Really Bad Adaptations

[nsequeira119]

The title says it all- what are some horrible movie or TV adaptations of books that are great? And I don't just mean the movie changes a few insignificant details- all movies have to do that somewhere- I mean they completely butcher the plot, massacre the characters, make the whole thing virtually unrecognizable to the reading audience. There are more adaptations like this than you might realize upon first inspection, so think your answers over a while.

I'll kick the thread off with 1999's "Breakfast of Champions," an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel. I remember the first time I read Breakfast of Champions, it was one of the funniest books I ever read- it's hands down my favorite Kurt Vonnegut book, its observations about the human condition are really insightful and poignant, and the plot is enjoyable and captivating throughout. The characters are memorable, they all have great lines and exchanges, the imagery is fine-tuned in that way only Vonnegut is capable of.

The movie, on the other hand, is a pile of shit, because they have to cram all these extremely philosophical and nuanced ideas into 2 hours of filler, so what you get is the most basic iteration of the story possible, minus all the interesting musings, anecdotes, tidbits, and charm. It's hard for me to even believe this movie is real, because I don't know who the target audience would be. Kurt Vonnegut fans hate it, and to non-Kurt Vonnegut fans it's just nonsense. It's a stain on both Bruce Willis' and Nick Nolte's careers, and the poster looks Photoshopped. This looks like a joke movie that would be in the background of an SNL skit or something.

So yeah, that's my example. It's interesting how widely adaptations can vary- and I find it weird that certain books, like Lord Of The Rings, were ever considered "unadaptable" when their plots are very straightforward and image-oriented- a book like Breakfast of Champions is a much better example of a truly unadaptable book that only functions in literature form. I maintain that Slaughterhouse Five is the only good Vonnegut movie, and that's because Slaughterhouse Five is the only book of his that adheres even remotely to the traditional narrative structure.

Looking forward to whatever you come up with.

 

[Sketch Relics]

The original 1960's animated adaptation of The Hobbit, made to satisfy contractual obligations.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBnVL1Y2src


It was apparently only shown to an audience once at some random park in.... New York? I think.

 

[Vaporweeb]

The 2016 Berserk anime is legendarily bad. Kentaro Miura was a master of his craft to the point that he was arguably the single most skilled mangaka to have ever lived. He was so meticulous in his work that, as the anectode goes, when he finally switched over to digital illustration in his later years, he had to refrain himself from literally editing his manuscripts pixel by pixel.

Now, it could be argued by some that any adaptation could never fully approach the level of detail and artistry in Miura's work, which is okay. The 1997 Berserk anime is fondly remembered by many, including myself, despite its many limitations. The animation, though rough in some aspects (many action shots are relegated to panning stills of illustrations, but even those are well-detailed), more than makes up for it with budgeting frames for certain key moments, excellent color theory, and that signature hand-drawn charm. And although the story was also cut down some, it tells the Golden Age arc well enough in its runtime to make up for it. In particular, the emotional beats of the story are truly furtured by the incredible and iconic OST by Susumu Hirasawa, with a fan-favorite OP by the band PENPALS.


View: https://youtu.be/B99kkOTCIZ8?si=Vjkcq-nHYtZmQ8JC

View: https://youtu.be/auLopgsgJ_s?si=8Y0EnApqVNEXSY0g

View: https://youtu.be/xsV6wk4nzPw?si=3npqIMArTIT9qZ39

View: https://youtu.be/jwu6YmLEBj8?si=bDo-TmkBnL25mzyi

By comparison, the 2016 anime...

If only we knew how bad it could get.

The production was almost entirely 3D animated by a team with next to zero experience in the medium, which really shows. Shot composition is pathetic, and the camera work is shoddy, despite already having the manga as reference. Colors can only be described as dull in most cases, but in some are garish and ugly.

In an attempt to emulate Miura's style, an extremely ugly hatching effect has been worked into the shading, which only makes everything look worse. The actual movement of the 3D models is stiff and stilted to a comical degree, not at all what you'd want for a dark fantasy action series.

