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.
Doesn’t that make it the BEST bastardization of the book then? :)
haha, yes, in some sense :D
Heinlein also claimed the book its “swiftian in intent” its just done dry. And probably wouldnt have been adapted well to tv.
That being said in the book it was clear carmencita was way out of jhonys league and he was very aware of that. While other heinlenian heroes are generally horny.
Another difference from the heinlenian hero is that jhony is not very smart. He lacks agency and any positive agenda. He just stumbles around.
‘Johnny lacks agency.’ Well, he was a brand new high school grad who thought owning an Olympic size pool was normal. He joins up because his buddy was going in, and then is too proud to quit.
Exactly. He just goes with the flow. No soul of his own. Just another cog in a fascist machine.
This is even more notisable when you compare him with other heninlein protagonists who are also teenagers and join the army or simmilar institutions. They have their own agendas and goals.
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.
The hobbit movies should have fleshed out the dwarf characters better with all that extra time, give each of them a substory spread out over the trilogy so they would be more memorable. They did that with only one of the dwarves and it’s a silly love triangle that barely goes into the character of said dwarf. With the movie we got, ask any average person directly after seeing the movies to name the dwarves, i bet hardly anyone can.
Not only does the love triangle not make sense, but it really only serves to erode the significance of friendship of Legolas and Gimli. They were supposed to be first friendship between an Elf and dwarf in a long time
Grumpy, Doc, Sneezy, I definitely forget the rest though.
IIRC the crushing of the Actors Union in NZ is what sidelined the dwarves.
Warner Bros didn’t want to make the Hobbit. They wanted to make another Lord of the Rings movie, and had to use the Hobbit for it. The Hobbit is very much NOT a Lord of the Rings story, despite the shared setting. Square book, round movie.
Also, they knew there wasn’t enough content, but Warner Bros had to split the profits of the first movie five ways. They didn’t have to do that for the second movie, and then they added a third to squeeze out even more.
The 1970s animated The Hobbit is a good adaptation, also the Tolkien Supercut version of the live action movie is watchable.
They lost me at what they did to my boy Radagast.
See, I think the high frame rate would look great if what you were looking at was real. But what you’re looking at is a room of actors in nylon beards and Martin Freeman in rubber feet.
And where did the spare barrel come from?
Spare barrel? Bear in mind I have only actually seen the first of the Hobbit trilogy, and then later I watched the Tolkien Supercut, that cut out anything not at least alluded to in the book.
I think it’s in the second one. It’s hard to be sure when you’re vaguely remembering a 300 page children’s book inexplicably squeezed into three movies.
It’s the much hated GoPro barrel ride bit. All the dwarves have a barrel, there are no spares, Tim from The Office has to hang onto the side of one. The fat dwarf breaks his, and then after bouncing around like prequel Yoda, jumps into a spare that comes from nowhere.
I would think the version you saw just shows them all going into the water and coming out at the other end. It’s been a long time since I read it (close to 30 years), but I don’t remember any massive river battle going on.
In defense of The Dark Tower… it isn’t an adaptation of the books. It’s a sequel. It continues the story in a way in which Roland finally breaks the loop.
Have you seen the early 90s Finnish Hobbit?
Well of course I have! I put it on my Plex server, lol.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=4gzWA4Euzck
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
“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.
The original cut of the 2007 ended with Will Smith’s character realizing he had been abducting and murdering conscious, aware creatures. The ending has the vampires doing a rescue mission, visibly terrified of Smith, and then he allows the one he abducted to rejoin her society.
Test audiences apparently didn’t like it or didn’t understand it
Test audiences apparently didn’t like it or didn’t understand it
I read the book on a whim in high school. I think it was one of those random Barnes and Nobles finds. The ending was an amazing horror twist, with Neville realizing he’s the monster and the audience realizing that they’ve been rooting for the villain The whole time, and the acceptance of the transition to the new society.
