Judgment Time: Making Movies from Books

Taking a piece of literature and attempting to transform it into a visual medium is a complicated task to say the least.  Books have many ways of conveying information that simply don’t translate well to film and they’re usually much longer than a typical movie is capable of adjusting to.  Thus, many things get lost along the way and the general consensus amongst most people is that the book is always better than the movie.  Of course, if you’ve never read the book then the movie may be perfect for you, as long as it’s done well enough to at least retain the heart of the original word.  Unfortunately, this is not often the case in such adaptations.  Some books-to-film are so bad, in fact, that they are practically unwatchable.  And while there may still be people that, upon watching these terrible flicks, retain enough interest to go pick up the book and see if it’s any better, the damage has already been done.  Here are a few examples of the books-gone-bad phenomenon.

The Golden Compass -

This movie was one of those Hollywood attempts to jump on the bandwagon of Harry Potter success and rake in some YA dollars and cents.  Unfortunately, the book version of The Golden Compass, while it stars children as many of the main characters, is not completely for kids.  The Philip Pullman story is dark and filled with tragedy and horrible things.  When they converted it for the big screen they lost much of what lay at the core of Pullman’s story, preferring instead to loot the novel ideas and rich world, crossing their fingers that it would be enough to keep people entertained.  They failed in that regard, the lack of a follow-up to the film being proof of that.  This is, in my opinion, a great tragedy, as the original Dark Materials trilogy is rather good and could have, if done right, made some pretty amazing flicks.

Eragon -

Yet another attempt to capitalize off the YA market, the biggest issue here is that the book version of Eragon just wasn’t that good.  Sure, it was fun in a cliché fantasy sort of way, but there are far better books out there.  Being that those adapting the film had little to work with, it seems like this could have been perfect movie material.  But, alas, they made it even worse.  Eragon wasn’t filled with deep meaning and thoughtful writing, but what little it did possess was leeched away during the production of the film.  Any semblance of literary complexity was tossed to the side in favor of mediocre FX and Lord of the Rings-esque action scenes.  They didn’t even get the main story right!  Both fans of the book and newcomers alike were left scratching their head and praying that the first movie would be the last.  And we got our wish.

World War Z -

I’ve already given my very thorough examination of the movie version of this property, so I’ll not get too far into that.  Let’s just say that it sucked and leave it there.  Max Brooks’ book, however, is an amazing piece of zombie fiction that approaches the genre in a new and interesting way.  When they decided to translate this over to film, they completely ignored the book.  It makes no sense at all why they even used the name World War Z except to drum up interest among fans of the book.  By far one of the worst adaptations ever, if only for the fact that it adapted almost nothing.

Hellblazer / Constantine -

The original Hellblazer comic book is something that I remember fondly, a piece of my childhood introduction into the world of comic books in general.  The Keanu Reeves-starring pile of mediocrity that was the Constantine movie is not something I remember fondly.  Though it does at least touch on the character and some of the essence behind the original story, the execution was bland and the true nature of the main character was glazed over at best.  Being as how Hellblazer was a very long-running series, however, it’s hard to conceive of them being able to this adequately no matter how hard they tried.  Thus, I forgive them a little.  I still have trouble understanding how people rated this 72% over at Rotten Tomatoes, however.  I guess for some people a movie being “different” is enough.  Or maybe I’ve just got too much love for the comics to think clear on this one.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -

The horrific adaptation of Alan Moore’s work was a train wreck of a film that probably could, if studied, be proven to cause brain cancer.  Nothing could help this film, not even the presence of Sean Connery.  It failed to convey any of the darkness that the comic series was filled with and even as an action film it fell far short.  I almost feel that someone made this movie on a drunken dare, a bet with a friend that he couldn’t produce a flick that people would regularly walk out on.  The critical reaction of 17% over at Rotten Tomatoes hits this nail right on the head, in my opinion.  No wonder Moore hates Hollywood so much.

Photo Credits -           

Golden Compass courtesy of impawards.com

Eragon courtesy of comicvine.com

World War Z courtesy of forgetabouttvgrababook.com

Hellblazer courtesy of facepunch.com

League of EG courtesy of mcmbuzz.com