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TV/Movie adaptations that are so much worse than the source material.

Beobloke said:
And don't get me started on Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher...
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Yes indeed. The central part of the Reacher character in the books is that he's repeatedly described as "6ft 5, 250 pounds" or whatever it is. He's enormous. Then up rocks Tom, all 5 ft 6 of him, weighing 12 stone in a thick jumper. Athletic he may be, but a big scary monster of a man? Never.
 
I used to enjoy Jeffery Deaver's books, and was dismayed by the complete hash they made of “The Bone Collector”. I could forgive them making the character of Lincoln Rhyme black, but they completely changed the ending.

I'm looking forward to the Disney+ series of “Shardlake”, from the C.J. Sansom novels, due to premiere on 1st May. If Disney make as good a job of it as they have with their “Shogun” series it'll be very worthwhile.
 
Douglas Adams H2G2 film was dreadful. The touring H2G2 radio show reduced it to pantomime, I walked out. The TV series was rather good as was the radio series but the books are excellent and predicted all sorts of things like mobile phones.
 
gez said:
The problem with most of the SK adaptations however is mostly down to pretty bad acting. So no amount of decent story telling is ever going to save them.
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The Dead Zone is one of the better adaptations. Christopher Walken delivers a powerful, and for me, convincing performance. Martin Sheen hams it up a little but this doesn't distract from his portrail as a psychotic President elect. Tom Skerritt is also worth watching.

John
 
Catch-22, both the movie and mini series are hugely disappointing. Always a big ask though to capture the scope, surrealism, black humour and satire of the novel. Alan Arkin as Yossarian was inspired casting though.
 
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stevec67 said:
Yes indeed. The central part of the Reacher character in the books is that he's repeatedly described as "6ft 5, 250 pounds" or whatever it is. He's enormous. Then up rocks Tom, all 5 ft 6 of him, weighing 12 stone in a thick jumper. Athletic he may be, but a big scary monster of a man? Never.
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I suspect the problem may have been that if they'd cast a 6ft something 250lb monster it would have had a very distinct 80s feel about it reminiscent of Arnie films. Having not read the book(s), I've always thought that a major point of Reacher was that he was a highly skilled trained to kill operative, that didn't look it, i.e. his build often invited "thugs" to have a go, and then he'd woop their arses. I don't think the scene outside the bar where he's followed by 5/6 guys where he says "this is your last chance to walk away" (or words to that effect) would have worked if he was a hulking beast of a man. Nobody would believe that the gang would have hung around to have a go in those circumstances.
 
@herb HHGTTG isn't really an adaptation of a book, though, given that the book was itself an adaptation of the radio plays. I agree it was a mess : they tried to get everything in and just ended up with a confusing mess where we didn't hat time to care about the characters.

I'd put all of the Terry Pratchett adaptations into the "much worse" category. For me they fail exactly because of how faithful to the books they are: all the same scenes and lines are there, but they've lost the foundation of the surrounding text. TP was a master of the running joke, and a lot of the gags in his dialogue play along with jokes he'd already written in his descriptive passages: when you divorce those lines from that text, the whole thing goes a bit flat. (I know I'm going to ruffle some feathers by saying this but I preferred the BBC spinoff series "The Watch", precisely because it didn't try to be the books)
 
gez said:
I suspect the problem may have been that if they'd cast a 6ft something 250lb monster it would have had a very distinct 80s feel about it reminiscent of Arnie films. Having not read the book(s), I've always thought that a major point of Reacher was that he was a highly skilled trained to kill operative, that didn't look it, i.e. his build often invited "thugs" to have a go, and then he'd woop their arses. I don't think the scene outside the bar where he's followed by 5/6 guys where he says "this is your last chance to walk away" (or words to that effect) would have worked if he was a hulking beast of a man. Nobody would believe that the gang would have hung around to have a go in those circumstances.
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The Reacher series (2 seasons) on Amazon Prime is pretty good. Can’t remember the name of the actor who plays Reacher but he has a formidable physique.
 
foxwelljsly said:
Yep that one. It's good and well cast, but not a patch on the source material.
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Did you read the "source material" (was it a comic or something?) before or after watching the series?

My son and I thought it was great. Definitely one of the best series I've ever seen.
 
Seeker_UK said:
Mrs Seeker advises me that Alan Ritchson is much closer to how he is described in the books but she would have preferred Jim Caviezel.
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He may not be a great actor but he's a jolly good egg - witness his spats with the Trump MAGA loonies.
 
I think it's easier to count the film/TV adaptations that was a success, as there are very few I can think of.

- Brideshead revisited (the ca 1980 TV series). One of the best books written and the best TV-series ever!
- Bullit. Yes, there is a book and I tried to read it. Need I say more?
- The Martian. No, the film wasn't that good, but it put pictures of the Mars landscape to the story.

Everything else I can think of, the TV/Film is worse or far worse. Particularly Bond movies (have they even read the books?).
 
I'd be amazed if Reacher the book wasn't far better than the series.
I begrudgingly watched it with my son and hated every minute of it.
 
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