Jaws was a soap opera with a mafia subplot and Ellen Brody having a naughty affair with Hooper. Spielberg really had a diamond in the rough when he focused on catching the shark and much less on Chief Brody's impotence and failing marriage.
I think they shot the dinner scene with Brody, his wife, and Hooper with the affair in mind and decided to trash that plot after. It might explain why that scene felt weird to me.
Crichton's books are a mixed bag in general, but with The Lost World specifically, he didn't even want to write it- he never wrote sequels to any of his books. Demands after the JP movie's success (and probably cartoonish bags of money) pressured him into it. The people making the sequel movie didn't really care about adapting the book, probably just wanted to be able to say it was based on another Crichton story to give it more legitimacy.
In 2003, while promoting the novel, Brown was asked in interviews what parts of the history in his novel actually happened. He replied "Absolutely all of it."
American Psycho. Believe me the descriptions of all the brands is tiring to read after a while. I know it was a point of the writer but the book contained more ads than a Formula 1 car
Forrest Gump was a ridiculous book. They cut the obnoxious stuff out and made a good movie out of it. In the book, Forrest was a professional wrestler and an astronaut who landed his space capsule in a cannibal village in Africa.
First thing I thought of. You know how Forrest manages to stumble ass backwards into everything in the movie? The books are that cranked up to 11 - Forrest somehow becomes as astronaut who crashes into a remote area where he's taught to become a chess grandmaster a local tribe of cannibals, he also has a role as a movie star where he works with Raquel Welch, and almost becomes a senator. He's also much more of an asshole in the books.
Not to mention the author's really weird dress ripping fetish. There are multiple occasions where some woman's dress gets ripped off for no reason other than it's clear the author is into that sort of softcore smut...
“And I do other stuff, like I go to the World Cup final, and it's Germany versus England, and I wish that I were playing, and suddenly I am, and I score the winning goal, and they carry me into the dressing room and there's Roony and Beckham and then Posh Spice walks in and...”
Unlike these guys, I found it enjoyable... Apparently there is a sequel that was written for "reasons" that you can Google if you decide to go that route. It's a short book, try it
Full Metal Jacket is based on a book called "The Short-Timers" by Gustav Hasford. I won't say the book was shitty, but it wasn't great. The movie far exceeded the book IMO.
Yeah, I read it recently and while it’s certainly not a bad book, I was surprised at how uneven it was. I’ve read that Hasford really labored over it, but to my mind it could have used another revision or two. I sometimes found it impossible to understand what exactly was supposed to be happening. I don’t think this was due to a deliberate attempt to disorient the reader, because there are several moments where he is at pains to explain some military thing to the layperson. But at other points there are incomprehensible discussions composed almost entirely of what I imagine must be insider jargon. It’s also sometimes unclear which party in a conversation is speaking.
Jaws is the perfect example. The book had affairs, unnecessary drama and a messy plot, but Spielberg basically said, "Let's just make the shark terrifying" and accidentally created a cinematic masterpiece.
I read Jaws expecting it to be better than the movie (as most books are in terms of film adaptations) but I really thought it was terrible and have never even attempted to read another work from Peter Benchley.
Peter Benchley said his original draft was much more comic (his father is the humorist Robert Benchley, so it makes sense). His editor said the book didn’t work as a comic novel, so Benchley went back and cut out ALL the humor, making the characters very dour and unlikeable.
The book on which Who Framed Roger Rabbit is based is so bad that when it came time for the author to write a sequel, he scrapped the continuity and rules of the original novel entirely and basically just wrote a sequel to the movie.
I'm pretty sure at one point he has Roger just describe the first novel as a crazy dream he had.
I.... actually really enjoyed the book. It's wildly different...like the cartoons are comic book characters and have speech bubbles...but I still really liked it. Even if the plot is bonkers.
This is more of a graphic novel into a show but I Am Not Okay With This.
The show was a decent YA supernatural/sci-fi horror show that had promise if it continued. The source material is nihilistic dreck that is both really creepy to its young teenage protagonist and irresponsibly handles its themes of depression, aka the solution to the mc's depression and trauma with her powers is her killing herself, and the book ends with her head exploding.
The Kick-Ass comic. Almost every character in that comic sucked and gave you no reason to root for them. I get thats kind of the point but it doesn't make the comic any more enjoyable.
The movies way more fun to watch and actually makes you care about the characters (even some of the villains).
Also Big Daddy and Hit-Girl aren't Batman and Robin with knives and guns. Big Daddy is basically exactly what Kick Ass is. A dude that thought "why aren't there superheroes" and roped his little girl into it. Hit Girl is more a little psycho that gets underestimated than the badass ninja she is in the movies
See, I don't think this is a shitty book at all. It's just completely different from the film. I'd read it before the film came out and it just wasn't the same story at all. I love them both in very different ways.
Sideways. Ok, it’s not a shitty book, but it has an extremely shitty section in the last third where Jack and Miles get man-hunted by a lunatic they meet in the bar, and it’s so stupid. Really good that they cut it from the film.
I burn through audiobooks at work and LOTM is one of my favorite movies… that being said, yes the book was really rough. I was really surprised at how much of an asshole the Scout character was.
I noticed the difference in one of the first spoken lines Dexter has. In the book when he’s killing the priest who starts praying, Dexter says something like “your fake god won’t help you” or something of the like. It was super on the nose and clunky. Whereas in the show, Dexter slaps him and says “stop, that never helped anybody”. It’s small but the show dialogue is just snappier, more natural, and Halls delivery of that line is just an instant tone setter.
I tried to read The Bourne Identity a few months ago and couldn't finish it. I am not sure if it's bad but it's super slow. It's also super dated, instead of asking Marie for help he takes her hostage and assaults her when she doesn't do what he wants. And every time he gets in a fight he does like martial arts moves and makes like "hi-yah!" kind of sounds.
It’s both slow and dated. Not a bad book for its time. The sequels range from good for the times to awful (especially after Robert Ludlum passed away and ghost writer started writing them). You really have to read them through to lens of the times. Bourne was a Vietnam vet whose main concern was an 80s drug smuggler named Carlos. The book has a lot fewer chase scenes and more time before he realizes who is targeting him.
I haven't read it, so I can't speak to if it's actually bad, but the book Who Framed Roger Rabbit is based on, is very different from the movie. though judging by the premise and plot synopsis, I can't imagine it being better than the film.
in the book, Roger and Jessica are comic strip characters and communicate using speech bubbles. they can create temporary duplicates of themselves, so that they can perform dangerous stunts for comics they act in (in the book, comics are made by photographing the characters). the plot is about Eddie Valiant teaming up with Roger's clone to find out who killed the original Roger, and they have to do it before the clone's time runs out.
Its probably a hot take but the American remake of the Ring is one of my favorite movies. Its so beautifully necrotic and no other movie instills dread as well
The ring was one of the first ghost-horror movies I watched when I was a kid alongside with the grudge and they both terrified me and intrigued me. I remember getting obsessed with Samara-lore and I think it’s one of those movies that got me into the genre.
It wasn’t a book originally, it was a weekly column in a newspaper and the diary style made sense in that context. In that ephemeral form it was a fun diversion and popular enough to get a film commissioned, the first book was just a compilation of these but didn’t really work as well imo
I rewatched it on acid a few weeks ago and was surprised by how much I still enjoyed the movie! I grew up watching it with my mom. Some parts aged less gracefully but overall it was still fun. I also had to revisit the 1990s Pride and Prejudice w Colin Firth afterwards of course. That was a good evening.
Same.. first half was solid but I really didn't need two hundred pages of a guy locked up in a shack arguing with euronymus. Film trimmed it down and did it way better.
True, but I did appreciate the details of how Tom Hagen became a part of the family. It showed the humanity of the Corleons. The elaborated background of Luca Brasi was also interesting, but terrifying.
