Worst Fantasy Book Adaptations?

[Malik Ambar]

Battlefield Earth :P

[Veltigar]

I liked 13th Warrior. Was suprised how poorly it was received. It's not great, but not bad either. I thought it was entertaining enough. Haven't read the book though.

Yeah, it's definitely not a masterpiece, but it is a fun movie to watch :)

The later Harry Potter films also had terrible depictions of magic. I mean, I know it was never really described in detail in the books, or in the first films, but still. The later films were basically *swish* oooooh, pretty fireworks! With green fireworks for Death Eaters and Red Fireworks for the good guys...

Yeah, it was just bad. The only thing I liked magic-wise was how the Deatheaters flew without using broomsticks (or was that supposed to be the movies form of apparition?).

Battlefield Earth :P

That's not even a movie, it's a scientology commercial :p

[LordStoneheart]

There is one exception to this. Beowulf (1999) with Christopher Lambert. It's undeniably a B-movie, but Seven Hells it's fun.

Just watched it. It felt just as long and bad as Manos Hands of Fate. The first half hour was almost fun-bad, but the rest was painful

[Veltigar]

Just watched it. It felt just as long and bad as Manos Hands of Fate. The first half hour was almost fun-bad, but the rest was painful

Ah well, it is a B-movie ;) For me it's fun-bad throughout (than again, there is a lot of nostalgia involved for me). And they did make some nice adaptation choices imo

I'm particularly fond of the fact that Grendel is actually Hrotgar's son in this adaptation. It adds something imo.

[Neumond]

I didn't think Lynch's Dune was that bad. I liked that you could hear characters' thoughts. That book was full of that. I think if someone were to take all the good parts from Lynch's Dune and combine it with all the good parts that were in the SciFi miniseries (the one with William Hurt as Duke Leto), you would have a great adaptation.

I´m kind of a dune fanatic. So my view is probably quite clouded. And in the books it is an integral part. But in a movie voice overs are somewhat bad style. And these weren´t even good ones.

As someone said: Jodorowsky´s delight at the awfulness was amazing. And he was right. This adaption was just plain weird. And what strikes me as really odd is that Lynch seemed to be inspired by Jodorowsky´s vision. But he just took bits and pieces and smashed it into the movie (for example: the rain at the end). It didn´t make sense in the context of the movie... Jodorowsky visioned a very transformed dune and that would have been fine. Lynch did something in the middle and it was just too much compromising.

I agree on the miniseries. They did a great job in getting the story told. (But those twins still worry me... What the heck?)

Lynch's Dune has really grown on me over the years.

I thought it was a joke of a movie when I was a kid but I kinda like it now.

Can´t argue with nostalgy ;). I´m still in love with some things that remind me of my childhood.

Apparently Lynch himself didn't like the theatrical version

And I know these are sci-fi , but the crimes against humanity that were I,Robot, I am Legend, The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds and The Day The Earth stood still eclipse anything mentioned in this thread. I,Robot and I am Legend miss the point of their source material to such a degree that they shouldn't even be called Adaptations

Good to hear , Lynch is actually quite good. I don´t know what happened in this particular movie. I think he tried to capture some of Jodorowsky´s vision... Didn´t worked out well.

(I have a nostalgic thing with the time machine. I actually liked it ;).)

I´m, fiercely in the Stardust-love-camp. It was a very entertaining movie in my opinion.

[Bendubz]

I agree with all of these so far (that I've seen and read) apart from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. That was a kick-ass adaptation!! Completely agree about HBP, and about how much better Harris was than Gambon. If you aren't going to count Eragon though then there really is only one option for the worst adaptation, and nobody has mentioned it yet.

THOSE ATROCIOUS PERCY JACKSON MOVIES

Like seriously, if you completely ignore the books they could be okay movies but there is so much wrong with them, especially the first. Here's just the things wrong with the first movie off the top of my head:

Annabeth should be blonde

Change of the Great Prophecy

What the hell was up with those cabins being laid out like that?! They should have been shaped like temples dumbasses

No mini fight scene at the beginning with Mrs Dodds

Percy should be living at the school, it's a boarding school

No Mr D

No Clarisse

No mention of Kronos

No fight with Ares

No falling from gateway arch in St. Louis

No Grover sacrificing himself to bring back Sally

They turned the acquaintance between Annabeth and Percy (only acquaintance at start, become friends) into a love story, that shouldn't start to happen until Titan's curse

AND SEAN BEAN DOESN'T DIE

Then, even though a lot was rectified in Sea of Monsters (appearance of Kronos, Mr D and Clarisse etc.), there is the one change that I will never forgive.

George the caduceus is supposed to ask Percy to bring back a RAT. In the movie, he asks for Percy to bring back a MOUSE. There wasn't even any point to that change and they still did it.

[lady narcissa]

THOSE ATROCIOUS PERCY JACKSON MOVIES

Ah yes, saw the first one and it was pretty horrible what they did to that book. And you know its bad when the author is constantly talking about how bad it was. I really didn't like how they aged up the kids to make them teenagers.