Biggest book vs. movie pet peeves

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surreptitious

I'm finally getting around to watching Jack Reacher. I've been putting it off because Tom Cruise doesn't exactly scream "I'm a blonde-haired, blue-eyed 6'5" hunk of love with a 50-inch chest and I can easily drop a 400lb man on his head but who doesn't run." Tom Cruise is like, the only action-guy who does sprinting scenes on a regular basis because he always looks so gosh-darned good, so they couldn't even get that right. It's got me thinking - when you read a book or a series of books and then watch the movie or the series of movies, what changes bug you the most?

Note: I understand that there may occasionally be some exceptions where you're not annoyed by one character or another. Just go with your standard. =)

Answers (public voting - your screen name will appear in the results):

Changes to physical appearance

Sbmsvschoolgirl , CaseyDeuce , Coco85 , AliMc , alliegator , GONE! , TJtheMadHatter , Lildrummrgurl7 , bratcat , TdotY , SMichelle , treehugger , DearestMiranda , ZZ , SourAppleMartini , friendswithfangs , TheirPet , Virgingasms , kasuganosora , HannahPanda , Etonia , mmike , gordianii

Changes to attitudes or personality traits

married with children , GONE! , TJtheMadHatter , Lildrummrgurl7 , eri86 , TdotY , SMichelle , treehugger , apple4me , ZZ , karenm , SourAppleMartini , friendswithfangs , TheirPet , marshmallow , Virgingasms , kasuganosora , Etonia , mmike , peachmarie , Tigrica , mr115393 , gordianii , Pretties , ryansex

Changes to setting, scenery or location

Virgingasms , mmike , Tigrica

Omission of scenes

Sbmsvschoolgirl , CaseyDeuce , Coco85 , AliMc , quackbuster , TJtheMadHatter , Lildrummrgurl7 , K101 , bratcat , TdotY , ththpup , SMichelle , treehugger , DearestMiranda , SourAppleMartini , TheirPet , marshmallow , Etonia , mmike , peachmarie , wicked48 , Bignuf , Tigrica , Crystal1 , ryansex

Addition of scenes

rosythorn , CaseyDeuce , Coco85 , AliMc , alliegator , TJtheMadHatter , Lildrummrgurl7 , K101 , TdotY , DearestMiranda , SourAppleMartini , friendswithfangs , TheirPet , kasuganosora , mmike , peachmarie , Bignuf , Tigrica , gordianii

Omission of characters

Sbmsvschoolgirl , Lildrummrgurl7 , MissAdara , TdotY , SMichelle , treehugger , DearestMiranda , ZZ , SourAppleMartini , TheirPet , marshmallow , Virgingasms , kasuganosora , Etonia , mmike , peachmarie , wicked48 , Bignuf , Tigrica

Addition of characters

married with children , Lildrummrgurl7 , TdotY , SMichelle , ZZ , SourAppleMartini , friendswithfangs , kasuganosora , mmike , peachmarie , Bignuf , Tigrica

Choice of an actor/actress you just plain don't like to play a character you do

Sbmsvschoolgirl , CaseyDeuce , Coco85 , AliMc , quackbuster , married with children , GONE! , TJtheMadHatter , eri86 , LuLu-Pop , TdotY , SMichelle , sweettartjellybean , treehugger , DearestMiranda , apple4me , karenm , Trysexual , SourAppleMartini , Virgingasms , Etonia , mmike , peachmarie , Crystal1

A poorly chosen soundtrack

mmike , mr115393

Other

TJtheMadHatter , eri86 , Real or memorex , sweettartjellybean , mmike

Total votes: 157 (45 voters)

Poll is closed

05/06/2013

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rosythorn

The hobbit, biggest pet peeve ever, what is up with the whole evil nemesis thing? The white orc was only a sentence in the book!

05/06/2013

Sbmsvschoolgirl

I just watched The Hunger Games and whoa! I like Jennifer Lawrence as an actress, but she's no Katniss. The whole move was pretty disappointing, it was like only reading the highlights of the book and they missed some stuff. Also, the movie did a terrible job of explaining a lot of what was going on. I feel like the story would be kind of confusing for some one who hadn't already read the book

05/06/2013

Coco85

When I read The Help I couldn't wait for the movie and I was not impressed. It left so many parts out of the movie, they even had an alternate ending (actual ending of the book) that they changed because they wanted a happier ending.

05/06/2013

alliegator

It depends if I'm a big fan of the book first. If I'm not, then I don't really care what the movie changes as long as it's good. The Lord of the Rings for example I had previously read but felt no emotional bond to so I didn't mind the movie differences. Harry Potter I was a big fan of, so some of the movie changes really bugged me.

Changes to character's appearance (or other small details) often bothers me because if the author went to the effort to explicitly define a character's look it seems lazy to not match it. Sometimes those little details are also meaningful to the plot! Adding scenes can also be frustrating when movies have to cut out so much from a book. Favorite canon scenes can be ignored to make time for flashy or mainstream dribble the movie adds in.

In the Harry Potter movies, I am still bothered that Harry didn't have green eyes, and James didn't have the same hair as Harry, and Snape's death wasn't in the Shrieking Shack.

05/06/2013

surreptitious

(Review Program Mentor)

Quote:

Originally posted by Sbmsvschoolgirl

Oddly enough, since it's very much one of my typical genres and I actually worked in the kids/YA department of a library when the series was getting big, I haven't watched or read the Hunger Games yet. I actually haven't decided if I'm going to - I really liked Battle Royale, and I'm just not sure that the Hunger Games can live up to what I've imagined in my head.

05/06/2013

surreptitious

(Review Program Mentor)

Quote:

Originally posted by Coco85

They massacred the ending of I am Legend as well in the Will Smith version (though, quite frankly, the whole thing was completely different from the book). The alternate ending can still be found, thankfully, because at least it offers the philosophical implications that were present in the book.

