Hello lovelies!
I'm finally back with another vlog for this weeks post (even if it is just due to laziness!) This week we are talking about something that was suggested by Ambur of Burning Impossibly Bright, here is her suggestion: "book-to-movie adaptations. You could rant about the ones you hate, praise the ones you love, talk about the ones you thought were better...and the ones you thought were worse than the books, and all that other stuff that comes with, like the "perfect" casting and such!"
So from her suggestion I have decided to talk about book to movie adaptations that I think were really good and ones that were not so good. I didn't come up with enough not so good ones so I took to Twitter and got some followers of mine to weigh in. Watch on to see what I (and they) thought:
Thanks to all the Twitter peeps that weighed in this week:
@BookDen, @RachelllRaeee, @BooksofAmber, @thebookaholic93, @Blythe_Harris, @MsJessR, @Hermyoni, @Reader_Fictions
For those who don't want to watch my vlog, here are the movies mentioned:
Best Adaptations:
The Hunger Games. Fight Club, Interview with the Vampire, The Shining, American Psycho, Little Women, The Notebook & Romeo & Julier (the Leonardo DiCaprio/Claire Danes one.)
Worst Adaptations:
Queen of the Damned, Twilight, Water for Elephants & Eat, Pray, Love
Twitter Suggestions for Worst:
I Am Number Four, Ella Enchanted, The Golden Compass, Eragon, Atonement, Twilight, Beastly, Timeline, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, Pride & Prejudice (2005), Blood & Chocolate
So now you weigh in! What do you think the best book to movie adaptations are? The worst? Do you agree/disagree with the ones here? Let me know!
Haha, Twilight.. YEAHHHHHH.. *rolls eyes* I am Nr. 4 - I thought it was pretty bad. I did like Charlie & the Chocolate Factory though. I haven't read the book, but I found it really magical and different. I LOVED THG! This one was so well done. Jennifer Lawrence - she is so freaking great in this role. I doubted if L. Kravitz could bring out this amazing persona and his wiseness etc, but he did a brilliant job in my mind. Eragon - what happened to that actor anyway? I loved the first book. But lol, I have tried to read the second one three times already, but I still haven't been able to finish it or read more than half way through. I want to someday, though. I like your choices =)
ReplyDeletePS. HAHAHAHHHAA!! The reason I hate Bella, Edward and Jacob SO much and I, too, didn't hate them that much before the movies. They were plain horrible..
Right Twilight was SO BAD! I love Jennifer Lawrence in everything she does. Winter's Bone was amazing and so was Silver Lining's Playbook!
DeleteFilming videos IS so much easier! Hahaha.
ReplyDeleteFight Club is an awesome adaptation. American Psycho too. The book is so boring, but the movie makes it what it should have been. Also, I agree about THG being a good adaptations.
Ew. I hate The Notebook. Weepy for the sake of weepy makes me want to kill things. Romeo and Julier? Oh really? JULIERRRRRRRR.
OMG, Queen of the Damned. I haven't read the book, but I saw that and it was AWFUL! I only watched it because I think the male actor's hot, but he looked terrible in that movie anyway. Seemed too effeminate for the character actually. Twilight made the book worse, so there's that.
You can tell The Golden Compass wasn't good, because they didn't make the other two movies. The problem was they tried to make it less anti-religion, but the religious people were still pissed and they pissed off the fans of the books too. Nice work!
Right? I hate compiling all the pictures and linking them and trying to type everything out, I would rather ramble.
DeleteIt's funny because as soon as I finished doing up this post last night Fight Club was on TV I was in heaven! You are not your fuckin' khakis!
The book is really good but the movie was sooooo bad.
Yeah that's what someone was saying last night, that's hilarious that they didn't make the rest of them.
I'd like to suggest Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief for Worst Adaptation! They basically butchered the book, ha.
ReplyDeleteTHG is the best, and I actually did like The Notebook movie better than the movie (rare!). And I also remembered liking Twilight just fine, but all went downhill when they started adapting New Moon *shudders*
Love this post! :D
My husband thought Percy was really bad too!
DeleteI'm happy that you agree about THG and The Notebook!
Completely agree about The Hunger Games! One of the best book to movie adaptation.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you on Twilight. I didn't hate the characters, but the movie made me hate them. I think the way the cast delivered the characters was just not good. Their acting sucked, especially Kristen Stewart. (*Barfs*)
I haven't watched Water for Elephants because of Robert Pattinson! :P
I watched Eragon without reading the book, so I don't know whether that was such a bad movie adaptation. Honestly, I can't remember what happened in that. It was quite unmemorable.