The only adaptation I’ve seen was the Will Smith movie which was generic zombie movie nonsense.
Days Gone (the game) did a better job than the “I am legend” movie, imo. Approached a similar plot from a different angle.
I’m so upset they killed any sequel. Now we’ll never know what happens with O’Brien!
I agree! >:(
Were the zombies not killing any human in sight in the book?
They weren’t zombies, they were vampires in the book. Like talking, civilized people.
It’s funny the irony of I Am Legend, it is an allegory to an older society having to make way to a newer one, and somehow every time that’s the story they can’t do.
the 1964 one at least has vincent price in it
I only know of Will Smith version of “I am Legend”. There are more?
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.
I think the book was written to be satire and the movie is, uh, comedic but in a much less pointed way
Liberalism and Great Man Theory, name a more iconic pair.
the book as an audiobook is good
Forrest was a POS and he was a bum because he knew it!
The many adaptations of the Iliad, none of them is gay enough.
somewhere in the distance, the Blue Oyster Salad Bar music starts playing
The Gunslinger. It was supposed to be more of a continuation of the books but it just sucked all around.
And to think I was so excited to see Elba play Roland. What a disappointment.
It wasn’t an adaptation of The Gunslinger
As a very long time reader of the Dark Tower series, I was super excited to see what they would do with it. I couldn’t watch more than 5 minutes before I had to shut it off, it was just so fucking BAD.
That was probably a good idea. I made it about 30 minutes in. The movie kept moving further and further away from the books. And it was in the weirdest ways. I’m not sure what all it showed in the first 5 minutes, but Randal suddenly has a group of people to help him, and they’re using sifi technology with computers to open portals instead of the doors. I get things will always change from book to movie. I go in expecting it. And usually it’s not a huge deal. But I just don’t get the decisions they decided to make.
Dune. The Wheel of Time series on Prime.
the recent dune film or the 80s one?
If we’re talking about the 80s one I couldn’t disagree more. It has little to do with the book but as its own thing it’s perfect.
I both agree and disagree on Dune.
True, Lynch’s version did the book no justice. But, gosh, is a guilty-pleasure of a movie for me.
I’ll judge Jodorowsky’s version when it’s done.
Ok, you caused some cognitive dissonance with the callback to Jodorowsky and I thought I was in a parallel reality for a few seconds. Well done.
I haven’t seen the old one but I liked the new one.
The best one is the scyfi mini series. They have awsome sets and coustumes. The did change some things but not as much as the old one. The old one sucks in all aspects except their casting for paul is the best. The new one has by far the best casting(except gor paul) but some of the lines are delivered wierdly and the sets and the contrast of the colors is a bad choise.
Battle pugs are a huge plus in the Lynch Dune column
I haven’t read the wheel of time. The Amazon series is certainly uneven but I’ve enjoyed it so far
Imo the Amazon series is good if you just mentally separate it from the source material, which you honestly have to do with pretty much every adaptation if you’ve read it, so it isn’t like it’s a new phenomenon.
I’m probably on my own in being a big fan of the books and also liking the first season for the most part. Despite the changes, the world felt recognizably like Randland. I only really hated the last episode.
But that last episode was an absolute trash fire. It wasn’t just different, it was wrong. A bunch of characters and story elements are either killed off, not present to begin with, or in the wrong place at the start of the second season.
I’m willing to forgive a lot of that due to the troubles the production had with COVID and the loss of one of the main actors. All that was on top of regular old studio meddling that happens with these things.
My hope then is that the second season will go about trying to correct everything and put all the characters where they are supposed to be at the start of season three, which I’m assuming will align with the third book.
Season 2 has three episodes out now! I’d say they recovered nicely from the S1 blunders.
I’ve seen S2E1 so far. It was a bit slow, but at least Egwene and Nynaeve are mostly in the right spot, and Perrin is almost exactly where he’s supposed to be (a bit strange considering of the five main characters he was the one with the biggest change to his backstory)
See, having not read the books, there’s no way for me to know anything is “wrong”, so the finale didn’t particularly stand out as better or worse than the rest of the season. Said season was not insanely good, but a decent piece of entertainment to me.
