What are some examples of adaptations veering from source material well?

[Benji]

Title.

[Mick]

Jurassic Park. 

In I think the late 80s, Michael Chricton met with Steven Spielberg about producing a script that Chricton had, called "Emergency Ward", a story about the craziness of a Chicago emergency room, an ER, if you will, based largely around Chricton's own experience as a medical student. Spielberg said at the end "Well, that's great Mike, are you working on anything else?" Cricton responded with "Oh, just a thing about cloning dinosaurs." "Wait, tell me about that."

So, Crichton polished up Jurassic Park, and the novel was a success. And the movie was a success. But they were the same in concept, character names and setting, but quite a bit was completely changed. Some characters were removed; even dinosaurs were removed. It's a very stark difference to the film. And the same almost applies to The Lost World, which, like JP, had a movie that was the same in concept, setting and character names (Well, two character names) and everything else was changed up. 

 

Another example would be Jaws. The novel and the film are, like Jurrasic Park, same setting, basic plot and characters. However, in the novel, the shark is the best character because everyone else is miserable piece of shit that deserves to be eaten. The asshole mayor won't close the beaches because he's in debt to the mob. Hooper is having an affair with Ellen Brody. Brody doesn't like Hooper because he suspects as much. Quint has some very colorful metaphors  . 

In fact, I'm just going to take most Spielberg adaptations and drop them here  

 

If we're going for just a movie that's not based on a novel, then a good example would be The Bird Cage, which was originally the French play and later film La Cage Aux Folles. Another French film for American Audience -- True Lies, adapted from La Totale!. Or then you have other fun rip offs, like taking Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, Sanjuro and The Seven Samurai and making A Fistfull of Dollars, For A Few Dollars more and The Magnificent Seven. And then speaking of Kurosawa, I offer Ran into the pile, an adaptation of King Lear set in Sengoku Japan. 

....Shall I go on?   

 

 

[Colly]

Edgar Wright is in the process of a new version of the Running Man, which I think I heard will be closer to the original story. The Schwarzenegger film is lovely though, stupid and very 80s but still great, and absolutely miles from King's more grounded original.

Going comics-y, what James Gunn did to the Guardians of the Galaxy was superb. Picked and chose what he wanted to keep, added some things of his own and made some of the best bits of the MCU.

[Mick]

I like both, to be honest. I really really really hope in the new movie, they keep some of the more darkly comedic shit from the story, like having the people with heart problems seeing how far they can walk on a treadmill before dying. Really, if I directed that scene, I'd give up my salary just to include a promo for it set to "I'm Gonna Be". 

 

I also want to throw in National Lampoon's Vacation as an adaptation that differed from the source material. Read John Hughes’ Original National Lampoon Vacation Story That Started the Movie Franchise (hollywoodreporter.com)  Vacation '58, published in 1979. 

[Pooker]

Angels and Demons

After the success of The Da Vinci Code and it sticking pretty close to the book, I was super excited for Angels and Demons, as I thought it was a better book. The movie strayed so far from the book, that it didn't come close to comparing to The Da Vinci Code.

[Mick]

I'm going to go a non-mainstream route with this one. The Ruby Spears Mega Man cartoon. 

It does about as well as it can for what is essentially the same game released multiple times. It does give us this gem though: