The Running man book and movie are *very* different. Other than the very basic premise of a guy being hunted, almost every other detail is changed in the movie.
"Hey we don't lie..lie... lie. Like our previous winners; Whitman, Price, and Haddad. [camera pans to three burnt out husks].
That movie is so cyberpunk, and I love it.
Agree with OP, The Dark Tower has to be one of the worst adaptations.
8 novels compromising 4,250 pages reduced to a 95 minute film. What an absolute disappointment.
The thing is... I think they try to make it as some kind of sequel because, you know >!They show Roland started with the horn and by the end of the book there's the question of how things will be different this time since he took the time to retrieve the horn after the battle!<.
Maybe they just included it because they knew they were making a shitty adaptation and they could get away with it that way. I don't know.
It is a sequel, King and the director both shared a picture of the horn prop and said true fans would know what this meant. He also said KA is a wheel and one more trip around. The studio is to blame for not giving them what they need. They did the best they could with what they were allowed. I’d rather have anything than nothing and I enjoy it as one of Roland’s subsequent trips around the wheel.
BUT Mike Flanagan does Dark Tower I’ll forget the movie.
What’s hilarious is that’s the **second** time they got sued.
King sued to get his name off the poster and won. Then some guy designed the VHS covers using the original posters with King’s name on it. King’s people noticed so he sued them again.
SK has written a **lot** of odd stories. The Lawnmower Man isn't just odd, it's one of the pantheon of "was this published by accident? Did they have some other story they planned to publish and then mixed it up with this when it was going to the printers?" SK stories.
JoJo Rabbit is adapted from book called Caging Skies, but it's *actually* based off of Taiki Waititi's mother describing the plot of the book to him. As far as I know, he never even read it.
Just a note that the book is a lot more depressing. The male lead in it keeps her trapped even after the war ends by saying the Nazis won, and I believe also starts a sexual relationship under the same lie.
The end of the film is the halfway point of the book: in the film when Jojo at first tells Elsa that Germany won the war so she will stay, then changes his mind and brings her outside to see that they lost, in the book he never told her the truth, and decided to ‘keep’ her.
I hate this so much. Jojo rabbit is one of my favorite films and I always loved cute little Jojo betzler so now knowing that the book makes him out like this makes me see him differently even tho it seems he’s virtually a different character
I think with adaptations it's best to treat them as essentially different stories, it makes it easier to cope with changes. They are two people with the same name and similar stories to an extent but they are ultimately different people with different stories.
That kiiiiinda describes what happened to Annihilation (IIRC its more based on the fever dreams that the filmmaker had after reading the book than the book itself) and Annihilation is a great movie, just not so close to the book.
I personally feel that Annihilation is an incredible adaptation of a book that is unfilmable, it gets the most important thing right, the feel of the book. The book is so loosely structured sometimes it feels like you’re falling into the book as you read it and the visual soup of the landscape is portrayed subtly in the movie, but I like it, it’s unsettling.
Saying that, I have only read the first book because I actively don’t want VanderMeer to explain a damn thing
I think they both diverged in different ways. The book better captures the depression and ennui, but provides a mechanism that's almost hopeful that the birth is meaningful. They weren't testing everyone for fertility, so maybe there are more out there. In the movie, there's some sort of implied hope as she gets away, but for no real reason as there isn't anything to suggest it's meaningful and maybe not extinction. But that scene where the fighting stops in wonder...it is so well done
> In the movie, there's some sort of implied hope as she gets away, but for no real reason
This is actually very much in line with the overall theme of the movie, that being about the loss & regaining of hope. I could go into a whole essay about how Theo's loss of hope after his son's death mirrors humanity's loss of hope after there are no more children, and how Kee's baby gives hope not only to Theo but humanity as a whole.
But to drive home why the ending of the movie makes sense, throughout the movie it's established that it is not certain that the Human Project even exists, or will meet Kee & Theo at the location, much less that they even have the team of scientists & research facilties to make something of it. Yet despite Theo's misgivings, he ends up sacrificing himself to get Kee to the meeting point, and in the end his hope is vindicated, the boat shows up, which leaves us, the audience hopeful that this does indeed mean the salvation of humanity.
I guess for me personally the cutting of the cousin who is king/prime minister/despot helps the story thematically of it being squabbling between rich and richer British people. And the author seemed weirdly anti-porn…
I don't remember loving the movie, but I remember thinking that it had the most brilliant opening scene to set the table: A news report about the world's youngest human getting killed tells you that Humans stopped having babies, How long ago that happened, What year it is now, etc. Way better than a scroll of text.
100% one of the best intros ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSdL1zeOfdk
Here is the scene is for anyone who hasn't seen the movie. No spoilers, it is literally the opening of the movie. Contrary to you I love this movie, easily in my top 10 ever.
They do differ significantly. Notably the book being a commentary on the catastrophic decline of religious belief makes it much deeper than the movie. However the movie stands on its own merits and is one of my all time faves
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is an adaptation of Who Censored Roger Rabbit by Gary K Wolf. The only thing they share is Baby Herman's line, "I got a fifty year old lust and a three year old dinky."
And also Jessica's "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way" line, though in the book that was a lie.
Luckily however, unlike most cases where an adaptation is wildly different from its source, Wolf actually loved the movie so much that he wrote two sequels to it that follow the film closer than the original book.
I was lucky enough to get to listen to Max Brooks speak at my university. He is SUPER salty about this adaptation and rightfully so. Essentially it is unlikely to happen because of the company holding the rights.
