Personal rant: Unnecessary changes from books to movies

[taurinejunkie]

I was really pissed when I saw Gimli was little more than comic relief in LOTR.

[RayvenQ]

Its true about Starship Troopers, can't make that into a movie. But the movie was just whoa. I'll watch it again. Cause I did enjoy it a bit. I'll give it a second go around and maybe the other 2. I'll try to not think about the book too much and get into the cheesieness of it. I love cheesy movies.

.

Well, you could, alright, just for consistency and flow you'd have to have him say a lot of things he was thnking to a random character, but it would be entirely possible. Some things, simply would have to be altered, but more the way of doing them than the actual content. Simply because of the kind of media transition book to movies is.

Starship Troopers 1 was a fun if cheesy sci fi action film, Starship Troopers 2 was just *cringe* and Starship Troopers 3 was for the most part *hurl* Although the Marauder suits were pretty fun, but didn't make up for the rest of the movie.

I have to say though, the 3D Tv series was pretty good, somewhere a mix between the book, and the films, and pretty darn serious and dramatic at some points despite it being a kids show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_9moZ0ZzhY

[EricKei]

cutting out any themes of romance, etc.

Well...I've seen little of CCS (the US version), but I am familiar with the original. I hate to say it, but I can understand. Given the ages of the people involved in the romances in question...Yeah. There is NO way that series would ever get released in the US with characters that young (roughly 13?) even *implying* the scant possibility of romance (I will grant that, even in the original, they were talking about emotional connections and stopping there). Even if it were straight-to-DVD, it simply never would have been released here, period. It even freaked me out. It was actually a good series, it's just one of those that had zero chance of making the trip across the pond intact.

And if you really want the anime fans to go all rage-y and foam at the mouth, we can discuss Kimba the White Lion vs. Disney's The Lion King.

Kimba? You mean, the series that nobody at Disney had ever heard of up until that point, if you believe the executives? Except, of course, for a good half of the art, story, directorial, and other crews who openly expressed the notion that LK was likely meant to be an homage to KWL?...That Kimba?

[Jetfire]

i'd have loved to see the blue (but not really blue) beetle.

although one change they did make that I... well honestly i kinda liked was Bob. Terrance Mann was rather charming as Bob.

IIRC, even Jim has said that he wish he had thought to portray Bob like the TV series did. Overall, I don't mind the TV series, since as a Comic fan and a Star Trek/Sci Fi fan, I'm used to keeping track of a multiverse of similar characters at once. Usually, I don't have a problem with adaptations because I take them like others say they do; I treat them as different interpretations/universes from the original(s). (Unlike some friends of mine who tend to get all up at arms if something deviates from the original the slightest bit)

Of course, the adaptation still has to stand on its own as a good or bad story. Which is why I'll roast Shamalamadingdong's Last Air Blunder till the cows come home, but I enjoyed others like the Dresden TV series, or the Harry Potter movies.

(And as an aside, which is more dangerous: Anime fans vs Disney for Kimba/Simba... or Sci Fi fans against Paramount for B5/DS9? )

[Seraph]

Yeah, I have to admit I kinda liked TV Bob better than book Bob. :<

He was just so AWESOME.

[Andara Bledin]

And as an aside, which is more dangerous: Anime fans vs Disney for Kimba/Simba... or Sci Fi fans against Paramount for B5/DS9?

B5/DS9 all the way. Sci-Fi fans have a tendency to have more advanced armaments.

^-.-^

[Jetfire]

Yeah, I have to admit I kinda liked TV Bob better than book Bob. :<

He was just so AWESOME.

Well Book Bob had some moments of AWESOME too, especially recently.. but if the series had gone on longer I'm sure TV Bob would have matched him easily.

[Jester]

I don't go into any movie-from-a-book expecting a 100% verbatim retelling. It is simply impossible, as the two media are so very different. A movie adaptation is just that--an adaptation. As such, the movie maker is going to make changes, some small, some large. Some are necessary, some are not. It can clearly be argued what is and what is not necessary on a case by case basis, of course.

But I can live with minor detail changes without a problem, and even some major dramatic license in many cases. That's fine. I expect it. Hell, I loved both the book and the movie of The Shining, but they ARE different. Nicholson is simply classic in his role in the movie, and the kid is awesome (don't get me started on Shelly Duval), but the book is far, far creepier. (If you haven't read it, do so now.) Similarly, I was completely twisted by both the book and the movie versions of The Exorcist.

