Has a TV/Movie adaptation ruined a good book?

[VickiStegall]

Ona posed the following question in the Game of Thrones thread and I thought it merited its own thread

Can't say the same for Outlander though :sad: I had read the series quite a few times before the series was launched and yes, I was eager to see it. After three episodes I couldn't stay with it as 'Claire' drove me nuts!!LOL In my head she was not the Claire that I had read about in the books. :sad: Jaime was fine mind you! :tongue: My sister and daughter, who had not read the books, absolutely loved the series and whenever I was in Sydney to visit they would need to watch that week's episode! lol! and another thing with that series was that it didn't follow the books all that well which also put me off a bit.



Sometimes I think it's better that a book isn't made into a movie, or that I stop reading the books first! lol!! Does anyone feel the same way? :?:

100% agree about Outlander. I just couldn't get in to it. I am considering getting the stars subscription for $5 a month for 3 months to see if I can get in to it this time.


I felt the same way about Sookie Stackhouse / True Blood. My hubby told me I wasn't allowed to watch it anymore because it made it me so mad. I totally felt like they had ruined it.

 

[wombat146]

Well Games of Thrones was a great screen adaptation, they had to leave bits out of course (otherwise it would have gone on forever! LOL), but on the whole it kept pretty much to the story.




In reverse, I watched all of the Twilight Saga movies first and while it was good I didn't understand Bella's reaction to Edward a lot of the times......... all of those long lingering looks.....so I read the books and they explained what was going on in her mind while she was looking at him so in a way they provided some background info for the movies.

 

[faerywings]

I felt the same way about Sookie Stackhouse / True Blood. My hubby told me I wasn't allowed to watch it anymore because it made it me so mad. I totally felt like they had ruined it.

YES!! I liked the first season or so and then *hated* it. I would get so mad too, totally ruined it.

 

[scribler]

The Ender’s Game movie was a horrible adaptation of the book. The changes in the first half of the movie were acceptable but the second half was an abomination. The Audible book is a much better choice. Very well done.

 

[taxed4ever]

I totally feel the opposite about the Outlander series! I look forward to seeing it each week and yes they have strayed from the book a few times, but that often happens with TV adaption of books. I have read all of the books too and even though the characters are not what I envisioned in the books I still think that they are all very well portrayed. Just my humble opinion :becky:

 

[Jeannette]

It's what I felt with the Harry Potter movies. I had read all the books about 3 or 4 times before I saw the movies. The first two movies had a Dumbledore that was almost exactly as how I had pictured him in my head. Unfortunately the actor died, and Dumblore was played by another actor in the rest of the movies. Although this was a very well known actor, as everyone said, in my opinion he was a horrible Dumbledore. He just wasn't the way Dumbledore was supposed to be, and for a good part ruined the other movies for me.

 

[Madi]

I don't mind, I don't want to compare to much, just enjoy the story in a new and different way.

 

[scribler]

It's not just books that can be ruined. Just ask any fan of the Avatar The Last Airbender tv series. What M. Night Shyamalan did with the movie adaptation was one of the worst abominations I have ever seen. I won't watch another one of his movies after that. BTW, it got a 5 on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

[faerywings]

I can't remember off the top of my head right now for an example, but there have been a lot of times that I have read the book first, and then the movie/TV show is different enough where I spend more mental energy trying to put the pieces of the book into place in my mind, that it ruins the "watching" experience completely.


Has that ever happend to you?

 

[wombat146]

I can't remember off the top of my head right now for an example, but there have been a lot of times that I have read the book first, and then the movie/TV show is different enough where I spend more mental energy trying to put the pieces of the book into place in my mind, that it ruins the "watching" experience completely.


Has that ever happend to you?

Yes! That is what I meant about Outlander! besides the actress not being the 'real' Claire ound: I kept thinking, no!!! you aren't supposed to know she is a witch yet!!! that happens later on!!!!! :twitch: That was only one instance, but there were a lot of others! :twitch::twitch::twitch:

 

[VickiStegall]

It's not just books that can be ruined. Just ask any fan of the Avatar The Last Airbender tv series. What M. Night Shyamalan did with the movie adaptation was one of the worst abominations I have ever seen. I won't watch another one of his movies after that. BTW, it got a 5 on Rotten Tomatoes.

I did love Avatar cartoon but not the movie either.

 

[VickiStegall]

I can't remember off the top of my head right now for an example, but there have been a lot of times that I have read the book first, and then the movie/TV show is different enough where I spend more mental energy trying to put the pieces of the book into place in my mind, that it ruins the "watching" experience completely.


Has that ever happend to you?

YES! all the time lol

 

[zanthia]

as i stopped reading years ago obviously then answer is no . but even back then it didnt as i knew there would be differences and jsut accepted it.

i see outlander being mentioned. from various sites i saw that there were lot who felt like you - spoiled by the books. while it seemed the casting of jamie and claire was well liked, the casting of the daughter was not.

I have not watched the current season yet but will soon - love the show.

 

[Marjoleine]

For me The Da Vinci Code with Tom Hanks was meh. I read the book first and watched the movie later but I was very disappointed with the movie. They left so much out that was important to the story.
But I guess that's why it's so difficult to make a movie out of a book because you have to deal with a time frame, you cannot put every little detail in a movie, so they have to skip parts.

 

[faerywings]

Marjoleine- that was a book that I could not put down and like you, thought the movie was "meh." :nod: