The Hobbit. Probably not the worst movies with not the worst bastardisation (that’d be The Dark Tower for me), but I simply can’t wrap my mind around the overbloated monstrosity that the Hobbit TRILOGY is. Like why would anyone do this, it felt like it’s in the bag, they got Peter Jackson, they already made LotR to great success, why do we suddenly need wacky wheels with cartoon CG goblins in 48 FPS for some reason… It doesn’t even match neither the tone of the book nor the tone of LotR movies.
peter Jackson was dragged in kicking and screaming years after preproduction started. it was destined to be a studio driven mess from the start
If you watch the behind the scenes stuff it honestly is pretty impressive how competent the movies ended up being. Yes, they are terrible, but they could have been a lot worse. Peter Jackson made them watchable, at least.
Full CGI ruined the hobbit for me. The costume and make up work was so good in LotR. That and the whole movie operated as if in a physics-free zone. Nothing made sense.
I never watched the other two, I imagine they are just as bad.
Have you seen the early 90s Finnish Hobbit?
Well of course I have! I put it on my Plex server, lol.
Those didn’t happen. Go back to the animated movies.
The 1970s animated The Hobbit is a good adaptation, also the Tolkien Supercut version of the live action movie is watchable.
“I Am Legend” has been made into 3 or more movies, none of which have anything like the book’s ending.
The Last Man on Earth (1964) is dull and misses the point almost entirely, but almost manages the title line. Not quite.
The Omega Man (1971) is exciting and misses the point even further.
I Am Legend (2007) almost gets it. The vampires are competent. Will Smith’s smarter than Neville of the book, but crazier. But then both endings fail to treat the vampires as a society.
I only know of Will Smith version of “I am Legend”. There are more?
The Omega Man (1971) is exciting and misses the point even further.
Appropriate, as the star of that movie usually did too.
Omega Man is a fun movie though.
Not a classic book, but Artemis Fowl. Disney managed to confuse fans of the books and newcomers to the series alike by adding a McGuffin that was unnecessary, bringing the antagonist from the second book into the movie on the first book, and mangling the relations between the two main protagonists beyond recognition.
Somewhere deep down I think I remember that book as great, the movie has to be horrible
Butler… is the comic relief.
Artemis Fowl was just bad, not just a bad adaptation. It was an incoherent mess. Felt like they left way too much on the cutting room floor for the finished product to make sense.
I’ve been told that Artemis Fowl in the books is actually a nice and smart person. In the movie he comes across as an arrogant dick for a larger part.
Because no one is going with the classic, I can mention Eragon.
I was going to read Eragon with my kids, but then remembered how bad the movie was - and knew that they’d want to watch it after reading the books. So I haven’t read it with them. Might get around to it eventually.
Possibly controversial, but I thought the movie version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a huge disappointment.
Luckily there’s the radio series, books, TV show, comic, play, and game to get me through :-)
I partly expected that this particular movie would come up in such a thread, as most people seem to be quite disappointed by it. Sure it was different from what everyone expected, and it could have been much better. I still appreciate it though because, like all adaptations/versions of H2G2, it tells a slightly different story, with the same humour and satire that is characteristic of Douglas Adams. And the effects were quite nifty IMO. Too bad DNA did not live to see the completed film…
Luckily there’s the radio series, books, TV show, comic, play, and game to get me through :-)
Don’t forget the BBC TV series, it was not bad either ;-)
At least the easter egg with the old marvin from the bbc series was a nice touch
That was the TV show I meant :-)
Sorry, my bad :-)
It’s all hoopy, my frood :-)
I agree. Mos Def and Zooey Deschanel really didn’t pull their weight. Zaphod with only one head nearly the entire time was lame. The whole thing felt too “American” to me.
Bill Nighy was fantastic though.
Zooey was definitely meh, but Mos Def was amazing imho. Especially considering it was his first acting role iirc.
Mos was about 7 years into his acting career by that time.
He’s always good though.
Really? Wow. My bad, then. I must be confusing him for someone else, but i have no idea who.