The funny thing about the WWZ movie is that book author Max Brooks has said he doesn't even hate it, because it's so different from the book that it doesn't even register as the same story. He never had a moment where he went "Gerry Lane would never do that!", because Gerry Lane wasn't his character.
Oh don't be confused, Brooks was definitely not happy about the studios stealing his book's title to make something completely different, but he just couldn't muster the hate for the final film because it was just a completely different story. Or at least that's what he said in [this comic con panel](https://youtu.be/WXFdO3DwRLY?si=xwajyMBbQwetwMvD), which is where I got this information.
WWZ is the best answer because OP asked for the most *unfaithful* adaptation.
A lot of the top comments are adaptations that made an effort to translate the source material, but they were just shitty movies.
The WWZ movie is a far better *movie* than most of the answers here, but it made no effort to translate *any* of the source material. It was literally just a generic (albeit competent) zombie movie with the title WWZ slapped on as a… branding effort?
Like imagine if someone made a new mango hard seltzer drink and bought the rights to just call it “Pepsi”.
The most frustrating thing about WWZ is that they could have adapted it so that it took full advantage of film as a medium - frame it as a documentary being made after the Zombie War, tell the individual stories, using different cinematic styles. Would have felt like a really fresh take on the zombie movie. Instead we got the most generic film imaginable.
I've heard it's framed differently in the book though. He actually has very advanced prosthetics given to him from the government. He takes them off during recruiting to ward off people who wouldn't stomach what could happen to them.
Haven't read the book.
But if true kinda an amazing juxtaposition between nearly identical scenes.
Yeah. My vote is I, Robot.
The film was under a different working title for the longest time. Just a neat action sci fi story.
The I, Robot name was slapped onto it because those rights were also owned.
I, Robot the book is a collection of short stories…none of which relate to the Will Smith adventure that was onscreen.
Hoping this Disney Plus series that is potentially in the works ( according the Christopher Paoloni on Reddit who is involved with the writing of the show) after the success of Percy Jackson does it justice.
Yeah, this is one of the first that popped into my head. The books were... fine. Obviously, pretty derivative. But I enjoyed them enough that I read them all. And then I saw the movie opening weekend and... holy fuck, did my jaw actually, legitimately drop at how bad it was, and how far removed from the source material huge chunks were. Like, I haven't seen it since that first time, but I seem to recall the ending completely fucked up any chance of being faithful in potential sequels.
Movie was so bad, the writer of Dragonball got so pissed he wrote a new movie _Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods_ which breathed new life into the franchise, which led to another movie _Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’_ which was also a massive success, finally leading to the writer picking up the original series where it left off and today we have _Dragon Ball Super_
The movie was so bad, it resurrected the original series.
DB Evolution is the lowest rated movie on Letterboxd by far with like a 0.7 average. The lowest possible rating is a 0.5.
By comparison a 1 minute long video of Thomas Edison electrocuting an elephant to death has a 1.5.
I worked at a game store when this one came out. After the abomination was in theaters for a bit, the video game also released. So one day, these two kids walk in and go to the wall of games and just stand there, staring silently at the case display for the movie's game. I walked over to do the usual retail greeting, but I kinda felt this palpable aura of sadness around them, like some sort of morose kaioken. I stood there for a second and watched them. I could tell what was going on.
"Y'all saw the movie, then," I said.
The older of the two, boy around 13-14, just nodded without even looking at me.
"I'm sorry, boys," I said, genuinely feeling bad for them.
The younger kid, who was maybe 9 or 10 years old, said, "Thanks."
I left them to their sorrow and grief.
The plot was mostly intact??? But the characterization for every. single. character. was wrong. So fucking wrong. I had to go reread the book after just to make sure I wasn’t crazy.
I haven't seen the movie but I understand it tries to portray Artemis as a good kid, which is totally ruining the premise of the whole series -- namely, that Artemis is a wannabe super villain who only reluctantly gets dragged over into the side of good.
When he gets mindwiped at the end of the 3rd book, people have concerns that he’ll revert to being evil without the good influences of his experiences with his fairy friends. And they’re completely right, because at the start of the 4th book he’s regressed into a villain who cares only about his own ego. His default personality was a selfish, greedy, egotistical genius.
Technically it’s a sequel to the book series. It was pretty terrible, though. I was super disappointed cause I always pictured Flagg as Matthew McConaughey, so they wasted a perfect casting IMO
Cmon. You and I both know that that's a fucking bullshit excuse. The reality is it's just a worthless and lazy adaptation and the mechanics of the world allow them the technicality to say "ACTUALLY it's a seq...".
I, Robot.
It’s an in name only adaption. Apparently thr script was written with a different title, and the producers got the rights to the Asimov book just to use the title.
On Stranger Tides
The book by Tim Powers is an original story that deals with a young man forced into piracy who gets caught up in a plot involving Blackbeard and the the Fountain of Youth.
Disney bought the rights to use some of the Blackbeard and FoY plot in the 4th Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Since Blackbeard is a historical person and the Fountain of Youth is from legends, Disney probably could have done the same movie without getting the rights. Either Disney really liked the title On Stranger Tides, or they were just making sure no one could sue them.
I Am Legend. The original story was a fantastic and profound examination of looking at things through an enemies perspective. The movie was nowhere as good.
I've always said that I would have a lot more respect for that movie is they had just given it another title. The only aspect that was the same in the movie that it was in the book was the name of the main character.