05/06/2013

GONE!

Quote:

Originally posted by rosythorn

The hobbit, biggest pet peeve ever, what is up with the whole evil nemesis thing? The white orc was only a sentence in the book!

I liked that subplot but, yeah, I don't even remember it in the book.

05/06/2013

TJtheMadHatter

Along with other things, I chose other. I HATE HATE HATE it when they either try to smoosh a book series into one movie OR it's obvious that there's more to the story and they abruptly end the movie and never touch the series again. It drives me bonkers. It makes me wish someone else would remake it, but it sucks because it would never happen within ten years of the other movie's release.

05/07/2013

Lildrummrgurl7

I hate just about all of those. I usually avoid seeing "books-made-into-movie s" for those reasons.

05/07/2013

K101

Quote:

Originally posted by surreptitious

I don't usually watch the movies, but if I do, I do not like for them to change things or add or omit anything. I always read the book first, so I like for scenes to match up. However, it's rare for me to watch a movie if I can read the book, unless it's just extremely interesting to me.

05/07/2013

bratcat

Quote:

Originally posted by rosythorn

The hobbit, biggest pet peeve ever, what is up with the whole evil nemesis thing? The white orc was only a sentence in the book!

actually those we're characters pulled from other books which surround the time of the journey also written by JRR Tolkien referred to as Tolkien's legendarium, which they integrated into the movies to elaborate on the story line as well as add to the time (how else we're they going to get three movies out of that book). I was confused as well, until my nerd of a partner explained to me all the added characters as they appeared on screen.

As for myself, my biggest pet peeve is when movies choose actors which have no resemblance to the character in mind or when a character changes a little too much over time (see hermione's hair from the first two films vs the others), or when big details are left out or just not talked about - such as the scene in Choked where the fellows are at the bar drinking milk, and is then never explained, which may have been just something put in for fans of the book and gone unnoticed by other viewers, but for those who did not read the book and realized they would have been fairly confused.

05/07/2013

Gary

I think movies by nature, destroy the illusion that a book creates.

A good book builds an entire world out of your imagination. The experience is very unique and personal to every reader. A movie is a the direct interpretation of some one else. And that person has many limitations when attempting to retell the story. I think certainly one of the biggest limitation is the time factor. Even a relatively short book, probably needs way more than 2 hours to do the story justice.

05/07/2013

MissAdara

Oooh, tough choice! Leaving out characters, adding new ones that doesn't add to the story...wow, yeah all of the above lol.

05/14/2013

surreptitious

(Review Program Mentor)

Quote:

Originally posted by MissAdara

Oooh, tough choice! Leaving out characters, adding new ones that doesn't add to the story...wow, yeah all of the above lol.

Sometimes I wish that I hadn't read the book, because then I could just enjoy the movie, haha.

05/14/2013

ththpup

It's a bummer when a scene I like gets cut.

05/14/2013

Real or memorex

Dumbing it down bothers me.

05/17/2013

sweettartjellybean

It's not listed in the poll, but I really hate when I see a movie with friends and I've read the book, and the movie doesn't portray those 'thinking scenes' from the book well enough and I can tell that my friend(s) are confused by what's going on or they totally missed parts because the actors are just looking at each other, whereas, in the book, it explained what he or she was thinking.

05/18/2013

DearestMiranda

Quote:

Originally posted by alliegator

Were you also bothered by the addition of the scene where Bellatrix and Greyback set the Weasley's house on fire? I thought it really didn't fit with the story and definitely bothered me as I am also a HUGE Harry Potter fan.

05/18/2013

apple4me

I HATE when they force a love story into movies that arn't in the book. Or when they take an other wise deep character and change them until they are nothing more then back round.

05/21/2013

My reaction to discrepancies between a book and its movie are contingent upon whether or not I really love the story and the writing. It’s bothersome when the movie version of character is hard to recognize as the person that was written in the book. For the most part, minor changes won’t bother me as long as they improvements.

05/21/2013

karenm

I don't like when they change characters drastically or use an actor who doesn't fit in the role.

05/22/2013

SourAppleMartini

All of the above. I think I've only seen one single successful (in my mind) book adaptation and that was Lord of the Rings.

05/22/2013

TheirPet

Omission of characters or change of scenes. I was looking forward to the Briene and Bear scene in Game of Thrones recently only to find they totally changed it.

06/04/2013

friendswithfangs

Generally, I don't care that much about casting discrepancies, unless they whitewash the cast. It is not that hard to find actors of color.

Otherwise, it might bother me a little more if the book they're adapting has visuals (a comic book or just one with illustrations, etc.) and they don't even attempt to match the visuals from the literature.

Other than that, I generally dislike when instead of including scenes from the book, screenwriters add their own additions. Same with adding characters? Which just seems like a weird thing to do.

06/04/2013

marshmallow

omission of characters + scenes and changing personality traits. gah.

06/06/2013

Virgingasms

A lot of things bug me, but changing the character's personality is probably the biggest.

Geographical changes irritate me too, but outright changing it is easier to deal with than trying to pass one place off as another. I'm from the Pacific Northwest and I was a teenager when the first Twilight movie came out. One scene has them at a beach in WA and was shot in OR. It wouldn't be annoying if there wasn't a recognizable rock formation very visible in the background that screams it was shot in OR.

06/17/2013

kasuganosora

Movies are almost always worse than the book...

06/26/2013

HannahPanda

Almost all of these bug me! Mostly Geographic locations and scenery..

06/26/2013

Etonia

A lot of things bug me. Sometimes I won't even see the movie if I've already read the book simply because of the actors playing the characters.

07/14/2013

Total posts: 44 Unique posters: 37

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