It’s a mess of a movie, but it’s also the only version of the story where some bits of Adams’ original material actually ended up being seen — namely Humma Kavula and the Point-of-View Gun.
I’m just the opposite. I enjoyed the movie but not the book.
I’ve not read the book. I swear theres some weird curse on my copy, because every time I sit down to read it some major shit hits a fan.
But I loved the movie, and the only disappointing thing with regard to it is that it didnt do well enough to get the sequels made.
That was Catch-22 for me. Every time I had a free moment to read it, some random, horrible thing would happen. First, a garbage disposal exploded, next time my work truck ran into the back of a bus, and then finally I got fired from my job as an appliance installer for reading books on the job.
It was terrible!
I found the book over the top and a cringy “penguin of doom” “I’m so random” style of humour. I don’t get that series
I would imagine that it’s tough to go back to a book that defined humor for a generation of readers, spawning copycat jokes and stories across the world. Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog, per E.B. White, nobody is that interested and the frog dies. So I won’t go into why Adams’ writing is considered some of the funniest literature in modern history, but I will say two things:
First, none of it is actually random. It might seem random, but that’s just how it looks from your limited perspective. That’s part of the beauty in the stories, things come back around later. It’s a story centered around a literal improbability generator, and yet everything exists for a reason (even if that reason is to be a cosmic punchline).
Second, I would suggest you don’t compare it to the overwhelming number of pale imitations. There are famous, successful authors who learned to write humor reading the HGttG, and for every one of them there are thousands of untalented failures who think “lol so random” is all it takes to be funny. To complain about how Adams’ writing reminds you of stupid cliches is like complaining about how a Van Gogh painting looks like hotel art.
The last thing I’ll say is you don’t have to like the books. Taste is subjective, and you might not find the books funny. That’s OK. Read something that makes you laugh, makes you think, and makes you want to keep reading. But if you say you don’t understand why something is enjoyable to everyone else, you’re going to get long-winded rants from internet strangers who care very deeply about the thing you don’t understand. You don’t have to read those, either. I probably should have started with that bit.
Dude this is such a lame reply. I gave my personal opinion of the book and you wrote a whole condescending lecture of hand wavy arguments about how my opinion is apparently objectively wrong and then had the gall to follow it up with:
The last thing I’ll say is you don’t have to like the books. Taste is subjective, and you might not find the books funny
Yeah, no shit. I didn’t like the book and frankly I don’t need your permission to not like the book.
Except you didn’t say you didn’t like it, you said you didn’t get it, and proved you didn’t get it with an invalid criticism.
Hope the rest of your day is as pleasant as you are.
I found the book…
This is my opinion, I do not need you to validate my opinion. Surprised you managed to finish the book when you couldn’t be bothered to actually read my comment. Go be a condescending twat elsewhere.
I don’t get that series.
Also you. I’m sorry about your memory problems. Maybe that’s why you struggled with the books? At least maybe you’ll forget about me and fuck off.
Hope the rest of your day is as pleasant as you are.
Easily “World War Z.” What an utter waste of the source material.
Related in name only. I loved the book and got curious about the movie.
What a boring useless mess of tropes. Brad Pitt travels the world and saves everyone. There, I just saved you 90 minutes.
It’s not even a bad movie. But it’s only very tangentially related to the source material.
Yeah I thought that too. I saw the movie before I’d read the book and I was like “that was fine, I dunno what everyone’s fussing about.” Then I read the book and was like “…oh.”
It’d be great to see the book done properly. I know everyone says it but a multi-part HBO-type show would be amazing.
would love to see it done as a mockumentary mini series, like it already has the format built in!
It’s a wonderfully stupid movie.
The plot is nonsense, everything is forgettable, and I’ve easily watched it a dozen times both because of, and in spite of, all that.
I, robot.
Asimov: “The ‘robots take over the world’ plot is overdone. I think humans would make robots intrinsically safe through these three laws.”
Movie: “What if the robots interpreted the three laws in such a way that they decided to take over the world??!?”
The only good part of that movie was when Will Smith’s sidekick was like “this thing runs on gasoline! Don’t you know gasoline explodes?!”
