Shakespeare didn't really bother specifying those so you could say that as an adaptation it was pretty spot on

Except where they were forced to cut dialog because it didn't work with the unspecified props. And then you had scenes in a drama that were just comical because of the change in setting. It may not be the worst adaptation of all time, but it certainly didn't stand up to the 1968 version.

troy- well i have a huge hard on for The Iliad and i realize hollywood has to hollywoodtize things, that's just really to be expected. but the characters were more polarized, and Helen and Paris were glorified and romance became the backdrop of the story. they really played up the relationship between achilles and briseis too. i wont point out EVERY difference, because there's alot, i guess there's things that might not translate so well onto the silver screen or play well at the boxoffice.

but what i love about the book was that it was pretty much all about the war and the kings and the gods fighting amonst eachother to decide wether troy or the achians win. i adored achilles in the book. one of my favorite all time characters. and that was the basis of the book, the quarrel with him and aggy. before the book was "The Iliad", it was actually known as "the rage of achilles".
the characters seemed to be less polarized in the book too. the only character that really had a douche streak was Paris. i mean alot of the characters, they did favorable and not so favorable things, they weren't really cut and dry characters, you know? they were dudes in a 10 year war.

elektro
You are talking about a scene that happened near the end of the movie, where the plot deviates from the original book, and that scene is probably the worst in the whole film. I've seen both, and other than a few minor details and some changed storyline for Tom's son, almost everything was note for note from the book up until after the death of Fogarty/Turino. After that, the back story of the main character was completely changed. Instead of some kid who ran away to avoid retaliation from the mob, we get a complete psycho who pissed off his brother.

Might have been the last third of the movie, but it was the first 90% of the book. I own both the book and movie and the book was almost completely about his back story. It's a character-driven story. That was what the entire thing revolved around. If the back story changed, then the whole story changed. His relationship with his wife and the role his kids play in the story throughout the whole film was different. In the end, about the only thing they kept was the plot outline of him hiding, being found, and then confronting the guy.

About the 90's Shakespeare stuff: The reason it sucked was that it was modernized and sped like SPED through EVERYTHING.

But that's just me.

isukun
but it certainly didn't stand up to the 1968 version.

I haven't seen that one.

isukun
And then you had scenes in a drama that were just comical because of the change in setting

It's pretty common with Shakespeare to change the emphasis of scenes, tweak settings and things... I don't remember any real unintentional comedy The helicopter stuff seemed weird though.

I Am The 1337 Master
About the 90's Shakespeare stuff: The reason it sucked was that it was modernized

Traditionally Shakespeare plays often had contemporary settings when they were put on- i.e. they were dressed in the clothes of the day etc, even if the story was set 200 years or so in the past. I think that began to change gradually as time went on. But definitely in Shakespeare's day and for a good while after they had a mixture of historical and contemporary costume depending on what they were going for.

Even in his day he deliberately modernised stories for his audience. Hamlet is a good example. There you have very modern contemporary concepts like rapier duels pivotal to the story. Rapiers and that whole specific culture of duelling was extremely current and fashionable in his day, but non-existent in the period when Hamlet was set., and yet not only is a massive honour duel the end of the play but I seem to remember other points like "trading French rapiers" -those being high quality since France was a centre for duelling schools at the time, so quite valuable.

-Old trial by combat fights being QUITE a different matter that simply don't translate to the kind of shenanigans and twisty motives and actions present in the finale of that play.

...which is where the Mel Gibson adaptation sort of went a bit strange. His Hamlet was very deliberately set in the time when the play was apparently supposed to be set... But not, so it goes a bit strange. They actually historisised the play to make everything fit in an earlier time than it should have been. :)

I've seen quite a few different modernized Shakespearean plays, but most don't go nearly as far as Romeo + Juliet did to try to capture the younger generation. Crap like branding sword names on the sides of the guns so they could keep the same lines just came off as being comical, and that certainly wasn't the intent of the director. I'm sure he thought it cool to have them blowing up gas stations, but that certainly isn't in the original script, and I have yet to see a modernized Hamlet, Henry V, Othello, etc, try to pull that off. That's probably because Baz Luhrmann did such a poor job when he attempted it. Modernization can only go so far before you have to start either really changing things or you lose the suspension of disbelief since everything is just too awkward. Romeo + Juliet kind of did both, changing choreography from the script, cutting lines to make things work, and being completely awkward.

skoolmunkee
That said, I absolutely hated Hellboy II. I actually liked Hellboy I, even though it disagreed with my beloved comic in a number of ways and was kind of a lame story. But Hellboy II was just straight-up awful. Guillermo del Toro, WHY?!?!?!