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.
oh god I remember this nightmare
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.
Any visual media that you’ve seen after you’ve read the source book. A better way to look at it. It is which movie was better or as good than its book.
Jurassic Park was a better movie than the book. The Martian the movie was as good as the book.
Fight Club. I actually enjoyed the dumbass movie doesn’t-work-that-way ending more than the mental break of the main character in the book.
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The first time I read it, I didn’t even understand it and thought he literally met god.
I got this.
Ready Player One.
The movie was a pretty entertaining Sci film that took the overall concept/plot of the book and then did its thing.
The book was like a Sci fi incel fan fiction. Like an incel white night wet dream.
Reading the book first had me almost skip ever seeing the movie, but the movie wasn’t nearly so cringe.
Uh, the movie made some serious mistakes, namely having them decide to shut down the Oasis 2 days per week, at the end? Where the hell did that come from? There are in-universe people who rely on the Oasis for their livelihoods and self-worth. Fuck 'em, right? And also the main characters are not a “clan” and having Z affirm they were a clan to Og was a middle finger to the book’s whole spiel on not being a clan.
Well I just said the book sucked of incel love fest wet dreams, but you do you.
I think all Hunger Games films worked better than the books
I, robot.
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.
I thought for sure this would be the top comment.
“The NeverEnding Story” should never have been made into a movie. It’s almost ironic. Every time a child watches the movie instead of reading the book, that’s an opportunity lost.
I’m a huge reader, massive… like, I spent up until I was about 29, 30 or so going to the library every week or two and getting 10 books out every time (That was the most you could get). I’d have read them all, and be champing at the bit to go back well within the week… it was a regular trip for us to go.
I’ve never actually read the Never Ending Story, and I loved the movie… one of my favourite childhood movies.
Going to have to give it a read…
You should definitely read it but I think the great thing about the book is that it can turn a kid into a reader. When they’ve watched the movie already I think some of the magic is gone and it’s not as impactful.
YES! I read the book a long time before I saw the film and was so disappointed when I finally got around to watching it. And then I know people who read the book years after seeing the film and didn’t like it, because it was so different to what they were expecting. And that’s such a shame, because the film just doesn’t have the same depth to it.
Eragon. They really fucked up so much about the book!
I loved that book growing up and was so excited when the movie was coming out (on my birthday!)
To this day, that movie is the only one I legitimately walked out of. It was such a terrible adaptation.
I never read the book but I agree the movie was absolute rubbish
World War Z. Not a classic book, but still…Wtf.
World War Z is absolutely a modern classic. You can just tell when people are going to be talking about a book a hundred or so years later.
Shit-ass politics though.
I agree on the basis that classics are defined by reception and not if they are any good or not, like how Birth of a Nation was for a while considered basically the best movie ever.
A Wrinkle In Time was fucking insulting.
I think it was much worse for people that actually liked the book.
Is that even possible, the movie was fucking awful and I never read the book.
The book is actually very good for children’s literature. Its kid-friendly way of describing how wormholes work stuck with me.
for me it felt like gaiman/ishiguro/murakami for kids
the main impressions i have left of it are of trippy kaleidoscopic space fabric and someone in a jar; i distinctly recall being very frustrated that the author did not bother to explain in great detail exactly how the space witch went from being a star to being a space witch
child me yearned for the spreadsheets
Agreed. I read it when I was in 5th Grade and thought it was wonderful. I noped out of the movie when Reese Witherspoon [?] turned into a flying carpet.
The hobbit
Agreed, I watched 1 or maybe 2, lost all interest in more of that nonsense
It could have been one great movie, but they decided they needed a trilogy in order to replicate TLOTRs financial succes.
Why? tlor are three pretty thick Books, as opposed to the pamphlet that is the hobbit.