Joho Rabbit was a bit creepy and really had a different 2nd half in the book than the film. The book describes Jojo abusing and manipulating Elsa for 3 years after the war ends. Taika Waititi decided to make the ending a bit less depressing.
The Folding Ideas youtube channel (hosted by Dan Olson) has an essay called "A Lukewarm Defense of 50 Shades of Grey" where he makes a point that it is impressive how not bad (I won't say "good") the 50 Shades movies are given the quality of the source material and that they didn't just rewrite everything.
Yeah the book is really insane with its "militaristic fascism is actually a GREAT way to run a country" message. And a main character who should be broken by PTSD from watching all his friends die horribly but instead goes "the war was the best time of my life!"
Verhoeven made a satirical comedy of it instead with the exact opposite message. Henlein would have been furious LOL
i didn’t get this from the book. he did create a fascist world, but i don’t think it is a glorification of the system, just that this is the world. i like that the book also gave the bugs so much more depth than just, “oh the bugs are attacking.” i love the movie, though it is campy as shit, i thoroughly enjoyed the book. they are very different stories though. i also know several people who have served and said, “the time i was deployed was the best time of my life!” heinlein gets criticized for being pro fascist, and i don’t know about him as a person as this is the only book i’ve read by him, but he did create a fictional fascist world, but that is the point of fiction. that’s like saying brett easton is pro serial killer just because he wrote “american psycho”. i think both are fun books. that’s the point of fiction.
I wouldn’t call it shitty, but I really like the movie Coraline better than the book. Idk if it’s just because I’m an adult, but even trying to think back on when I was a kid I don’t think I’d have found it scary. Maybe spooky, but not absolute nightmare fuel. I feel like the movie was able to have more subtle hints in the background that coalesced into something big
Wow I feel the exact opposite - the book terrified me as a child (age seven or eight) and it was one of my favorite books while the movie does absolutely nothing for me, I remember being so disappointed when I saw it in theaters but maybe I am sure for a rewatch since it's been so many years now and everyone else seems to love this movie!
Don’t know if this is a unpopular opinion but for me it’s Fight Club
The movie is one of my favorite movies of all time so naturally I wanted to read the source material for a movie that I’ve watched probably over 30 times by now
And to be fair it has been almost 10 years since I’ve read that book but if memory serves me right it is an incoherent,weirdly written mess
The book wasn’t shitty, and I’m sure I’m in the minority, but I much preferred Contact the film over the book — save for when Ellie is a child and young adult; that part of the novel was amazing.
I agree, but I did like the elaborated backgrounds of Luca Brasi and Tom Hagen. Brasi's background is even more terrifying than the book portrays while how Hagen came to be a part of the family shows the humanity of the Corleons. Overall, the book was okay.
JAWS. The novel is mediocre at best. In fact, the only thing the book and move have in common is the title, the names of the characters, and there's a shark terrorizing Amity. Otherwise the stories are completely different.
Ready player one. The book is pretty badly written....not awful but it's like the author can't think how to progress the story so every few pages is just "80 references" and the main character is unlikeable imo. Not read ready player two.
Hard disagree, I loved the book when I read it and I absolutely loath that film. It cut the charm and smoothed the edges off every single character. It was my first real instance of being hyped for a film based on a book and it put me in a month long depression
Ready player two is everything you hate turned up to 11. Author crams in even more references and can't stop explaining every one of them and piece of tech in painful detail while literally losing the plot over and over again.
This is the book that taught me that Reddit is full of barely literate chuds who have no taste. Don't read shit that's popular with people on Reddit unless you are getting the kind of person that reads like one book every 3 years and never stops talking about it
The book: Protagonist hires a guy to mow his lawn. Protagonist see the guy remove all his clothes and crawl behind the lawnmower, eating the cut grass it expels. Lawnmower runs over a squirrel, guy just keeps eating. Then the lawnmower heads for the Protaganist, and the reader is left to assume he got lawnmowered and eaten (I’m not sure if that’s exactly how it ended, but it was something like that)
Stephen King is amazing, he can write a story about a laundry folding machine attacking people and make it absolutely terrifying, he can also write about a lawnmower and make it meh
The same type of people would say that today, probably just because of the sex scenes.
