this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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168
What was the worst bastardization of a classic book into a movie? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] alokir 34 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Not a classics, but:

  • American Gods: they made unnecessary changes and introduced unnecessary filler plotlines until it felt like a drag to watch. The book already explored social issues, but the showrunners decided to dial it up to 100 and spoonfeed it to the audience at the expense of the actual plot.
  • Ready Player One: they dumbed down the whole thing about hunting keys and portals, removed tons of important worldbuilding details, made pointless changes that ruined the spirit of the books. They should have made it into a series instead of a movie.
[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (5 children)

What made me mad at RP1 movie was they put the Easter Egg in Atari Adventure. Which is mentioned in chapter 0 of the book, and again in the fake town (not put in the movie) because it's so obvious, nobody who cared about games at all would hide anything there.

And no Tomb of Horrors.

Instead Spielberg put a bunch of lame movie references in, because he's too senile to understand the game references.

And the actors are far too pretty for the "but you're beautiful inside" plot.

[–] c0mbatbag3l 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not to mention the bastardization of the entire plot.

I liked the book because it felt like the villains had actual capabilities to accomplish their goals. The protagonists did everything right and it still wasnt enough to get the bad guys off their backs.

In the movie the protagonists make stupid decisions and the villain helper character which didn't even exist in the book just overhears them talking about it.

Fucking. Stupid.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Said it better than I could.

Exactly.

[–] fubo 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

And no Tomb of Horrors.

That's because the novel was about nerd culture in general, while the movie was almost entirely about video games. All the D&D, Rush, Monty Python, etc. references were absent. The Shining was in there because Kubrick was Spielberg's mentor.

[–] TAG 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Instead Spielberg put a bunch of lame movie references in, because he's too senile to understand the game references.

Have not seen the movie, but that sounds like Spielberg nailed the tone of the novel. The book reads like a thinly veiled essay by an aging Gen X geek about how pop culture peaked during the authors childhood and the world would be perfect if we could go back to the 80s.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

Thanks for your completely useless post.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

But Art3mis in the real world has a port-wine stain so she's ugly! Can't you see how disgusting she looks?!

/s

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Ready Player One was a good adaptation of a mediocre book into a mediocre movie.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Disagree. The movie is a mediocre adaptation of a fun and mediocre book into an un-fun and mediocre movie. The film was never going to be gold, but they spent an awful lot of CGI money to make a movie that wasn't as fun as just reading the original and imagining all of the nerdy stuff being described.

[–] alokir 6 points 10 months ago

I won't argue with the book being mediocre (I myself enjoyed it but many others didn't), but it wasn't a faithful adaptation at all.

[–] _pete_ 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Both of these.

American Gods really pissed me off though if they had stuck to the books it could have been an amazing series with great characters and weird but fun storylines in a unique setting. But they added too much stuff and there was a total mess with the show runners leaving so it all sort of fell apart before one of the best plot lines of the whole story.

I kinda want to rewatch it again someday though…

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Ready Player One: they dumbed down the whole thing about hunting keys and portals, removed tons of important worldbuilding details, made pointless changes that ruined the spirit of the books. They should have made it into a series instead of a movie.

I went into the theater expecting it to be not so great, and it still managed to disappoint me.