Films that do/don't live up to the Book or Screenplay

Frank Black · 17-06-2013 07:33AM

The recently released Cloud Atlas has divided the critics. The original novel was felt to be almost un-filmable. The movie completely changes the structure of the source material.
Personally, I thought it was brilliant - as was the novel.

Slutmonkey57b · 17-06-2013 07:47AM

Lightbulb Sun wrote: »

Funny thing is Ian Fleming as his real life self was even more badass than the character he created for his books!

Really? Everything I've read about Fleming says he was a Walter mitty type whose intelligence career was characterised as embarrassingly amateur.

ibarelycare · 17-06-2013 09:15AM

bnt wrote: »

The makers of The Golden Compass clearly didn't read the whole His Dark Materials trilogy before signing the contract. They had to bowdlerize Northern Lights of its anti-religious message to make it acceptable to Hollywood, and the result fell flat at the box office. I honestly can't imagine them making the rest of the trilogy into films: they'd half to leave out half the content - that's how un-PC they are,

Forgot about that. Absolutely brilliant books, they could have made some epic movies out of them. The Golden Compass was such a disappointment.

I know I've mentioned Stephen King already, but nearly forgot about The Mist. Admittedly I haven't read the book, however I know they completely changed the ending in the movie. It's a pretty mediocre movie but the end is phenomenal...one of the best movie endings I've ever seen, it really disturbed me. SK said he wished that he'd written the book with the ending that they wrote for the movie.

Crooked Jack · 17-06-2013 09:26AM

I was hugely disappointed by the film version of 1984 when I finally got to see it.

Apanachi · 17-06-2013 09:34AM

All of them I'd say*

One of the worst ones was "The Beach", the book was great, the film was not...

*with the exception of "The Shining" and maybe "The Pillars of the Earth"

CruelCoin · 17-06-2013 10:12AM

Hitman,

Thats was just plain ****ing crap

stefan idiot jones · 17-06-2013 01:13PM

CruelCoin wrote: »

Hitman,

Thats was just plain ****ing crap

I can trump that with Snakes on a plane.

CruelCoin · 17-06-2013 01:48PM

stefan idiot jones wrote: »

I can trump that with Snakes on a plane.

Hitman has a cult following and several best selling games behind it, non of which the film portrayed accurately.

That entire film i was just wishing he would shoot the russian bint already.

SV · 18-06-2013 02:37AM

Game of Thrones are an absolutely brutal adaptation.
Find the series kind of boring and it leaves out massive amounts of information and a lot of stuff is changed from the books.

Oranage2 · 18-06-2013 06:56AM

The only movie that beats the book that I've read is the hobbit, you can't get the emotional connection with the characters from watching 90 minutes on screen as you do with spending hours upon hour of reading.

Kold · 18-06-2013 07:08AM

Sim City is so much better than Atlas Shrugged.

af_thefragile · 18-06-2013 07:09AM

Kold wrote: »

Sim City is so much better than Atlas Shrugged.

I thought Bioshock was the sequel to Atlas Shrugged...

MagicMarker · 18-06-2013 08:46AM

Ah, I almost forget. The Count of Monte Crist.

One of the finest books ever written, the movie with Jesus was an abomination.

Capt'n Midnight · 18-06-2013 09:29AM

MagicMarker wrote: »

Ah, I almost forget. The Count of Monte Crist.

One of the finest books ever written, the movie with Jesus was an abomination.

Better version
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072824/

Richard Chamberlain
Tony Curtis
Donald Pleasence
Trevor Howard

force eleven · 19-06-2013 12:19PM

Not films as such, but I remember the Famous Five came out as a TV series back in the 70's. I can distinctly recall the memory of being bitterly disappointed with it, since I loved the books back in that far off time...

Capt'n Midnight · 19-06-2013 12:49PM

force eleven wrote: »

Not films as such, but I remember the Famous Five came out as a TV series back in the 70's. I can distinctly recall the memory of being bitterly disappointed with it, since I loved the books back in that far off time...

The Comic Strip Presents Five Go Mad in Dorset

wobzilla1 · 19-06-2013 12:56PM

Forgot all about the Count of Monte Cristo.

Bloody amazing book but every adaption has tonnes of stuff cut out.
There is a huge amount of characters in the book and the adaptions always leave some out or just combine them into one character.(Jacobo and Bertuccio).
And the film with Jim Caveziel, they made Albert Edmond's son.

The series with Gerard Depardeau is enjoyable enough

Hoop66 · 19-06-2013 12:56PM

Samsgirl wrote: »

The Da Vnci Code. Enjoyed the book. Crap movie.

But the book was essentially a treatment for a movie. The sort of thing a scriptwriter would get to flesh out into a screenplay.

Mink · 19-06-2013 01:30PM

Don't think it's mentioned but The Bourne Identity is a brilliant film but I thought the book was rubbish

Merkin · 19-06-2013 01:50PM

force eleven wrote: »

Not films as such, but I remember the Famous Five came out as a TV series back in the 70's. I can distinctly recall the memory of being bitterly disappointed with it, since I loved the books back in that far off time...

I absolutely loved those books

stefan idiot jones · 19-06-2013 02:03PM

Mink wrote: »

Don't think it's mentioned but The Bourne Identity is a brilliant film but I thought the book was rubbish

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ludlum wrote at a thousand miles an hour.

Green&Red · 21-06-2013 04:44PM

High fidelity was both a good book and a good film, crossed the atlantic too which wasnt easy

EDit · 21-06-2013 05:36PM

Read the book The Rats by James Herbert when i was younger and thought it was great (and terrifying) so thought i'd check out the film adaptation (called Deadly Eyes). Was pure ****e....they used sausage dogs in rat costume ffs!