Some Novels Shouldn't Be Made as a Movie

It saddens me when some of my favorite novels or books I read when I was younger are made into movies, and just didn't do it justice.

Here's a very disappointing list:

1. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2. Catch-22
3. I-Robot

Anyone have any others?

Timeline?

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

No particular timeline.

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks should have never been made into a movie. While the movie was sweet and romantic, the book should have been historic enough.

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Everything Happens For A Reason...

So you liked the movie, but didn't think it should have been made?

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"Like all dreamers, Steven mistook disenchantment for truth."

Maybe it isn't that they shouldn't have been made, they just should have been made better.

Like House of the Spirits...this book would make a good movie, but the movie that was made wasn't it.

Just thought of another one ... Dune ... How could I forget that one! I don't think any Dune fanatics liked the movie version.

I think Catch-22 could be a good movie. I just didn't like what I saw on the big screen. Had much more enjoyable time reading it.

I like Mike Nichols' film adaptation of Catch-22 a lot. A whole lot. It couldn't possibly translate all of that huge, dense, brilliant novel, but I think screenwtier Buck Henry (who also appears in the movie as Col. Korn) did a marvelous job at capturing the all-important tone, which was the key. It also hit on many of the best scenes and kept Heller's dialogue in large chunks, so I think it's rather a brilliant adaptation actually. I really like the elliptical narrative beginning and ending with his attempted assassination from Natley's whore, and the flashback structure for Snowden, both of which worked perfectly for the film. And damn the casting was wonderful, most obviously Alan Arkin as Yossarian but also Jack Gilford as Doc Daneeka, Bob Newhart as Major Major, Bob Balaban as Orr, Anthony Perkins as Chaplin Tappman, Martin Baslam as Colonel Cathcart, Jon Voight as Milo Minderbinder and Orson Welles as General Dreedle. Amazing cinematography too and great location work, with Mexico doubling for the Mediterranean and Italy.



Heller's novel will always be in a class by itself, of course, and I recommend that every single person read it at least once. At least. I couldn't love the book more, it's truly magnificent. But the movie is quite good, amazingly got to the essence of a mammoth and complex work, and I really like it loads too. They got so very much right.


But diff'rent strokes and all.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Well, perhaps my expectation was just way too high. I agree, perhaps the novel just had too much to cover on the screen. But like you said, different strokes....

I think they probably meant Timeline (2003), the lame Sci-Fi movie adapted from a Michael Crichton novel.

Oh, ok ... thanks for the clarification, Holden.

What a load that was.

I generally like Crichton novels and found this one to be really fun and exciting. The movie just mutilated the hell out of it and robbed it of its intelligence.

Good call.

I was disappointed the first time I saw the movie too, bro. I had just finished reading the book…I still had stardust in my eyes. What a friggin’ amazing read. The movie moved stuff around, left characters out, yet, after a couple more viewings, I started to see that Nichols really managed to keep the spirit of the original source material. In large part because of the brilliant casting of some of the best dead-pan comics available. I love Newhart as Maj. Major Major Major and especially Alan Arkin as Yossarian…and there’s Orson Welles, man!

Maybe give it another go?

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I was enormously disappointed in both Prelude to a Kiss and Posession.

Prelude is based in a really wonderful play by Craig Lucas, which I had read in theater history class as an example of a new(er) genre: magic realism. The characters are quirky but sincere, especially Peter, the central character. You really have to relate to Peter so that you care about everything else. The film featured Alex Baldwin and he played Peter as a 'toon. I couldn't have cared less and the entire film went down the tube behind his performance.

[i]Posession[//i] is based on a novel by A.S. Byatt and is one of the most touching stories.. It's also a very smart renaissance of the Romantic ideal, including all the classical elements (messages gone astray, sturm und drang, the works). They took all the passion out of the story and what was left was dry as toast. Wonder Bread toast.

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

Wow...I haven't seen either of these. The sun'll even shine on a dog's ass every once in a while.



I hope to doG that nobody tries to translate Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series into a bunch of films. It won’t work unless you have a cast available like Jackson had for The Lord of the Rings, and even then some. This is seven books worth of important material that spans less than a year of time, with the exception of Wizard and Glass, which is an entire books worth of back-story on the central character of Roland, the Gunslinger.

My dream of dreams for this magnificent series is to see an accomplished director and cast bring this to life in a 2-3 year series on HBO. That way the cast won’t age too much and the story will always be fresh in the mind as it continues its inexorable march towards the Dark Tower. Plus, we can trust the suits at HBO to allow the film to be as true to the raw source material as possible, regardless of the violence, depth of story, or amount of time it takes to tell the story as it should be told.

I read the first book of the Dark Tower series and never continued on. Perhaps I should.

Rats, this computer.
For a much smaller version of a post I was going to put...

The Dark Tower. Hell Yeah. I agree has to be well thought out and executed.

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My biggest Dissapointment was Battlefield Earth..I still remember when they said they were making it into a movie, I knew it was going to fail miserably. Have you seen how thick that book is? There was way too much going on for a one movie deal. IMO worst movie ever.

My other major dissapointments was I-Robot and Congo.

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Not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.

The worst movie adaptation of a book I loved was Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

It took a beautiful narrative concerning the complexity of love amid the morally bankrupt backdrop of WW2. And turned it into the sappiest piece of sub Mills and Boon Cr** I've ever seen. Oh and Nicholas Cage what were you thinking I hope your parents are very proud. What a mistakea to makea.

Ok, you guys convinced me to give Catch-22 another shot.

Yeah, and look what it did for John Travolta's career ...