Most Inaccurate Adaptations

[PyroChamber]

The interesting thing about some movie adaptations of certain material (whether it be comics, video games, novels, TV shows, cartoons, etc.) is that even if the movie is bad they still try to keep some of the details from the source material in tact.

But what are some adaptations you think complete missed the ball and got everything wrong (stories, characters, atmosphere, etc.)?

 

[Ipodman]

Dragonball Evolution!

 

[MOVIELORD101]

GI Joe. They deliberately took out the "real American hero" stuff just so they could sell it to overseas markets. Bad move.

The Last Airbender. MAN, they changed a LOT of key plot points from the show, the worst being the whole "the Avatar is not allowed to hurt his enemies" BS they made up towards the end. Allow me to explain how they got that wrong. In the show, Aang was able to beat the **** out of opponents without any Avatar-related rules holding him back. The one thing he NEVER did was KILL his enemies, not because of some lame restrictions, but because killing was against his nature. Again, the movie got this completely wrong (along with them getting the bending wrong) and it was inexcusable for M. Night Shyamalan to screw up adapting a show he claimed to love. It's worse than when Frank Miller adapted The Spirit!

 

[DarkSovereignty]

the bourne movies are one glaring example.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

The interesting thing about some movie adaptations of certain material (whether it be comics, video games, novels, TV shows, cartoons, etc.) is that even if the movie is bad they still try to keep some of the details from the source material in tact.

But what are some adaptations you think complete missed the ball and got everything wrong (stories, characters, atmosphere, etc.)?

Amadeus is a good example of this working. It is accurate to the play, but neither the play nor film is accurate to the real history in the slightest, and it is much better for it. We get one of the best movies ever made as a result. So inaccuracy isn't always a bad thing.

Of course the classic example is Macbeth, which has nothing in common beyond the names and that it takes place in Scotland with the real deal, but is regarded by most people as one of Shakespeare's three greatest plays (alongside Hamlet and King Lear). Speaking of Lear, even though this was based on myth instead of history, Shakespeare still completely changed it beyond the basic concept, especially the ending which is completely opposite in the original story to what happens in the play (Lear regains his kingdom and is succeeded by Cordelia as ruler).

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

the bourne movies are one glaring example.

This is another example of the adaptation being much better than the source material. The Godfather and Jaws are a couple of others. It happens more often than people think.

 

[DarkSovereignty]

jaws i'll agree with you on. i liked the book, but none of the characters were likable...at all.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

Howard the Duck.

The movie is just a lame 80s comedy with a lot of crap jokes and boring situations.

The original comic book run is a highly intelligent, intellectual journey into the meaning of existence and the absurdities of human society, and very, very funny with it.

 

[:eek:]

A lot of James Bond-movies. Some Stephen King-adaptations like The Running Man and The Lawnmower Man

 

[dark_b]

GI Joe. They deliberately took out the "real American hero" stuff just so they could sell it to overseas markets. Bad move.

!

it was a bad move from a hollywood studio that they wanted to make money outside US on a summer blockbuster movie ?

 

[Rowsdower!]

I don't care that GI Joe took out the "real American hero" stuff... that movie was just absolutely atrocious on so many levels that it didn't matter. There wasn't a single scene in that piece of sh** film that was worth watching. I don't know how I got all the way through it.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

This is another example of the adaptation being much better than the source material. The Godfather and Jaws are a couple of others. It happens more often than people think.

The first two Godfather movies are better works of art than the novel, but they are pretty accurate adaptations, and the book was a good read for what it was.

 

[Spider-Who?]

I recently tried watching GI Joe. I never really cared for the cartoon as a kid, so I didn't think the movie would be as horrible as others have thought. Long story short, 10 minutes into the movie, my brain had rotted. It took another 10 minutes to regain control of my limbs to turn the damn thing off. Awful, awful movie.

The first inaccurate adaptation I can think of is Jurassic Park: The Lost World. It was nearly unrecognizable from the book. I was still a kid when it came out, so at that time I ate it up, but then I read the book and was like "wtf?!" Only decent part of the flick was getting to see the T-Rex terrorize San Diego.

 

[Hush]

Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief.

 

[Sloth7d]

Titus, while accurate in content, just completely throws me off in atmosphere. I can't even watch this movie because the combined stench of the 90's and idea of product placement being in Shakespeare makes me feel too ill to breathe.

 

[TruerToTheCore]

Exit Wounds

 

[Watchman]

Howard the Duck.

The movie is just a lame 80s comedy with a lot of crap jokes and boring situations.

The original comic book run is a highly intelligent, intellectual journey into the meaning of existence and the absurdities of human society, and very, very funny with it.

Thank you.

 

[Bat-Mite]

The Super Mario Bros. movie. I really can't think of any way that they'd have been able to make an accurate live action movie, but they could have pulled it off with an animated film.

 

[Wolfwood]

This will probably start a bit of fighting, but I have to say Resident Evil.

 

[Paste Pot Pete]

CATWOMAN.

I dare you to find a more inaccurate adaptation. "___ IN NAME ONLY" is used a lot (sometimes unfairly) but it's almost literally true here. It almost reminds me of how Roger Corman (I think it was) wanted to make a Spider-Man movie in the 80s ala The Fly, where Peter becomes a literal spider monster.

I mean, when you do a movie based on a comic character, but the main character isn't actually the character from the comics (even in name!), and it doesn't take place in the universe of the comics, and only uses the vaguest sense of themes from the comics, what else can you call it? It'd be like a movie called Batman, but Batman is a guy named Frank Johnson who lives in Michigan and becomes a crime fighter after being reincarnated through the power of a bat.

 

[SuperFerret]

It's a hard sell to say that Catwoman is an adaption.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

Thank you.

It is the only big budget Marvel movie I do not own on dvd, and the original Steve Gerber comics are probably my all time favourite run in comics.

and I even like to watch things like the guy from Street Hawk running around in the stupidest Daredevil costume ever in a cheapo tv movie.

that is how bad I consider that movie.

I have an old vhs of it somewhere, but I could never get past the first twenty minutes(it is my GI Joe, lol) whenever i put it on, as it is such an annoying adaptation. Not just an annoying movie, as the name of HtD has forever been attached to that movie, instead of the great comics. About the only good thing to come out of that movie was the fact that I was able to get the back issues at comic conventions really cheap.

Even the concept of Howard coming from a world of Ducks(which they get a lot of jokes out of at the begining of the movie) was not Gerber's original vision, he wanted it to be that Howard came from a world of all different kinds of talking animals. But after he fell out with Marvel, Bill Mantlo introduced that concept in the magazine. That is an exteremly minor point though.

I actually own the novelisation and soundtrack album too, lol, a friend bought me them from a charity shop as he knew i was a big HtD fan.

 

[chaseter]

Jurassic Park and The Lost World...but it didn't bother me. The Lost World is literally almost nothing like the book.

 

[Specter313]

Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief.

I wouldn't call it inaccurate so much as they didn't go far enough or do enough with it.

 

[PyroChamber]

This will probably start a bit of fighting, but I have to say Resident Evil.

With the first movie, they at least tried to get the atmosphere from the game right with the enclosed area with the zombies and the zombie dogs and the Licker; if they only made it more horror then it may have been better.

After that it just went in so many different directions, even though they brought in the characters from the game after the first movie, that you almost forget that the series was based on a horror video game.