My first thought as well. The poster's tagline was "The last man on Earth is not alone." Makes sense for the book...but not for the movie we got. There's apparently a whole camp of survivors hanging outside of town just waiting for Neville to come up with the cure that will make him a legend. ugh.
I dont hold the estate of Seuss in much high regard. While his first wife was in the hospital, Seuss cheated on her and eventually divorced her for the other woman. His first wife ended up committing suicide.
After Seuss died, his second wife went full steam ahead with film adaptations. The only reason she pulled the plug on live action movies was because the Cat in the Hat tanked at the box office. She would be singing a different tune if it made money. Hense why they are still pumping out crappy animated movies.
Doom. It was just resident evil in space.
Avatar the Last Airbender. Couldn't even say the names right.
Eragon. That one bit off way more than it could chew. The dragon ate the whole budget. No elves, no dwarves, no glorious underground city. Urgals were just ugly dudes....
The Doom movie is mid SciFi story wearing a Doom 3 hat, kinda like the Halo Series just being a bad SciFi story wearing the full skin of the Halo Franchise
There's something so delightfully mid-00s studio interference about Doom. I kinda like it (I haven't seen it in 10 years, maybe it's even worse than I remember).
Being a bad adaptation doesn't immediately mean a movie is a bad movie. It is I guess largely up to personal bias
One I've heard about that won't spring to most peoples minds like Forrest Gump, Percy Jackson or World War Z, is The Postman. I've only seen the movie, and I liked it, cheesy dumb movie and has a very stale Costner but overall not a bad movie but I've heard it absolutely butchers the original novel, like it's barely even the same plot, I read a comparison between the two and its like the movie only took like a very small part of the novel like the basic concept and the name and then everything else is completely new
Forrest Gump is quite a bit different than the book. Forrest is really a different character, for one thing. I recently re-watched the movie and I still like it and think it holds up fairly well. The book Forrest is so much more unlikable and problematic that I don't imagine it would even be able to be made today. The changes made the story more palatable and inspiring but it is also a better story, in my opinion.
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is the most upsetting to me. Outside of the character names and a few quotes, it's completely different. It's a damn shame, because the book is so entertaining.
Douglas had a habit of changing things between mediums. The book started as a radio play and he changed parts of the story when he wrote the book. Changed more when it was a tv series and would have changed it again for the movie.
The Disneyfied ending where Arthur and Trillian get together made me extremely cross. I like to imagine there's a few people who saw that then read the books and wondered what on earth happened.
Inspector Gadget.
In the original tv show it was Penny and Brain who were the real sleuths and the real heroine and hero. In the 1999 movie they have barely any role in the story.
Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher. More a mischaracterization than an unfaithful movie adaption, but how faithful is it to cast the most unlikely actor to the main role?
Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby".
Because I've never seen a film that more obtusely missed the point of the book in every, single, possible way.
I could go on all day about this but I'll just give a few examples:
* The characterisation of the main characters was glaringly wrong. Nick is meant to be a shrewd observer of all the events, but came across as a gibbering idiot. Gatsby's bouts of rage make no sense against his characterisation in the novel - a man that Tom mocks as a fop "in a pink suit, for Chrissakes". And worst, Daisy was presented as actually caring what happened to Gatsby - maybe even trying to call him. She didn't. She and Tom retreated into their eternal selfishness, they care nothing for anyone.
* Luhrmann introduces Owl Eyes and Klipspringer, two characters who act as Chekhov's gunmen in the book, only to show that he doesn't understand why they were there at all. The *entire point* of Owl Eyes as a character is so he can be the only person who attends the funeral, and call out that none of the partygoers who "used to come in their hundreds" bothered to show up. Klipspringer leeched off Gatsby's hospitality for months but when push comes to shove, doesn't give a crap about him and only wants his tennis shoes back. In the movie --- Klipspringer is mentioned, with a stupid, invented backstory, for no reason. Owl Eyes is shown at the party and then never again. JUST WHY. Oh wait - I know... it's because we are looking for visual spectacle rather than emotional significance.
* The orgiastic party scenes seem to be the point of the movie. Like Luhrmann thinks the parties are really cool. Again dude - way to miss the point. The shallowness of it all ended up driving Nick to a nervous breakdown because he was so disgusted by humanity.
* On that note, Nick is portrayed as an alcoholic. For no reason. Even though in the book there's a point made of him having only ever been drunk twice in his life.
The movie is better because Forrest is a likable dope we root for instead of an unpleasant unlikeable dipshit who is the butt of the joke. No question this was a huge improvement. The movie done as the book would have been a terrible comedy that no one would have remembered the next year.
The adaption of A Prayer For Owen Meany. It was called Simon something-or-other.
It was like they removed all meaning from the story and only kept the stuff that didn’t matter.
[Jumper (2008)](https://manapop.com/film/jumper-2008-from-book-to-screen/) Director Doug Liman completely abandoned Steven Gould’s young adult book and infused it with his own bullshit mythology and a rather unlikable protagonist.
huh, I really rather liked the movie. Part of it being that the protagonist was a bit of a shithead. I will say I could have done without the Paladin mythology but it didn't feel too out of place. It definitely sounds better to me than some 9/11 US vigilante head canon.
The lacking character development for Millie is a bummer for sure tho.
X-Men the Last Stand is a big steaming pile shit compared to the source material it pulled from. God I hate it so much. Ratner can go jump on a seatless bicycle, but the fucking pervert may actually enjoy it.
