CONFESS!!! Books you LOVED but you HATED the movie!

[LynneSin]

For me, one of my favorite books of all time is "The Cider House Rules" by John Irving. I hated the movie with such a passion I can't even watch it when it's on TV. And I'm even ok with the movie versions of 'World According to Garp' and 'Hotel New Hampshire'.

Michael Caine was great in the book and Homer Wells was ok. But I was disappointed in how they ruined Candy and made Homer & Candy's love affair like a couple of horny teenagers instead of showing the sensitivity that was written in the book.

Ironically John Irving wrote the screenplay for the movie and won the Oscar. I was torn about that win because of how much I couldn't stand the movie, but how much I love John Irving. I was happy when he commented in acceptance speech about the importance of keeping abortions safe and legal though. I kinda chalked up his Oscar win to all the great books he has written.

So what book do you absolutely LOVe but absolutely HATED the movie they made out of it??

[Rowdyboy]

1. The Beach (book by Alex Garland)

The book was tauntly written and terrifying. The main character's descent into madness brilliantly written. The last 50 pages were among the most terrifying I've ever read. The entire piece left me deeply disturbed.

The movie with DiCaprio sucked big time. I was SOOOOOOO bored. Nearly went to sleep/. And I usually at least like to LOOK at Leo.

[Mikimouse]

2. Dreamcatcher was a wonderful book, ...

but the movie was simply awful. It did not develop the character of Duddits, and only vaguely developed the relationship between Jonesy and the others. All of the sensational stuff was in there, but in a very superficial way, but the main point (the boys' relationship) was left out. Last thing, the ending was nothing like the ending in the book, and I was deeply disapointed in that.

[Atman]

3. Does pulp fiction count?

Timeline was a cool book. It was positively horrible movie.

[La_Serpiente]

4. Queen of the Damned

wasn't accurate at all. The twins were supposed to eat the brains and heart of the Queen.

[THUNDER HANDS]

5. basically any Steven King book

With the exception of Misery.

[ET Awful]

26. I was about to say the same thing :)

I would have included Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me on the exclusions along with Misery though :)

[RebelOne]

27. Same thought here.

[Quahog]

6. The Unbearable Lightness Of Being

Why try to make a movie out of a work of fiction that lives in its use of language to get inside one person's head? Same thing with "Naked Lunch."

[terrya]

7. "Interview with the Vampire" only because of Tom Cruise.

Other than Wilford Brimley, Tom Cruise was the LAST choice to play Lestat.

I understand that Mr. Cruise demanded that a lot of the homoerotic subtext between Lestant and Louis be taken from the script. Tom's awfully darn skittish about that stuff, apparently.

[MaineDem]

8. Any Robert Ludlum novel

"The Bourne Identity" (first one; I haven't seen the Matt Damon one)
"The Osterman Weekend"

Actually, most movies made from books I've enjoyed are disappointing.

[grannylib]

22. The Matt Damon one sucked hugely; they only dealt with about 1/10th

of the story line, and it was really not believable at all. If you hadn't read the book, you would have been totally clueless. It was terrible.

[WoodrowFan]

9. Teenage Hitchhiking Virgin Cheerleaders go to Camp. (NT)

[jpgray]

10. Yeah, they ruined it. Where were the character arcs? (nt)

[Crunchy Frog]

11. Lord of the Rings (nt)

[HERVEPA]

12. Catch-22

Also, agree totally about Cider House Rules.
I would have been very happy with the movie though if I hadn't read the book.

[Kamika]

13. Terminator3

The book had tons more and explained alot of the stupid stuff in the movie

[LynneSin]

18. there was a T3 book

:eyes:

[Kamika]

24. lol yup

And it's alot better then the movie

[Wolfman 11]

14. All the Pretty Horses

Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz as 16 year-old kids just didn't work.

[MrBenchley]

15. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe

Great book made into Field of Dreams, an unwatchable piece of soupy dreck by Kevin Costner.

As Monty Python said "Adapted for the screen by putting it on a piece of wood and banging nails through it."

[FunBobbyMucha]

16. "Apt Pupil" by Stephen King

is one of the most haunting works I've ever read, and a mature piece of work from SK. Somehow Brian Singer, who I love, made a flat movie out of a great novella, though mainly I blame the script, which sold out on the original ending, and which didn't allow the kid to evolve naturally from curiosity with the Reich to multiple killings and then snipering. The casting was even perfect! But somehow it didn't work...