Not all adaptations go as well as we would hope, but again, they are adaptations. As long as they stay true to the basic premise behind the book, I am fine with minor and even some major dramatic license type changes.

What I CANNOT STAND is when they totally butcher the central ideas or themes of a book to make the story into a movie just to cash in on the book's success. And I can sum up this point with four simple words: Flowers in the Attic. A passable movie, but a truly terrific, haunting book, that I remember emotionally well over 20 years after I read it. Now, as I said, the movie is passable, but if you've read the book, the movie leaves out much of the central point of the plot, including the time in the attic, the changing relationships among the protagonists, the changing relationships between the protagonists and the antagonists, and of course, the ending, which had exactly nothing to do with the book, or any of its sequels. In essence, what the filmmakers did here was take a deeply moving yet darkly disturbing look into the hearts and minds of people in extreme circumstances, and made it into a 90 minute "don't choose money over your kids" after-tv movie. The one good thing is that the author didn't live to see the finished product on the big screen.

Arwen *did not have any spoken lines* in the books, unless I an terribly mistaken...

I am pretty sure you are terribly mistaken, as I am also pretty sure Arwen had some scenes, including dialogue, in later parts of LotR. Obviously the river scene was completely created by Jackson, but I am pretty sure Arwen was more involved than you remember her being, although still not a central character. This kind of dramatic license, I can live with.

Overall, I'd say that Jackson's film version of the books is as close as anyone can reasonably expect such an adaptation to be, warts and all

I maintain that the version we got is as close as anyone's ever gonna come to the original work.

Totally agree here. Is it perfect? No. Not even close. But I have said many times that to be TRULY faithful to Tolkien, each installment of the movie would have to be, oh, about TEN HOURS. All things considered, I think Jackson did a bangup job, changes and all. It is much better for fans of the book such as myself, however, to watch the special edition with the added scenes....it just makes more sense, especially in Fellowship.

Oh, I agree. They might as well have called him "Phil" ~_~ I didn't much care for Marvin's odd design, either, as it has been long established that our favorite Paranoid Android is at least somewhat human-looking, if metallic.

And I can live with this, because I don't care if Marvin is humanoid or a floating sphere, as long as he has the basic point of Marvin, which Alan Rickman delivered awesomely. Look, he's a paranoid depressed condescending robot. They got that part totally right. (And frankly, I was impressed with how they managed to give Zaphod two heads. That one had me puzzling for quite a while before I saw it. "How the hell are they going to do that? Wait, they didn't do that....oh, now THAT'S clever!")

NOTE: Anyone who even tries to give me shit about reading (and praising) Flowers in the Attic, keep in mind that I grew up with two sisters, and honestly, it really is a damn good book.

[fireheart]

OMG THIS.

First thing that comes to mind is the Percy Jackson movie.

The book is clearly written for children. The character is 12 iirc and when they go to vegas they are entranced by games at a "game casino".

in the movie they aged him to 18, turned the "addicting games" into lotus drugs, and implied that his best buddy was going to screw Persephone's brains out.


yeah way to sex up a kid's story.

Seventeen, not eighteen.

and Howl's moving castle.
What war? There was no war in the story. And Howl had family in England that he visited through the funny door thing.

The first third was mostly dead-on, after that they took it in its own direction. Doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. It's like what they did with The Borrower Arrietty. They did a pretty good job with it IMHO.

[SongsOfDragons]

Does Dungeons and Dragons count as a book?

If so That movie, anyone?

I saw it in the cinema, before I went to university and learnt what D&D actually was. I love that movie enough to be happy to watch it, and I can now laugh at their horrible attempts to include D&D stuff. Also, who's the better actor: Jeremy Irons, or Jeremy Irons' eyebrows? XD

I've found about...three other people who like it. It's terrible and it's not D&D - they could have renamed it to anything and probably would have done better. I think I extol it so much because I didn't know what D&D was when I first saw it, and the ending does suck a little. I know the big-name actors either didn't know what they were signing up to and hated every minute of it, or had to be given freer reign to be batshit crazy before they did it. The sequel - I've only been able to catch about half an hour's worth of it - is a lot more close to the general point and stuff of D&D, but by the sequel the damage has been done. But I still like it

*ducks to avoid bricks*

[Jester]

They made a sequel to Dungeons and Dragons? Really?

