Movies that pissed on the books they were based on.

[Zardoz!]

When a movie is based on a book, it's sometimes  a faithful adaptation.

More often, the movie pisses on the book.

For worst offenders in this category I'd start with "The time machine", both versions, as in the original (Yes I read it) the separation of the morlocks and the eloi was due to excessive capitalism and class based society, both of which H.G.W. hated passionately and  spoke against. In the movie versions it was a catastrophe that made the surface mostly uninhabitable that lead some to go underground and devolve into the morlocks.

Now the 50's version I can understand, because if they'd gone with the anti-capitalism theme of the book they'd have been called commies and blacklisted, but the 90's version, which was beautifully made and had some great effects and a touching end, had no excuse to basically rewrite the message of the novel....

Another terrible offender was "war of the worlds". HGW was an atheist and must have spun in his grave when the voiceover at the end made the remark about "the little things that god in his wisdom had put on the earth." In the novel wells clearly said that mankind had won the right to live on earth thru a million generations of evolution adapting him to it.

"Hannibal" really wasn't very faithful to the book at all, and the end was totally rewritten. Why make a movie like that and not do the end right?

[Junkyard]

Dude, nearly every movie based on a book has pissed on said book. Do you mind if I start a thread asking about movies that DIDN'T?

[Bob]

"Hannibal" really wasn't very faithful to the book at all, and the end was totally rewritten. Why make a movie like that and not do the end right?

So, just because....
in the book the Starling and Lector run off together to live in bliss in south america and in the movie we get the "I will hunt you down until the end of time" speech, you call that different.   Huh....    Yeah, I was pissed too.

[kodiakthejuggler]

I was thoroughly disappointed by the adaptation of Michael Crichton's Sphere.

The movie was rushed, very important plot points from the book were washed over and basically given ZERO screen time, the wide-eyed wonder available from the book was also thrown out the window. It was basically turned into a one-note tense thriller that was barely tense at all. It holds a special place in my worst-films-of-all list.

[gbeenie]

When a movie is based on a book, it's sometimes  a faithful adaptation.

More often, the movie pisses on the book.

For worst offenders in this category I'd start with "The time machine", both versions, as in the original (Yes I read it) the separation of the morlocks and the eloi was due to excessive capitalism and class based society, both of which H.G.W. hated passionately and  spoke against. In the movie versions it was a catastrophe that made the surface mostly uninhabitable that lead some to go underground and devolve into the morlocks.

Now the 50's version I can understand, because if they'd gone with the anti-capitalism theme of the book they'd have been called commies and blacklisted, but the 90's version, which was beautifully made and had some great effects and a touching end, had no excuse to basically rewrite the message of the novel....

Maybe because anti-capitalism has been thoroughly exposed as a complete laughingstock of an idea (but the 2002 Time Machine was STILL horrendously bad; and it was made by one of Wells' descendants!).

"Hannibal" really wasn't very faithful to the book at all, and the end was totally rewritten. Why make a movie like that and not do the end right?

Because the book's ending was SHIT. Jodie Foster refused to do the movie because the book's ending was so improbable and ludicrous.

[gbeenie]

Logan's Run. Luckily, the book was complete trash, so there was nowhere to go but UP.

Planet of the Apes. But I'm not sure a straight adaptation of the book would have worked as a film, and the resulting movie is glorious, so I'm inclined to forgive.

[PlayMSTie]

When a movie is based on a book, it's sometimes  a faithful adaptation.

More often, the movie pisses on the book.

For worst offenders in this category I'd start with "The time machine", both versions, as in the original (Yes I read it) the separation of the morlocks and the eloi was due to excessive capitalism and class based society, both of which H.G.W. hated passionately and  spoke against. In the movie versions it was a catastrophe that made the surface mostly uninhabitable that lead some to go underground and devolve into the morlocks.

Now the 50's version I can understand, because if they'd gone with the anti-capitalism theme of the book they'd have been called commies and blacklisted, but the 90's version, which was beautifully made and had some great effects and a touching end, had no excuse to basically rewrite the message of the novel....

Maybe because anti-capitalism has been thoroughly exposed as a complete laughingstock of an idea (but the 2002 Time Machine was STILL horrendously bad; and it was made by one of Wells' descendants!).

"Hannibal" really wasn't very faithful to the book at all, and the end was totally rewritten. Why make a movie like that and not do the end right?

Because the book's ending was SHIT. Jodie Foster refused to do the movie because the book's ending was so improbable and ludicrous.

Agreed. I'm not a fan of the Lecter books or movies, but I remember hearing about that brouhaha, and I really respected Foster for it. Seemed to me she had more integrity and more understanding of the characters than the author himself did!

Add The Children of Men to the movie list. I loved the book, but all through the movie I was thinking, "You have GOT to be kidding me." I don't care about the pioneering filmmaking techniques and what not, they stood everything P. D. James was trying to say on its head. And James is no slouch as a novelist, so there's really no excuse. If you want to make a movie that reverses everything she said, then make your own movie and don't try to adapt her book!

[Tripe]

Add The Children of Men to the movie list. I loved the book, but all through the movie I was thinking, "You have GOT to be kidding me." I don't care about the pioneering filmmaking techniques and what not, they stood everything P. D. James was trying to say on its head. And James is no slouch as a novelist, so there's really no excuse. If you want to make a movie that reverses everything she said, then make your own movie and don't try to adapt her book!

Absolutley could not agree with you more. Great book, totaly pants movie.

[Cibernético II]

I was thoroughly disappointed by the adaptation of Michael Crichton's Sphere.

The movie was rushed, very important plot points from the book were washed over and basically given ZERO screen time, the wide-eyed wonder available from the book was also thrown out the window. It was basically turned into a one-note tense thriller that was barely tense at all. It holds a special place in my worst-films-of-all list.

agree. the book was really good. And until I just read it here, I forgot all about the movie, which covered about 20% of the book's content

[gbeenie]

Someone just reminded me in another thread:

The Shining. Don't get me wrong; it's a really good movie. But it has virtually nothing to do with the book on which it was based.

[Tyrant]

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.

There was also a TV movie adaptation of Robinson Crusoe a while back that pissed me off royally. Defoe was a puritan moralist so the novel can't help but swing a bit in that direction, but the way they PCed up the story rubbed me the wrong way. If they were going to change it that much so as not to offend anyone, then maybe they should have just picked another classic novel to televise, or at least just concentrated on Crusoe being stranded on an island and how he survives and leave out all the religious material. Rewriting the classics to appeal to the modern mindset is to me like rewriting history so no one gets offended.   

[jewishcarpenter]

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.

[ChrisHanel]

Rising Sun was pretty faithful. Yes, I had to dig all the way down to RISING SUN before finding a faithful adaptation.

[BBQ Platypus]

No Country for Old Men followed the source material practically to the letter.  Which is pretty hard to do considering it's a Cormac "To Hell With Punctuation" McCarthy novel.

(I keed, I keed - I like his whole neo-modernist vibe.  Why did modernist literature have to devolve into the stupid, wretched clusterfuck that is post-modernist literature?)

[gbeenie]

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.