There are SOME 2D-animated assets, but they clash horribly with the amateurish 3D to the point where they make each other look worse. Less than the sum of their parts.

The sound design was especially panned by many, and gave rise to the "CLANG" meme on account of the overuse of an extremely loud metal-on-metal clanging sound effect, even when Guts was using his sword on organic, non-metal enemies, and even wood.


View: https://youtu.be/fxk1syuf5lo?si=eLvc9kQzZj25v2OR

The OST is serviceable enough, which really sucks considering the material it's supposed to score. Despite this, it really lacks the unique tone and emotion Hirasawa brought to the original animation, and there is far less diversity in sound. That is, most tracks are either some sort of ambient or rock. Some standouts:

Berserk 2016 - Ash Crow

Edit: Something broke. Begins at 0:49 (ty DarkHell)From the Berserk 2016 Anime SoundtrackComposed by Shiro Sagisu

youtu.be

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

On the story side, the Black Swordsman arc was rushed through sloppily, and the Lost Children Arc skipped entirely. These two arcs are extremely important in not just setting up who Guts is, but showing his lowest, most depraved self in the aftermath of the eclipse; in other words: how his quest for revenge against Griffith was slowly destroying his humanity. Without that, we sort of just jump into a weird sort of blank slate Guts that goes right into the Conviction arc without any of the prior context of the last two arcs, which doesn't even include the Golden Age arc (covered in the '97 anime) which acts as a prolonged flashback of Guts' life up to this point. Essentially skipping straight to Conviction also removes all of the relationship building between Guts and Puck, the latter of which served as an emotional anchor for Guts' humanity, and very may well have prevented him from slipping entirely.

There have been later modifications to the animation in later releases (patches, basically. For a fucking anime!) that replace many 3D shots with actual 2D animation, and season 2 depended less on 3D animation entirely, though that does not also fix other audiovisual or storytelling issues.

In short, I believe this might have been so fucking bad that it completely killed any chance at future adaptations, which is a HUGE shame, considering we have yet to get proper, true-to-manga adaptations of ANY full arcs.

 

[Ross_Я]

2022 Death On The Nile.

I've watched it right after I finished watching 1978 Death On The Nile. Watching them back to back, I guess, increases the hate towards the new one substantially. Either way...
See, a friend of mine wanted to watch a new Death On The Nile movie. We've watched the new Murder On The Orient Express together, and I didn't like it much, but it was an OK film overall, so I've relented. But God knows the 2022 Death Of The Nile left me outraged. I didn't like it one bit. Comparing to 1978 version, I don't even know where to start.

First of all, the plot. 2022 chopped, remade and created a lot of new plotlines, which crippled the whole impact of the story. Poirot looks like some kind of cheap B-movie superman or something, exposing everyone oh-so-tragically in the last second, closing almost every plotline in the last minute - and it truly looks like cliche city. Not to mention all the new plotlines that do not make much sense at all... Some holes and anachronisms included. Electric guitars? Possible, but very unlikely. Poirot's wound is obviously on his cheek in the beginning of the film, how the hell his moustache was supposed to cover it? Not to mention that in the end of the movie the scar moves to his upper lip. The crew of the ship leaves at night, abandoning the ship entirely in the hands of the passangers in the middle of the river. Etc, etc... Small points, but strung throught the movie they drop by drop invite disgust with the movie itself.

Next point, the characters. 2022... Bowers and Van Schuyler are lesbians. I'm just tired of lesbians in my movies and animation. This is it, this constant propaganda is actually making me a homophobe - I just can't take it anymore. But I also find it surprising that those two characters are in relationship, especially given that they hate each other in the original, and some of that hatred carried over into the new movie - do they imply that same sex relationships are so incredibly toxic? This was very weird piece of propaganda. Speaking of which - I'm sorry to say it, but black characters are disgusting in Death Of The Nile. I hate this kind of blatant, political characters, that straight away tell to viewer: you are wrong. Moreso, they right away disgrace the main character throught the movie. Note that it is entirely possible to add black characters into modern adaptations of the classic and make them look good, in place and likeable. Case in point: Color Out of Space, 2019. Black character is amazing, entirely likeable and looks great in the final scene, and I don't care if it is Lovecraft, out of all things, where he is present. In Death Of The Nile, they only invite more disgust for the whole cast.

