Badmovies.org Forum

 Several books have been made into movies several times, and in some cases the movies never get the book right.

 I can think of several examples. One that stands out to me is "The time machine" by H.G. Wells.

 In TTM, Wells, who was a brilliant man and one of extreme social conscience, wrote a story about how the class system would, if not controlled, eventuall lead the human race to split into two species. The working classes, living under hard, harsh and hopeless conditions would become more brutal and inhuman, while the upper classes would degenerate into ignorant, all but mindless things much like domesticated house pets.

Well, so far there've been 2 films and one made for tv movie, and in each case the story was rewritten to make the bifurcation  of the human race into the morlocks and the eloi the result of something else. The classic george pal movie made it a nuclear war, the last movie made it the result of the moon being destroyed and causing massive disasters on earth.

But still, all adaptations of TTM have avoided the essential plot of the book that was excessive class separation in society could eventual lead to two almost totally different strains of humanity, and at times I swear I can see it happening today. You look at the street gangs from the poverty saturated neighborhoods and their brutality, their hopelessness and their almost complete contempt for human life, then you look at the rich, hollywood, beverly hills types as personified by paris hilton and such, and you can  see the seeds of  the morlocks and the eloi being planted today.

The adaptations of TTM avoided Wells' original plot because they feared being accused of "Socialism", but I wish someone had had the guts to do a goo, accurate adaptation of it, hell, even the SFC could do a more faithful adaptation then the mainstream movie makers have done.

Now name a book that's never been made into a movie accurately.

Oh, yeah, starship troopers is another sure fire member of this list....

Most of Stephen King's stuff . . . .

I am legend.

The Lightning Thief...they took a great book that could have been an awesome movie and bent it over.  They then proceeded to have their way with it and toss it on the curb bloody and battered. 

WANTED. It was a great, fun, riotous graphic novel and they completely ruined it with the "Loom of Fate' garbage and by cutting out the super-heroics and villany. As Charlie Brown would say" Good Grief!"

The DaVinci Code series: None of the characters fit the physical description of the characters in the book and they censored the Muslim rapist character in "Angel's & Demons" by making him a white atheist wearing glasses. WHAT?!

Eragon: Everything is wrong. No further comment.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park


Did they even read the book ???  :question:

Good call. Stephen King just doesn't translate well to the screen.

Anybody who has read It knows damn well it's not even possible to reproduce it on celluloid in any way that makes sense, so instead of what It really was we get just a giant spider (big whoop). Granted it was a t.v. miniseries, but still.  Also, some of the darker themes and scenes just couldn't make their way into a screenplay without it becoming an NC-17. But Tim Curry was good as Pennywise.

Tommyknockers, oh my God. No commentary necessary.

The Mist. That movie really p**sed me off. First, the horrible CGI was bad enough. Then the ending. What the f**k were they trying to do? The book ends ambiguously, with the ones who escaped heading off into the mist listening to radio transmissions from the real world giving them hope but with no idea what direction they're heading or if they ever get out alive. What was wrong with that? Instead we get that bulls**t ending with the guy killing everyone including his own son to give them a quick death, followed by him being rescued and living with it. It p**sed me off because it came across to me as an attempt to give the film more closure with a cop out excuse of making it more edgy. Keeping the ending as it was would have at least made the entire thing a little more watchable because the developement wasn't terrible despite the bad CGI. As it ended I just wanted to throw something hard at the director.

I saw the movie.  I liked it right to the end.  I was a little bummed that Thomas Jane killed his son.  Now I am really irritated since the book ended differently.  I could not imagine the guilt he had after killing his son and then the mist goes away.  I did like the monsters though.  The Spiders were cool.  The movie (and I am sure the book is too) is a great example of group think and people looking for a leader.  The preacher woman was one messed up cookie.

Later,

John

I liked the development too, I just didn't like some of the CGI elements. They looked very CGI. But yeah, that ending was a big mistake and I think the movie would have sustained a bit better if they hadn't ruined it like that.

I thought the Mist had a  great ending just because it was so much the exact opposite of anything you would have suspected. 

I did read the story first.  Honestly neither were bad.  They were both good in their own way.  Now while some of the Cg was a bit hokey, I loved that giant behemoth thingy. 

The main Steven King stinker for me was Cujo.  Storywise there was no way that film was going to translate well anyhow.  Mom and son hang out in a car for a long time.  Not my idea of entertainment. 

One movie that I though wa s dissapointment is the Way of the Peaceful Warror.  Loved the book but hated the movie.  I bought the movie thinking it would be good.  Big mistake.

Later,

John

The Running Man by Stephen King. The book is so different from the movie in so many ways and even though I enjoy the movie I'll take the book.

I really liked "The Mist," but I will agree that the ending was kind of pointlessly shocking.

To add to the list, almost every adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut book. There's one movie I think is great, "Mother Night." "Slaughterhouse-5" was kind of weak in my opinion. The "Breakfast of Champions" movie is execrable, and "Slapstick (of Another Kind)" is the worst movie I have ever seen, by a very, very large margin.

Agreed fully. Vonnegut does not translate well to the screen. Mother Night however is a big exception. Brilliant film. But then, there were no sci-fi elements and the central theme, "be careful what you pretend to be because in the end you ARE what you pretend to be," was a simple enough theme to communicate. Plus, whoever made it was successfully able to express Vonnegut's quirky way of communicating that theme. I loved the little cameo of Kurt as one of the passers-by on the busy New York street as the central character, wonderfully played by Nick Nolte, was frozen for hours having no idea what to do next with his life.

The Scarlet Letter (1995).

When I was a kid I loved the Michael Creighton book "Congo". It was an amazingly good book, I was excited when the movie came out but they changed everything about it to the point that it was almost un-recognizable. One of the things you miss out on with Creigton on screen is all the amazing lessons that get taught during the book. Reading Creighton's books could almost qualify as course credit for a college science class because of all the detail he goes into during the books (One of the few authors of fiction who lists peer reviewed journal references at the end of his books in support of all the research that went into the book). The movies generally suck though: "Congo" tanked because it was absolute trash; "Sphere" did probably the best of all to try and follow the book and they did a reasonable job except emphasizing the fact that the one woman down there does in fact have absolutely zero sex appeal and she goes way more crazy in the book than in the movie but the premises held similar, "Jurassic Park" 1 (not sequels) somewhat missed the point of the book which wasn't about the adventure but rather a warning about commercialization of advanced technology; "The 13th Warrior" is based on an amazingly great Creighton book with a crappy title "Eaters of the Dead" and somewhatish follows the book except for the arab narrator in the book is no Antonio Bandaras, in fact he barely manages to kill maybe 2 fiends during all the battles of the book and admitadly sucks at all forms of fighting. There are a few redeeming qualities, the book gives extremely detailed descriptions of viking culture.
Creighton especially translates poorly to screen though the books are amazing.

Actually, that is probably my most enjoyable book by King.  I enjoy the story and think it would have held up rather well as a thriller.  Just I like how limitless the choices are from the book.  Anyway you can survive for one year with a built in you have to send a one hour tape everyday (I believe it was daily).  The story more in tone with most people and their thoughts as well as more an everyman in the story.   However, the movie has its charm.

Solo

An "adaptation" that completely ignored the main points of the book (Weapon by Robert Mason).

Whaddaya mean??   :question:  The movies only improve on KING.   :hatred:

TOMMYKNOCKERS is a terrible book!!   :question: I'm flabbergasted.   :drink:

How many great improvements on KING are there on screen??  Hmm, well, lets start with the first one, CARRIE, a great BRIAN DePALMA movie, and I have no opinion whether or not that film improved on KING's book, since it's one of the few I've not read!!   :teddyr:  However, I read most of the books of the next 15 years up to 'round 1990, and THE SHINING, SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION are both enormous improvements over the original material. 

I've read 2 of the Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) novels and found them both to be enjoyable.

The films made of the books The Eagle Has Landed and Von Ryan's Express were IMO just plain bad ~ if you saw the films without reading the books, the films were pretty OK I guess.

****SPOILER ALERT***


I watched the movie before I read the book.  The altenate ending where he survives with the girl and kid was better than him killing himself with the bombs.  I never understood why he did that - what purpose did it serve?

I really didn't like the book at all.  It was lame and stupid, even though Matheson wrote well.  Why did he rail against the women "showing" themselves to him? Has the guy never heard of m@sturbation?  And they gave him time to get out of town.  Why did he just stay there for A WHOLE YEAR and then let them come and take him away?  The character just didn't vibe me at all and I didn't like him in the least.

In this instance, I think the movie was infinitely more interesting than the book.

I agree with you for most of King's work, AHD  But I read Duma Key about a year ago and I was blown away by how good and un-King like it was.  There was no verbosity, no running off on navel gazing tangents, no repetitive phrases, and the book got right to the point and the story moved along at a cracking pace.

I very much enjoyed Duma Key to the point where I was telling anybody who would listen (and some who didn't!) all about it and how they had to read it.

The Charlton Heston version [The Omega Man] had a great line where Neville comes home and says to his image on the TV screen "Hi, big brother. How's your ass?"  :teddyr: :teddyr:

I thought IT was an overlong book that devolved into self-indulgence.  However I do like the first half of the TV miniseries... and I loved TIM CURRY as Pennywise.   :wink:  I thought the ending was not too much dumber than the book.  I didn't watch THE MIST TV movie, or TOMMYKNOCKERS, but I read that last book, and didn't like it much.  On the other hand, THE DEAD ZONE is a book I really love and I thought the screen adaptation was okay.  :thumbup: :smile:  I really like THE GREEN MILE, but I've not read the book. 
I really was a STEPHEN KING fan.  I got over it. 

The film IT was laughable-not scary at all. The only good part about it was Tim Curry. The book was good. BUT actually-I find that Kings made for TV movies are crap. The filmzations (that a word?  :question:) done buy good directers are classic. King is a good writer-but like has been said-his work doesnt translate well to the big screen. MISERY,the SHINING,The SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION,CARRIE,STAND BY ME and the GREEN MILE are exceptions.(Actually-thats not a bad track record. I did like the movie PET SEMATARY better than the book. 1408 was a scary story I think was an excellent movie. CUJO too. Kings writing is touch and go for me. Dream Catcher-the book-was good half way through. I LOVED Tommyknockers-the book-the movie lost it.I hear there remaking the Dark Tower series...cant see how-it's an overlong epic story. I read some of the series in jail...good jail reading...but I generally dont like seralized stories.
Oh-I liked MAXINUM OVERDRIVE. Great cheezy movie. :thumbup:

Weird-I love BAD movies-but not bad books. Hmm.That means something....but Im not sure what.

'Cause bad books are just boring, where as bad movies can be a feast for the eyes and ears!!  :smile: 

I liked the TV miniseries THE LANGOLIERS (is that right?  :question:)  I did like the novella and movie equally well.  I thought they did a decent job with THE STAND (and I loved that book). 

Fahrenheit 451 - although I do like the film, it just doesn't have the energy the book does.

Rawhead Rex (although the movie is b-licious)

I... can't really think of many others at the moment.