[BigMcLargehuge]

20. yeah, they really sort of stopped like midway through the story

in Apt Pupil. I hated the end where he was just shooting baskets in the driveway...

[FunBobbyMucha]

28. I'd written the screenplay in my mind

a dozen times over the years, and none of my ideas made it! hee hee...one drifter? ONE? The book eludes to Dussander and Todd independently knocking off dozens over the years. I always saw the movie ending in one tracking shot, pulling away from Todd's vantage point on the cliff overlooking the freeway, back down the hill slowly, as you hear cars crashing and horns beeping, and in the distance, the firing of sirens as the police rush towards the scene...

[BigMcLargehuge]

30. I always envisioned Todd becoming Dussander

but my vision of the end was about the same as yours :)

[felonious thunk]

17. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Great book, full of interesting characters, and you really get a sense of the odd history of Savannah. The characters have depth, and the story has this Gatsby-like feel to it.

The movie strayed completely away from the feeling of the book, and dumbed everything down so much it was nearly unwatchable.

[Guaranteed]

19. The Great Gatsby

It's just really hard to make a movie that lives up to such a great book. Especially one that is great based on its literary merits.

[Nevernose]

36. What is people's obsession with this book?

I never "got" it; it was just another exercise in tedium. Yet, the people who love this book, aparently really LOVE this book?

What's the appeal that I don't see?

[HEyHEY]

37. I read half the book

then it literally fell apart and I lost some of it....I never bothered to seek it out again.

[Guaranteed]

42. It's my second-

favorite book (behind One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, of course).

I just liked the characters, the way he painted the 20's society (which reminds me much of society today). And, I think, as far as the writing itself goes, it's the best book I've ever read. It seems like you can't take out one word, or put one in...it just...flows.

[dwckabal]

21. Chocolat

Couldn't put the book down; absolutely hated the movie. Even Johnny Depp's charcater lacked the panache of the the book.

[onebigbadwulf]

23. This question is stupid

ALMOST EVERY book has a horrible movie equivalent.

A better question would be what book and their equivalent movie did you like.

[OldSoldier]

32. The Running Man.

If you have read The Bachman Books and you've watched The Running Man, you have to tell yourself that the only similarity between the two works is their name.

A Running Man movie that hewed to the book would look like The Warriors--one of the greatest Escape and Evasion movies ever made. A Running Man book that hewed to the movie would be unreadable--explosions are much better on the big screen.

They're different, but both are good if you like gratuitous-violence action flicks.

[sasquatch]

25. "Semi Tough" and "Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy"

The books were awesome the movies I would've walked out of if they were an in flight movie.:(

[BigMcLargehuge]

29. Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Staship Troopers, The Puppet Masters

Jurassic Park: Michael Crichton – Probably the best dinosaur themed adventure book ever written. He was able to take the groundbreaking paleontological theories of ****** and turn them into an eminently readable book. Spielberg turned it into a kid-friendly snooze-a-thon that sacrificed virtually all the tension and drama of the book to offer gee-whiz visuals, that, while striking, allowed the film to be more about special effects than about a coherent story.

The Lost World: Michael Crichton. A somewhat slower and more talky book than its predecessor, Crichton used The Lost World to study extinction in a microcosm. The island’s dinosaurs ran amok here too, but the idea was that changes to their behavior were leading inevitably towards their extinction. Even though he “resurrected” the theoretical mathematician Ian Malcolm for this story and spent the first hundred pages or so dissecting the work of George Cuvier, Crichton still delivered a very readable continuation of his original story. Again Spielberg missed the central theme of the flick and rather than focus on extinction and its implication to man, gave more and more great dinosaur footage. By effectively smoothing out all of the characters until they had almost as much life as the ferns and cycads dotting the forest, and an ending that both aped and insulted the original King Kong.

