There is no better feeling than getting lost in a great book, and there is nothing more infuriating than watching a botched movie adaptation of one of your favorite novels. So frustrating. I used to be exited to learn that a book I enjoyed reading is about to be adapted for the big screen, but with time, I’ve become more weary and cynical.
I understand that because of their visual aspects, films could never fully respect the book’s story line and that some details must be left out or modified. I am fine with that. The Lord of the Ring trilogy omitted a lot of the books’ elements but it did not really matter because in essence, the overall story was left untarnished. What bothers me is shameless rewriting, over-reliance on special effects over story or plain simply, bad directorial work. This is my issue with the five films bellow. They ruined the book. A good movie adaptation must allow the reader to relive the book he or she enjoyed reading so much, and it must also give the viewer who’s never read the book the urge to go and do so.
Annihilation
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer is the first volume of the Southern Reach trilogy. The books are suspenseful page turners about a secret agency, the Southern Reach, that observes and studies the anomalies surrounding Area X, an undisclosed region that was suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by a mysterious invisible and growing border. Eleven expeditions were sent through that border and all the surviving members that came back had no recollection of the events that occurred on the other side and eventually died of cancer or by suicide. Annihilation follows the 12th expedition, comprised four women: a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist and a surveyor. All four members of the expedition remain nameless throughout the whole book. The main character is a biologist whose husband was part of the 11th expedition and she is there to investigate what happened to him. As the women wander into the eerie Area X and its strange ecosystem, fear, paranoia and distrust set in. The book masterfully creates an atmosphere of discomfort and malaise while at the same time titillating the reader’s imagination and sense of wonder. Volumes 2 and 3 of the series focus on the members of the Southern Reach because they too are affected by Area X.
The film adaptation by Alex Garland rewrote the story in ways that tarnished the book. First of all, the characters had names for some reason and there was also an extra character. The fact that the characters were nameless in the book, with virtually no back stories, somehow added to the eeriness. Giving them names and pre-excursion dialogues tames the whole mood. Then, they felt the need to explain where and how the area came to be (an asteroid… How original!) whereas no explanation would be so much more effective! But that’s not it! The movie changed the name of the area (the Shimmer instead of Area X), the setting of the area itself (absolutely no mention of the spiral pit and its Crawler in the movie), created new monsters and changed the ending. As a result the film is nothing like the book it is supposedly adapting.
Though critically acclaimed for its visual prowess and the actresses’ performances, I still consider the film an affront to Vandermeer’s books. And I was not at all that impressed with the visuals the director went with either.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
By far one of the smartest, funniest, most original and best sci-fi books ever! But also very difficult to adapt. The book, as well as the movie, is about Arthur Dent, an Earth man who suddenly lost his home planet because an alien race, the Vogons, needed to pave the way for an intergalactic highway. He is saved at the last minute by his friend Ford Prefect who, as it turned out, is not an out-of-work actor but an alien researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, an extensive guide on all the planets in the universe. Together, they embark on a wild series of adventures in space, with Zaphod Bettlebrox the president of the galaxy and Trillian, a human woman Arthur once met at a party.
Rife with incredible humor and prophetic imagination, the book is a joy to read. When the movie came out, I was so excited but that excitement quickly waned as I watched the film. So many talented actors were cast and yet, the whole thing just fell short. Sure, some elements of the books were present but the director just could not piece them together to recreate the mood and personality of the books. The whole movie felt and looked incredibly cheap. It’s a shame. A great shame.
Alice in Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland was one of my favorite books growing up, and I loved Disney’s 1951 animated adaptation. That book triggered my love for the fantastic and the anomalous. It made me dream of a different world, a more exciting one from this monotonous reality we’re all living in. Disney’s animation transformed the book into images and it was absolutely magical. Fast forward to 2010 and we get Tim Burton’s version. It was so bad I didn’t even finish the film. Tim Burton did not bother to take the time to tell a story or to communicate any emotion what so ever. He overly relied on special effects (poorly executed at that), extravagant make up and costumes, as well as on his two favorite actors, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. The over acting was painful to watch. Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are merely the shadow of the brilliant artists they once were, and that saddens me terribly. What happened to the Tim Burton who made timeless classics such as Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Mars Attacks? What’s more, even though the film is called Alice in Wonderland, Burton’s version seems to be a sequel to the book, as Alice is back in Wonderland but doesn’t remember anyone, and goes through everything we went through the first time she was in Wonderland… What’s the whole point of the movie, you ask? There’s none.
By the way, if you want to see a fantastic and really interesting film adaption of Alice in Wonderland, check out Alice by Jan Svankmajer. I included a brief excerpt bellow. It’s a live action film mixed with stop motion featuring stuffed animals. Dark yet beautiful, the film embodies the sense of wonder and disorientation of the book.
World War Z
World War Z, the novel by Max Brooks is one of the best thrillers I’ve ever read. It’s terrifying, suspenseful, cold, scientific and most of all, so realistic that we could forget it’s fiction. The only thing the film has in common with the book is the title. I’m not saying the film starring Brad Pitt is bad, though. I’m stating that the film should not be called World War Z as it had absolutely no similarity with the book it was supposed to be adapting. There is no main character in the book. The story, spanning across several years, is pretty much a compilation of testimonials from around the world that allows the reader to piece together the series of events that lead humanity to the brink of extinction. The book focuses a lot on the living, its humanity or lack thereof, and how they deal with impending doom, rather than on the zombies. The film, on the other hand, not only puts the spotlight right on the living dead, turns them into an unstoppable wall of fast-moving, terrifying colony, but also relies on a single main character, Gerry Lane, to investigate the epidemic in order to find out where it came from and how to cure it. As for the “cure”, the book’s solution to ending the zombie outbrake is extremely complex, beyond macabre and bone chilling. The solution is so terrifying because of how realistic it is: there is no easy, clear solution, like a magical vaccine. Nations disagree as to what to do: attack with what’s left of the survivors and resources or wait and see if we can outlast the zombies? Is it humane to use living humans as bait in order to lure and destroy the zombies? The movie went with ** spoiler ** ** spoiler ** the vaccine…
Watchmen
Contrary to the four previous cases, I saw Watchmen the movie before I read the comic. There was much hype and controversy around the cinematic adaptation and I did not know why so many people were so exited for the film to be produced. The hype, the incessant TV interviews or news articles about it, the stellar cast, the trailer made the adaptation seem interesting so I went and watched it. I could not believe my eyes how bad the experience was. What the hell was that? Then came all the fan outrage. They, like me, were not happy with the movie. But then, the whole situation piqued my curiosity. I had never heard of Watchmen and yet, there seems to be whole lot of people who are obsessed with it. How did such a big part of pop culture elude me all this time? That’s when I decided to check the comic out at the library and that’s when I became a member of the comic’s fan club. That book is epic and there is no wonder why it found itself on Time’s top 100 greatest novels of all time, in 2005. Damon Lindelof decided to adapt the comic for television, and the series will premiere some time in 2019, on HBO. I saw the trailers and was not that impressed. I will give the series a try, of course, but chances are that I will probably not continue to watch beyond episode 2. Or, maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised! We never know.
If you’ve seen the films above and did not have a good time, do give the book a try. These adaptations do not, in any way, represent their literary counterpart!