r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chill0000 • Aug 21 '26

Hated Tropes [HATED] Adaptations done intentionally without help from the source

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Halo TV show: Before the show came out, the writers were praising their decision to not look to the games for inspiration when making the show

God Of War TV show: Chris Judge, the actor of Kratos in the games from 2018-Now, spoke up about his dislike on the show not hiring anyone who worked on any of the previous games. One of the original creators of Kratos also spoke up about them not having faith in the adaptation.

Supergirl 2026 film: the director for the film not only said he decided to not read Woman Of Tomorrow, the comic the film is adapting, because he wanted to do his own thing, he also didn’t look at comic art for inspiration to design Lobo and instead used an AI image generator to design Lobo’s look for the film

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u/CampusCarl Aug 21 '26

Fucking world war Z. not a single thing in the book was on that screen other than the title. in fact, they did the complete opposite of the book! fast zombies instead of slow methodical ones, a fucking cure instead of the indomitable human spirit, the Lobo? not even a thought.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

[deleted]

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u/No-Macaron615 Aug 21 '26

While I agree that this should have been a mini series at least, I'm not sure about the Zs crossing the Jerusalem wall. In the novel while they did have the inspection points and quarantine, it was a terrorist/civil war that gave them the most problems. Most of the information we have on that part is from the Professor/Engineer and the old spy.

The old spy talked about the 10th man and the plans that were made. While the Prof talked about coming over from Palestine, the time in the quarantine camps, and the beginning of the attacks by the hasidic(? Orthodox) that did nit want the Palestines there. Then its fairly left off the info board for the rest of the book.

1

u/nightfall2021 Aug 21 '26

Yeah, it did seem while the virus was threat, it was the internal pressures that got the lion's share of the PoVs that I remember.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

[deleted]

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u/No-Macaron615 Aug 21 '26

No problem. I just reread it about a week ago, so your comment flicked my hyperfixasion box that I had to correct it.

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u/_Peef_Rimgar_ Aug 21 '26

Did you read the abridged version or the full version because I also remember the dead piling over the walls of Jerusalem but it’s been a few years

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u/No-Macaron615 Aug 21 '26

99.9% positive its the full version. But now you've got me checking.

I do know there are parts in various books of Zs piling up at walls from This Is The Way The World Ends by Keith Taylor and Zombie War by Nicholas Ryan

1

u/_Peef_Rimgar_ Aug 21 '26

It seems you are right u/egamruf and I must just be experiencing some sort of group psychosis

1

u/Ok_Shoe_4325 Aug 21 '26

Like No-Macaron, I also just re-read the book about a week ago. You aren't entirely incorrect about zombies though, but the how, why, and extent is not correct.

Spoiler warning for anyone who hasn't read the book: (and because i dont know how to hide spoilers)

The professor was being transported with his family when their shuttle got attacked by rebels. While he was coming out of his daze, and just after having witnessed an IDF soldier being killed by a rebel, he watches one of the unmarked vans they previously loaded infected people into being bombed, and watched as "people" slowly walked out of the van through the fire, and the IDF immediately ceasing hostilities with the rebels to shoot down the zombies.

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u/Mayonaigg Aug 21 '26

No it isnt. Nothing in the book suggested the zombies would move like a flash flood, literally splashing off of each other and forming tubular waves, and make a big magic tower to pull down a helicopter

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u/CriminalMacabre Aug 21 '26

It had no chance because in Max Brooks COMMUNISM (gasp) works for a functioning ad-hoc society of survivors while the rugged individualists that flee north turn a winter camp into hell on earth

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u/Da_Question Aug 21 '26

Tbf, winter is harsh and freezes the zombies. Which means theit enemies become each other. Plus game isn't as common as a few hundred years ago.

There are plenty of examples where people experiencing hardship come together, and a simple commune works well enough, especially with a common enemy like the zombies.

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u/_bluefish Aug 22 '26

A lot of film adaptations would work better as mini-series or individual seasons of a larger series. Good examples include Reacher, Slow Horses, The Haunting of Hill House, The Night Agent, The Queen’s Gambit

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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '26

[deleted]

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u/_bluefish Aug 22 '26

  1. I said “film adaptations” because that’s what they are. The Wikipedia descriptions is that a film adaptation “transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film.” I’m specifically saying that certain film adaptations would have made better mini-series like The Dark Tower, The Giver, Percy Jackson, etc.

  2. And not every book-to-tv series adaptation is good like certain seasons of Game of Thrones or the CW’s multiple Arrowverse series (comic adaptations of Green Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Batwoman). I’m specifically said that good examples of subjectively good book-to-tv adaptions include the series I listed.

