The Best and Worst Novel/Movie Adaptation

[Greenday]

Worst...I would almost have to say Starship Troopers. But I enjoyed the movie.....

Not much is similar between the book and the movie. There's bugs, there's a united government...yea, that's it. Even the sex of some characters changed. And have you ever seen the deleted love scenes?

[Gravekeeper]

As I recall with Starship Troopers, the movie basically didn't "get" the book at all. I mean the book was basically anti-Communist political ranting. The movie was a goofy action comedy. ;p

[AdminAssistant]

It's just an emo retelling of Pyramis and Thisbe, anyway, which was a superior, if shorter tale.

See also: A Midsummer Night's Dream

[IDrinkaRum]

The Romeo and Juliet with Claire Danes was the worst...seeing people in modern (1998 modern) day clothes and such while talking in Medieval or Shakespearean English was just ridiculous, IMO.

David Tennant's Hamlet is really quite brilliant and is modern throughout. Also, the stage adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant & Catherine Tate. I don't mind Shakespearan English & modern settings, but that's just me.

[bex1218]

Not much is similar between the book and the movie. There's bugs, there's a united government...yea, that's it. Even the sex of some characters changed. And have you ever seen the deleted love scenes?

I loved the book. I think if I hadn't read it first, I'd enjoy the silliness of the movie more. Just ruined everything for me. Oh and Desperation by Stephen King. The movie just didn't have the spark the book did.

Can't think of the best one though.

[fireheart17]

The Romeo and Juliet with Claire Danes was the worst...seeing people in modern (1998 modern) day clothes and such while talking in Medieval or Shakespearean English was just ridiculous, IMO.

Agreed.

And then we Aussies had to try and do the exact same thing....except with Macbeth. (ETA, YES that's Sam Worthington from Avatar )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth_(2006_film)

[crashhelmet]

Best Adaptation is a tough one for me...but I'll have to say that Hunt for Red October was one of the better ones. Yes they changed the ending but the ending made a good movie ending.

I can agree with this only because I really didn't like the book. IMHO, Tom Clancy writes to read his own words. There was so much going in that book that had seemingly no relevance at all until the end of the book. It's as if there was some sort of psychic phenomenon being experienced or he really wanted us to believe the "oh hey, we just happened to have scavenged this piece off of this other submarine just in case we have another one go down and we need it.

As for worst adaptations? It's so hard to say. I've got MAJOR complaints about the adaptions from the Jurassic Park series, the Harry Potter series, and just about every Stephen King book ever made into a movie.

[Ginger Tea]

Best adaptation, to me, is also my favorite movie. "American Psycho"

Worst, again to me, is "V for Vendetta"

Not that it's a bad movie, it's just a bad ADAPTATION.

I am glad it was heavily updated to become your bad adaptation, England could/would suffer from fall out of a nuclear strike in mainland Europe, at the time of writing this was unkonwn.
Also dirty bombs 9/11 and all sorts of modern forms of terrorism would have seemed far fetched if written about then, even if true now.
Hijackers had a different end goal, 'visionary' as he is, I'm not sure anyone would buy 9/11 as a plot device to a book or movie back in the early 80's, let alone V for Vendetta.
I can not recall much from the original and what I can seems stupid.
Facist leader is in love with his all powerful AI and killed by the wife/widow of I can't remember who.

The movie rewrite has a much more believable rise to power of a facist and the paranoia of a state under biological attack (from it's own future government no less)

Yes his work normally gets mangled along the way, but in this case, it was a good idea but little outside of the title and the look of V should have migrated to the silver screen.
Having Steven Fry's character be the one Evey ends up with in the interim instead of that random guy, much better IMO.