And the cast does have problems. Poirot himself looks, as I've already pointed out, like some kind of cheap B-movie superman - and now I mean that he lacks a lot of humanity in the movie. He is... a freak. Maybe that was the entire point, since characters themselves point it out in one scene, but I don't think that such a portrayal is anyhow likeable. Frankly, almost the whole cast has troubles. I will only go through the trouble of pointing out the biggest one - aside from the ones already mentioned - the removal of colonel Race, who served as a great background for Poirot and acted like an accurate counter-balance on screen. Bouc, lacking any detective skills, leaves Poirot alone from point one, and it doesn't work. Speaking of Bouc - allow me to return to problems with characters for a moment, because what the literal fuck. Bouc has been a figure in their own previous movie, in the 2017 Murder On The Orient Express - and Death On The Nile doesn't explain in the slightest how the fuck Bouc degraded from his position all the way down to a vagabond living off his mother. Guh, this it just terrible...

Anyway, let's move on from cast and characters. The third point is the graphics. Oh my God, they are bad. About half of the graphics look absolutely off, with the underwater scene bringing me back into the era of PS2 games. Jesus. And as I know things about Egypt, those pyramids looked terrible. I think they've got them from Ubisoft or something. Needless to say, just a glance at the actual pyramids in 1978 movie reveals how far off they are in 2022 movie. I don't know why - once again, graphics can be good - but in the modern movies oh so often all these graphics are looking absolutely lifeless, and Death On The Nile is not the exception. I want to like them - I like bright things - but I just can't. It looks bad, and that's all I can say about it.

Actually, the whole 2022 Death On The Nile looks lifeless. The movie just lacks the simple scenes. The ship lacks crew, which only appears at the moments when the plot requires them and conviniently entirely disappears during all the other scenes. Hell, I wonder if the crew has been graphics as well. 1978 movie is life. There are people on the bank of a river mooning the rich european tourists, there is an actual, living cobra (oh, how do I miss living animals on the screen!), and, above everything, Poirot himself is a joking, smoking, drinking fat piece of humanity, rather close to his portrayal in books, while the new movie only emphasizes his quirks forgetting that he is a human entirely. Flanderization is the word, I think.

I'm not even sure if I should continue. The actors overact in the new movie - not much, but take it as a cherry on the cake. They also say that AEgyptians buried their wives alive with their Pharaoh when Pharaoh died - this simply wounded me personally. Not even cheap pulp fiction book that I read now, full of magic and living sphinxes, allowed itself such blatant defamation. I wonder if Death Of The Nile is the reason because of which I've saw this absurd mentioned twice in the recent year, when I've never saw it before.

Overall, I've disliked new Death On The Nile so much that I've seriously considered to delete 2017 Murder On The Orient Express from my HDD as well. Didn't do it in the end. That film had several actors that I really love - Willem Dafoe, most of all - so I can't just send it to the trash. To top it off, much more scenes were shot on a real set, rather than on a green, and much more props were used. There also was a black character - I totally didn't remember him, but this means he didn't make me hate him (discussion about how being bad and hated is better than being mediocre grey and forgettable are welcome). And the movie overall stayed close to the original.

All that being told, you still didn't miss much. I'd say if you haven't watched these two movies - rather save your time, ignore them and just stick to the classics. I cannot list enough reasons why they are better.

Haven't hated a movie that much since Ready Player One, which is an epic fail of adaptation as well, but about that one - maybe some other day.

 

[赤い男]

The 2016 Berserk anime is legendarily bad. Kentaro Miura was a master of his craft to the point that he was arguably the single most skilled mangaka to have ever lived. He was so meticulous in his work that, as the anectode goes, when he finally switched over to digital illustration in his later years, he had to refrain himself from literally editing his manuscripts pixel by pixel.

Now, it could be argued by some that any adaptation could never fully approach the level of detail and artistry in Miura's work, which is okay. The 1997 Berserk anime is fondly remembered by many, including myself, despite its many limitations. The animation, though rough in some aspects (many action shots are relegated to panning stills of illustrations, but even those are well-detailed), more than makes up for it with budgeting frames for certain key moments, excellent color theory, and that signature hand-drawn charm. And although the story was also cut down some, it tells the Golden Age arc well enough in its runtime to make up for it. In particular, the emotional beats of the story are truly furtured by the incredible and iconic OST by Susumu Hirasawa, with a fan-favorite OP by the band PENPALS.


View: https://youtu.be/B99kkOTCIZ8?si=Vjkcq-nHYtZmQ8JC

View attachment 86372

View: https://youtu.be/auLopgsgJ_s?si=8Y0EnApqVNEXSY0g

View attachment 86371

View: https://youtu.be/xsV6wk4nzPw?si=3npqIMArTIT9qZ39

View attachment 86370

View: https://youtu.be/jwu6YmLEBj8?si=bDo-TmkBnL25mzyi

View attachment 86369


By comparison, the 2016 anime...

If only we knew how bad it could get.
View attachment 86368

The production was almost entirely 3D animated by a team with next to zero experience in the medium, which really shows. Shot composition is pathetic, and the camera work is shoddy, despite already having the manga as reference. Colors can only be described as dull in most cases, but in some are garish and ugly.

View attachment 86377

In an attempt to emulate Miura's style, an extremely ugly hatching effect has been worked into the shading, which only makes everything look worse. The actual movement of the 3D models is stiff and stilted to a comical degree, not at all what you'd want for a dark fantasy action series.

View attachment 86376
View attachment 86375
View attachment 86367

There are SOME 2D-animated assets, but they clash horribly with the amateurish 3D to the point where they make each other look worse. Less than the sum of their parts.

View attachment 86373
View attachment 86378

The sound design was especially panned by many, and gave rise to the "CLANG" meme on account of the overuse of an extremely loud metal-on-metal clanging sound effect, even when Guts was using his sword on organic, non-metal enemies, and even wood.


View: https://youtu.be/fxk1syuf5lo?si=eLvc9kQzZj25v2OR

The OST is serviceable enough, which really sucks considering the material it's supposed to score. Despite this, it really lacks the unique tone and emotion Hirasawa brought to the original animation, and there is far less diversity in sound. That is, most tracks are either some sort of ambient or rock. Some standouts:

Berserk 2016 - Ash Crow

Edit: Something broke. Begins at 0:49 (ty DarkHell)From the Berserk 2016 Anime SoundtrackComposed by Shiro Sagisu

youtu.be

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

On the story side, the Black Swordsman arc was rushed through sloppily, and the Lost Children Arc skipped entirely. These two arcs are extremely important in not just setting up who Guts is, but showing his lowest, most depraved self in the aftermath of the eclipse; in other words: how his quest for revenge against Griffith was slowly destroying his humanity. Without that, we sort of just jump into a weird sort of blank slate Guts that goes right into the Conviction arc without any of the prior context of the last two arcs, which doesn't even include the Golden Age arc (covered in the '97 anime) which acts as a prolonged flashback of Guts' life up to this point. Essentially skipping straight to Conviction also removes all of the relationship building between Guts and Puck, the latter of which served as an emotional anchor for Guts' humanity, and very may well have prevented him from slipping entirely.

There have been later modifications to the animation in later releases (patches, basically. For a fucking anime!) that replace many 3D shots with actual 2D animation, and season 2 depended less on 3D animation entirely, though that does not also fix other audiovisual or storytelling issues.

In short, I believe this might have been so fucking bad that it completely killed any chance at future adaptations, which is a HUGE shame, considering we have yet to get proper, true-to-manga adaptations of ANY full arcs.

People always relate berserk with heavy black metal.

But for me when i think about berserk, i think in the most emotional bishonen seinen

I'VE WAITEDSOOOO LONG I'VE WAITEEED SOOOO LOOONG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70GD2SBCq64