Have to agree with you on that one. Admittedly, I didn't even read much of the series (I got the first book as a Christmas or birthday present sometime in middle school, and I definitely read the second one, but I can't remember if I stopped reading in the middle of the third or fourth book.), but I knew that it was way off. Just last night, we saw a snippet from one of the movies airing before a show I was watching with my parents, and my mom asked me how many of those movies they made. I just blurted out, "Too many."
Almost all Alice in Wonderland's I did however like Jonathan Millers BBC adaption. Very dark and surreal. And Jan Svankmajer's Alice And because I like Walt Disney I actually liked the animated version. But I thought Tim Burton's stunk big-time ( and for year's I was hoping he'd do Alice. ) And the one with Tina Marjorino - nothing against her, but - ugh. The 80s and 70s versions equally terrible. And why must they turn all the characters into cameos - I hate that! It stops being the Mad Hatter and becomes Depp's version of the Mad Hatter or look at Martin Short acting like the Mad Hatter. There is a movie that came close to actually giving a rare look of what a good Alice movie might've been. It's called Dreamchild and featured Alice segments with Jim Hensen using some wonderful puppets.
Eragon again. The writing in the book was admittedly poor, but the story was fantastic. The movie was "Star Wars, but Medieval Fantasy instead of Space Western Fantasy," but the book had an entire CSI plot-line in the middle that got cut.
When you think about it, the film version is never going to be as good as the book, in most cases. Because it has to be condensed down to betwee 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours. Or you risk going into Part 1/Part 2 For me, one of the worst movies was Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2. SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Part one was nothing but marriage, babies, and mooning around while a dying Bella, died and in part 2, it was all "OK, lets get people together and train them to fight ..." It was all, gather, training montage, ready to kick butt. Think of all those Seagal Movies and Van Damn movies which are nothing but you done me wrong, I train harder, I kick your butt ... *yawn* And, with Breaking Dawn part 2 ... well, they had to do something, the fight scene isn't even in the book. As soon as I read the book I said there's no way they can get away with two groups meeting on a wasteland and talking out their differences. So what did they do with the film? they threw in a massive fight scene which, admittedly, had me nearly passing out from the shock of what happened to each character - but it then turned out to be nothing but a vision of what *would* happen in the grumpy bunch decided not to talk it out. For me, the whole Twilight saga was a fantastic story but it was filled with inner monologues, thoughts, desires, and the personal journeys of the characters and that kind of story, doesn't always transfer well to film.
