, while it does have some differences, is much more faithful to the novel. I wouldn't have thought of either of those stars for the leads, but they actually pull it off really well, especially Kerr.

[Kzinistzerg]

The blood and chocolate movie pissed all over the book. It wasn't that bad of a movie but they sacrificed the book's soul to the devil for funding.

[Scrivener]

I'm surprised nobody's brought up Starship Troopers yet.  Verhoeven deliberately set out to undermine the themes of Heinlein's novel.  Not surprisingly, he produced a really messy movie, opinions about which are all over the map.

I don't care who the director, or author, is, but that takes gall.  Or arrogance.

[mrbasehart]

Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a great book, but the adaptation isn't good at all. 

[Big Blonde]

I think the not so great Da Vinci Code movie pissed all over the already not so great Da Vinci Code book. They took out a lot of the interesting, historical 'evidence' to appease critics, making the movie this hard to follow, jumble of scenes.

[hare.29]

Almost anything by PKD. Not that some of the movies were bad. Blade Runner I think captured the feel of PKD, but changed a ton. I'll second Starship Troopers. Lost World was pretty crappy.

[anais.jude]

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Curan felt he was so great for capturing the "spirit" of the book, except he captured the "spirt" of a book he had never read.

I don't care how good Y tu mama tambien was, BURN IN HELL CURAN! 

[Kzinistzerg]

I'm surprised nobody's brought up Starship Troopers yet.  Verhoeven deliberately set out to undermine the themes of Heinlein's novel.  Not surprisingly, he produced a really messy movie, opinions about which are all over the map.

I don't care who the director, or author, is, but that takes gall.  Or arrogance.

YES! I AGREE!

Did the guy even READ starship troopers???

[BBQ Platypus]

I'm surprised nobody's brought up Starship Troopers yet.  Verhoeven deliberately set out to undermine the themes of Heinlein's novel.  Not surprisingly, he produced a really messy movie, opinions about which are all over the map.

I don't care who the director, or author, is, but that takes gall.  Or arrogance.

YES! I AGREE!

Did the guy even READ starship troopers???

He actually admitted to not reading the whole thing.

[Quicksilver]

I know I defend War of the Worlds too much, but I will again. I actually like every adaption of the book. I thought/think the novel, the broadcast and the 3-6 movies (depends on which ones you count) that followed all did one thing. They represented the fear of the nation at a given time. The fact that the formula for the story was so simple it's like watching a time capsule. look you've got the original novel, then the broadcast, then the 50's era movie, then there was some 70's movie, and a whole bunch between here and speilberg's version.

Personally I only count the one's I highlighted here. I just think theyre interesting, my father told me all about how the broadcast scared the crap out of people and it even scared me as a kid, when they broadcast it on holloween some years ago. The new one got to me, due to the imagery surrounding WTC and NY. Since I'm a NY'er and was in college at the time of 911. This is the point of War of The Worlds, just to bring out the fear you feel........ehh I'll stop here, I dont think the book really could ever scare anyone, the movies and broadcast do it quite well. BTW anyone wanting to hear the broadcast search the internet, I have a copy, but I dont remember where I got it.

[LadyKenobi]

The Right Stuff is a funny movie with a lot of good moments, but some of the historical inaccuracies and distortions make my teeth hurt.  What they did to Gus Grissom in that movie is a crime. 

Then again, t's close to impossible to translate Tom Wolfe into a movie.  Just ask Tom Hanks.

[kodiakthejuggler]

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Curan felt he was so great for capturing the "spirit" of the book, except he captured the "spirt" of a book he had never read.

I don't care how good Y tu mama tambien was, BURN IN HELL CURAN! 

FINALLY!! Someone who shares my sentiment for the third Potter movie!

Sure, it looks great, but the whole movie had this weird feel to it that just didn't sit right with me. And no, Y Tu Mama Tambien was NOT a good movie. I was thoroughly bored with it, and the subject matter was NOTHING new. That flick was SO overrated. The chick was hot, though.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Anyone actually read Michael Crichton's Lost World before the movie came out? The movie removed the main goddamned character not to mention the King Kong rip off ending. I hated that movie.

Yeah. I made the mistake of reading the book first, which only enabled me to see just how shallow, cheap and cynical the movie truly was.

I think that Speilberg is gay for raptors.

Why didn't they use the invisible camoflage dinosaurs of death in the movie? That would have been NEW! That would have been COOL! That would have been better than just "something bigger than t-rex" and more raptor-praise.

[MikeKz]

The movie Hannibal was based on a book that written solely for the purpose of making money off of the popularity of the movie Silence of the Lambs. 


Anyway, although they weren't based on specific stories by Robert E. Howard, I'd say that the Conan movies are pretty poor adaptations of both the original stories and the Marvel comics that were popular at the time. 

[Mr.Nobody]

I'm surprised nobody's brought up Starship Troopers yet.  Verhoeven deliberately set out to undermine the themes of Heinlein's novel.  Not surprisingly, he produced a really messy movie, opinions about which are all over the map.

I don't care who the director, or author, is, but that takes gall.  Or arrogance.

YES! I AGREE!

Did the guy even READ starship troopers???

He actually admitted to not reading the whole thing.

Verhoeven also comptelely changed Total Recall, but I still enjoyed it.

I think Philip K Dick's work in general has been bastardized more than any other auther I can think of, with good and bad results.

Also, David Cronenberg admitted that he wasn't even aware that History of Violence was based on a comic book when he first started working on it.  I've never read the comic so I'm not sure how far the movie deviates.

On the topic of comics, the League of Extraordinary Gentleman was a complete bastadization of Alan Moore's mini-series.