5 Hollywood Films That Completely Failed The Books They Are Adapted From

Movies based on books rarely tend to disappoint. In some cases, however, directors manage to mess up plotlines, mix up characters, or cast actors who don’t manage to capture the actual essence of the characters they play. Here are 5 movies that do not do justice to the books they are based on.

1.  The Percy Jackson Series

Source: Forever Young Adult

The original five-book series by Rick Riordan, featuring young demigods, half-human, half-god offspring was compressed into two movies, which followed the books at a safe distance, like, a fifty-mile distance. Percy Jackson is a twelve-year-old demigod, son of Poseidon, in the books, scared and alone and wondering how he’ll cope with living in the real world of demigods and monsters. Whereas in the movies, he’s a sixteen or seventeen-year-old young man who has absolutely no idea what he’s doing and is portrayed as a huge, good-for-nothing loser. Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, is a headstrong young girl, standing at six foot nothing at just twelve years old, smart with absolutely no love interest in Percy until the third book, but depicted as a lovesick sixteen-year-old, who is highly dependent on the males on her team.

And here, I’ve barely begun. Character flaws in the movie are pretty obvious, but when it comes to the plotline, the movie is disastrous. The stories of five books squeezed into two movies, the revival of an age-old evil entity takes place and is ended in the blink of an eye. These movies are an apt representation of the transformation of an excellent story into a hopeless teen romance-adventure film.
 

2.  The Golden Compass

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Philip Pullman’s 1995 novel The Northern Lights is a masterpiece of religion, physics, love, philosophy, and mystery. The 2007 movie adaptation, renamed The Golden Compass, however, did seriously disappoint. In an attempt to make the story a little more child and family-friendly, Chris Weitz, the director cut major plot twists and events which ultimately shaped the story in the book, his final product a children’s movie which lacked all the intensity and adventure contained in the book. The nature of a daemon, Dust, and other key elements of the story were explained in a couple brief sentences at the beginning of the movie, whereas in the book, the author eased into the concept, allowing the audience to understand and interpret the themes and symbols. The movie is, essentially a bland children’s film lacking intensity and plot, made fun through the addition of talking animals.
 

3.  A Series of Unfortunate Events

Source: Lemonysnicket.com

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events features a trio of siblings whose parents die in a house fire. Being orphaned, they stay with Count Olaf, who uses the children in order to get to their parents’ fortune. The book series consists of thirteen books, each focusing on separate unfortunate events, which take place when the kids stay with their close relatives, all pertaining to Count Olaf’s desperate attempts to reclaim custody of the children. The movie features Jim Carrey as the Count, who continuously provides comic relief to the otherwise melancholy film. As one would expect, fitting thirteen books into a single hour and a half movie is a rather arduous task. Given the tense mood of the books, Carrey’s humor adds a fun element to the movie, which climaxes well, but does not meet the details of the books, although it retains the theme that children are often misunderstood and are not taken seriously. Overall, the film was a story meant to have adult intensity, but ended up appealing to a much younger audience.
 

4.  The Giver

Source: polishedpageturners.com

Lois Lowry’sThe Giver pertained to a seemingly utopic world; “the community”, created after “the ruin” by erasing all memories, a society where all were equal and at par. The societal system gave people their names, jobs, food, homes, assigned families, and there was no concept of currency, lest the scales of equality be tipped. Genetic changes had been made to the inhabitants of the society, too, where color remained unseen, and adolescent urges were suppressed. Lowry’s novel was meant to be an allegory for the real world, where individualism was frowned upon, and everyone was expected to be the same, do the same, and be different only when told to be. The movie, however, became a love story, where the characters are aged up, technology is severely advanced, but for the most part, in certain scenes, remains faithful to the book. The creation of love triangles and the looming image of dystopia makes the film seem fit for audiences of stories such as The Maze Runner and The Hunger Games. Once again, the filmmakers managed to turn a fantastic dystopia into a teenage romance-adventure film.
 

Source: Global Prodigy Academy

Ransom Riggs’ novel-turned-film was a rather severe disappointment to fans of the book. The characters’ powers and peculiarities have been switched around; the fire peculiarity, which originally belonged to Emma, a main character, had been switched with a supporting character, Olive’s peculiarity, air, causing outrage among those who read and loved the book (myself included). It’s like the screenplay and scriptwriters paid no attention to the glaringly obvious details mentioned in the book. Again, the sequels of the book and their stories were completely ignored, and it is unlikely that a film trilogy will be created, given the fact that the filmmakers added the destruction of the time loop, as well as the regular aging of the peculiars to the film, which originally would take place in the third book. The film is fun for those who haven’t read the novel, with intriguing animation and excellent use of graphics; but for those who have read the book, it was a complete and utter nightmare.