I count Hellboy II as one of the best comic book movies. I think it's a good exaple of how an adaptation can branch off into it's own universe, while still staying faithful to the source material.

Plus, Ron Perlman punches an old lady in the face. And then he SINGS.

Charlie in the Chocolate Factory: The Modern version. I know some people will disagree, and say that the modern version was a more faithful adaptation of the book. And they are probably right. But I hated it. I hated all of the kids and didn't have the same connection with grandpa Joe and Charlie as I did in the first one.

It also isn't as funny as the first one. Gene Wilder was a much better Willy Wonka than Johnny Depp.

Starship Troopers- Totally misses the philosophical components of the story. The book is more of a political essay than anything, the movie is just about killing bugs and the storyline is way different.

I liked the modern Romeo + Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and that chick from True Blood. Setting it up in contemporary Spain (or somesuch) made it not boring, and a different spin because otherwise why would I need to watch it? I've already seen the earlier version with that drop-dead gorgeous brunette as Juliet I don't remember her name but she was smokin' hot.

The entire point of keeping ancient stories alive and remake it over and over ad nauseum is because each time a different spin can be put on it. Otherwise, let's just retire Shakespeare because how many times do you want to watch the same damn story?

I applaud it for making me actually interested in a movie where they spoke Shakespeare. Oh, his words are quite delicious when you're actually interested.

Oh, and I'm glad the Scouring of the Shire was cut out. THANK GOD. No, I don't care about the Hobbits that much. LOTR was great for its epicness and immersion. I don't need to be immersed in their little country life. Thank you PJ for cutting out Tolkien's childhood nostalgia.

I take it from what you have said here that you did not read the books and have no idea what the scouring of the Shire even is. It certainly wasn't in the books to "immerse you in the country life" of the Hobbits. It was meant to highlight a particular flaw in the Shirefolk which many Western nations during the two World Wars shared. It was more important to the overall message of the books than everyone leaving for the Grey Havens.

I've read The Hobbit, LOTR, The Silmarillion, and Lost Tales 1 (or was it 2).

Yeah I really don't care to have the movies include an anticlimactic conflict set after the "world war" in ME. Tolkien was trying to make a message but the movies don't need to repeat it. It wouldn't have worked anyways.

Tolkien's world is large enough that it goes beyond his books and his message. Personally I can do without the hobbits. It was the heroics of the humans which immersed me the most.

I have to be honest and admit I enjoyed the LOTR films. I feel that sacrifices had to be made and some of the original material modified during the translation to film. I can however sympathize with purists who feel that the changes weren’t for the best.

The worst film adaptation of a comic book – Watchmen. Hands down, Watchmen. Most of the themes and political statements from the original comic were flattened out into just another superhero movie. It left a lot of fans unfulfilled and a lot of people new to it, confused. I’m not a critic of the director but I feel he was just too much of a novice to handle such an undertaking. He’d only made what? Two films before?

mlai
Oh, and I'm glad the Scouring of the Shire was cut out. THANK GOD. No, I don't care about the Hobbits that much. LOTR was great for its epicness and immersion. I don't need to be immersed in their little country life. Thank you PJ for cutting out Tolkien's childhood nostalgia.

Eh, that really seems weird to me... It's like loving Starwars for the aliens to the exclusion of all else. The thing about the Lord Of The Rings was that the Hobbits are the central feature, it's as simple as that. All the battles and heroics are generic and derivative. If you really like that stuff their original forms are much better- in literature and film.

-------------------------
I recall another bad adaption- Royal Flash!
It was an adaption of George MacDonald Fraiser's second book in his Flashman series, about the bastard, bully coward Flashman and his exploits as an army officer after Tom Brown's School days.
The story of Royal Flash is a bit of a spoof on The Prisoner of Zenda where a royal personage is impersonated by the hero because of some scheming by others... It's a theme pretty common in pop-culture generally, which is why they chose to make a film out of the second book instead of the first- thinking that might make people more familiar and comfortable with it.
George MacDonald Fraiser himself helped to adapt the story for the big screen, which just goes to show that the original creators of a thing are no better than anyone else at transferring their story to different forms (Douglas Adams did poorly with his movie too). The chief failing of the film was a bowdlerisation of the main character. ALL of the fun of Flashman is that he's an unremitting BASTARD and a coward of a man, who still manages to come out on top anyway in spite of himself, like Blackadder at his best (season 2). The novels are full of pulpy told sex, violence, and VERY bawdy comedy told against a background of intricately, academically researched historical detail. In a film that should have been made for adult audiences, this PG Flashman doesn't even swear, there's not a tit to be seen, and his bastardly cowardly acts are pretty much non-existent since everything he does is pretty much 100% self defence and justified.
The comedy was broad slapstick stuff, since the director was the same guy who did HELP with the Beetles.