A running theme of Asimov’s Robot stories is that the Three Laws are inadequate. Robots that aren’t smart and insightful enough keep melting down their positronic brains when they reach contradictions or are placed in irreconcilable situations. Eventually Daneel and Giskard come up with the Zeroth Law; and if I recall correctly they only manage that because Daneel is humaniform and Giskard is telepathic.
spoiler
And the robots do take over, eventually!
There were flaws, yes, but they never rose to the level of attempting to destroy humanity that I recall. We had a sort of plot armor in that Asimov wasn’t interested in writing that kind of story.
I’m getting this from a forward he wrote for one of the robot book compilations.
Oh, sure, the robots never want to destroy and replace humanity, but they do end up taking quite a lot of control of humanity’s future.
Wasn’t the last I, Robot story about how the robots directly the world’s politics decide that we were living better and longer lives without technology and brought the world back to medieval level of tech?
Wasn’t there books that he wrote that were about flaws in the Three Laws?
Flaws or interesting interpretations of them, but he rarely if ever approached the “robots destroy humanity” trope even if it was technically possible in his universe because he thought it was boring.
Yeah it’s more about whatever safe guards you put life will find a way to twist them.
Life, uh, finds a way
Are you saying the book does not have a blatant commercial for All Stars?
I don’t know what you’re talking about, there has never been a movie adaptation of the book! Never!
Imagine if they did an anthology series… /drooling
For now I’ve got Pluto to look forward to.
Pluto? I never finished reading the manga, but it was looking promising. Is there a movie made or coming up?
There’s a Netflix anime getting made!
Oh oh interesting interesting!
… should I finish reading it first…?
It’s a great story, but that’s up to you! I ended up reading scanlations of it years ago.
Starship troopers. I say this not because the movie is bad (it’s not, I think it’s exactly what it meant to be and did it well), but that the movie and the book are thematically opposites. The book is very pro military authoritarian. The movie is a satire of that.
The many adaptations of the Iliad, none of them is gay enough.
“Do Androids Dream of Eletric Sheep”
You’ll probably recognize it as Blade Runner but the film took so much liberty the author allowed a good friend to write three sequels in order to harmonize the book with the movie.
Also “Starship Troopers”.
I can give Starship Troopers a pass though. Making it into a satire of fascism works better than it being straight up fascist propaganda. The book is basically a social experiment and people who read books will most likely get the point. People who don’t read on the other hand…
I’m beyond the debate over the Starship Troopers book vs movie. Both are very much being their own thing, and I am able to enjoy them both.
The knife training scene in each summarizes the different approach they have.
I highly recommend scifi fans read Starship Troopers and Forever War back to back. I consider them complimentary books regarding the nature of war, and government.
Haha I would put both of those at the top of my list of movies that were actually much better than the books.
Do Androids Dream of Eletric Sheep felt so flat to me, I think it probably didn’t age well. The animal obsession didn’t land for me, I guess it’s supposed to be an allegory for material obsession, since the animals are more for showing off than being actual pets, but it just seemed to slap you in the face with it like many of the very not subtle metaphors. The main character is also just dull as hell and walks straight into dangerous situations or traps without a second thought, but it always works out for him because plot armour and the androids either just comply for some reason or they’re so incompetent that it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a fun book imo and it’s themes were so obvious that it didn’t “make you think”.
Starship Troopers (Book) was just hoorah military propaganda. The movie did such a good job of making fun of it and turning into a ridiculous over the top satire.
Was my first thought, as well. I saw the movie first and hated it, glad I stumbled across the book at some point and found one of my now favourite authors.
Not a classics, but:
- American Gods: they made unnecessary changes and introduced unnecessary filler plotlines until it felt like a drag to watch. The book already explored social issues, but the showrunners decided to dial it up to 100 and spoonfeed it to the audience at the expense of the actual plot.
- Ready Player One: they dumbed down the whole thing about hunting keys and portals, removed tons of important worldbuilding details, made pointless changes that ruined the spirit of the books. They should have made it into a series instead of a movie.
