What is the least accurate to the book movie you have ever seen. I don't mean the worst book-based movie, just the one least accurate to the book. It could be quite good. I'll throw out Eragon to get the ball rolling.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Sea of Monsters was somewhat closer, but The Lightning Thief was horrifically butchered The relationship between Hades and his brothers, the nature of the Underworld (and the Quest to get there, in other words the entire story), the age of the characters, the complete absence of Ares and Dionysus, the random Hydra, the reason for Poseidon's having to keep his distance from his son ... Though, in on more positive note, Frozen has basically nothing to do with Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen, and in the best way possible The Jason Bourne movies also dropped the original split-personality dynamic between "Jason Bourne" and "David Webb"
I would have said that straight away if you hadn't used it. Completely butchered, couldn't even make the second book into a film because of the amount of messing around done. And yes, oh my gosh, yes. Another one for me is Inkheart. Those books were beautiful and yet the film was so... just a film. They also ruined it for themselves by messing around too much. A good one though is How to train your Dragon. It is absoultely nothing like the books (toothless is the size of a dog, you can't ride that!) but I think they're great films in their own right!
The Hobbit? Not sure, since I only saw the first two and refuse, utterly and completely, to even stream the third....
I'm like that with the third part of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, once I learned that he left out/butchered Eowyn and Merry the hobbit's roles in slaying the Lord of the Ringwraiths.
Battlefield Earth, no question. The book is incredible, written By L Ron Hubbard when he was actually a sci-fi writer, long before he wigged out. John Travolta couldn't have done a suckier job if he'd tried.
Worst I ever saw was when the short story Air Raid became Millennium the movie. The short story was brilliant and every important element was mishandled for the movie, right down to the casting.
I concur with GingerCoffee. Battlefield Earth is one of the all-time best sci-fi books, bar none. A great rollicking romp of a space opera. And ruined in the movie. I would also add, Winters Tale. This was an amazing, magical book. Ruined on screen....http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1837709/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_8
But, but, but... Cheryl Ladd and Kris frackin' Kristofferson! Okay, Morgan Fairchild would have been better, but.......
Maze Runner. Not only did they rush, rush, rush through it to include information, but they took out a lot of parts and changed others. The second movie was better. Insurgent is another. The entire movie basically revolves around the opening of this box... And it didn't even exist in the book! It was just a computer file they were trying to get. I haven't seen Allegiant because of how they butchered Insurgent, but from what I could tell from the trailer, it's completely different as well. Though considering the book was utterly horrible, the changes to the movie are probably for the better.
Oh, right, Richard Matheson's I am Legend was originally just a guy living in his house after the end of the world, not a soldier/scientist trying to find a cure in his fortress with automated defenses, and the vampires were known to be intelligent from the beginning. Spoiler: Also... The woman he met was a vampire spy
Hopscotch. The movie threw out much of the MC's character and most of the plot, and was far better for it. And the second and third Bourne movies had nothing in common with the books except for the titles.
@Kingtype Sadly it still would not be like the books. Though it is a series that crosses time periods. And yet it would be much better than the goofy barely based film we got with Jack Nicholson as president.
Edge of Tomorrow, based on the Japanese novella All You Need is Kill - the only thing the Americans did better was the title. Everything else sucked. They essentially took the premise (coming back to life and going back in time every time after you die) and then went wild with it, turned it into a Hollywood action comedy for the first half and something that didn't make an ounce of sense in the second half. They made it all about how to kill the aliens when the original was actually all about the pain of not being able to die, and the pain of dying over and over again. The Americans made the resurrection out to be something the characters desperately wanted to cling to while the original actually had it as a curse. I'm only glad I watched the film before reading the manga (it's Japanese - of course it was also adapted into manga!) because I would have loathed the film otherwise. As it was, I was able to enjoy the film and only see the extent of its poorness afterwards.
Cheryl Ladd was fine, casting wise, but Kristofferson was way off. In the original story, that character bore more resemblance to Bob Hoskins both physically and personality-wise. It's like, if you ever read We'll Remember it for You Wholesale and then watch Total Recall (the original), it's obvious the Arnie role was meant for someone more like Woody Allen.
This holds true for me in 99.99% of cases. I actually found a novel once that was worse than the film, but that was back in the late 1970s and I don't remember the title.
As much as I love James Mason (and Kubrick, for that matter), they didn't come close to the brilliance of Lolita.