  3. Haven’t seen those series so I didn’t list them.

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u/nsfredditkarma Aug 22 '26

Pretty sure that the Wall o Zombies breach came from the book Zone One by Colson Whitehead which was released around the same time that Brooks released WWZ.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

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u/pmmeyoursandwiches Aug 21 '26

One of the most flat out bizarre scenes I have ever seen in a film that. Isreal actually treats Palestinians as human beings which results in everyone getting massacred.

What did they mean by this.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

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u/AhhhSureThisIsIt Aug 21 '26

"Look what happens when you help them"

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u/pmmeyoursandwiches Aug 21 '26

Oh yeah, for sure, its just so bizarrely done and non sensical. Like the rest of the film tbf

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u/Exotic-Reindeer1994 Aug 23 '26

And then, they all start randomly singing for plot reasons.

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u/Gaybugsbunnymemes Aug 22 '26

I mean Max Brooks is Jewish royalty and a part of the US military apparatus. As far as I know he believes in the two state solution which was the standard liberal American Jewish view until Oct. 7th. And it’s the only view that won’t result in the suffering of millions.

You can hate Israel all you want but if you really expect millions of normal middle class Jews to relocate to countries with which they have no affiliation or citizenship you are kidding yourself. 

You would also be evicting Jewish communities with traditions back to the destruction of the Second Temple. How do you know who is who? What if they intermarried with Ashkenazi Jews? Who do you evict then? Start a table with people’s ancestors on it? How did that go in Nuremberg? 

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u/Parking_Exchange_113 Aug 22 '26

Literally who said anything about relocation

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u/Righteous_Hand Aug 21 '26

One of the issues with World War Z (and I do mean "one" - there were so many) was that they tried to make it universally acceptable so they could broadcast it in all the countries. I haven't read the book and it's been a stupid amount of time since I saw the film once, but one of the key components of the book was the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the film, the Israelis and Palestinians kumbaya'ed together until the noise of their singing attracted the zombies and they all died. Just the most mindless blockbuster garbage because they were afraid of making any kind of controversial statement.

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u/Marksta Aug 21 '26

That's a good point, they made everywhere in the world feel homogeneous and unified. (NK aside) So nobody felt singled out. The book's Japanese blind katana samurai becoming one with nature and guarding the spirits of a forest with a bo staff probably wouldn't have been OKed. Weird limbo of being representative, but also a little too on the nose that some weirdos would see it as racist. So no matter what country they ventured to, it was like the main character might as well have gone to the next city over instead of traveling the whole world.

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u/jinreeko Aug 21 '26

It did birth the WWZ video game, which is a surprisingly good horde shooter

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u/bokmcdok Aug 21 '26

I wanted a faux documentary about the zombie outbreak. Instead we got this tripe.

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u/ArmedWithSpoons Aug 21 '26

I wanted to see the battle of yonkers!

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u/AllYouNeedIsRawk Aug 21 '26

Mark Hamill's performance of that section in the (first adaptation) audiobook was amazing!

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u/Destiny_Dude0721 Aug 23 '26

I didn't, and I don't. The Battle of Yonkers is a fucking travesty.

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u/Leading_Atti2de Aug 21 '26

Same for I Am Legend. The similarities start and stop at the name. The original book isn’t even about zombies it’s about vampires.

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u/TesticularConcussion Aug 21 '26

They even removed the ending that somewhat resembled the ending of the book lol.

I highly recommend the book, you will probably read it in one go.

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u/Eric_Senpai Aug 22 '26

I'm ashamed to admit it took me ten rewatches (spread out over two decades) to understand the Alpha Zombie reconstructed Smith's car trap as payback for him kidnapping his girlfriend. The zombies have community and relationships, and this was suggested even without the alternative ending! To be fair, I was like twelve when it released.

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u/yooMvtt Aug 21 '26

10 year old me was seething at the fact that it was nothing like the book when that movie came out lmao.

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u/MourningWallaby Aug 21 '26

The only lasting impact that movie had on me was the scientist who can save the world with his knowledge slipping on a wet ramp while boarding a plane and shooting himself in the head as he falls

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u/ihavewaytoomanyminis Aug 21 '26

One of my favorite bits from the book is the Redeker Plan and exactly what it does to Paul Redeker.

Shame we didn't see that.

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u/BlazingKitsune Aug 25 '26

The first time I got to the end of the Redeker bits I literally got chills. That was so good.

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u/Fluffy-Ad7165 Aug 21 '26

I still like the movie, probably because I used to watch this movie over and over as a kid on TV and spent too many hours playing the mobile game tie-in (the superior game), but wow, reading the book for the first time felt like a splash of cold water with how different it is from the movie. I still like the movie, as I said, but now I like the book even more and I wish someone adapts it as it should. A TV show faithful to the original material would go so damn harddd.

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u/mephOW Aug 21 '26

The author Max Brooks (Mel Brook’s son, funnily enough) said something along the lines of ‘I learned to enjoy the movie as a fun action flick that just happened to share a name with my book’

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u/druex Aug 21 '26

The paycheck really helped swallow the bs.

