Other Bad Book Adaptations

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was pretty blah. The humor of the book didn't translate to the screen for whatever reason.

Yeah, I did feel it was quite americanized.

And, interestingly, it was another Martin Freeman movie.

And dumbed down to the point where it unintelligible despite that.

I've not heard it said before, but Zooey Deschanel is one of the worst actors I've ever seen on a screen. She makes Hayden Christiansen look Oscar worthy.

bungobaggins wrote:Fahrenheit 451 is a terrible adaptation, and a terrible movie.

What a pathetic trailer. With that cast and director it's a travesty they could make such a bad movie. But Truffault was never one to make action films.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was pretty blah. The humour of the book didn't translate to the screen for whatever reason."- Radaghast


Well Adams has some of the blame here- he did work on the project up until his death-granted the studio arsed about it with something rotten after that but I always felt watching it that Adams had got some things wrong.

I love Hitchhikers, have all the radio have all the books, got the annotated screenplays, but the film shouldn't have had the book stuff.
It works brilliantly on radio nad the page but its not at all suitable for the visual medium of film (the BBC tv version runs into the same problem)- make the book the story yes, it is anyway thanks to Ford being a writer for it, but any info it conveys necessary to the plot needs to be moved out into the plot and into peoples mouths.
The other problem is that it tries to do too much and it picks the wrong story.

The books and radio are basically two separate but lined tales- the first is that of Arthur Dent, the destruction of Earth and the Ultimate Answer- which is the one they did.

The second, and way more suitable for dramatisation is the Krikket Wars, which they didnt do- yeah youd have to tack on the destruction of earth at the start in a film but after that the Krikket Wars story is I reckon a much better choice for dramatisation.


And Adams did still write some new Hitchhikers material for the film that does stand up, this scene probably being my favourite of the completely new stuff he wrote, so there is that to be said for the film-

Carcharoth wrote:I've not heard it said before, but Zooey Deschanel is one of the worst actors I've ever seen on a screen. She makes Hayden Christiansen look Oscar worthy.

She's not a very good singer either. She is awfully purty, though

Pettytyrant101 wrote:And Adams did still write some new Hitchhikers material for the film that does stand up, this scene probably being my favourite of the completely new stuff he wrote, so there is that to be said for the film-

Yeah, that was pretty good

I liked and loathed Marvin too- I hated Rickman as the voice- the original is still alive and still working in radio and recently did the final set of radio with the original cast reprising his role as Marvin- there was no reason to get Rickman in bar his name, and he is shit just too make it worse.

But I do like the look of Marvin- he fits for me with the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation who are like  nightmare intergalactic microsoft/Apple combo and whose products are described thusly-

"It is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of [their products] by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words - and this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxy-wide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws."


I thought by making Marvin look like the sort of toy you might find on an execs desk it worked (and fitted with the marketing slogan- "You're plastic pal who is fun to be with!")

The Percy Jackson books that they have adapted are Hobbit level in adaptation, but worse cinematically

hitchikers is best if you read it, i don't think it'll ever work as anything but a book or an audioplay.

Radio is best- its the original medium it was written for, it was written for that group of actors, and its the best format, with the books coming second and the tv third and the film last. (And a shout out to the computer text adventure which Adams wrote- its above the film)

Ringdrotten wrote:

halfwise wrote:I've been surprised that people found HP1 to be dull - I think it captured the gentle magic of the book perfectly.  Maybe the gentleness of it made it dull?

The first film is my favourite. The castle is alive, the magic is there and all in all it doesn't treat the book like shit.

agreed. the first film is my favourite too.   

If you describe all the characteristics of Marvin, Alan Rickman is definitely the name that would pop to the top. It's really sad how badly he compared to the original.

Tinuviel wrote:The Percy Jackson books that they have adapted are Hobbit level in adaptation, but worse cinematically

I really like the Percy Jackson books, they are witty and charming, but the films are flat and tedious.

The Golden Compass. Need I say more?   

I wouldn't call the later Potters bad adaptations per se, more infuriatingly compressed ones!

I LOVE the books, but frankly the first two films are kinda boring as adaptations, almost too faithful to the books, and not overly interesting visually, I actually like Half Blood Prince and Azkaban the best AND they are my fave books in the series!.

I would have loved to have seen more from the books in the film (Why wasn't Charlie Weasley in them???), but there was neither the time not the budget to do so. Look at how critics and general audiences reacted to DH1-a meandering camping trip according to friends, yet it's very faithful to the book.

As Sin has said before all the changes went by Rowling first, so at least she had a say in how the books were butchered.

But each to their own.

malickfan wrote:I LOVE the books, but frankly the first two films are kinda boring as adaptations, almost too faithful to the books...

That's pretty much my feeling. Columbus's style strikes me as rather bland.

I haven't see HBP, but one thing that irks me about that movie is the casting of Jim Broadbent as Horatio Slughorn (actually the reason I've been uninterested in seeing it). Why, oh why, couldn't they have cast Ian McNeice?  

Yeah Broadbent is a good actor, but nothing like Slughorn in the book-funnily enough I always pictured him as Uncle Vernon, and the other bloke as Slughorn.

I call it the Armitage syndrome.

Whatever they jettisoned from the plot, the films more or less felt like the books to me, though perhaps that was down to me being British and seeing our actors/country on screen, and growing up with them at the same time. With Potter I don't really have much trouble separating the two mediums.

Jim Broadbent made that film. without him it would have been even more dull and unmagical.

Well to be honest the last three books felt less magical to me anyway-they were still great, but didn't quite feel the same as the other four.

well they were certainly darker, but Yates hamfistedly made the films actually physically darker until in DH2 It was like it had been filmed down a coal mine.   

Carcharoth wrote:I've not heard it said before, but Zooey Deschanel is one of the worst actors I've ever seen on a screen. She makes Hayden Christiansen look Oscar worthy.

She has a strange voice, and delivery, but I found nothing wrong with her inclusion in the excellent 500 Days of Summer.

Forest Shepherd wrote:

Carcharoth wrote:I've not heard it said before, but Zooey Deschanel is one of the worst actors I've ever seen on a screen. She makes Hayden Christiansen look Oscar worthy.

She has a strange voice, and delivery, but I found nothing wrong with her performance in the excellent 500 Days of Summer.

Joseph Gordon Levitt carried that film soooo bad. He actually made it reasonable. Without him, my goodness. Maybe I am harsh on Zooey because I don't like her acting method(?). She has stuck out like a sore thumb in the few films I've seen her in. That New Girl show she stars in is another level of bad.

Has anyone actually read Fleming's Bond books? I've been tempted for a while, but they take rather large liberties with the texts so I've heard.

(My fave film in On Her Majesties Secret Service if that helps)