What made me mad at RP1 movie was they put the Easter Egg in Atari Adventure. Which is mentioned in chapter 0 of the book, and again in the fake town (not put in the movie) because it’s so obvious, nobody who cared about games at all would hide anything there.
And no Tomb of Horrors.
Instead Spielberg put a bunch of lame movie references in, because he’s too senile to understand the game references.
And the actors are far too pretty for the “but you’re beautiful inside” plot.
Not to mention the bastardization of the entire plot.
I liked the book because it felt like the villains had actual capabilities to accomplish their goals. The protagonists did everything right and it still wasnt enough to get the bad guys off their backs.
In the movie the protagonists make stupid decisions and the villain helper character which didn’t even exist in the book just overhears them talking about it.
Fucking. Stupid.
Said it better than I could.
Exactly.
And no Tomb of Horrors.
That’s because the novel was about nerd culture in general, while the movie was almost entirely about video games. All the D&D, Rush, Monty Python, etc. references were absent. The Shining was in there because Kubrick was Spielberg’s mentor.
Instead Spielberg put a bunch of lame movie references in, because he’s too senile to understand the game references.
Have not seen the movie, but that sounds like Spielberg nailed the tone of the novel. The book reads like a thinly veiled essay by an aging Gen X geek about how pop culture peaked during the authors childhood and the world would be perfect if we could go back to the 80s.
Thanks for your completely useless post.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodBeautyStandards
It doesn’t happen all the time, though
Ready Player One was a good adaptation of a mediocre book into a mediocre movie.
Disagree. The movie is a mediocre adaptation of a fun and mediocre book into an un-fun and mediocre movie. The film was never going to be gold, but they spent an awful lot of CGI money to make a movie that wasn’t as fun as just reading the original and imagining all of the nerdy stuff being described.
I won’t argue with the book being mediocre (I myself enjoyed it but many others didn’t), but it wasn’t a faithful adaptation at all.
Both of these.
American Gods really pissed me off though if they had stuck to the books it could have been an amazing series with great characters and weird but fun storylines in a unique setting. But they added too much stuff and there was a total mess with the show runners leaving so it all sort of fell apart before one of the best plot lines of the whole story.
I kinda want to rewatch it again someday though…
Ready Player One: they dumbed down the whole thing about hunting keys and portals, removed tons of important worldbuilding details, made pointless changes that ruined the spirit of the books. They should have made it into a series instead of a movie.
I went into the theater expecting it to be not so great, and it still managed to disappoint me.
No one appears to have yet mentioned Forrest Gump. In the book he was a chess grandmaster who wrestled professionally and was an astronaut. Also, the book sucks.
I haven’t watched or read it. Are you saying the movie is better than the book in spite of bastardizing it?
Yip. Also, they were very slightly totally different.
Oh, another one I just thought of - How to Train Your Dragon.
The movies are fine, but they are so completely different from the books in almost every respect that it’s barely worth giving them the same name.
The books are absolutely brilliant, especially the further you get into them. Would love to see them developed as a TV series that stuck to the style and messages of the books. Would likely need about 10 seasons though!
TIL How to Train Your Dragon is originally a book. Thank you.
Yeah, Cressida Cowell. It’s very different though, be warned. There’s a guy called Hiccup who is a Viking and has a dragon… And that’s about it :-)
Isn’t there literally a TV series for it? I could have sworn I’ve seen it at some point
I think there’s a series based on the movies, but not really on the books as far asni know.
The Dark Tower. I don’t get what that was, the books were far richer.
Not a classic for most people but zoomers will agree that Percy Jackson and the lightning thief was a tragedy.
Then Sea of Monsters ended up being worse somehow.
God, I forgot that even existed…
Yeah. They even got a second chance. Am opportunity to make respectable sequels for each book… But no. We can’t have nice things.
Hot take but I kinda liked the percy jackson movies. Yeah they could’ve been done better but it was one of my favorite series and to see some parts of it visualized and on the big screen is a cool experience. Still, I’m very excited for what Rick Riordan has cooked up with Disney right now.
Yeah the new Percy Jackson series has a lot of potential and good young actors who are more accurate in terms of characters age.
