I think mine’s Z for Zachariah. The book is insane. A psychological survivalist thriller between a 14 year old girl and a strange man with unknown intent. The movie is… not this. They changed everything meaningful about the characters and lost all the tension. Hope someone does it properly one day. What’s your adaptation peeve?
A bit of recency bias with this one, Killers of the Flower Moon. One of the most intense, gripping true crime books became a haphazard snooze fest - the story, the cast, the director, all pointed to it being a banger. But I was forgetting the movie as I was watching it.
Ready player one. For a film that was mostly CGI not sure what was stopping them from being faithful to the book.
The Bourne trilogy. I like the books a lot but the films left me a bit meh. Different setting, different characters, different everything.
The Golden Compass. I love His Dark Materials and remember feeling such rage watching the film and how they’d ruined it so unnecessarily.
I still think the movie’s Iorek is better visually than the tv show’s. Probably due to cgi budget
I enjoyed the film when it came out (probably because I was about 8 and hadn’t read the book yet), but on rewatch it is really quite bad. The opening act is decent enough and does well to capture the feel of Lyra’s world, but the pacing later on is atrocious. The last half hour of the film probably needs to be three times as long, it’s just so rushed. And I’m not sure why they removed the ending of the book, especially since it would make it very difficult to set up a sequel
The show was not bad though.
It wasn’t bad or good. It wasn’t anything. It barely even cared to try.
Really? I couldn’t get through it and quit about 2 eps into season 2. It’s a lot closer to the source material but the lead actress’ performance is sooooo fucking dull.
I’m glad that I saw the movie before reading the books. I could ravel in the fact, how good they are, especially compared to the movie, instead of getting frustrated and angry.
The 1996 version of Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma. I don’t know what it was about the movie, but it completely put me off Jane Austen as a child and if my sister were to watch any other Austen movie, I wouldn’t stick around to watch it. It wasn’t until The Jane Austen Book Club was a movie, and I watched that, found out that it was based on a book, read the book, that I would give Jane Austen a go. I decided to start with Emma before the 2020 version came out and enjoyed both the book and 2020 version. I also felt vindicated over the fact that I knew as a child that there was no way that Emma would be engaging in archery as a past time and the book confirmed it for me. Still no idea why the archery was included in the movie.
Probably the fact that Paltrow isn’t really all that great if an actress and shouldn’t be in period pieces. Combined with Hollywood’s apparent inability to really do much with that genre without altering it for mass consumption. It messes with the story too much.
The Neverending Story. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to take a dragon and turn it into a flying puppy should be banned from filmmaking for life. Not to mention all the other ways that this abomination twisted a great book into a complete mess.
Oh god this. The book has a compelling allegory about the corruption of power and fascism.
Yes! This was my first experience with a bad adaptation - I saw it when it came out (I think I was 7?) and it pissed me off so much. The Falkor chases the bullies thing was just ugh. Falkor was far too dignified and the point of the book wasn’t about petty revenge on bullies, it was Sebastian coming into himself and becoming the sort of person who wouldn’t even notice bullies.
Masters of the Universe, not that the source material was any good (in my defense I was a toddler when I liked it) but the movie is batshit insane in a totally different way and may as well have been it’s own thing.
I HATE THE Z FOR ZACHARIAH FILM. I’m still mad about it 8 years later and I’m happy to see someone else is as mad as I am. They also made the movie racist so that’s fucking wild.
I’ve often thought about watching the movie. I bought the book at a scholastic book fair in the 70s. It was so good. Figures Hollywood would ruin it. Thanks for the warning
I appreciate the rage. Now we are soul bonded for eternity. Almost always when a movie doesn’t live up to the book I can forgive it because I know I must have impossible expectations. But in this case they just went ahead and told a completely different story and I will never comprehend why.
I didn’t even know there was a film version! I read the book as a teenager; seems I have to go rage watch the adaptation now.
I’ve been wanting to see this movie as I just loved this book in my youth. What a shame to hear that they ruined it. I guess I’ll just read the book again. It’s been about 30 years lol.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Wtf happened in the last like 30mins of the movie!?
Someone gave Charlie Kaufman a little bit too much creative freedom
I couldn’t finish the movie.
Planet of the Apes. In the novel, the planet is NOT Earth!!!
And yet they have the same animal species and speak English!
The book is painful.
Eragon. Sooo much changed, cut etc, removed so much depth and story
I saw the film before reading the books, I was so furious afterward reading them. To be fair though, I think a film was a mistake. So much depth to the world it would be better served as a series. Could have got 8-10 solid seasons.
I think we read different series, Eragon doesn’t really have all that much depth; I enjoyed the books as a kid don’t get me wrong, but they’re fairly straightforward
I’ll say one thing for the movie: they cut off the sequel hook. So I don’t think they expected it to do will enough to adapted book 2, which is a level of honesty most badly adapted kids movies lack
I love the 1995 Scarlet Letter movie, but it’s not remotely similar to the book.
That’s why Emma Stone’s character in easy A suggests watching the old version to do your book report. 😆
Easy A was a shockingly good movie
No one will ever convince me there is a worse adaptation than Darren Shan’s cirque du freak vampire assistant. Loved reading the books as a kid. Could not believe the monstrosity that came out.
Young Josh Hutcherson as Steve was decent casting at least
This film is vomit inducing. I remember the book being enjoyable at least, the movie was insufferable
Realistically, Forrest Gump was a great movie and a terrible adaptation.
The book was cartoonish and damn-near unreadable.
Begs the question though; is an adaptation “bad” just because it’s inaccurate?
I’d argue taking poorly written source material and salvaging it into something decent makes it a great adaptation, just not a faithful one
For it to be a great adaptation it needs to be faithful. It can be a great movie, but as an adaptation it sucks BECAUSE it’s not faithful. That’s how i look at it.
Never knew Forrest came from a book!
Don’t bother, it’s terrible. Idk who read that and thought it world be a good movie. It wouldn’t have been a good movie if it stayed faithful to the book.
Starship troopers is a pretty good movie but it’s another example of a movie that has little to do with the source
all for the better, Heinlein’s writing is atrocious.
Easily the worst of the big names in golden age SF
Wheel of time. The series is only the same in names of characters and title. They have butchered the story completely. The changes they have made early on have ruined important parts of the series that haven’t been filmed yet. I watched S1 hoping it would come back to the books, but I’ve lost hope and won’t watch any more.
I watched the first season and haven’t watched any more. WoT has a defined magic system. The tv version does not have a defined magic system. I don’t know how they are going to deal with HEALING DEATH. I don’t care. Not anymore.
It’s crazy to see how many times this happens. If they’re not gonna tell the story that matters, why bother?
Eh. I’m a huge wheel of time fan and I’m in the middle of season 2. While I dislike some of the changes. I’m still enjoying a lot of the episodes. Idk if it’s because I’ve seen enough adaptations thst I didn’t have the highest expectations. Idk if it’s just the love of seeing some of the stuff we are seeing. But I find it an enjoyable watch.
Money. WoT was probably the biggest and most popular contemporary fantasy series until Song of Ice and Fire came out.