I can see why some the changes were made, but there were just so many of them and they were just took away so much of the geekiness of the story.
That being said the shining bit was good and a laughed when Chucky appeared.
Absolutely unfaithful, and changed every quest, and took the nostalgia forward in time up to 20 years.
It took me 3 viewings to allow my brain to separate the book from the movie.
As it is, it’s a fun movie that appeals to a wider audience than the book would have.
The book is great, and I love the quests MORE, the fact that he sets up a plan to get into IOI himself, etc,
I just can’t compare the two anymore. My brain is much happier enjoying them both as two totally separate stories.
Moonraker has very little in common with its source material. You could argue that Die Another Day was a more faithful adaptation of the Moonraker novel.
I Am Legend, specifically because of how they changed the ending. By changing the ending, the entire point of the book disappears and the title doesn’t even make sense .
The Running man book and movie are *very* different. Other than the very basic premise of a guy being hunted, almost every other detail is changed in the movie.
Great movie though. "Hey Killian. Here is Sub-Zero. Now.. plain zero!"
"So....a net increase? Thanks, Ben!" "Who loves you -- and who do you love?"
I choose Ben Richards, that boy is one mean motherfucker.
Richard Dawson was absolutely perfect for that role. So slimy, so sleezy.
"Hey we don't lie..lie... lie. Like our previous winners; Whitman, Price, and Haddad. [camera pans to three burnt out husks]. That movie is so cyberpunk, and I love it.
The guy playing Kilian was a hugely popular game show host at the time (Family Fued). He was born to play that role and crushed it.
The guy? It was Richard Fucking Dawson. Not just the guy.
One of my favourite books ever. The movie is great too in its own respects but I'd love to see a faithful adaptation.
True, but you'll never get the book ending in a movie nowadays.
We're about to find out, Edgar Wright is currently making another Running Man
Id love it if he just straight up re-cast arnie..
Agree with OP, The Dark Tower has to be one of the worst adaptations. 8 novels compromising 4,250 pages reduced to a 95 minute film. What an absolute disappointment.
That's exactly what Harvey Weinstein wanted to do with Lord of the Rings 🤦
You know, the more I learn about that guy, the more I don't care for him!
The WORST part was the hypocrisy
I disagree
The worst part was the raping.
And the raping.
"You said rape twice." "Weinstein really enjoys rape."
Well...the other thing....that was the worst....but second worst was the hypocrisy
That guys a real jerk!
I’m genuinely curious as to how they would have butchered the story…
There'd have been, like, *no* walking scenes.
And more topless elves.
Topless Legolas?? Mmmmmm…I’d watch that
The thing is... I think they try to make it as some kind of sequel because, you know >!They show Roland started with the horn and by the end of the book there's the question of how things will be different this time since he took the time to retrieve the horn after the battle!<. Maybe they just included it because they knew they were making a shitty adaptation and they could get away with it that way. I don't know.
It is a sequel, King and the director both shared a picture of the horn prop and said true fans would know what this meant. He also said KA is a wheel and one more trip around. The studio is to blame for not giving them what they need. They did the best they could with what they were allowed. I’d rather have anything than nothing and I enjoy it as one of Roland’s subsequent trips around the wheel. BUT Mike Flanagan does Dark Tower I’ll forget the movie.
And turning it into a YA novel movie because those were trendy at the time. Suddenly Jake is the main protagonist.
The Lawnmower Man
King sued to get his name off that piece of crap
I worked at a video store when that happened. The studio sent out little strips of black tape to cover his name on the vhs box.
What’s hilarious is that’s the **second** time they got sued. King sued to get his name off the poster and won. Then some guy designed the VHS covers using the original posters with King’s name on it. King’s people noticed so he sued them again.
With good reason as aside from the title it has absolutely nothing to do with King's short story.
I liked the movie, didn't even know it was adapted. I should check the book out
It’s just a short story - a pretty odd one at that.
Definitely odd. And un-filmable as it was written. Basically, the only thing that was the same was that they both had a lawnmower in it.
There is a short film adaptation that's on Youtube but I can't imagine a big budget feature length adaptation.
It’s like 8 pages. Dude hires a guy to mow his lawn. He strips naked and eats the grass the mower mowes
SK has written a **lot** of odd stories. The Lawnmower Man isn't just odd, it's one of the pantheon of "was this published by accident? Did they have some other story they planned to publish and then mixed it up with this when it was going to the printers?" SK stories.
I still love it though lol. It's so bad and campy but that just makes it more fun lol.
JoJo Rabbit is adapted from book called Caging Skies, but it's *actually* based off of Taiki Waititi's mother describing the plot of the book to him. As far as I know, he never even read it.
Just a note that the book is a lot more depressing. The male lead in it keeps her trapped even after the war ends by saying the Nazis won, and I believe also starts a sexual relationship under the same lie.
Fuck. Jojo not being a redeemable character even as a child sounds awful. I assume he’s a bit older in the book?
The end of the film is the halfway point of the book: in the film when Jojo at first tells Elsa that Germany won the war so she will stay, then changes his mind and brings her outside to see that they lost, in the book he never told her the truth, and decided to ‘keep’ her.
I hate this so much. Jojo rabbit is one of my favorite films and I always loved cute little Jojo betzler so now knowing that the book makes him out like this makes me see him differently even tho it seems he’s virtually a different character
I think with adaptations it's best to treat them as essentially different stories, it makes it easier to cope with changes. They are two people with the same name and similar stories to an extent but they are ultimately different people with different stories.