I didn't read the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I loved the movie when I was younger. I recently watched the 2005 Pride and Prejudice and I actually thought it was really good. The actors really captured the essence of the characters. Well, that's my opinion, but it's so interesting to hear about how different people have different views.
Awesome post, Jenni! :)
Yes! THG FTW!
DeleteI liked the Charlie and Chocolate Factory too, I can remember watching it with such big eyes. But maybe it's bad compared to the book.
Thanks for stopping by, Nick!
Thankfully I haven't seen many of the worst ones. I loved the His Dark Materials series, and I think I purposely avoided The Golden Compass movie when I heard how bad it was. It's a shame.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your best adaptations. Man, it's been forever since I've seen Romeo and Juliet. I had forgotten about that one.
Yeah, The Golden Compass seems to be one that pretty much everyone hated.
DeleteThat R&J is so good right? I loved it so much.
I so agree that it's easier to vlog than to type up a post, and put the pics and links and all that lol!!
ReplyDeleteThe Hunger Games was done very well, I actually am going to be talking about my thoughts of it as someone who has read it and hubs thoughts not reading it which is very different.
YES!! Fight Club!!!
Interview With A Vampire is a movie I love, but have not read the book. Ugh!! Queen of the Damned was not a great movie.
Awww The Notebook, loved that movie.
And dude, I loved Romeo and Juliet with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio!! I could watch that over and over. I used to on VHS actually!!
The Twilight movies are totally cheesy. I have them all though. I admit that I love the books. I'm not ashamed. (except I haven't even seen Breaking Dawn pt. 2 yet)
Princess Bride was an EPIC film! The book was pretty great too.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Practical Magic was a great film, but awful book!
Bad movies, great book? Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter! Scarlet Letter! It's funny... I know there are SO MANY, but when I need to think of them, they head for the hills. I'll probably be back later to vent about more crappy films.
Fight Club, Interview with the Vampire, American Psycho, Romeo & Julier - ♡
ReplyDeleteI really liked the Twilight books, but the movies were all sooo bad. I also loved The Host (even better than Twilight), so right now I'm pretty concerned about how the movie will turn out...The trailer doesn't look too promising. *resigned sigh*
Blood & Chocolate and Beastly are by far some of the absolute WORST book to movie renditions. And I ascertained that from either summary or trailer since I would rather not subject myself to the films. I think you have good selections for both good and bad here, so excellent work. :)
ReplyDeleteI think they should make book series into TV shows, not movies. When they finally finish The Mortal Instruments, Hunger Games or Vampire Academy movies how old will the actors be? 30?
ReplyDeleteCan they still pull off looking 18ish? I think that’s one of those reasons they rushed the Twilight movies (which I agree, the movies suck). Look how great the Vampire Diaries is doing. We get to see more of the story and we don’t have to wait +1 year for another movie.
Love the screenshot of the video :)
Totally agree with lots of these! Though, there are some (actually a lot!) movies that were mentioned that I still haven't read the book for. I must change that!
ReplyDeleteI actually didn't mind Eat Pray Love ... I really loved the book, but the movie was all right. It wasn't spectacular, though. And The Hunger Games was definitely very good -- one of my favourites! Same with Harry Potter. I'm not sure why people think Harry Potter is a bad movie rendition -- I thought it was so good!
I think it's all pretty subjective, though. I might love a movie adaptation and others will hate it. I think it might depend on how hardcore of a fan you are.
Great vlog!
As a general rule, I tend to avoid adaptations because I've been sorely disappointed one too many times. Same with re-tellings, actually. That said, I really enjoyed Fight Club, both the book and the absolutely fabulous movie, and I really liked Romeo & Juliet with DiCaprio and Claire Danes.
ReplyDeleteI can't actually pick the worst because I stop watching as soon as I realize it's not working for me.
Great vlog post! I'm in total agreement with all your best adaptations. I really liked The Shining -- I wonder if they'll make a second movie now there's a second book? I did like the first Hunger Game movie, but I felt like a lot of the feelings were lost in translation -- mostly Peeta/Katniss's relationship since they cut out their little weird friendship dance during the training part. But it was still good. I have high hopes for the second movie, now that they have a much bigger budget :)
ReplyDeleteI actually liked Twilight and Water for Elephants. *shrugs* Din't love the Hunger Games though. I thought it was okay, it just wasn't how I pictured it in my head.