One question: does it have Thora Birch in it? If not, I won't even bother.

[Lady Legira]

Howl's Moving Castle.

What war? There was no war in the story. And Howl had family in England that he visited through the funny door thing.

Plus in the commentary version... the American director raved about how creative Hayao Miyazaki was in inventing that door with the handle that opens to different locations when you spin the dial.

Um. Dude... IT'S IN THE BOOK. Miyazaki didn't invent it - Diana Wynne Jones did!

I have this on DVD, bought it cheap one time so I could watch it at some point. Never opened the DVD but caught it on TV. My family had to put up with me going "Well that isn't right and that's wrong and WTF war?" Started well. looked beautiful but the storyline wasn't right. Don't get me wrong I know changes need to be made for screen adaptations (I love Lion, Witch & the Wardrobe & Prince Caspian, haven't seen Dawn Treader yet) but putting a totally unnecessary plot line in that messes with the whole theme of the story. Er no.

[Wild Mage]

For the HP movies I have to say the one I liked least due to changes was GOF. I mean it was so hard to follow, not to mention Dumbledore turned into a spaz grabbing Harry and physically shaking him an act which in the 5th book he rebukes Umbridge for. I mean what?! I disliked the things they left out more than any changes in the 3rd movie (except for the naked mole rat werewolf. I will never forgive them for that) such as the fact that Lupin, Sirius, Peter, and James created the Marauders map. Yeah kind of important. HBP didn't actually bother me at all. I suppose I was just used to the changes by then. The only thing I really disliked was the fact that Bonnie and Dan have no chemistry.
Ella Enchanted was ruined. I can't even think of it as the same story. My copy is falling apart and I love it so much as middle schooler and the move was absolutely nothin glike it. Period.

[Quillsilver]

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series - I just discovered those books a couple of years ago, and zipped my way through the library copies. Then I saw a series on Netflix called "Legend of the Seeker" and I was like...oh, cool! Not cool. Not cool at all. I never got past the first season (I stuck it out to see if it would get better), but the characters were nearly unrecognizable after the first episode, not to mention the changes they made in the relationships between MAJOR characters.

Starship Troopers is another one...when the movie came out, I dismissed it as a "testosterone overload," and a friend of mine commented that it was nothing like the book. So I tracked down my mom's copy and read it. I still have that copy, and I still read it once a year or so - this last time, I read a lot of the class discussions out loud to my husband, too....until he just took the book away and read it himself...lol.

The movie version of Dreamcatcher made me mad. I love Stephen King's work, and most of the adaptations (Green Mile & Shawshank Redemption excluded) are disappointing. I was very nervous when they were talking about doing the Dark Tower as a combination of feature films and TV miniseries. There's the side of me saying "OMG, it would be AWESOME to see Roland & co. on film!!" fighting with the practical side that says "Are you serious? You know they're just going to screw it up!"

-I was enjoying the Narnia series, but hadn't seen Dawn Treader yet, so thanks for the warning on that one (I'll probably watch it eventually, but now I know to expect big changes).
-Loved the TV Dresden Files, and enjoyed the few books of the series I have read (my town doesn't have a bookstore, and the library is a bit limited).
-Lord of the Rings is one that I loved - books and movies both. The change in Faramir's character did upset me, but it didn't ruin the whole movie.
-So far as Harry Potter goes...I tend to view the movies as companions to the books, since they don't really tell the whole story.
-Oh, and Vampire Diaries. Talk about "loosely based"! I read the original books years ago, then loaned them to my mother-in-law when she started watching the show. She returned them without reading very far, saying they were "wrong," since they didn't match the characters as portrayed on the show. I just rolled my eyes (although I do like the show - it's just VERY different).
-Game of Thrones is an awesome adaptation, and I just hope they can keep it going!

I read a lot, so I'm sure there's more I could comment on, but I can't think of them at the moment. Now, I've just finished Catching Fire, and my husband volunteered to take me to see Hunger Games tomorrow evening....hehe

[Jetfire]

Oh yeah forgot another atrocity adaptation... The Seeker AKA The Dark Is Rising. Watched it On Demand once and was horrified by all the changes done to it; talk about missing the point of the source book.