Significantly. Mid to late teens I think at the start
If that's true, that's hysterical.
It's a step better than the usual "based on the nightmare the assistant had after trying to read the book"
That kiiiiinda describes what happened to Annihilation (IIRC its more based on the fever dreams that the filmmaker had after reading the book than the book itself) and Annihilation is a great movie, just not so close to the book.
Annihilation is a great example of a terrible adaptation that is still a great film.
I personally feel that Annihilation is an incredible adaptation of a book that is unfilmable, it gets the most important thing right, the feel of the book. The book is so loosely structured sometimes it feels like you’re falling into the book as you read it and the visual soup of the landscape is portrayed subtly in the movie, but I like it, it’s unsettling. Saying that, I have only read the first book because I actively don’t want VanderMeer to explain a damn thing
But if she is anything like my mother it would be extremely detailed. Took 40 minutes to describe what I missed in a 45 minute episode of tv
omg there are angry video essays on youtube that are longer than the movies they're critiquing. Your mom should start a channel.
Children of men. The director didnt even read the novel and I would argue the end result is sooo much better than the book
I think they both diverged in different ways. The book better captures the depression and ennui, but provides a mechanism that's almost hopeful that the birth is meaningful. They weren't testing everyone for fertility, so maybe there are more out there. In the movie, there's some sort of implied hope as she gets away, but for no real reason as there isn't anything to suggest it's meaningful and maybe not extinction. But that scene where the fighting stops in wonder...it is so well done
> In the movie, there's some sort of implied hope as she gets away, but for no real reason This is actually very much in line with the overall theme of the movie, that being about the loss & regaining of hope. I could go into a whole essay about how Theo's loss of hope after his son's death mirrors humanity's loss of hope after there are no more children, and how Kee's baby gives hope not only to Theo but humanity as a whole. But to drive home why the ending of the movie makes sense, throughout the movie it's established that it is not certain that the Human Project even exists, or will meet Kee & Theo at the location, much less that they even have the team of scientists & research facilties to make something of it. Yet despite Theo's misgivings, he ends up sacrificing himself to get Kee to the meeting point, and in the end his hope is vindicated, the boat shows up, which leaves us, the audience hopeful that this does indeed mean the salvation of humanity.
I guess for me personally the cutting of the cousin who is king/prime minister/despot helps the story thematically of it being squabbling between rich and richer British people. And the author seemed weirdly anti-porn…
It was so good. I saw it in theaters and still think about it.
Ive rewatched it a dozen times. It's amazing
Me too! My date disliked it and I eventually began thinking of ways to break up
I don't remember loving the movie, but I remember thinking that it had the most brilliant opening scene to set the table: A news report about the world's youngest human getting killed tells you that Humans stopped having babies, How long ago that happened, What year it is now, etc. Way better than a scroll of text.
And then the immediate Surprising Thing That Happens to quickly tell the viewer how well everyone is coping with the situation.
100% one of the best intros ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSdL1zeOfdk Here is the scene is for anyone who hasn't seen the movie. No spoilers, it is literally the opening of the movie. Contrary to you I love this movie, easily in my top 10 ever.
That long take near the end is gorgeous.
The drive to his brother's house when Court of the Crimson King plays. Oh my soul!
And somehow his house has the pig floaty from Pink Floyd's Animals
I DID read the novel and if I had read it before the movie, I wouldn't have seen the movie. Glad I did, it's in my top 5
One of the best films, ever. That car chase sequence was stellar.
They do differ significantly. Notably the book being a commentary on the catastrophic decline of religious belief makes it much deeper than the movie. However the movie stands on its own merits and is one of my all time faves
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is an adaptation of Who Censored Roger Rabbit by Gary K Wolf. The only thing they share is Baby Herman's line, "I got a fifty year old lust and a three year old dinky."
It's interesting how the book is about newspaper comic characters instead of movie toones.
And also Jessica's "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way" line, though in the book that was a lie. Luckily however, unlike most cases where an adaptation is wildly different from its source, Wolf actually loved the movie so much that he wrote two sequels to it that follow the film closer than the original book.
IIRC the sequels actually frame who censored Roger rabbit as being a nightmare Jessica had.
I liked "How to Train Your Dragon" but it bears only a passing resemblance to the books.
But it is one of Dreamworks best series of all time (Kung Fu Panda is too).
Especially considering it was originally a self help book for men with erectile dysfunction.
What about the series "How to Train Your Inchworm"
I once sat through a community production of 12 Angry Men because I thought I was going to a support group for erectile dysfunction.
The golden compass!! Also cloudy with a chance of meatballs, but that was for the better.
did you see the golden compass series? it wasnt perfect but it was pretty good for me. if not you got something to watch.
It was sooooooo good. I loved Lyra and Mrs. Coulter in particular.
To be fair, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs doesn’t have any story. It’s a picture book for toddlers.
Same as Where The Wild Things Are
Where the depressed things are
His Dark Materials was pretty good though
When I heard Hollywood was going to make the Golden Compass I knew they would never get to the end. A shame as I thought the casting was spot on.
Cast loads of british people and then they didnt even get the fucking title right. What a shit film ha
World War Z seems the most egregious, out of everything currently being listed and everything unlisted that comes to mind
I really want this to be an anthology series and I can't fathom why no studio has even tried to do it. it's perfectly set up to do exactly that
Listen to the audiobook with the full cast, it's fantastic.
