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Adaptational Wimp / Live-Action Films

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  • 101 Dalmatians (1996): In the original animated film, Cruella was close to being an Invincible Villain. She was never played for laughs and the dalmatians and other animals never actually got the best of her like with Horace and Jasper. The only reason she failed in the end was because of Horace's stupidity causing him to rip the steering wheel out of the vehicle he and Jasper were driving and causing it to crash into Cruella's car just as she was about to get the dalmatians. In the live action remake, she suffers a Humiliation Conga from a bunch of barnyard animals and ends up covered in mud and molasses when the police find her. She suffers a similarly humiliating defeat in 102 Dalmatians.
  • The Adventures of Spirou and Fantasio: In nearly all albums of the original comics, Spirou and Fantasio get caught at least once in a hand-to-hand combat with villains (and usually win). The first is even a boxing expert. Here, Fantasio is dragged outside the hotel by security guards and don't resist. As for Spirou, he prefers to run away in front of Gantagwa's policemen. When confronted to Marie, he simply throw suitcases at her (albeit it can be because of a Wouldn't Hit a Girl case). She clearly have the upper hand anyway, and it's the squirrel Spip, of all people, who win the brawl. Later on, when facing Zorglub, the later have no difficulties to simply throw away Spirou like a rag doll.
  • Zig-Zagged in the case of Juliet Butler, who was a teenage badass in the Artemis Fowl books who learned a variety of deadly arts from her older brother. In the film adaptation, while she is younger (and Butler's niece rather than his sister), she's still introduced fencing with Butler and established as a capable fighter. But, of the cast of heroes, she is the one who has the least to contribute during the film's climactic battle against the troll in Fowl Manor.
  • The critically panned Batman & Robin managed to drastically alter three epic Batman characters, one of them being the Dark Knight himself.
    • Batman is normally the level-headed anti-hero who never falls for Poison Ivy's feminine wiles and defeats her with ease. In the film, Poison Ivy seduces Batman easily and nearly succeeds in killing him as if it were nothing.
    • Poison Ivy is another Tragic Villain who only wants to save the plant life of the world. Reluctantly finding herself in conflict with Batman and slowly losing her humanity due to her plant mutation. In the film, she's an immature Smug Snake with a crush on Mr. Freeze, hoping to impress him by killing Batman and Robin.
    • In most stories, Bane is a master strategist with a peak physical condition who broke Batman's back. In the movie, he's just Ivy's Dumb Muscle and loses a fight with an inexperienced Batgirl.
  • The Dark Knight Trilogy:
    • In Batman Begins:
      • Detective Arnold Flass is a bullying Dirty Cop who plays the face of the Gotham police as they stand, but rather than the muscular former Green Beret in Year One who takes forethought to lay low, Detective Arnold Flass is a snippy Fat Bastard who can only throw his weight around wielding a gun on unarmed civilians.
      • Downplayed with The League of Shadows. They’re still a massive global threat in the film, but in the comics they almost destroyed the whole Justice League and Batman has never truly gotten the better of them (they capture and brainwash him to forget every time he’s found their headquarters) and their resources in the comics are explicitly supernatural e.g the Lazarus Pit. In Batman Begins however (thanks to Nolan Doing In the Wizard) the fantastical aspects of The League of Shadows are Adapted Out and as a result the League along their leader Ra’s Al Ghul are more easily defeated by Batman, with even Alfred knocking one of their assassins out with a golf club. Still downplayed, since they’re the ones who made Batman Batman in this continuity.
    • Downplayed with Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, who is not the main villain, but rather The Dragon to the film's actual Big Bad, Talia Al Ghul. He’s also lacking Super Serum Venom that gives him Super-Strength on like the comics. For all that, though, he's still a rather terrifying villain.
      • Talia herself doesn’t display any of the crazy marital arts skill she has in the comics and relies on sneak attacks. She’s fairly easily killed too.
    • Commissioner Jim Gordon’s children get a massive deal of this in The Dark Knight thanks to getting a Age Lift, Demoted to Extra and then Put on a Bus. In the comics his son James becomes a formidable genius supervillain whilst his daughter Barbara more famously becomes Batgirl herself. In The Dark Knight they’re both just defenceless kids victimised by Two-Face. Even when there’s a eight year Time Skip in Rises which could’ve allowed for a teenage Batgirl to enter the story, Gordon’s family have already moved out of Gotham.
  • Blade of the Immortal: Rin Asano is aged down from fifteen to about ten in the film, and is almost completely useless since the Compressed Adaptation cuts out almost the entire back half of the manga where she finds her niche as a planner.
