We may have covered this before? Forgive me if so.
I recently read a book called The Field of Blood by Scottish author Denise Mina. Really good thriller about the murder of a young boy in Glasgow, set in the eighties from the point of view of a would be journalist called Paddy (Patricia) Meehan, working on the local broadsheet.
I saw that a two part (two hour) TV version had been made seven years ago, so I found that and watched it last night. It was so badly done. I understand that an adaption is just that, it's not a verbatim copy of a book, but they just raced through the story so fast they lost more or less all characterisation and sub-plot. The background story of the real life Paddy (Patrick) Meehan, which was intricately woven around the plot of the book was completely ignored, as were the sectarian issues of early eighties Glasgow, and in addition the main character's issues with catholic guilt were mostly brushed over.
My wife, who normally loves this kind of thing, and had not read the book was deeply unimpressed. Because of the hurried story there was no time to develop any empathy with any of the characters, or to understand how they related to each other.
Read the book, but don't watch the TV version.
Any other really badly done adaptations that stand out in anyone's mind?
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Same with the Sharpe series... Great bunch of books by Bernard Cornwell yet some of the TV episodes are awful (i.e. read Sharpe's Gold and then watch the TV version, the script writer must have been smoking some strong stuff that day)
Its a shame because Sean Bean and Pete Postlethwaite really dragged it along... If you watch the Last Kingdom (also written by Cornwell) yet is more recent, then its a much better TV adaptation!!
But as the OP said they are completely different arts and usually all you can say is the film is inspired by the book.
Sphere
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Absolutely horrific. Not only did they change the name from the Northern Lights to suit the American audience they right royally ruined it.
I'm hoping that the forthcoming BBC adaptation might actually do it justice for once.
The film starring Tom Hiddlestone, whilst visually good, & taking a lot from the vivid imagery of the book, is sadly a mess in its execution.
World War Z always felt a very hard book to transfer to film, but The Beach should have been easy to make a lot better.
The same with 'The Black Dahlia'. A great James Ellroy book, but the movie, whilst being visually perfect, was a real shitter in it's final cut.