Starship Troopers: Robert A. Heinlein. A taught, beautifully plotted, military science fiction story; the first of the sub-genre, focuses on Juan Rico and his service in the Mobile Infantry during Humanity’s war against the Pseudo-Arachnids (or Bugs, for short). Heinlein wrote Starship Troopers while actively campaigning President Truman to ramp up the production and storage of nuclear weapons via his organization The Sons of Patrick Henry. Heinlein’s belief was that nukes leveled the balance of front line manpower between a few hundred million Soviets and nearly a billion Chinese. Heinlein also explores his thoughts on voting and franchise. In the world of Starship Troopers the only citizens with franchise are veterans. All others can live a happy capitalist dream, however, they have no say in the administration of public policy. Juan Rico wants to vote and to further that goal enlists and begins his journey through the harsh life of the Mobile Infantry. One of the key features of the book, the MI Suits that allow a single well-trained human to effectively fight 1000 Bugs provides his analogy to his feelings about nuclear weapons. Paul Verhoven’s film ignores virtually ALL of the thought and ideas in Heinlein’s work and presents a poorly plotted, overly glossed, shoot-em-up that barely follows some of the plot of the film and expands on things that Heinlein left out, specifically the career track of Juan Rico’s girlfriend. This film made me so angry I wanted to scream and throw copies of the book to the other patrons in the theater.

The Puppet Masters: Robert A. Heinlein. An invasion by tiny slug-like symbiotic aliens who take over the lives of normal humans and begin colonization sets the stage for a debate on what it means to be truly human. Set in the far future and focusing on “The Old Man” and his Son “Elihu”, both agents in a super-secret service under orders from someone in the government to investigate the happenings in a small Kansas town. Once the aliens begin to spread though, all bets are off. Melding his forward thinking technologically prowess and fully realized descriptions of society under the influence of the aliens, Heinlein offers both a great science fiction story and a wonderful horror story. The Puppet Masters was the inspiration for such excellent films as Robert Wise’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and shares quite a bit in common with John W. Cambell’s Who Goes There (Made into two films: The Thing from another World, and John Carpenter’s: The Thing). While the film competently tries to follow the events of the book and the complex relationship between Elihu and his otherwise distant Father, it changes the time to current and loses virtually all of the futurist aspects that helped drive the book forward. Looking more like an extended episode of The X-Files than a stand-alone feature film, The Puppet Masters simply tries to hard to cover the entire book in under 90 minutes. I was more disappointed and angry with The Puppet Masters as it so scaled down the story as to render it nearly unwatchable. The cast, however, was fantastic.

[Touchdown]

38. Disagree...

about both JP and ST.

Crichton's book was an overly technical, and utterly flat adventure book, that had no character development, and as a result, I couldn't care less who was in danger. Spielberg humanized the characters and made a taught spectacle summer dinosaur romp. This book could only be a spectacle on screen. It wasn't a very deep literary milestone to begin with.

Troopers, on the other hand was Heinlien's homage to the military that he wasn't allowed to join. Again, it's a book that concerns itself with more "toys" than actual story, Verhoeven's adaptation was as faitful as the SFX budget Tri-Star Pictures would allow. Some things had to be excised. His dreams and manifestos of military rule needed to be ridiculed, as this book was nothing more than a rant about the evils of democracy, and it needed to be satarized, because they (the society in the book) were ridiculously fascist, and elitest in the first place. Verhoeven turns this idea of "citizenry" on it's head, and tells it like it really would be. An overly brainwashed, jingoistic society, where every adult is either maimed, or bears some sort of injury from some war. We start invading the "bugs" territory, they fight back, and we justify genocide for them because "How dare they?". It's all under the surface. The tennager bloodfest is just window dressing. Verhoeven dressed down Heinlein as he deserved to be.

My vote goes to Bonfire of the Vanities. Horrible movie that shows films made by committees turn out to be the exact ego orgy that Wolfe was satarizing in the first place.

[BigMcLargehuge]

44. Uh... Heinlein was a naval officer

so he was in the service. He was a veteran.

ST (the book) wasn't a peon to the military, though he does glorify the idea of service, his society was anything but fascist, it was a democracy but with limitation as to whom could participate. Participants had to demonstrate the ability to put their personal success behind the success of the whole society, and only after demonstrating that by serving, then leaving the service, could they vote. Since there was no leader mentioned, described, discussed, or defined, no secret police, and none of the other mechanics of a fascist government, I generally find the description of his word as fascist springing from those who've never read the book.

We can certainly agree to disagree.

[geniph]

49. The military he wasn't allowed to join? Say WHAT?!

Heinlein was a serving officer when he was stricken by tuberculosis and invalided out. He'd served several years at that point. I cannot, for the life of me, see how you could say the book concerns itself more with toys than story - there are few things so poignant as the troops returning to earth. Clearly you've either never read the book or completely misunderstood it; one thing about Heinlein is that he did not believe in any kind of military hegemony or fascistic rule. He was very libertarian, very. He said over and over again in his work that democracy, while horribly flawed, is also the best system of governance we've been able to devise.

The society in the book is in no way fascistic. The requirement for military or civil service to become a full citizen does not a fascistic society make. Verhoeven turned it into a cute-models-kill-giant-bugs teenage daydream. The movie is horrible.

[Touchdown]

53. You're right.

He did serve, and he regretably had to leave his career behind because of tuberculosis. One of those histories that I failed to get accurate, since I heard that he was regretful of not having a life in the military.

I don't agree with Heinlein's philosophy of rule by an elite, no matter how noble their deeds to earn that status. Heinlein paints a rosy picture of a perfect society where everyone's needs and wants are met, save the right to vote. It is hopelessly dreamy that any sort of aristocracy (even a military prerequisite one) could serve the populace for very long before they degenerate into self serving legislation, and devolving into open contempt for those "non-citizens", which I picked up when I read it...almost 15 years ago...and even then only once. So forgive me if I fail to recollect every little nuance of this book. Even then, I failed to grasp the real message of the book (which I later came to believe is disdainful of democracy), until a few conversations about the film about a decade later.

Many people who hated the movie did so, chiefly because the "Toys" were not in it.

This is an interesting interpretation on Troopers, that should be read with an open mind.

http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/athens/robert-heinlein.html

[Zero Gravitas]

63. Starship Troopers

Verhoeven wasn't parodying the society in Heinlien's book, instead he was parodying a real life jingositic, fascist superpower...

[OldSoldier]

31. Barbarians at the Gate was the closest

I know that Books Are Not Movies--a little-known fact lost on many people.

The book Barbarians at the Gate was written about the RJR Nabisco leveraged buyout, the biggest deal in history to that point. (And probably the biggest deal that will ever be done, because there's not enough money in the world to do one like it again. One of the questions Henry Kravis asked before he bid was "is there enough money in the world to buy this company?" This isn't an invalid question; there is a finite amount of money available to do leveraged buyouts, and this deal took all of it.)

It's also a very technical book, which it would have to be to explain that deal.

The movie Barbarians at the Gate was a comedy. It was a good comedy. Very riveting, except that they miscast Henry Kravis--Jonathan Pryce is an elegant man who is well over six feet tall, while Kravis is a little over five and suffers from Short Man's Syndrome. And the real Ted Forstmann Spiel is more fun than the one Forstmann delivered to Ross Johnson in a men's room.

They also glossed over the two most important minor players--John Greeniaus and First Boston. Greeniaus as a double agent (president of Nabisco, but defected to KKR when Ross Johnson left him out of the post-LBO RJR Nabisco) and First Boston's tax deferment plan (one of their tax people put together an LBO plan that valued the company at $118 per share when KKR was at $93 and Ross Johnson at $100; the $118 launched a second round of bidding) were what essentially made it possible for KKR to win the company.

But that book shouldn't have been made into a comedy.

Calling it something else--Cookie Crumbles or Smoked Out, perhaps--and saying "based in part on the book Barbarians at the Gate" would have been far better. (Up in Smoke would have been an even better title, but there's already a film named that and they're not talking about Camels!)

And they didn't reinforce the most important part of the whole thing: that RJR Nabisco, a corporation that made money hand over fist, the company that was almost singlehandedly responsible for making the Wachovia Bank what it is today, was put into play by its CEO because its stock traded at a tobacco multiple and not a food multiple, even though over 50 percent of its revenues were from food.

How do you hate a movie you liked?

[Red State Rebel]

33. Bonfire of the Vanities......what a travesty!

[Jack_Dawson]

41. OMG I agree 1000%

Best book ever ruined as a screenplay.

[trof]

46. yep

[skypilot]

34. The Virgin Suicides

An absolutely beautiful book which was transcribed almost word for word to the screen without fleshing it out in any way. In all fairness, some of what was conveyed in the book was probably unfilmable. This should have just stayed a book, like "The Catcher in the Rye".