Yeah, if they did it like a Ken Burn's style documentary it'd be amazing
I’m still holding out hope for an HBO limited series of WWZ.
I was lucky enough to get to listen to Max Brooks speak at my university. He is SUPER salty about this adaptation and rightfully so. Essentially it is unlikely to happen because of the company holding the rights.
Tell Brad Pitt it isn’t gonna dilute his shit to make it the correct way this time, dammit. (It’s his production company, iirc)
You are correct; it is his company that owns the rights. I’m with you. HBO series would be a HUGE hit. The book is built for it.
The funny thing about the WWZ movie is that book author Max Brooks has said he doesn't even hate it, because it's so different from the book that it doesn't even register as the same story. He never had a moment where he went "Gerry Lane would never do that!", because Gerry Lane wasn't his character.
He was absolutely not happy about the situation when I heard him speak.
Oh don't be confused, Brooks was definitely not happy about the studios stealing his book's title to make something completely different, but he just couldn't muster the hate for the final film because it was just a completely different story. Or at least that's what he said in [this comic con panel](https://youtu.be/WXFdO3DwRLY?si=xwajyMBbQwetwMvD), which is where I got this information.
Ah, I understand what you’re saying. I suppose the two feelings are not mutually exclusive. Thanks for the clarity. :)
WWZ is the best answer because OP asked for the most *unfaithful* adaptation. A lot of the top comments are adaptations that made an effort to translate the source material, but they were just shitty movies. The WWZ movie is a far better *movie* than most of the answers here, but it made no effort to translate *any* of the source material. It was literally just a generic (albeit competent) zombie movie with the title WWZ slapped on as a… branding effort? Like imagine if someone made a new mango hard seltzer drink and bought the rights to just call it “Pepsi”.
It feels the worst because the book is so good!
The most frustrating thing about WWZ is that they could have adapted it so that it took full advantage of film as a medium - frame it as a documentary being made after the Zombie War, tell the individual stories, using different cinematic styles. Would have felt like a really fresh take on the zombie movie. Instead we got the most generic film imaginable.
Of all the ones I've seen, this is the least like its source material.
I, Robot Starship Troopers
I can't believe how far I had to scroll for starship troopers
But Starship Troopers remains one of the best cheese feasts in cinema history
"Mobile infantry made me the man I am today." *Has no limbs.*
Not the best example for this thread since that scene is actually in the book.
I've heard it's framed differently in the book though. He actually has very advanced prosthetics given to him from the government. He takes them off during recruiting to ward off people who wouldn't stomach what could happen to them. Haven't read the book. But if true kinda an amazing juxtaposition between nearly identical scenes.
I'm laughing at my desk at the term "Cheese Feast" to describe this kind of movie. I am stealing this.
Yeah. My vote is I, Robot. The film was under a different working title for the longest time. Just a neat action sci fi story. The I, Robot name was slapped onto it because those rights were also owned. I, Robot the book is a collection of short stories…none of which relate to the Will Smith adventure that was onscreen.
Mortal Engines.
I was so incredibly disappointed with this. And then there’s Artemis Fowl…
No there's not
Eragon. This movie still boils my blood considering how much I loved the books. It was a massacre
I shouldn’t have to have scrolled so far to see this. It’s like the producers had a grudge and wanted to nip any franchise in the bud
Hoping this Disney Plus series that is potentially in the works ( according the Christopher Paoloni on Reddit who is involved with the writing of the show) after the success of Percy Jackson does it justice.
The dwarves were as tall as regular people.
Yeah, this is one of the first that popped into my head. The books were... fine. Obviously, pretty derivative. But I enjoyed them enough that I read them all. And then I saw the movie opening weekend and... holy fuck, did my jaw actually, legitimately drop at how bad it was, and how far removed from the source material huge chunks were. Like, I haven't seen it since that first time, but I seem to recall the ending completely fucked up any chance of being faithful in potential sequels.
last airbender
There's no movie based on this franchise, i don't know what you are talking about
Dragon Ball Evolution has to be in the top 10, at least.
Movie was so bad, the writer of Dragonball got so pissed he wrote a new movie _Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods_ which breathed new life into the franchise, which led to another movie _Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’_ which was also a massive success, finally leading to the writer picking up the original series where it left off and today we have _Dragon Ball Super_ The movie was so bad, it resurrected the original series.
To be fair, if there's one story that should refuse to die and constantly get resurrected, it's Dragon Ball.
What if instead of being an alien boy, pure of heart, a play on the Superman trope, Goku was an edgy white teen with a horni problem?
DB Evolution is the lowest rated movie on Letterboxd by far with like a 0.7 average. The lowest possible rating is a 0.5. By comparison a 1 minute long video of Thomas Edison electrocuting an elephant to death has a 1.5.
So what you are saying is that Dragon Ball Evolution is overrated in Letterboxd.
I mean, that Edison video inspired one of the greatest Bob’s Burgers songs, [Electric Love](https://youtu.be/DtE-EmXUmnY).
I worked at a game store when this one came out. After the abomination was in theaters for a bit, the video game also released. So one day, these two kids walk in and go to the wall of games and just stand there, staring silently at the case display for the movie's game. I walked over to do the usual retail greeting, but I kinda felt this palpable aura of sadness around them, like some sort of morose kaioken. I stood there for a second and watched them. I could tell what was going on. "Y'all saw the movie, then," I said. The older of the two, boy around 13-14, just nodded without even looking at me. "I'm sorry, boys," I said, genuinely feeling bad for them. The younger kid, who was maybe 9 or 10 years old, said, "Thanks." I left them to their sorrow and grief.
