This weeks Weekly Geeks will be such an easy topic for me.
The recent release of Watchmen based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore got me thinking about what I thought were the worst movie adaptations of books. What book or books did a director or directors completely ruin in the adaptation(s) that you wish you could “unsee,” and why in your opinion, what made it or them so bad in contrast to the book or books?
Seriously, the one that sticks out to me the most is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I love the Harry Potter series and I did go into the third movie with an open mind (I thought the first two were done well), but I sooo totally hated what they did with this one. The entire thing was a mash up of what the novel was about. They cut and pasted so many different elements that it didn’t fit together well or at least it didn’t in my head. For instance, the whole tension between Hermoine and Ron involving their pets was never once brought up until the end where the point of the tension was explained. If they had not brought that scene up, they probably could have gotten away with a mediocre film, but they had to include it since it revealed a major plot twist.
This was also the movie that had a different director than the previous two movies and you could definitely tell that with just the stage the actors had to work with. The set for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban seemed so much darker than the first two (and so obviously different) that it kind of took away from the young adult feel of the movie. It was still a movie aimed at kids, but I want to say that Alfonso Cuarón (the director) was also trying to make it appeal to adults and I don’t think he did it all that well.
I just remember that there was always something that made me say “Wait a minute, what about this or what happened to this?” whenever a new scene came on. Like they knew what they had to put into the movie to make it, but they didn’t know how to piece everything together.
So what books have you seen that were totally massacred on the screen?
For more opinions on the various books to movie adaptations, here is what a few of the other Weekly Geekers had to say:
| 1. unfinishedperson 2. Jo 3. pussreboots (Lolita) 4. Kim (page after page) 5. thatsthebook |
6. Farm Lane Books 7. Sari 8. Maree 9. Bernadette (The Name of the Rose) 10. Rikki |
11. Melanie (Cynical Optimism) 12. Erika Lynn – Kiss My Book 13. Penny (Penny’s Pages) |
Also, this happened to be the topic for the last Bookworms Carnival. Well, not the worst adaptations part, but books to movie. So if you need some positive light, I would check out the 23rd Edition of the Bookworms Carnival, which was hosted by the Bluestocking Society.
My friends and I were just talking about the Harry Potter series! I agree with you; the last few movies felt as if the screen writer put the book in a grinding mill. Somethings seem to fall on the floor while other things seemed smashed together. I know the books are long and not everything can be filmed, but still I think they went for what would sell movies.
Hmmm… I was also taken aback by the Prisoner of Azkaban movie the first time I saw it, but it’s now my favorite one of the films. I wasn’t a great fan of the first two because they stayed so close to the source material they were almost boring. I could have just reread the book and gotten a better story. I think the later films, while not as faithful, better capture the spirit of the series.
Interestingly enough, my friend who has never read the books but seen all the films says the first two are boring, Azkaban’s awesome, and Goblet of Fire doesn’t make any sense. I haven’t gotten his take on Order of the Phoenix yet.
I’ve only seen the first two of the Harry Potter films. I’m not really a fan of the series so I haven’t bothered with watching the movies.
RUNAWAY JURY which tried to vilifi the gun industry and im glad it bombed