  • Some of the main female characters of Blood and Chocolate (1997) get a case of this in the movie:
    • Vivian to a slight degree. In the book, she comes out on top in every fight she's involved in, while here she gets captured by Gabriel and has to be rescued by Aiden before she can fight back, although in her defence she was recovering from silver poisoning at the time. She also has comparatively less agency in her relationship with Aiden; in the book she seeks Aiden out herself to ask him on a date while in the film he's the one pursuing her (literally) until he wears her down.
    • Astrid. In the book she's a ruthless Dark Action Girl who insists on competing in the Alpha fight with the men, gets into some vicious fights with other loups-garoux and carries out several murders to frame Vivian. Here, she spends most of her time crying and moping over Gabriel, and at most holds Aiden at gunpoint until Vivian persuades her to spare him.
  • BloodRayne does this to Belial. In the original video game, he was an exceptionally powerful demon whose body parts were scattered and were capable of granting supernatural powers to anyone who possess it (such as breathing fire, super-speed and immortality to name a few). In the Uwe Boll directed movie, he is downgraded to a vampire who managed to overcome all his species' weaknesses and his body parts merely grants other vampires this immunity instead of actual superpowers. While the original served as a Final Boss in the game and was an extremely challenging foe, movie!Belial doesn't even appear and is a Posthumous Character instead.
  • The Bravados:
    • Parral is a pathetic Dirty Coward in the movie, but in the book, he has a great deal of resourcefulness and Villainous Valor, and isn't afraid of death in the slightest.
    • Josefa is a tough Tomboy in the book and bravely accompanies the posse for most of the story. In the film, she's more of a sheltered socialite (albeit one who personally runs her family ranch) and only encounters the posse by chance.
  • Cinderella herself in Cinderella (2015). While she wasn't an Action Girl by any typical means in many versions of the original fairy tale or the Disney version, she was still an enduring character who often stood stern and strong in the face of abuse. She also stood up for herself, even if her stepfamily would never take serious her moments of rebellion, and she showed a little bit of sarcasm and intelligence here and there (in the morning when she called the clock "That old killjoy, even he orders me around!", when she stood up for her right to go to the ball even after her stepsisters mocked her wishes to go, "Maybe I should interrupt the "music" lesson", and in the climax once she's locked up she's trying everything she can to get out: screaming, pulling at the door, thinks up to get the dog so he can scare away Lucifer...). Any semblance of a spine is gone in the remake, and instead now we get a Cinderella that's so passive and meek she lets her stepfamily walk all over her, even if in this version she has the means to leave the house, she doesn't even attempt to escape once she's locked up in this version!
  • Mina Murray frequently gets this in the many film adaptations of Dracula. In the book, she plays an active role in the defeat of Dracula and is the Team Mom. Many movies, however, reduce her to the role of the Damsel in Distress.
    • Most drastically in Dracula (1931), which she spends most of weeping hysterically. The one time in the novel in which she gets hysterical is for a very good reason.
    • In Bram Stoker's Dracula, the title villain is portrayed more sympathetically and Mina has a quasi-romance with him, making her less enthusiastic about his destruction.
  • D-Day, a Foreign Remake of Commando (1985), does this to the hero Ivan by adapting out certain scenes. His original counterpart John (as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) can rip out car seats with his bare hands and at one point lifts a phone booth (with people still inside!) off the ground; Ivan doesn't have any scenes like such to make the film more "grounded" in reality (in all fairness, nobody can out-badass The Ahnuld in his prime back in the 1980s, so there's that). The remake's Big Bad is also a Dirty Coward who throws his mooks at Ivan and hides himself the entire climax (only to be blown up by a hidden IED), in comparison the original main villain as played by Dan Hedaya Do Not Go Gentle and tries his best to gun down John only to be outgunned.
  • Dad's Army (2016): In the original series, Hodges was a big, loudmouthed bully of a man who was always on the verge of a blustery rage. In this film, Martin Savage gives a much more downplayed performance than the late Bill Pertwee; his Hodges comes across as more of a sneering snarker.
  • Mumbles in Dick Tracy. In the comic strip, he's not the best crook, but he's dangerous and fully capable of murder; he even seems to have Joker Immunity (something very unusual for Chester Gould's characters, for whom death was usually final). In the movie, however, he was one of three lieutenants of Al "Big Boy" Caprice, but really didn't do anything criminal onscreen (certainly not as much as Flatop and Itchy). His two most important functions involve Tracy Perp Sweating him.
