Best and worst Book to movie adaptation

[Hyorinmaru]

After doing my Matt Damon thread in M&T it got me thinking about Book to movie Adaptations in general as well as the best and worst. I guess I'll start out with the Best and there is only 1 I can choose

Best

into

Not only is this a great trilogy in both mediums but the fact that the cast did the best they could to keep the movies true to the book which is always a good thing. Most of you may know this but on set Ian McKellen had a copy of the book (whichever they were filming) at all times and gave Peter Jackson ideas and advice. If the cast and crew cared even .5% less I'm sure the movies would have suffered.



This one was also a no brainer for me.

Worst

into

Now don't get me wrong I love the movies and the books are some of my favorite books ever but if you've read the books and seen the movies then you would know that the movies are pretty much nothing like the books. IN fact the last 2 movies are the same as the books literally in name only. which disappoints me seeing that they are my favorites in the Trilogy. I know that things are up to the writer(s) and Director when you're making a movie but when they are the same in name only it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Great in both Mediums but a horrible adaptations, especially the last 2.





Yes you can choose Comic books if you want.

 

[Wade's Public Transit Bomb]

While I am not the most prolific reader (I can, I just choose not to ), I have seen my fair share of book to movie adaptions.

Best:

I know SyFy has a history of producing such classics as Ice Golem, Sharktopus and MegaShark vs DinoShark, but every once in a while, a very good movie is born from those (obviously) stoner directors/producers.

Children of the Corn is one of this very good movies. The people playing Burt and Vicky really come across as a couple who are question in the f' did they get married. The children were just as scary. The visuals of the movie match the words of King perfectly. This wasn't some glam'd up movie; it was melancholy and daunting.

Worst:

When directly comparing the book to the movie, I would say The Wizard of Oz. It was like a completely different story. Dorothy wasn't some bratty teenager in the book, she was a brave little girl. And there was no ruby red slippers.

It is a great movie, but horribly adapted from the book.

 

[Mustang Sally]

I thought the best adaptation was "The Shawshank Redemption." Most movies are able to re-enact the major events that occur in the book, but they fall short of capturing the emotions and motivations of the characters. This is natural; a book has much more time to delve into these characteristics, while it's harder for a movie to describe what the characters are feeling and thinking inside.

"Shawshank" succeeded in doing that more than any other movie I've seen. The fine actors, Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, were able to convey to us the horror and hopelessness of being locked up in prison......complete with the indignity involved in attempting to cage a person's spirit along with his body. It was the only movie I enjoyed as much as the book.


The worst book-to-screen adaptation was 1949's "The Fountainhead," due mainly to the guy who played lead.....Gary Cooper. He was the polar opposite of what the main character, Howard Roark, should have been and I found myself yelling at the damn TV screen: "No! No! You've got it all wrong, you idiots!"

The book was author Ayn Rand's attempt to impart her belief in objectivism. The main character, Howard Roark, was a man who believed in man's own accomplishments, not man's attempts to emulate and conquer and emulate other men. Roark was the ultimate individualist, yet Gary Cooper played him as a lovesick loner who was more interested in the woman he lusted after than in the individual ideals that made the book a classic. I understand why the producer picked Cooper; his qualities of subtlety seemed to lend themselves to this role, but the producer, director and Cooper got the characterizations all wrong. Someone should have forced the three of them to read the damn book before trying to make it into a movie.

 

[Loveless]

The film version of The Great Gatsby was fricken dreadful for what it should have been. On paper Robert Redford should have been a perfect choice but I question whether he had even read the book as she showed little to no emotional depth. The equally talented but somewhat miscast Mia Farrow was also pretty bad, taking someone who should have been sweet, easy to love and a little fickle into a flighty wailing melodramatic banshee that you'd run a mile from if you ever had the misfortune to cross her.
In comparison, the 1974 version will be magnificent when faced with the new Baz Lurhmann version coming in the next year. A supposedly 3D musical with an admittedly very impressive cast.