ReplyDeleteYay! :D I'm glad you picked my suggestion. :D
ReplyDeleteI also agree that I LOVED The Hunger Games...and that Jennifer Lawrence is amaze-balls at everything. ;P I haven't read Fight Club, but that movie is so awesome. I'm meh about the Twilight movies. I did think that they got progressively better though...and I will admit, I seriously loved the last one. :D haha I did like Water for Elephants, too. I liked what they did. I'm not a huge fan of the Leo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet though...I honestly prefer the old version from 1968 (this one: www.imdb.com/title/tt0047029/)...that one is so awesome! :D Also, loved both The Notebook and A Walk to Remember movie versions, and I loved the books...and I thought that The Lucky one was better as a movie than a book...but I thought The Last Song was better as a book than a movie (that's because of Miley Cyrus though). :p
I loved Ella Enchanted...love the book, too, but I pretty much consider them completely separate apart from character names. :P haha And I loved the 2005 version of P&P...so many people seem to hate it though. I will admit that I didn't like the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory though...but I loved the old one! That one was awesome! Also...I Am Number Four was fantastic...I'm gonna stand by that. I wish they'd made the others though. I thought that they did a great job. :D Beastly could've been better though. I wish they'd kept him the hairy beast he is in the book. :P Also...someone other than Vanessa Hudgens as Lindy would've been good. :P
The more I'm commenting the more I realize there are soooo many!!! haha Thanks for sharing, Jenni, and for picking my suggestion this week! :D
No way! Water for Elephants is one of my favorite books, and I actually thought they did a really good job with the movie. Obviously I think the book was better, but I was not disappointed with the movie.
ReplyDeleteEragon is handsdown one of the worst movie adaptations I've ever seen. And it had SO much potential! But they really made it cheesy.
Honestly though, I think people go into movies with way to high of expectations. We all know that they can't possible include everything from the book into a movie. So I try to just enjoy the movie for what it is and be glad I'm one of those people that has actually read the book and can fill in the gaps for myself! ;)
Oh THG is definitely one of the best adaptations ever! And I was SO worried about it too so happy it wasn't a fail like Twilight! LOL Thor's brother. Thor's hot! I haven't even read Fight Club. I'm not even sure I knew it was a book at all haha.
ReplyDeleteI so can't wait for the sequel! I should go to AB and we could watch it together! :D I also found the very last HP movie was a great adaptation. I really liked Water for Elephants movie actually. I don't mind Pattinson that much just don't like him as Edward. >.< I LOVED that book too one of my favorite books EVER!
I haven't watched so many movies mentioned here lol. Beastly was meh, but the book was also meh. *shrugs*
I loved the Hunger Games movie. I was afraid they would change things like they did in the Twilight movies, but they didn't. :) My daughter started watching Ella Enchanted, and turned it off, and she is a movie buff. So I have no plans to ever watch it. She LOVED Fight Club. Bought the movie and the book. I guess I am going to have to break down and watch it.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
Jenea @ Books Live Forever
hahah, yeah Twilight. For me physically Robert Pattinson is my perfect Edward BUT I will agree that the acting of Kristen & Taylor is mega lame. The worst thing for me is how they handled the 'love-triangle' versus in the books. The Golden Compass & Eragon were both TERRIBLE. I watched GC before reading the book even and I can tell you it was a horrendous adaptation. Eragon I still haven't read the book but I want to. The film was BORING. And as much as some of the Harry Potter films are among my favorite adaptations (books 1-3 were SO faithfully done!) I have to say that some of the films are among my worst adaptations (Half-Blood Prince I'm looking at YOU)
ReplyDeleteAs for the best ones I completely with you about the Hunger Games one. THAT is how adaptations should always be handled imo! That Romeo & Juliet film you mentioned is one of my favorite adaptations too!! Oh and I haven't read Fight Club yet but the movie is one I own and re-watch ALL THE TIME! Brilliant. Same goes for American Psycho. I did LOVE both the book & film of Water for Elephants though (again, I love Rob) >.<
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ReplyDeleteHehe, you're so cute! :) Jennifer Lawrence was perfect for Katniss.
ReplyDeleteWorst movie adaptions for me have to be Eragon (they really ruined that one) and Twilight.
If it is possible, I think I am in a bit of a vlogging slump, as well. I need two conditions: to be alone in my apartment and to be in an energetic mood and lately, these two things haven't been coming together. I guess we'll see!
ReplyDeleteI am completely with you on all the good and bad movie adaptations that you mention. The Hunger Games was great and Jennifer Lawrence is awesome - I was so relieved! There's nothing worse than having your favourite book mangled in the process of making the movie.
As for your twitter suggestions, I agree than Ella Enchanted was pretty bad and that was extremely disappointing because it is one of my favourite childhood books. Haven't read or seen Eragon, but I'll be staying away. The only one I disagree on is The Golden Compass as I remember liking that movie! But maybe I should watch it again because it seems the majority opinion is opposite to mine, hmm...