Unfaithful Adaptations that you like

Name your favourite unfaithful movie adaptations of novels/tv series/comics, etc..

Sleepy Hollow
Apocalypse Now

Off the top of my head:

1. The Shining - movie is far superior to the book

2. O Brother, Where Art Thou - the Coens based this very loosely on Homer's Odyssey.

3. There Will Be Blood - PT Anderson based this on Oil! but only kept the central themes and some character names. Brilliant movie with arguably the best performance of the decade.

4. His Girl Friday - I'm not sure whether this is unfaithful since the same people who wrote the play also wrote the screenplay, but what a great screwball comedy.

5. Fight Club - based on the novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. The themes are the same, so are the characters, but the ending is different and imho, the tone is too. Both are great though.

nice thread btw

The Mothman Prophecies (Pellington, 2002)
I actually much prefer the John Keel-authored book, which is a nonfiction account of paranormal events that happened over a 13-month period in Point Pleasant, West Virginia in the late-1960s (and not in 2002, as depicted here). But I saw the film before I read the book, and as creep-out thrillers go, I'd argue it's one of the best I've seen in recent years.




Gangs of New York (Scorcese, 2002)
Martin Scorcese took extreme liberty with Herbert Asbury's outlandish pseudo-nonfiction classic, which chronicles many of the clandestine goings-on of 19th-century New York. Many of the film's characters are derivatives of their narrative and/or historical counterparts. While the book is nothing short of fascinating, the film is a brilliant interpretation that gives the story both form and context.




From Hell (Hughes Brothers, 2001)
Adapted somewhat from the Alan Moore graphic novel, From Hell takes a more "sensationalist" approach to the Ripper killings, most notably depicting Inspector Abberline as a clairvoyant opium addict. But in Moore's book - which is quite good, don't get me wrong - the killer's identity is largely known throughout the book, whereas the film keeps the viewer guessing, serving the experience pretty well.

Cat on A Hot Tin Roof, even though it was bowdlerised.

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You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never. (The Red Shoes, 1948)

I saw Mystic River after reading the book. There were some details that did not come out in the movie that I was a little disappointed about, but other than that, it was a pretty good movie.

The Postman veered way way off from the book and is totally Costnerized, but I admit it is a guilty pleasure.

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Under-the-radar Movie Awesomeness.
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The Last of the Mohicans (1992 - Michael Mann)

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Mildred Pierce

No murder in the book, which is the whole point of the movie.

Aguirre: Wrath of God.

Die Hard
First Blood

I found Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" fairly hard to follow (as I do most of his writing). I thought the movie "Blade Runner" was superior as entertainment, and to me the "what does it mean to be human" theme was more focused as well. In fact, it's one of my all-time favorites. (I like both the original release version and the director's cut.)

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Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain ... only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.

Blueberry (aka Renegade)

Except for a few--not all--of the songs, the film Paint Your Wagon has nothing to do with the original script of the play by the same name, and is much the funnier for it.

Brando's One-Eyed Jacks was loosely based on a book that was little more than the retelling of the Billy the Kid saga reset in California. Hollywood kept the California setting and rewrote everything else, improving it in the process.

Disney's 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame.' The changes were not too bad- in the film, Phoebus is a bit full of himself but he's not a heartless cad and genuinely loves Esmerelda. Fair enough change for kiddies because the original would be too complicated and in the context of the film, the Phoebus thing works.

Another, rather strange, change they made was to bump up Frollo's age. In the book he is 37 but looks bad for it, but in the film Frollo looks exactly the same age in the 20 year flash back and is probably fifty-something. Esmerelda's age might have gone up slightly, to about 18 or 19, but there is still a major creepy factor. There's a lot more complexity to Frollo and Quasimodo's relationship in the book (indeed, Quasi is deaf and barely able to communicate in the book) but the relationship they have in the film is believable and powerful.

Last one I'll mention, the most suitable change they made, was to make Frollo a judge in the film (he's a priest in the book). The celibacy would have gone way over the kiddies' heads and scaring them with evil priests would probably confuse them. Being a judge, it makes Frollo's hypocrisy very clear to children, so as a parent you can point out the theme and the child might actually understand it ('who is the monster and who is the man?', as the first song of the film asks)

the prestige
kick ass
batman
slumdog millionaire
twilight (boook sucks even more than film)

lately, on average the writing for movies have been better than it's source material. maybe revenue is starting to reflect how good a movie is isntaed of marketing and hype. worth paying better writers for. thanks you rottentomatoes and metacritic.

Batman Returns

The original "Thing From Another World". It bore little resemblance to Campbell's original story, but I liked it, and the remake which at least had the basics down.

The more recent version of The Time Machine. It has strayed somewhat from Wells' original story but is enjoyable just the same.

A lot of Hollywood films these days have little to do with the books they are based on.

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All secrets are safe with this man, because none are as deadly to him as his own. His secret is that he is Richard Kimble. (The Fugitive - Conspiracy of Silence)

Sleepy Hollow always tops my list of unfaithful adaptations.

I appreciated it but now that I've read the book I can see how much more interesting the story could be if faithfully done. It would be a very unusual film to see, as all that business of the Eloi understanding English is one of the aspects that was changed for audience's benefit.

Most of the Rolf Lassgård Wallander films are modified versions of Henning Mankell's stories and I really like them – in some cases the changes were inevitable because of world events having moved on. Firewall was particularly amusing, as they changed the hacker to a female character, possibly to cash in on the popularity of Lisbeth Salander – although the dates make that a tight chance . That type of character has manifested a lot since in Scandi dramas, especially with the brilliant Sofia Helin in The Bridge and even to a lesser degree in Beck.