Fair warning, this thread will likely include spoilers. Also, this thread is not for trivial differences like name changes, location differences, etc.

One of the more obvious differences between a book and its movie redition that I can think of is The Mist.

In Stephen King's short story, the father is basically recording all of the events in a journal that he hopes to leave in a hotel room. After escaping the supermarket and making it into the SUV, the "survivors" turn on the radio with the hopes of hearing anything that may point them into the right direction to safety. After hearing nothing but dead air, they faintly hear the words "Hartford. Hope." Thus ends the novella with the reader left to assume they made their way towards Hartford.

The movie is substantially different. Once they reach the SUV, they begin to drive south until ultimately running out of gas. At that point, there are 5 people in the SUV and they have a gun with only 4 bullets. Everyone decides that they will allow the father to kill everyone before the monsters eventually reach them, leaving the father to fend for himself. The father even shoots his own son, then steps out of the SUV to presumably get killed by the creatures. However, as he walks forward the mist begins to clear and the military is seen clearing out the creatures, leaving the father alone to deal with just murdering four people.

Dune books are better then Dune movies whether they be TV or the awful one by David Lynch.

That is an example where I like both versions.

_________________

Tom Clancy books > Tom Clancy movies based on books > Tom Clancy games based on books > Tom Clancy games based on movies based on books

_________________
"There is a high statistical probability of death by gunshot. A punch to the face is also likely."

Any movie > Any book

Reading is hard and it takes too long...

_________________
This is my signature...

Books are almost always better because you get more exposition and you can read how a character is thinking.

_________________

_________________
"There is a high statistical probability of death by gunshot. A punch to the face is also likely."

Video Games based on movies > books > movies

Shit

Everyone knows this.

_________________

Video game based on movie based on board game > everything



I win.

_________________
"There is a high statistical probability of death by gunshot. A punch to the face is also likely."

Reading is stupid.

Unless you're reading subtitles in a King-Fu movie...

_________________
This is my signature...

The one that jumps immediately to mind for me where the book was almost totally different both in tone and ending than the movie is The Dirty Dozen. The book was 10 times better than the movie and I think the movie is killer.
ow one where it is almost an exact copy from the book to the movie is Kings Stand By Me/The Body.

The ones where they are way different but the author said that the movie was a totally different telling of the stories was the Harry Potter stuff. Book to movie is almost like a totally different telling of the same story.

_________________
When I am stuck and need to figure something out I always remember the Immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"

Yeah

That looks about as entertaing as the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots movie with Hugh Jackman.

Who did the music for this, Don Henley?

_________________

Just started reading The Confession

Yay Books

I'm doing this as hard as I possibly can...

_________________
"There is a high statistical probability of death by gunshot. A punch to the face is also likely."

Roy Hobbs strikes out in the book

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

_________________

More pictures in the movies.

A guy actually dies in a match in the novel, Best of the Best 2

I'm extremely concerned that the movie version of World War Z is gonna blllloooooooowwww.

Forrest Gump the book sucked bad. It was similar, except that Gump got drafted by NASA, shot into space with a chimp, suffers mechanical problems and somehow crash lands (with monkey) and gets abducted by cannibalistic aborigines.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

You're thinking about Philadelphia...

_________________
This is my signature...

Shit. Isn't that the one where he falls in love with a volleyball and drowns?

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Yeah. Denzel is his lawyer and makes him smoke PCP...

_________________
This is my signature...

That's hilarious. But all that hilarity aside I always had a problem with Castaway. If you were lost on a desert island for 7 years and when you got back your wife was Helen Hunt wouldn't you go back to the island?

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Or you'd be relieved that she "moved on" and you'd get down to business with attractive women for a change...

_________________
This is my signature...

That movie sucks.

That said, he should have been a lot happier because Helen Hunt married some other dude.

Personally, Forrest Gump's best movie was when he shot Matt Damon in the head in Saving Private Ryan.

_________________

the ending was the best part of "the mist" (film); the rest of it didn't really work for me. it didn't have a lot of credibility setting up the breaking down of civilization. it took a lot of liberties with people's perceptions and emotions. i didn't buy it, except the end. the end made the most sense. i think even stephen king said the film version ending was better than his.

"forrest gump" was a victim of its pasteurized film version. it is much more of a satire than the movie is. the movie comparably comes off as sanitized and white-bred while the book is fairly raunchy, almost like a "huck finn" feel to it. they're two completely different entities. i like them both for different reasons. i hated the book when i first read it. i tried it again and found the humor in it, and where groom was coming from.

here are a few more:

"simon birch" - one of the worst rapings of a novel, and i'm glad john irving doesn't have to suffer with this title since it's not the title of the novel it's based on, "a prayer for owen meaney" (which is a fucking classic). the movie is incredibly sentimental and the titular character dies way before he does in the novel. such a waste. the book is excellent and could've been made into a decent movie. even "world according to garp" had a better film adaptation, as weak as that was.

"first blood" - yeah. rambo dies at the end.

"jurassic park" - they captured the gimmick theme that crichton was criticizing but they homogenized it in only the way spielberg could. it still made for a good adventure film but they missed a lot of nice elements in the book. not to mention, ian malcolm dies at the end. and so does john hammond.

I'd be married to that stupid volleyball by the end of year 1 if I was stuck on the island.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Two that come to mind right away:
A Clockwork Orange had a vastly different ending.

And sticking with the Kubrick Theme
The Shining is different and (as many of you know) King HATES it. A History professor at my undergrad was obsessed with the movie, he found that the movie was filled with tons of symbolism about Kubrick's feelings about the holocaust.

_________________

The movie ending for The Rum Diary sucked diarrhea covered ass. The just took HST's fantastic novel and shat all over it. Fucking lame ass Hollywood ending. But the rest of the movie was a'ight. But the ending almost ruined it.