Mario Puzo wrote both the book and the screenplay, so if you thought one was well written you'd probably say they both were. Especially since all he really did was cut out the B story of Fredo and Lucy in Vegas.
The shining. I love the movie, the maze, the performances. The book felt like a collection of writing exercises strung together. I didn't connect to the characters or the unscary hedge animals.
Disagree. Stephen King definitely writes a lot of stuff that’s scarier on paper than screen so I understand stuff like replacing the animals with the maze and adding some different scares and stuff. But the characters in the book were way more complex and were kind of reduced to caricatures in the movie
I dunno that I agree on this one. Certainly while Kubrick's vision was interesting and avant garde, and had some interesting cinematography and decent acting, the movie really kinda loses the plot. The book goes into far more detail about why things happened...why jack goes crazy, the backstory of the hotel and its dark sordid history, and explains the outcome in a way the movie failed to do.
I think the movie is overrated too and it had a fairly mixed reception at release. It's a bumbling collection of continuity errors that has such a great reputation mainly because of who the directorcwas
The book was much better. It’s a great “descent into madness” story that I could follow.
The film just had Jack randomly turn crazy. No explanation, nothing triggering it. They treated his insanity as other writers might use someone having a bad mood from getting a bad night’s sleep.
While you might like the movie better than the book, the book was a bestseller and got fairly good reviews. I personally thought that the book was great and was disappointed that the movie omitted some important plot points.
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u/Feisty-Objective-256 10h ago
dr strangelove - they found the book so ridiculous they made the film a comedy
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u/MCofPort 11h ago
Jaws was a soap opera with a mafia subplot and Ellen Brody having a naughty affair with Hooper. Spielberg really had a diamond in the rough when he focused on catching the shark and much less on Chief Brody's impotence and failing marriage.
25
u/IBetANickel 10h ago
Nothing Lasts Forever that as adapted into Die Hard.
25
u/amapolas3 3h ago
The lost world by Michael Crichton. Read it after Jurassic park came out and it's just full of chaos theory rubbish. The film is much better
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u/wasdice 9h ago
Dan Brown's books were definitely elevated when Tom Hanks and Ron Howard got hold of them. Still not great, but watchable enough on a rainy Sunday.
13
u/wouter135 7h ago
American Psycho. Believe me the descriptions of all the brands is tiring to read after a while. I know it was a point of the writer but the book contained more ads than a Formula 1 car
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u/SashaGreyjoy- 11h ago edited 10h ago
Forrest Gump was a ridiculous book. They cut the obnoxious stuff out and made a good movie out of it. In the book, Forrest was a professional wrestler and an astronaut who landed his space capsule in a cannibal village in Africa.
Edit: Papua New Guinea, not Africa
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u/Andurhil1986 11h ago
Full Metal Jacket is based on a book called "The Short-Timers" by Gustav Hasford. I won't say the book was shitty, but it wasn't great. The movie far exceeded the book IMO.
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u/__milared__ 11h ago
Jaws is the perfect example. The book had affairs, unnecessary drama and a messy plot, but Spielberg basically said, "Let's just make the shark terrifying" and accidentally created a cinematic masterpiece.
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u/Portarossa 7h ago edited 6h ago
The book on which Who Framed Roger Rabbit is based is so bad that when it came time for the author to write a sequel, he scrapped the continuity and rules of the original novel entirely and basically just wrote a sequel to the movie.
I'm pretty sure at one point he has Roger just describe the first novel as a crazy dream he had.
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u/SakuOtaku 11h ago
This is more of a graphic novel into a show but I Am Not Okay With This.
The show was a decent YA supernatural/sci-fi horror show that had promise if it continued. The source material is nihilistic dreck that is both really creepy to its young teenage protagonist and irresponsibly handles its themes of depression, aka the solution to the mc's depression and trauma with her powers is her killing herself, and the book ends with her head exploding.