There were some gloriously good actors like Oliver Reed as Otto Bismark, Malcolm McDowell as the title character Flashman and Alan Bates as the evil conniving Rudy, but with such a limited film there wasn't much they could do, even though they all did their best.
Royal Flash was mainly just a very long extended farce movie with great costumes and some fantastic sets (much of it was shot on location in castles in Bavaria).

I remember being really thrown off by the Scouring of the Shire in the original LOTR books. It felt like it was tacked on to the back of the story sloppily. I get taht it had a message it was trying to get across, but it just didn't feel... believable. Like, I don't think Saruman's motivations really justified him bothering to do that; he just did that because the plot says so.

Still on the Lord Of The Rings? O_O

Ha! It didn't feel tacked on. I think the reason so many object to it is because it created exactly the impression it was supposed to and they don't like that, so they rationalise that it was at fault and not their expectations:-
It brings you up short after that glorious climax. It's sad, irritating, and in the way, you just want to sail on out to the end and there's THAT in the way- all small scale, pathetic and petty.

In that way it worked beautifully.
Because the climax and the big battles weren't the end. There's always an aftermath to deal with, at least in The Lord Of The Rings it wasn't anything like a nasty gritty real aftermath.

The Scouring of Shire works in a (long) book like Tolkien's, but it certainly doesn't work for a movie(s). Ppl already talk about how long the "ending" of the 3rd movie is. And now we want to tack on an anticlimactic battle after the greatest battle scenes of the trilogy? Nobody is going to care!

Yes that's right, after the climax, people want resolution scenes to relax their senses and feel the satisfaction of completion.

I wasn't bored at all when watching the 3rd film's long end - I knew that this is the last moments of the beloved trilogy, and I wanted it to last as long as it needed to. It's like resting a while after a big dinner, instead of having the waiter rush you out of the restaurant because you're done eating.

And no, Ozone. There is almost nothing more epic than ME in the high fantasy genre. Courtesy of New Zealand and great computers, PJ managed to portray that world very believably. Yes, Tolkien's central story in that world is told thru the Hobbits. But I'm more immersed in what's going on around the Hobbits. And that's a whole lot.

ozoneocean
Still on the Lord Of The Rings? O_O

Ha! It didn't feel tacked on. I think the reason so many object to it is because it created exactly the impression it was supposed to and they don't like that, so they rationalise that it was at fault and not their expectations:-
It brings you up short after that glorious climax. It's sad, irritating, and in the way, you just want to sail on out to the end and there's THAT in the way- all small scale, pathetic and petty.

In that way it worked beautifully.
Because the climax and the big battles weren't the end. There's always an aftermath to deal with, at least in The Lord Of The Rings it wasn't anything like a nasty gritty real aftermath.

So... it was deliberately pointless and annoying? That's really your defense for it? Are we really going to start saying that if something is bad on purpose that automatically makes it somehow good?

I think he means Tolkien wants to show that just because the war on the front lines is over, it doesn't make everything perfect back home.
Which is nice and all, but doesn't fit in a movie trilogy that's not about that kind of themes.

ministrybase
The worst film adaptation of a comic book – Watchmen. Hands down, Watchmen. Most of the themes and political statements from the original comic were flattened out into just another superhero movie. It left a lot of fans unfulfilled and a lot of people new to it, confused. I’m not a critic of the director but I feel he was just too much of a novice to handle such an undertaking. He’d only made what? Two films before?

The worst? Really? Don't get me wrong, there's a lot that I criticize about this movie but I'd definitely say it's not the worst. True enough, the movie pared down the themes, buildup, etc. but I think that's just to be expected in adaptations, for screen or otherwise. Personally I'd even go as far to recommend this movie, but really only to people who are too good to read comics.

Yeah seriously, with movies like Daredevil, The Punisher, and Fantastic Four, I can't imagine The Watchmen being the worst comic book adaptation. There are plenty of things they did wrong, but I also think there were a lot of things they did amazingly right.

I'm gonna have to go with Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining. Just, wow. Anyone who brings up its vast departures from the novel it is "adapting" and terrible acting, ridiculous campiness, and pretentious symbolism are met with disdainful, passionate rants about how "you just don't get it" "The book sucked anyway" "Kubrick is the most brilliant director of all time!" "The 97 miniseries followed the book and was boring" "It's too deep for you to understand" "You're dumb and your opinion doesn't matter, Kubrick is the master!" And so on and so on. lol!

The miniseries was not boring, it had some laughably terrible special effects mind you and has flaws of its own, but it was a far more creepy and coherent thing to watch than that bloated bag of gas from 1980. It gets a bad rap because people try to compare the two as if there's room for comparison. The 97 miniseries is a faithful adaption of "The Shining" made for fans of the novel. The 1980 movie is Kubrick being a artsy-fart and making an artsy-fart movie under the pretense that it's an "adaption", that you will enjoy if you're a pretentious movie snob who likes making theories and perusing a film for the most minute symbolism and turning your nose up at plebeians who didn't like it, their opinion doesn't matter because they can't see his true genius and grand vision! Character development is for people who like to be bored, right? And making sense is for boring people too, the audience should be confused because it makes you look "deep!"
Okay, I guess you might like it also if you think campy iconic scenes are the bee's knees too. It has more than its fair share of that. And I like most David Lynch things so it's not that I'm not into that sort of thing either. It's just a bad movie that gets to hide behind "meticulous artyness" to defend what I feel were some VERY poor decisions and drastic changes. So Kubrick took King's story and "made it his own". But why not make your own movie then, Stan?!
And yes, I saw this before I read the novel. I still thought it was terrible! Full of great "moments" but still horrible to sit through between them.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Uwe Boll yet. I mean, come on, it's Uwe Boll. The mastermind behind such films as Bloodrayne, Alone in the Dark, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, and, of course, House of the Dead.

Sea_Cow
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Uwe Boll yet. I mean, come on, it's Uwe Boll. The mastermind behind such films as Bloodrayne, Alone in the Dark, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, and, of course, House of the Dead.

I was going to, but the title specifically stated "movies based on book or comics". I think the whole slew of videogame movies speaks for itself. Except Mortal Kombat. That was the best movie Mortal Kombat fans could have hoped for, given the source material.

If Shakespeare is fair game, video games should be, too. Although are the collected works of Uwe Boll really the worst video games have gotten? What about the Super Mario Brothers movie or Street Fighter? Both were pretty craptacular and neither followed the source material worth a damn.

isukun
If Shakespeare is fair game, video games should be, too. Although are the collected works of Uwe Boll really the worst video games have gotten? What about the Super Mario Brothers movie or Street Fighter? Both were pretty craptacular and neither followed the source material worth a damn.

Have you even watched Uwe Boll's movies?

Yes. Have you watched Super Mario Brothers or Street Fighter?

I personally would say Street Fighter was better than anything I've seen from Uwe Boll, even though the Street Fighter movie was terrible. Actually, I think Legend of Chun Li was worse than the first Street Fighter movie, which at least had that "fun to watch because it's bad" factor.

Hawk
I personally would say Street Fighter was better than anything I've seen from Uwe Boll, even though the Street Fighter movie was terrible. Actually, I think Legend of Chun Li was worse than the first Street Fighter movie, which at least had that "fun to watch because it's bad" factor.

Exactly. The "so-bad-it's-funny" factor also the Mario movie. However, any time anybody speaks in an Uwe Boll movie I feel like killing myself with a shotgun.

@ Amelius:

Are you kidding me or are you actually serious??!!?

I saw The Shining movie (with Jack Nicholson) first. Then I watched Stephen King's TV miniseries. The movie was genuinely scary and disturbing. The miniseries was absolutely horrible!

I'm not talking about the special fx. The miniseries' plot was hackneyed, predictable, and just plain rubbish. We all know Stephen King always makes the most terrible movies or series whenever he is directly involved. His stuff only becomes awesome when some awesome director "adapts" his book, with some awesome actors acting in it, and then ppl who never read his books mistakenly think he must be some sort of awesome writer.

@ Super Mario Bros:

I liked the movie all the way up until when the video game elements started appearing. In the very beginning, when it's just a life-drama story about 2 Brooklyn brothers, I was absolutely immersed.