[Ammi]

...the best movie adaptions from book that have worked or even excelled their book ...and the very worst of them, in your own humble opinion etc...?...

[Ammi]

...My Sister’s Keeper... beyond awful, it changed the whole book ending...

[user104658]

The LOTR trilogy does an exceptional job of capturing the books. It’s one that would have been very easy to get wrong for “book fans” but I don’t see many fans of the books who don’t also love the films, which is an achievement in itself.

My personal worst is “The Beach”. It was one of my favourite books as a teen but - as I just assume anyone who has read the book knows - the Leo DiCaprio movie adaptation is horrendous. It leaves out key characters, completely misses the tone, and changes key aspects of the story and core character interactions that are integral to the entire POINT of the book. It actually makes me mad.

The merging of Jed with Keaty comes second in “criminal character mergers” only to The Stand merging Nadine with Rita Blakemoor. Though that really is in a league if it’s own.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Ammi

...My Sister’s Keeper... beyond awful, it changed the whole book ending...

We’ll have to disagree on that one Ammi because I think the movie ending is quite emotionally powerful, where the book ending is dumb and unrealistic .

I guess ask yourself... if it was real... what do you think would be the most likely outcome of the story? It wouldn’t be the highly improbable “twist of fate” in the book, it would be the sad dose of reality presented in the film.

[Smithy]

I thought that THG series did a really good job for book to film adaptations

I can’t think of many that I’ve seen that are bad per se but The Shining is pretty different

[Smithy]

Oh actually tell a lie IT Chapter 2 was ****

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Smithy

I thought that THG series did a really good job for book to film adaptations

This. The books are sh*te but the films are decent.

[James]

Not that it was bad, but I remember thinking Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory from the 70s didn't live up to how I imagined the book when I read it.

The book was one of my favourites when I read it.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

We’ll have to disagree on that one Ammi because I think the movie ending is quite emotionally powerful, where the book ending is dumb and unrealistic .

I guess ask yourself... if it was real... what do you think would be the most likely outcome of the story? It wouldn’t be the highly improbable “twist of fate” in the book, it would be the sad dose of reality presented in the film.

...I read a few Jodi Picoult books back to back at one time as a friend had recommended her as a writer ....hmmm, I can’t recall exactly how many, maybe 3 or 4...?..and the whole thing about all of the ones I read...(...and what I liked about them specifically...)...was that her ‘trademark’ seemed to be a twist ending...and yeah, the twists were a bit unrealistic, I guess...although I would say that the book ending was more unlikely than unrealistic ...but they also kept the reader gripped because we knew that twist was going to be there, so tried to guess what it could be...I recall reading that Jodi herself hadn’t been happy with the changes and there was a cancel the movie, type thing campaign or something .....from some as well...I guess for me, her stories were based on irony in their endings from what I had read and as I say, that being a ‘trademark’ for her...so in taking that away in the movie, then as you say, it becomes a story about a child’s terminal cancer and the sad realism of that ...there were also other aspects that were quite relevant as well, I think...relevant to the whole family dynamic ...that Anna had only been ‘conceived for Kate’ and obviously she felt that as well, hence the law suit and owning her own body decisions...I mean, she was loved but that was the literal purpose of her conception, she existed for Kate....and a big side story was their brother, Jesse and how the family dynamic of Kate’s illness impacted him in being the one who started the fires because he felt no purpose or attention in the family at all and becoming an arsonist was his plea for attention from his father...so yeah, I guess we’ll have to disagree...for me it’s not a story that worked for adaption because to put the essence of the book truly into it, it would have been too long...


...a by the by is that another of Jodi’s books that I read that was adapted to a movie was The Pact....which only ever made a movie channel, was even worse ...but actually it did keep closer to the book, If I recall but lost its soul completely and the casting wasn’t good at all...

[Shaun]

Off the top of my head...

Good:
Gone Girl - I've read a few of Gillian Flynn's books and the movie adaptation of this was fantastic. Really captured the intensity and deception of the plot well. I'd have to check out the other adaptations, I think there was one with Amy Adams based on a book I read but I can't for the life of me recall what it was called...Sharp Objects was it?

We Need to Talk About Kevin was a brilliant movie, and I adore the book too. Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller play the main characters so well, I thought they should have received more awards and recognition for it.

I really enjoyed the BBC's 3-part series adaptation of Jessie Burton's "The Miniaturist"... I've loved both the books I've read of hers (I have a third, her newest, to get through ASAP... but knowing me ASAP will be July 2022), but the BBC series was just so immaculately put together, so much attention to detail in creating a world of 17th or 18th century Holland, and Anya Taylor-Joy was great as its lead actress.

Most Harry Potters... I do think the first two had the right mix of charm and light-heartedness, before the change of directors (and Dumbledores) made it more serious and angsty...but the majority of latter films were good.

The Millennium trilogy (Stieg Larsson) was done fantastically both in the original Swedish trilogy of films, and the American remake of the first novel... I do wish they'd got Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara etc. to make the other two (not necessarily the later novels in the series, published under a different author). But Noomi Rapace in the Swedish series was so perfect... the right combination of damaged, punk, righteous and prickly.

I can't remember watching every Hunger Games movie but I think they did a great job with the books, far better than I was expecting anyway.

Bad:
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince... just so incredibly drab and drawn-out, and done in this weird, greyscale style that was so incredibly ugly to watch.

The 2005 Charlie & the Chocolate Factory... this might not count for the thread since I am basing my disdain for it largely on its inferiority to the 70s film, but when I read the book as a child I didn't really have any sense of the warped and tedious mind that Tim Burton's plagued his post-2000 work with. Just so stupid and insulting to Dahl's own imagination.

Starter for Ten... I like David Nicholls' books, and I didn't necessarily hate this film... I just think they turned into a fluffy, boring comedy without much of the charm of the novel.

The Goldfinch was one of my favourite novels when it came out... love Donna Tartt's books, but the reviews for the film were pretty bad and I'm scared to watch it