[beyurslf]

35. Pretty much anything by Stephen King

Misery was pretty good but they left out some of the good stuff. (Anyone remember what "hobbling" meant in the book as compared to the movie. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for that one and they ruined it.

[hobbes159]

39. Any book by Stephan King made into a movie

There's a lot of depth to his books that never translates well onto the big screen.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

40. "Dune" was a big disappointment because

I ordinarily love anything David Lnch does and I really liked the book. It should have been great, but was awful.

[regularguy]

43. Goodbye Columbus. (Roth) Siddhatha. (Hesse)

Typically, a sensitive book turns into an embarassing movie.

[Ediacara]

45. Breakfast of Champions

Book was great, but the movie, was just cheezy. They had the same characters, and some of the same story, but it was heavily modified and made, well, stupid.

[HuckleB]

47. Slaughterhouse-5

[zauberflote]

54. Agreed, but

the Glenn Gould soundtrack almost made it worthwhile.

[noonwitch]

48. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Too many departures from the characters in the book. Kevin Spacey was great as the antiques collector, and the problem wasn't with the acting, it was in the writing.
#1 The character Mandy was a woman who won beauty contests for big, beautiful women. Clint Eastwood's skinny daughter didn't really look the part. Also, Mandy and the writer didn't walk off into the sunset together at the end of the book.
#2 Chablis shouldn't have played herself. Her stage act may be great, but RuPaul would have done better in the movie. The scene where she crashes the upscale debutante ball was better in the book.
These are just two examples.

[geniph]

50. Exit to Eden

one of the most erotic books ever written - hell, Rice herself describes it as a "one-handed read" - turned into one of the cheesiest, lamest COMEDIES ever made. Are we an entire society of 8-year-old boys, that we cannot deal with anything sexual without nudge-nudge-wink-wink? Repellent, truly repellent.

[amazona]

51. Endless Love by Scott Spencer

Wonderful book. Terrible movie. Usually a movie doesn't kill a writer's career -- look at all the terrible movies made from Steven King's work -- but Spencer was pretty much disappeared for two decades after that disaster.

[Red_Storm]

52. High Fidelity

didn't laugh as much with the movie as I did with the book......

[NightTrain]

55. "The Razor's Edge" with Bill Murray

I loved W. Somerset Maugham's novel, but in the 1984 big-screen treatment, Bill Murray didn't even attempt to play Larry Darrell as Maugham had written him. Rather, Murray grafted his own zany personality onto the character and completely ruined the film. What a shame.

[Shakespeare]

60. aawww...I gotta disagree.

The movie wasn't as good as the book (Maugham's just too damned good), but I think it's one of Murray's most underrated roles. He really didn't play the part over the top, but it came at a point in his career where, I think, just his very appearance brought to mind for anybody watching his SNL characters. That's more a reflection on the audience than it is on his performance. Robin Williams had the same problem with Garp--everybody expected a slapstick film, and it's really a pretty straight role (and another I find underrated). I think that's pretty impossible to overcome, unfortunately--in spite of that, he played the role with real depth and gravity. I even think his big, schlumpy appearance helped add a little pathos and sympathy to the character.

[zauberflote]

56. Learning to like

There've been lots of movies I've disliked from books I enjoyed, only to come around later and see their merits on their own terms.
The Godfather was one of those, so was A Clockwork Orange.

One of my favote novels from the past decade is Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, a sort of feminist retelling of King Lear set in a midwest farm community.
The movie was an absolute abomination. There's no chance I'll ever like that one.

And The English Patient stinks in any format.

[Coventina]

57. Emma

If I had never read the book, I would have probably liked the movie, but the movie does NOT do the book justice

[dani]

58. American Psycho

by Bret Easton Ellis. The movie version didn't come close to the book.

[NYYFan]

59. The Firm- John Grisham

2 reasons:

1) Tom Cruise- who can't act his way out of a paper bag.

2) They completely chaned the ending so much so- it could not have possibly happened that way.

:wtf:

[GregW]

61. Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer

Actually, none of the '...world' books will ever be successfully made ...

Riverworld
Ringworld
Dayworld

:(

[catzies]

62. I'm with you on that one LynneSin; does "Adaptation" count you think?

I loved the Susan Orlean article in The New Yorker, and I loved her book "The Orchid Thief," and since I loved "Being John Malkovich," I thought I'd really like "Adaptation."

Wrong.

I HATED it. x(