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u/xylitol777 Aug 21 '26

World War Z as TV show would be amazing.

Each episode would start with the journalist visiting a new location and each episode would have the locals retelling what happened and the retelling would be acted out of course and main part of the episode.

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u/Equivalent-Bit2891 Aug 21 '26

A world war z series a la band of brothers would be my new favorite show for all time 

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u/Crucinyx Aug 21 '26

Agree 100%. Battle of yonkers/the submarines and the redeker plan would be so awesome to see through the lens of a series.

If you liked that book, I suggest Fantasticland, if you haven't read it. Similar vein, all told through eyewitness accounts, about an amusement park that gets cut off from society during a hurricane.

Not as good as WWZ, but the audio book lands pretty well and it was a fun read/listen!

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u/Bandicutie314 Aug 21 '26

Shitty adaptation, but I did enjoy the movie.

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u/Benschmedium Aug 21 '26

Ironically the ONLY thing the movie got right was the Isarali wall, but they just turned that into a Zionist dickriding thing. Where’s my anti zombie wiener dogs, face melting laser beams, and feral children!!!

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u/zebus_0 Aug 21 '26

That was a real bummer. It would have made a banger of a TV show with each episode being a different story, or some of them being mulit-episode arcs.

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u/Lost_In_Play Aug 21 '26

The biggest miss of a potentially legendary zombie movie. HOWEVER, I do think it should be adapted to a TV series where each testimonial is it's own episode and each season is the sections in the book.

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u/Stoneheart7 Aug 21 '26

I've heard that somebody wrote a zombie move and came up with the name independently, but then found out about the book later. Rather than changing the title, they bought the rights to it because they knew it would sell tickets to the fans.

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u/kcfang Aug 21 '26

I watched it because of Brad Pitt and zombies, they really didn’t need to buy the rights to the book, could have name the movie anything else and I’d probably would still have gone and watched it.

BTW, did read the book later on, yea, totally different and probably a lot harder to adapt.

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u/SandwichedAss Aug 21 '26

This is really it. They could've just called it "Zombies with Brad Pitt" and it probably would've done great.

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u/awispyfart Aug 21 '26

Even Brooks hated it lol

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u/FastSlugs Aug 21 '26

I so badly wanted the scene of the military blasting Iron Maiden but nope.

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u/OSUBrit Aug 21 '26

The nuke going off was also in the book. But they literally don't talk about it at all in the movie.

1

u/dokterkokter69 Aug 21 '26

While I do agree that it's infuriating the adaptions aren't faithful to the book, I cannot deny that the game went fucking hard. (Plus without it we wouldn't have the swarm mechanic implemented in space Marine 2)

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u/kne0n Aug 21 '26

God I wanted to see the battle of Yonkers so bad

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u/Viron_22 Aug 22 '26

If anything it being so different made it easier for the author to not hate it. "It was just someone else's movie. It had nothing to do with me."

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u/Rasples1998 Aug 22 '26

Great zombie movie, terrible world war Z movie.

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u/DataDude00 Aug 21 '26

WWZ is a fine zombie movie it is just terrible for the source material

Funny enough I think Alex Garland's Civil War movie captured the vibe a WWZ movie should have with journalists travelling the country and all of these micro interactions / subplots on their journey

I think Garland directing a limited HBO series would be the best way to do a WWZ adaptation

0

u/Northerwolf Aug 21 '26

And rather than Israel coming together we get...Arabs dooming everyone because they like to sing. Like yeah, the book was stupid and Yonkers still makes me twitch angrily in how dumb it is but it was still better than having Brad Pitt action-star himself to a cure.

0

u/somesketchykid Aug 21 '26

I've always said that I would love the movie if it was named literally ANYTHING else. Its a fantastic zombie movie tbh.

That said, World War Z is my favorite piece of Zombie Media that exists full stop, so no matter how fantastic World War Z the movie was, its simply infuriating that they used the name and did not stay true to literally any of the source material.

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u/wutImiss Aug 21 '26

Eh, the book is overrated. Maybe I'll actually like the movie 🤔

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u/ErilazHateka Aug 21 '26

To be fair, the book is highly overrated. As a zombie movie, WWZ is pretty good.

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u/TokeDraws Aug 21 '26

It's a terrible, terrible zombie movie.

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u/dxrazor20 Aug 21 '26

I seriously never understood

Did people forget the Book Zombies aren't like the Movie at all

Like no NONE of the solutions in the Book WOULD have worked

Not only was the transmission set but the zombie's are runners unlike in the book which were the common walking dead

Like seriously people I think you just can't enjoy the movie for what it is and ALWAYS HAVE to compare it Was it faithful? No. Was it good? Debatable

Does it have merit as its own? Yes

And like I've never understood anyone just keep telling about Israel like seriously? You people really can't seperate the fiction from reality?