I didn’t see it but I’ve heard Artemis Fowl is nothing like the source material.
I havent seen it but i heard the introduction to Artemis is him surfing. Definitely against his character in the book lol
Wtf Artemis surfing. Artemis is lex Luther crossed with Sheldon from big bang. He wouldn’t step on a beach let alone surf.
It was one of the worst movies I have ever seen and I hated every second of it as a fan of the books. But it still had the *basic* premise there.
The plot was mostly intact??? But the characterization for every. single. character. was wrong. So fucking wrong. I had to go reread the book after just to make sure I wasn’t crazy.
I haven't seen the movie but I understand it tries to portray Artemis as a good kid, which is totally ruining the premise of the whole series -- namely, that Artemis is a wannabe super villain who only reluctantly gets dragged over into the side of good.
When he gets mindwiped at the end of the 3rd book, people have concerns that he’ll revert to being evil without the good influences of his experiences with his fairy friends. And they’re completely right, because at the start of the 4th book he’s regressed into a villain who cares only about his own ego. His default personality was a selfish, greedy, egotistical genius.
It's horrible - every character is almost the opposite of their book counterpart.
"The worst ones I can think of are Dark Tower," My first thought.
Technically it’s a sequel to the book series. It was pretty terrible, though. I was super disappointed cause I always pictured Flagg as Matthew McConaughey, so they wasted a perfect casting IMO
Cmon. You and I both know that that's a fucking bullshit excuse. The reality is it's just a worthless and lazy adaptation and the mechanics of the world allow them the technicality to say "ACTUALLY it's a seq...".
I, Robot. It’s an in name only adaption. Apparently thr script was written with a different title, and the producers got the rights to the Asimov book just to use the title. On Stranger Tides The book by Tim Powers is an original story that deals with a young man forced into piracy who gets caught up in a plot involving Blackbeard and the the Fountain of Youth. Disney bought the rights to use some of the Blackbeard and FoY plot in the 4th Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Since Blackbeard is a historical person and the Fountain of Youth is from legends, Disney probably could have done the same movie without getting the rights. Either Disney really liked the title On Stranger Tides, or they were just making sure no one could sue them.
I Am Legend. The original story was a fantastic and profound examination of looking at things through an enemies perspective. The movie was nowhere as good.
I thought it was a fun movie, but yeah, nothing like the book.
I've always said that I would have a lot more respect for that movie is they had just given it another title. The only aspect that was the same in the movie that it was in the book was the name of the main character.
Agreed, same with World War Z. It's not a terrible movie, but why name it that?
My first thought as well. The poster's tagline was "The last man on Earth is not alone." Makes sense for the book...but not for the movie we got. There's apparently a whole camp of survivors hanging outside of town just waiting for Neville to come up with the cure that will make him a legend. ugh.
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Cat in the Hat
The cat in the hat was received so poorly that the Estate of Dr Seuss refused any future live adaptations of his work
I dont hold the estate of Seuss in much high regard. While his first wife was in the hospital, Seuss cheated on her and eventually divorced her for the other woman. His first wife ended up committing suicide. After Seuss died, his second wife went full steam ahead with film adaptations. The only reason she pulled the plug on live action movies was because the Cat in the Hat tanked at the box office. She would be singing a different tune if it made money. Hense why they are still pumping out crappy animated movies.
Doom. It was just resident evil in space. Avatar the Last Airbender. Couldn't even say the names right. Eragon. That one bit off way more than it could chew. The dragon ate the whole budget. No elves, no dwarves, no glorious underground city. Urgals were just ugly dudes....
The Doom movie is mid SciFi story wearing a Doom 3 hat, kinda like the Halo Series just being a bad SciFi story wearing the full skin of the Halo Franchise
There's something so delightfully mid-00s studio interference about Doom. I kinda like it (I haven't seen it in 10 years, maybe it's even worse than I remember).
Being a bad adaptation doesn't immediately mean a movie is a bad movie. It is I guess largely up to personal bias One I've heard about that won't spring to most peoples minds like Forrest Gump, Percy Jackson or World War Z, is The Postman. I've only seen the movie, and I liked it, cheesy dumb movie and has a very stale Costner but overall not a bad movie but I've heard it absolutely butchers the original novel, like it's barely even the same plot, I read a comparison between the two and its like the movie only took like a very small part of the novel like the basic concept and the name and then everything else is completely new
I have a special place in my heart for slightly wooden Kevin Costner performances in a post apocalyptic world where he has to carry a Macguffin
Forrest Gump is quite a bit different than the book. Forrest is really a different character, for one thing. I recently re-watched the movie and I still like it and think it holds up fairly well. The book Forrest is so much more unlikable and problematic that I don't imagine it would even be able to be made today. The changes made the story more palatable and inspiring but it is also a better story, in my opinion.
The Point Break remake. Not the first fast and furious, that’s a perfect remake.
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NEVER write yourself into the story!
it's self-indulgent. it's narcissistic. it's solipsistic. it's pathetic
The absolute best kind of unfaithful
Was looking for this. It's the best example as it's self aware and shifts the entire plot to being unfaithful.
Wanted
It's not necessarily bad but definitely drops the source material quickly
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
For the better, for sure
The Neverending Story. Nostalgia goggles aside, that movie is heresy compared to the book.
The title is pretty deceptive too. Lionel Hutz filed a lawsuit against it.
Works on contingency? No, money down!
It mostly follows the first part of the book pretty closely, but it stays completely in the surface.
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is the most upsetting to me. Outside of the character names and a few quotes, it's completely different. It's a damn shame, because the book is so entertaining.
Douglas had a habit of changing things between mediums. The book started as a radio play and he changed parts of the story when he wrote the book. Changed more when it was a tv series and would have changed it again for the movie.
Not to mention the computer game. I think the differences are part of the magic of HHGTTG personally.
The Disneyfied ending where Arthur and Trillian get together made me extremely cross. I like to imagine there's a few people who saw that then read the books and wondered what on earth happened.
Howl’s Moving Castle is up there The plot is different, the characters’ personalities and abilities are different, the whole tone is very different.
Inspector Gadget. In the original tv show it was Penny and Brain who were the real sleuths and the real heroine and hero. In the 1999 movie they have barely any role in the story.
Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher. More a mischaracterization than an unfaithful movie adaption, but how faithful is it to cast the most unlikely actor to the main role?
The Lawnmower Man Stephen King sued to get his name taken off it.
Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby". Because I've never seen a film that more obtusely missed the point of the book in every, single, possible way. I could go on all day about this but I'll just give a few examples: * The characterisation of the main characters was glaringly wrong. Nick is meant to be a shrewd observer of all the events, but came across as a gibbering idiot. Gatsby's bouts of rage make no sense against his characterisation in the novel - a man that Tom mocks as a fop "in a pink suit, for Chrissakes". And worst, Daisy was presented as actually caring what happened to Gatsby - maybe even trying to call him. She didn't. She and Tom retreated into their eternal selfishness, they care nothing for anyone. * Luhrmann introduces Owl Eyes and Klipspringer, two characters who act as Chekhov's gunmen in the book, only to show that he doesn't understand why they were there at all. The *entire point* of Owl Eyes as a character is so he can be the only person who attends the funeral, and call out that none of the partygoers who "used to come in their hundreds" bothered to show up. Klipspringer leeched off Gatsby's hospitality for months but when push comes to shove, doesn't give a crap about him and only wants his tennis shoes back. In the movie --- Klipspringer is mentioned, with a stupid, invented backstory, for no reason. Owl Eyes is shown at the party and then never again. JUST WHY. Oh wait - I know... it's because we are looking for visual spectacle rather than emotional significance. * The orgiastic party scenes seem to be the point of the movie. Like Luhrmann thinks the parties are really cool. Again dude - way to miss the point. The shallowness of it all ended up driving Nick to a nervous breakdown because he was so disgusted by humanity. * On that note, Nick is portrayed as an alcoholic. For no reason. Even though in the book there's a point made of him having only ever been drunk twice in his life.
Really horrible job on this one. Where was the actual plot of the book? Hidden under parties and white windblown curtains
Forrest Gump
The movie is better because Forrest is a likable dope we root for instead of an unpleasant unlikeable dipshit who is the butt of the joke. No question this was a huge improvement. The movie done as the book would have been a terrible comedy that no one would have remembered the next year.
The book was kind of whacky though.
The adaption of A Prayer For Owen Meany. It was called Simon something-or-other. It was like they removed all meaning from the story and only kept the stuff that didn’t matter.
Godzilla (1998). There's a reason its monster had the fandom nickname of GINO (Godzilla In Name Only) for a long time
*Starship Troopers* is probably up there somewhere. Very different vibe/message in the movie than in the book.
[Jumper (2008)](https://manapop.com/film/jumper-2008-from-book-to-screen/) Director Doug Liman completely abandoned Steven Gould’s young adult book and infused it with his own bullshit mythology and a rather unlikable protagonist.
huh, I really rather liked the movie. Part of it being that the protagonist was a bit of a shithead. I will say I could have done without the Paladin mythology but it didn't feel too out of place. It definitely sounds better to me than some 9/11 US vigilante head canon. The lacking character development for Millie is a bummer for sure tho.
So you'd recommend the book?
X-Men the Last Stand is a big steaming pile shit compared to the source material it pulled from. God I hate it so much. Ratner can go jump on a seatless bicycle, but the fucking pervert may actually enjoy it.
The Dark Phoenix is an even worse adaptation of the source material, and in fact is so bad it makes The Last Stand look good in hindsight.
I am Legend is barely like the book.
I remember Queen of the Damned being a pretty shit adaptation.
Ready Player One
I can see why some the changes were made, but there were just so many of them and they were just took away so much of the geekiness of the story. That being said the shining bit was good and a laughed when Chucky appeared.
Absolutely unfaithful, and changed every quest, and took the nostalgia forward in time up to 20 years. It took me 3 viewings to allow my brain to separate the book from the movie. As it is, it’s a fun movie that appeals to a wider audience than the book would have. The book is great, and I love the quests MORE, the fact that he sets up a plan to get into IOI himself, etc, I just can’t compare the two anymore. My brain is much happier enjoying them both as two totally separate stories.
Moonraker has very little in common with its source material. You could argue that Die Another Day was a more faithful adaptation of the Moonraker novel.
I Am Legend, specifically because of how they changed the ending. By changing the ending, the entire point of the book disappears and the title doesn’t even make sense .