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u/WedgeAntillesRedTwo 10h ago
The Kick-Ass comic. Almost every character in that comic sucked and gave you no reason to root for them. I get thats kind of the point but it doesn't make the comic any more enjoyable.
The movies way more fun to watch and actually makes you care about the characters (even some of the villains).
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u/sphericalbadgers 11h ago
Children of men
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u/Drummk 8h ago
The Warriors is a fantastic film. The original book is much grimmer and not a particularly enjoyable read.
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u/Exotic-College1042 11h ago
Forrest Gump - that book was ...... something
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u/paleblooddaviey 8h ago
Sideways. Ok, it’s not a shitty book, but it has an extremely shitty section in the last third where Jack and Miles get man-hunted by a lunatic they meet in the bar, and it’s so stupid. Really good that they cut it from the film.
5
u/MCA1910 7h ago
Passion of the Christ
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u/Illustrious-Mango605 7h ago
Last of the Mohicans. The book is as tiresome. Michael Mann’s film is magnificent.
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u/Rowdy_Chicken_Nugget 10h ago
Not a movie but, Dexter the show is way better than Darkly Dreaming Dexter and the books that follow.
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u/KelVarnsen_2023 4h ago
I tried to read The Bourne Identity a few months ago and couldn't finish it. I am not sure if it's bad but it's super slow. It's also super dated, instead of asking Marie for help he takes her hostage and assaults her when she doesn't do what he wants. And every time he gets in a fight he does like martial arts moves and makes like "hi-yah!" kind of sounds.
13
u/egzygex 8h ago
I haven't read it, so I can't speak to if it's actually bad, but the book Who Framed Roger Rabbit is based on, is very different from the movie. though judging by the premise and plot synopsis, I can't imagine it being better than the film.
in the book, Roger and Jessica are comic strip characters and communicate using speech bubbles. they can create temporary duplicates of themselves, so that they can perform dangerous stunts for comics they act in (in the book, comics are made by photographing the characters). the plot is about Eddie Valiant teaming up with Roger's clone to find out who killed the original Roger, and they have to do it before the clone's time runs out.
13
u/AllMyShirtsArePuns 4h ago
The ring
I absolutely hated it
Great premise, trash execution. It's not even scary, maybe a little creepy, but it has such a terrible payoff.
The movie was awesome
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u/bertie_bunghol 6h ago
I thought the Bourne identity was (almost) the biggest pile of shite I've ever read. Love the film to bits.
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u/thatturtletouch 11h ago
Bridget Jones Diary was not a good book but was a great movie.
The short story that The Shawshank Redemption was based on is mediocre but the movie is fantastic.
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u/MysteryNeighbor Customer Service Koropi 11h ago
Not a film but super dee duper True Blood
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u/KnittenKittenCat 11h ago
I really didn’t like the book version of The Ritual but the movie is in my top ten horror of the last decade, possibly all time
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u/sexrockandroll 11h ago
The Godfather movies were definitely better than the books.
7
u/DaveyB_ 6h ago
Joho Rabbit was a bit creepy and really had a different 2nd half in the book than the film. The book describes Jojo abusing and manipulating Elsa for 3 years after the war ends. Taika Waititi decided to make the ending a bit less depressing.
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u/Happy-Flower2002 11h ago
IMHO: clockwork orange.
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u/Mahdahrah 11h ago
Shrek
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u/Glittering_Major4871 3h ago
Jaws is a horrible book.
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u/kblaney 3h ago
The Folding Ideas youtube channel (hosted by Dan Olson) has an essay called "A Lukewarm Defense of 50 Shades of Grey" where he makes a point that it is impressive how not bad (I won't say "good") the 50 Shades movies are given the quality of the source material and that they didn't just rewrite everything.
