It always frosts me how Hollywood will take a great story and completely ruin it with horrble casting or by completely changing the story and characters. The ones that come immediately to mind are:
Conan the Barbarian - I grew up reading the Robert E. Howard novels. If you have never read them, make sure you get the early Howard/L. Sprague DeCamp novels as the later ones are poor imitations.
Conan is described as having smolering blue eyes and a shock of black hair. A brooding barbarian with catlike reflexes and great strength. Now, I love Arnold, but Conan he is not. And his accent didn’t help. Yeah, he’s big, but there were a ton of bodybuilders out in California at that time and they could have found someone to fit the part better…if they cared. Uh, and I don’t think they chose Arnold for his acting ability.
And with all the great stories, they chose to make one up. Why not use the Tower of the Elephant, Queen of the Black Coast or People of the Black Circle? (TC would have loved the Frost Giants Daughter). Nope, they thought they could do better than the original author. Pompous asses.
The end result was a bad, idiotic story with an actor that made Conan look like a bumbling buffoon. I was pissed.
Interview with the Vampire - The first two books of the Vampire Chronicles" by Anne Rice were phenominal. I was hooked. When I heard they were making a movie, I wondered who they would cast for Lestat - a fair skinned, blond haired Frenchman. Anyone who read the novels knew Lestat quite well. And when we heard that Tom Cruise had been cast for the part, we all howled (and Brad Pitt as Louis, come on…). Even Anne Rice was upset. That was until she was either bought off or threatened with a lawsuit. At that point I lost all respect for her and never read another of her books again.
Tomb Raider - Look, I’ve spent a lot of time with Lara Croft (a LOT OF TIME), and Angelina Jolie doesn’t even come close to pulling it off. And what was this shit with her father in the movie. Crofts parents are alive and well. Once again, bad casting and piss-poor screen writing.
Godzilla (1998) - I saved the worst for last. I actually watched this abomination again the other night (which is what got me started thinking about this subject). Toho made these movies for years with very little budget and a guy in a rubber suit. When I saw the first preview, I was so excited, I thought finally Hollywood will use its resources and special effects to make a great Godzilla movie. But what did we get? A giant iguana. Oh excuse me, a giant, parthenogenetic iguana that lays eggs but is referred to as “he”. And Matthew Bodrick. I wanted to slit my wrists. No wonder Toho was pissed. I was furious that Hollywood had missed this opportunity and now they can’t go back because no ones gonna wanna see a sequel to that piece of shit.
Hollywood misses opportunities to make great movies because they are more interested in getting “big names” to play the leads rather than casting an actor that fits the role. They change the story, or invent one to fit whatever special effects or other agenda they may have. When I saw they had made the movie Troy, my first response was, well how bad will this be? Another great story, poorly cast and poorly executed (they left the most important part, the Gods, out of the movie).
They leave out some of the best parts of novels. For example, in Jurassic Park, when the raptors are distracting everyone by the fence while the rest of the animals are climbing over the roof. They also made the park owner look like a kindly old grandfather, which was wrong. And they didn’t kill him off in the end either. Guess they wanted to save him for that sequel…
Why do they do this to a best selling novel? There’s a reason why it was best selling - so why change the story?
O.K., I’m done. I guess it just really chaps my ass that they do this shit and wondered if others were as disappointed as I am in Hollywood.