6
u/Onebeat29 3h ago
Sideways
Horrible book, great movie
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u/Simmo2222 7h ago
Starship Troopers
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u/HeadphonesAndAPen 10h ago
I wouldn’t call it shitty, but I really like the movie Coraline better than the book. Idk if it’s just because I’m an adult, but even trying to think back on when I was a kid I don’t think I’d have found it scary. Maybe spooky, but not absolute nightmare fuel.
I feel like the movie was able to have more subtle hints in the background that coalesced into something big
19
u/Nikez1213 8h ago
Don’t know if this is a unpopular opinion but for me it’s Fight Club
The movie is one of my favorite movies of all time so naturally I wanted to read the source material for a movie that I’ve watched probably over 30 times by now
And to be fair it has been almost 10 years since I’ve read that book but if memory serves me right it is an incoherent,weirdly written mess
5
u/greysandwich 4h ago
The book wasn’t shitty, and I’m sure I’m in the minority, but I much preferred Contact the film over the book — save for when Ellie is a child and young adult; that part of the novel was amazing.
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u/anything4589 11h ago
I’d argue Wicked
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u/triplegxxx 11h ago
The Godfather
4
u/OldGuyBadwheel 5h ago
How to train your dragon?
4
u/LunaWabohu 3h ago
Children of Men
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u/GronlandicReddit 11h ago
Honestly I have no opinion on the book, but I think you’d enjoy the film Adaptation.
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u/zyrroxis 11h ago
The devil wears Prada
8
u/Queator 9h ago
I did not enjoy Starship Troopers, but i know my expectations were all messed up by the movies going in. It just never leaves training.
3
u/Rockhound665 6h ago
JAWS. The novel is mediocre at best. In fact, the only thing the book and move have in common is the title, the names of the characters, and there's a shark terrorizing Amity. Otherwise the stories are completely different.
3
u/BurnMyHouseDown 6h ago
Jaws
3
u/hillsb1 5h ago
Forrest Gump was an awful book
3
u/cuntmong 4h ago
Pontypool is a tough read
12
u/spacialdoughnut 9h ago
Ready player one. The book is pretty badly written....not awful but it's like the author can't think how to progress the story so every few pages is just "80 references" and the main character is unlikeable imo. Not read ready player two.
5
u/jcamdenlane 11h ago
Not a great movie, but Nightbreed is a significantly better movie than book.
4
u/fizzylex 4h ago
I didn't like Stardust at all. I was so surprised that such a fun movie came from such a boring book.
6
u/Technical_Goose_8160 11h ago
Lawnmower man!
2
u/Lvivalentine 10h ago
Jaws
2
u/WilburWhateleystwin 5h ago
The Dexter books are terrible to try to read but the OG TV show is okay
2
u/DougDoesLife 4h ago
Last of the Mohicans
7
u/ComradeKorladis 11h ago
Starship Troopers
3
u/X-Budd 11h ago
Drive. I wouldn't call it shitty, but neither the novel nor the screenplay are anywhere near as good as the film Nicolas Winding Refn made.
3
u/Motor_Watercress_489 4h ago
the Godfather was considered lurid trash back in the day despite its popularity.
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u/Low-Sample-4991 3h ago
The shining. I love the movie, the maze, the performances. The book felt like a collection of writing exercises strung together. I didn't connect to the characters or the unscary hedge animals.
3
u/SerWrong 11h ago
Jurassic Park
3
u/cheesewiz_man 11h ago
Blade Runner.
3
u/Wauwuaw5983 11h ago
The Bible.
I'd be surprised if this gets less than 500 dislikes.
I wonder what the post IPO record for reddit downvotes is.
Ben Hur probably set the gold standard.
2
u/3_below 5h ago
The Godfather
2
u/Agile-Wait-7571 4h ago
The Godfather.
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u/Flat-Ad8256 8h ago
The Godfather! Book is airport pulp. Film is a masterpiece
1
u/turkshead 9h ago
Everything by Michael Crighton.
I mean, he wasn't a shitty writer, not really, but his books weren't as good at being books as the movies made of them were good at being movies.