  • Doom:
    • Thanks to Doing In the Wizard a lot of the monsters from the Doom such as the Zombies, Imps, Pinky and Hell Knight gets this. In the games they're actually demons from hell with special powers and abilities. In the 2005 film, they're instead just humans injected with the experimental 24th chromosome turning them into monsters, some of them are even killed by regular Badass Normals.
    • Along with being a Decomposite Character the "Doomguy(s)" of the film get this. As cool as Sarge and Reaper are (thanks partly being played by Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban) compared to the Doomguy of the games, they might as well as be wusses in comparison. Notably they lack any of the fancy tools or armor of Game!Doomguy and even with the Psycho Serum aren't as strong, being unable to punch enemies into Ludicrous Gibs like him. By extension Doomguy's iconic BFG9000 gets this, in the games it shoots a big green blast that kills everything its aimed at in one shot. When Sarge uses the BFG in the film, he doesn't hit a single monster and only succeeds in melting a ceiling and a wall, which is very underwhelming compared to the games.
  • Dragon Ball Evolution:
    • Most fans of the show would argue everyone gets this, but the character who actually suffers the most is ironically Yamcha. In both the original manga and anime, Yamcha was a desert bandit and powerful martial artist who was eventually overshadowed but still a powerhouse compared to most normal Earthlings thanks to Ki Manipulation. In the movie Yamcha is literally just a bandit with no combat skill whatsoever, is easily pushed around by the heroes and is little more than comic relief.
    • Oozaru aka Goku’s Great Ape transformation gets this as well. In the original series Ozaru is gigantic being pretty much Kaiju-level of huge and has a Breath Weapon. In the movie Oozaru is way smaller being only the size of a large man and only has brute strength thus is far less scary and impressive as result. It also doesn’t help that in this version Oozaru/Goku is The Brute for Piccolo instead of a transformation for Goku as a Saiyan.
  • In Dungeons & Dragons beholders are Eldritch Abominations big enough to bite a human in half and with enough magical power that they shouldn't ever need to. Their single main eye renders all magic in its line of sight inert, and their numerous eye-stalks are capable of firing magic energy beams that can mind control, petrify, disintegrate, or even just outright kill enemies just by looking at them. They're easily among the most dangerous creatures in existence, xenophobic to the extreme, and highly egomaniacal. In the movie, beholders are downgraded to minor watchdogs for the villains.
  • In the Doctor Who cinema adaptation Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., Louise is much less badass than the TV series's Barbara, to the point that several of Barbara's more heroic moments in the original TV story are included in the film but given to a different character.
  • The two Fantastic Four film universes both do this to Doctor Doom. He was given electricity and metal skin in the first one and Psychic Powers in the second, but his powers just don't come anywhere near his comics incarnation, who is a wielder of both magic and superscience while wearing Powered Armor on par with Iron Man and possessing the resources of a small nation — all of which he gained through pure work and intellect. This mostly arises from attempts at Adaptation Origin Connection, which jibe poorly with Doom because his origin is both far more complex than and mostly disconnected from that of the Four — meaning any attempt to "simplify" it inevitably ends up cutting out everything about it.
  • In most adaptations of Frankenstein, this trope happens to Frankenstein's Monster. In the original novel the monster is an agile, extremely strong, and highly intelligent Genius Bruiser who is literate and able to speak eloquently, while in most adaptations he is grunting Dumb Muscle. This is the result of Lost in Imitation, with most adaptations thinking incorrectly that they're playing true to the source material, when they're actually imitating another adaptation. In the original film, this also seemed to owe to the fact that the monster never receives the time and training to become anything more than Dumb Muscle; the creature in the book started out as inarticulate but had the good fortune to hide out next to a family teaching a foreign guest English.
  • In Ghost Rider (2007) and its sequel, the Devil aka Mephisto in the comics goes from a Big Red Devil who's fought Galactus, to a regular old dude who gets outwitted, defied and even defeated by the titular hero. Mephisto's reality-bending powers, in general, are downplayed and he needs a human form to manifest himself, whereas in comics he can appear in his devilish form on Earth anytime he wants. Blackheart may be the worst offender since he goes from this◊ to this. Unlike his comic counterpart, Blackheart has no devastating supernatural power and in the Final Battle he gets defeated by Ghost Rider's Penance Stare; in the comics, the Penance Stare only makes Blackheart stronger.
  • Godzilla (1998) is heavily criticized for being very little like its source material, one aspect of which was altering the title monster from a Nigh Invulnerable prehistoric beast that has shown himself to be more or less invincible from all conventional military weapons (up to and including atom bombs) with the ability to shoot a powerful Breath Weapon from his mouth (his trademarked "Atomic Breath") to a mutated iguana that flees in terror from military attack, has no special abilities, and is killed by regular jets in the end. Partly why the animated series that followed the movie was more well-received was because it made the title monster tougher and gave back his atomic breath. The 1998 version even makes a cameo in Godzilla: Final Wars rechristened "Zilla" (cause there's nothing "godly" about him) where he faces the OG Godzilla in battle and is curbstomped in about 30 seconds.
  • Speaking of Godzilla: Final Wars, Hedorah went from one of Godzilla's most terrifying adversaries to cannon fodder, although to be fair the Final Wars version of Godzilla is possibly the most overpowered one in the franchise.
  • The Green Hornet goes from a dead serious Genius Bruiser whose skills are on par with Batman into an overweight manchild who requires saving from his partner Kato at every instant, fails to come up with intelligent ideas to help in their superhero crusade, and is a lot more emotionally fragile than his original counterpart. Best summed up in this one line:
    Green Hornet: Kato, save me!
  • The Harry Potter films have been accused of doing this to Ron. For example, in the first book, Ron and Harry are trapped by a monstrous plant, and Hermione has to save them; she panics so much that she forgets about her powers, and Ron is the one to angrily remind her what she can do. In the film, Ron almost dies because he panics, and Hermione basically figures out how to save him herself, all while acting relatively calm.
  • "Hearts and Armor" is very loosely based on Orlando Furioso. Remember the legendary Marfiza, who was on par with any knight, losing only against Bradamantes magic lance? Here she is the fiancee of Ruggiero...or his sister like in the original after all?...or both? The makers of the film don't know themselves, apparently.... In any case, wizard Atalante had a vision Ruggiero will be slain by Orlando. Prophecies Are Always Right — vision! Since in this film, all knights are instantly recognizable by their wacky helmets, she slips into Ruggieros armor and gets an One-Hit Kill by Orlando. Her Heroic Sacrifice instantly ends the war by My God, What Have I Done? (and makes the way free for Bradamante). Ruggiero must have had a similar epiphany. Cue Orlando and Ruggiero Riding into the Sunset with their old/new brides.
  • The Hunger Games gives us Cato. In both the film and the book, Cato falls from the Cornucopia after being shot, into the Mutts waiting to kill him. In the film, they tear into him almost instantly, and Katniss has to mercy-kill him within seconds. In the book, however, Cato has a sword and body-armour, and holds out for over an hour fighting the Mutts, trying to make his way back around to the Cornucopia to climb it and kill Katniss and Peta.
  • I Shot Jesse James: In an interesting development, this film (possibly) does it for an actual person. The character of Soapy is portrayed as an old man that tends to drink too much and comes under the attack of various con men. However, the man he's likely based off of, Soapy Smith, was a much younger gangster that ran plenty of rackets in Creede and would often be the one conning people.
  • Dr. Claw in Inspector Gadget (1999) goes from an ingenious, manipulative, intimidating Diabolical Mastermind hiding from within the shadows while his legion of psychos for hire followed his every command to kill Gadget and take over the world into a effeminate, childish Giggling Villain with less than three incompetent thugs working under him. It doesn't help that a part of his driving motivation to one-up Gadget also involves gaining the affection of a scientist who his archenemy is also after.
  • In Jason and the Argonauts the Hydra much like The Loves of Hercules below goes down pretty easily, despite the whole regenerating head thing.
  • Jem and the Holograms (2015): In the original cartoon, Synergy was originally a massive supercomputer that could synthesize multiple musical beats, project holograms for Jem even when away at long distances, and acted as a Parental Substitute for the heroine. In the movie, Synergy is a tiny BB-8 style minibot that projects obviously fake holograms, acts more or less as Jem's iPod, doesn't form any emotional bond with the heroine, and shows no skills at music or dancing whatsoever.
  • In the original short story "Johnny Mnemonic," the title character's Action Girlfriend Molly is the fighter of the two, and smoothly kills the villain with his own weapon at the end. In the film adaptation Johnny Mnemonic, she is remodeled as Jane, a Faux Action Girl who does little of consequence beyond coming to Johnny's rescue early in the film. By the end of the movie, an Adaptational Badass Johnny kills the same villain character with his own weapon himself.
  • Joker (2019): While most media portrays The Joker as a Diabolical Mastermind, the film stresses that Arthur Fleck is simply not mentally capable of rising to that level.
  • Judge Dredd: Fergee from the comics is a musclebound mutant brawler so tough that he made himself king of the Big Smelly and went toe to toe with Judge Dredd himself in one-on-one combat. The 1995 movie makes him a Butt-Monkey citizen and comic relief character played by Rob Schneider.
  • In The Jungle Book novel, Grey Brother the wolf was a loyal and steadfast ally of Mowgli (as well as being his foster brother) who fought alongside him in the battle with the dholes. In The Jungle Book (2016), he stays as a cute little wolf pup who doesn't do much.
  • Donald Gennaro in Jurassic Park. In the novel, he goes along with Muldoon to catch the Tyrannosaurus and later to fight Velociraptors, manages to fend off a raptor attack, intimidates a ship captain with Technobabble, and survives to the end. In the film, he becomes a Dirty Coward who dies a particularly embarrassing death. (Remember the guy who got eaten by the T. rex while he was on the toilet? That was Don.) Movie Gennaro is basically an Expy of Ed Regis, a cowardly, weaselly PR character who only appears in the novel. Similarly, Sarah Harding from the sequel goes from an insanely badass Action Girl to a Too Dumb to Live Damsel in Distress.
  • Lady and the Tramp: Though Trusty does aid Lady in locating Tramp and Elliot in the climax he ultimately can't catch up to the carriage and doesn't suffer a Disney Death. It's Lady who stops the carriage and saves Tramp.
  • The Last Airbender:
    • Elemental bending is a lot less impressive than it was in the original cartoon.
      • In the show earthbenders could do things like create and manipulate relatively simple objects like stone carts, they could open holes in the earth to swallow foes, block attacks with walls of stone, or bring up pillars of stone under an enemy's feet to launch them into the air by themselves. In the movie, they just chuck rocks, and they're not even very big rocks.
      • In the show, even beginner firebenders could easily create fire from their own body heat. In the movie, only the greatest firebenders are capable of this — for most of them they can only use their bending abilities if there's an existing source of flame, like a campfire or a torch.
      • In addition to earth and fire getting nerfed, bending as a whole takes a lot longer to do, requiring a very long series of movements to do just about anything. The director imagined bending as being a lot like dancing with the bender doing multiple moves to build up his power before finally releasing it all at once. Not only is this completely backwards from the cartoon, where any attack could be performed with simple punching and kicking movements, but it also makes elemental bending seem very inefficient — normal people might not be able to shoot fire from their hands, but they can chop a bender's head off while he's performing his intricate multi-part interpretive dance about burning people.
    • Katara especially comes off as less powerful than the original cartoon. The most notable example is her fight against Zuko in the Northern Water Tribe city. In the cartoon, she came close to winning the fight, only finally losing when the sun came up, thereby strengthening Zuko's powers and weakening hers. In the film, she gets reamed in what is easily the most one-sided Curb-Stomp Battle in the entire movie. It also doesn't help that most of her character developing moments were either given to Aang or cut entirely.
  • French comic book series Les Profs (The Teachers) is about a cast of quirky, but overall competent high school teachers (except the lazy one who keeps finding new ways to avoid giving lectures). In the movie of the comic, they become the worst teachers of the whole French Educational system and are specifically selected as such (for instance the Napoleon-obsessed History teacher becomes a teacher wannabe who keeps failing at entrance exams because Napoleon is all he knows about history).
  • The Lone Ranger (2013): John Reid is somewhat less of a badass compared to his radio and TV versions. Justified as most versions of him are a Texas Ranger before donning the mask, while this one is a City Mouse lawyer. However he does get better as the film goes along; by the end although still not on his predecessors levels, he is close.
  • The Lord of the Rings:
    • The adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring significantly cuts down on the initial journey to Rivendell, which has this effect on Frodo to a noticeable degree. For instance, "Fog on the Barrow-Downs" being cut means that Frodo no longer hacks the hand off a wight, the scene of him managing to briefly drive back the Ringwraiths and slash at the legs of the Witch-King before taking his wound is removed in favor of Aragorn doing the work, and a bit in Moria where he wounds a cave-troll enough to scare it off is removed. This causes Frodo's increasing passivity over the course of the films to be significantly less noticeable, where in the books, he started out as clearly the most competent and heroic of the four hobbits.
    • The extended version of The Return of the King does this to Gandalf the White — in the book, him and the Witch-King had a brief standoff, but before the fight could get going, the Witch-King decided to leave to deal with the Rohirrim, which led to his death. It's treated as rather ambiguous who would win in a proper fight, though things heavily lean towards Gandalf. The film, though, gives a fairly straightforward answer by showing the opening rounds of the fight: the Witch-King wins, with him managing to overpower Gandalf and break his staff without too much apparent effort. While this was intended to show the Witch-King as a legitimate threat, the fact that he dies in a similar fashion to the book meant that it also made Gandalf look a lot weaker.
    • The Gondorian army as a whole. In The Return of the King, they generally come off as a lot more feeble, with Gondor's military being reduced down to just the soldiers of Minas Tirith and the Ithilien rangers, as opposed to the diverse mix of fiefdoms that supported the city in the books, as well as Beregond and Imrahil being cut. Notably, while in the books, Gondor was able to rally and force the enemy from the gates after Rohan arrived, the film shows them being pushed back far into the city, and while the rescue force led by Aragorn was largely composed of soldiers from the fiefdoms, in the film, it is cut down to just the Oathbreakers. The vast majority of Gondorian kills in the film are performed by arrows and siege engines, with them being repeatedly overwhelmed by orcish numbers whenever it comes down to melee.
    • Denethor in the books was, though increasingly suffering from Sanity Slippage, a competent military leader who commanded the army during Faramir's rescue and held a realistic and informed (if deeply cynical) perspective. In the film, he throws away the lives of his soldiers on clearly suicidal missions, refuses to call for aid from Rohan out of sheer stubborn control-freakishness, and is so disrespected by his men that Gandalf can get away with beating him unconscious in front of his own guards.
  • The hydra from Classical Mythology is most famous for how hard it was to kill: cut off one of its heads, and two more grow in its place. Yet in the Sword and Sandal film The Loves of Hercules, Herc cuts off just one of the hydra's heads, and it dies, just like that.
  • Madame Web (2024):
    • Spider-Women Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin and Anya Corazon go from badass arachnid action girls to three powerless damsels Webb needs to protect and babysit from Ezekiel. It is stated and briefly shown in flash forwards (where they take out the Ezekiel) that they will be strong Spider-Women in the future but in the movie itself, we still see none of their competency that will apparently make them such great superheroes.
    • Mary Parker, Spidey’s mother when she was alive in the comics was a badass S.H.I.E.L.D. secret agent Nick Fury himself held in high regard. In this film she’s just a clueless civilian who don’t have any real bearing on the plot beyond being pregnant with Peter.
  • The heroic Fairies from Maleficent go from highly confident, protective guardians in the Disney film to Lethally Stupid and incompetent fools. The three fairies were able to prevent Maleficent from ever locating Aurora by keeping a close eye on the girl and casting spells that made it hard for the mistress of evil to even find them. In the reboot, the fairies completely fail to watch the child and never noticed that Maleficent has found and interacted with Aurora multiple times. It's worth noting that they also have an Adaptation Name Change, leading some fans to insist that they're NOT the beloved Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather from the original film. It's more justified than many examples since the entire premise of the film is that the original version was not just inaccurate, but a deliberate falsehood used as propaganda.
  • The wife in The Man Who Knew Too Much changed from a clever Gunslinger to a clever retired singer in the Foreign Remake.
  • Baba Yaga in Morozko (released in America as Jack Frost) is nowhere near the levels of power typically associated with the character, being easily defeated multiple times by the protagonist, Ivan. In most legends, Baba Yaga is a nearly godlike being with many magical servants, the ability to cast hexes on anyone she dislikes, and enough physical strength to easily defeat giants capable of moving mountains with their bare hands. In this movie... she's not even close. She's basically defenseless without her servants, and even they're nothing compared to what they are in legends. In the American release she's dissociated even further from the character, having her name changed to The Hunchbacked Fairy.
  • In the video game franchise, Mortal Kombat, Stryker was one of the best characters in the game. In Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, he gets killed offscreen, with the only mention of him even existing being an offhand remark by one of Shao Kahn's henchmen about how easy he was to kill. Not even beloved characters are safe. Despite being an undead burning warrior akin to Ghost Rider, Scorpion is defeated by Johnny Cage in the Netherrealm with just a spear and shield in Mortal Kombat: The Movie.
  • Mortal Kombat (2021):
    • Nitara is a powerful winged vampire in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, fully capable of fighting the likes of Cyrax and Smoke, two cyborg ninjas. In the 2021 film however, Nitara isn't very impressive, only having total of two scenes, the second of which she's only there to showcase Kung Lao's Hat Trick fatality.
    • Reiko although he's a wannabe Shao Kahn In-Universe, is still a formidable warrior in the games. The new timeline in particular would depict Reiko as a devious Genius Bruiser who outsmarts most of Outworld, overpowers Jax and engages in a three on one fight with Kotal Kahn, Mileena and Ermac. In the 2021 film on the other hand, Reiko is downgraded to Dumb Muscle as The Brute of Shang Tsung and is easily killed once Jax gets his 11th-Hour Superpower.
    • Goro would be the hardest hit however. In both the games and his previous film portrayal he's a formidable Hero Killer and the trump card of Big Bad Shang Tsung against Earthrealm since in the game's lore not even the Great Kung Lao could beat him. Liu Kang, Earthrelam's World's Best Warrior was the first fighter in centuries to hand him a loss. In the 2021 movie Goro is treated as a big deal, but only physically appears in one scene to beat up Canon Foreigner Cole Young and then after a Heroic Second Wind is easily killed by Cole in order to show off his special arcana ability.
  • In Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Annabeth creates most of the plans that she, Percy, and Grover carry out. In the movie, she plays a smaller role, with most of the plans created by Percy. And in the second movie, her only part seems to be racist towards Tyson, and then she almost dies and Percy has to save her.
  • One complaint about Peter Pan & Wendy is that this happens to Peter Pan himself, seemingly in order to make Wendy and Tiger Lily more badass. He saves each of them in the book and original Disney film; here, we only ever see the girls saving him, and in Wendy's case, multiple times.
  • The Phantom of the Opera (2004):
    • It overlaps with the Broadway Musical but Christine is a far more assertive and spirited heroine in Gaston Leroux‘s novel than she is on the screen or the stage. In the original book, Leroux explicitly describes Christine as “strong”, and while not a Action Girl by modern standards she still physically overpowers her Love Interest Raoul several times to protect him from the jealous Phantom, and she even makes great effort to escape from the Phantom when he abducts her in the finale. Movie Christine much like the Mina and Cinderella examples above has had the spine completely removed from her character, The Ingenue traits are dialed up and she puts no resistance to the Phantom whatsoever compared to the book. Although to be fair most adaptions do this, e.g The Phantom of the Opera (1925) where Christine is just a hysterical Damsel in Distress.
    • To a lesser degree the Phantom himself gets this in the 2004 movie despite being played by Leonidas. In the book and musical the Phantom aka Erik is story-wise pretty much a Invincible Villain being an Evil Genius and Master of Illusion who could’ve easily killed Raoul, the Persian and even blown up half of Paris if not for Christine showing him mercy and compassion. In the movie when the Phantom engages Raoul in a Sword Fight in the graveyard he gets his caped ass handed to him and would’ve been killed right there, if Christine hadn’t urged Raoul to take mercy upon him and Raoul complying. In the book it’s detailed that Erik killed many warriors back in Persia with the Punjab lasso which is why the Persian was afraid of a physical confrontation with Erik.
  • In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Redd White was the head of his own company, Bluecorp, and had blackmail material on pretty much every important person in the city. He was also able to easily get Phoenix himself arrested on trumped-up charges, to try to avoid being arrested for killing Mia, and used his power to completely ruin the reputation of the Fey clan. In the movie though, he's put in as a reporter who ruined Misty's reputation through a column in the paper. He still kills Mia and frames Maya for it, but then he's killed off in prison, to avoid the plot hole of Phoenix having him spell the name of his boss, von Karma.
  • Pretty much every character that isn't Alice (and even then, she's a Canon Foreigner and Creator's Pet) was turned into one of these to at least some degree in the Resident Evil Film Series, but the hardest hit out of any characters was The Nemesis (yes, that Nemesis). He barely does any damage and goes down pretty easy, and this is after they hooked him up with a gatling gun to boot. Wesker doesn't fare better, having somehow forgot all of his powers during Resident Evil: The Final Chapter all the while being Demoted to Dragon.
  • Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City:
    • Leon Kennedy is easily the hardest hit in the film. In RE2 he’s a super rookie that could plow through countless zombies, B.O.Ws and take down Implacable Man Tyrant Mr.X all on his first day. In this film Leon gets a hefty amount of Adaptational Dumbass and is more like Hudson from Aliens. He was transferred to Raccoon City for accidentally shooting his partner during training, he spends most of the first act asleep (even a tanker truck crashing and exploding directly outside the RPD isn't enough to wake him up, with Irons having to save him from a flaming zombie that walked right into the station), and his rookie status is heavily played up. He’s much more comic relief than his badass game counterpart. He does at least get one moment of awesomeness right at very end when he takes down Birkin with the RPG.
    • Jill Valentine in the games is the most badass Action Girl in the franchise who could take down Nemesis all by herself. Here Jill barely does anything of note beyond shooting a few zombies, needs to be protected by Wesker of all people and in the film’s climax she’s outright Neutral Female who contributes nothing the fight with Birkin. Particularly odd, considering Claire who by contrast at this point isn’t nearly as experienced being a civilian, is portrayed as more competent.
  • RoboCop 2 sees Murphy having a harder time fighting the additional directives OCP gave him than the original script, where he was saying the things OCP wanted him to say, but otherwise still doing what he himself wanted.
  • Doctor Watson in many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes. In the books, he was a very sensible and sharp-minded decorated ex-military Combat Medic who demonstrates through his writing that he possesses keen attention and memory, who began his adventures with Holmes while in his mid-20s, is described as strongly built and square-jawed, is portrayed as a man of action who was handy with a revolver and notably more violence-prone and confrontational than Holmes, and who more often than not insisted that Holmes take him along on dangerous missions as backup or confronted Holmes hotly regarding the latter's unhealthy habits or antisocial behavior. On film, initially and most glaringly in the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce series from the 1940s, he is generally a timid, obedient, ineffectual fool, who is usually fat, feeble, and many years older than Holmes and has a hero-worshippy, anxious, speak-when-spoken-to demeanor. Some later adaptations (like the Granada TV series) tried to undo this, but his image in the broad public consciousness didn't really get revamped until the 2009 movie inverted this trope with a vengeance.
  • The Shining by Stanley Kubrick would do this to Wendy. In the book she’s full agency and surprising moral strength being willingly to do anything for her son Danny, even fight and kill to protect him long before there’s any actual danger. She’s not in any way submissive or docile when it comes to her troubled husband Jack and while does love him she was still going to walk out the door with Danny before he (temporarily) got his life back on track. When things start go bad she’s proactive in trying escape the Overlook and willingly to confront Jack even knowing he’s been possessed/gone crazy. The Shelley Duvall Wendy from the film is more of an Extreme Doormat for much of the film letting Jack (who got Adaptational Villainy) just insult and abuse her. When he goes nuts she knocks him out by accident while she was swinging a bat around and made him fall down the stairs — as opposed to the novel’s version where she was defending herself from being choked by smashing him with a bottle. Not helping matters is that the Hysterical Woman aspect of her character which was subdued in the book, is played up to the hilt in the film and robs Wendy of her strong willed Action Survivor qualities from the latter half of the book. Unsurprisingly Stephen King cites the treatment of Wendy as one of the many reasons why he dislikes this adaptation of his book.
  • Silent Hill: Revelation 3D
  • The Mystery Science Theater 3000 cut of Space Mutiny has an unitentional example: they cut out most of the battle with the Space Pirates for time. As a result, it seems like the Southern Sun just shoots a couple missiles and destroys the pirates. The uncut version actually has them fight the pirates for a couple minutes before winning, and the pirates manage to do some significant damage to the Southern Sun (such as destroying some turrets.)
  • Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man Trilogy. Not only is she kidnapped WAY less often in the comic books, but when she does, she always tries to free herself without any help. In the films, her being kidnapped became practically a cliché. For all its faults, the third and final film portrays her closer to the comics, with her finally taking initiative to avoid being killed during her kidnapping and actually being bold enough to throw a cinderblock at Venom. It's worth noting that the films seemed to be taking a page from Spider-Man: The Animated Series and Ultimate Spider-Man comics, which actually started the trend of MJ being made into a damsel in need of saving more often, likely due to combining her with Gwen Stacy.
  • Star Wars:
  • Street Fighter:
    • While most of the characters lack some of the powers of their video game counterparts, Dhalsim is an especially notable example. In the games, he's a stretching, fire-breathing yoga master. In the movie, he's a bullied lab technician with no powers. Supposedly, he was going to get his powers in the sequel, but it was never made.
    • Chun-Li at first appears to be a case of this trope, being a seemingly regular news reporter who hides behind her two bodyguards. It's later revealed to have been Obfuscating Stupidity.
    • Dee Jay goes from a beefy kickboxer to being Bison's IT guy. He plays basically no role in combat, and nopes out about midway through the final battle.
      Dee Jay: Ah, mon. I shoulda stayed at Microsoft.
  • Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is even worse about this:
    • The entire movie is spent building up to Chun-Li learning how to throw a fireball. It doesn't help that Kristin Kreuk is not a terribly convincing martial artist.
    • M. Bison is not the musclebound psychic powerhouse from the games, but rather a short Irishman with no superpowers. He's also defeated in a truly humiliating manner after Chun-Li accidentally gets cement powder in his eyes like some kind of Home Alone villain. Cracked had this to say:
      He's meant to be the ultimate unarmed combatant and the only people he punches in the entire movie are a chained-up secretary and an unborn fetus.
  • In 1993's Super Mario Bros. (1993) the entire Koopa family are changed from fire-breathing turtle dragon sorcerers into fairly average humanoids, with the only strange thing about them being that they evolved from dinosaurs rather than apes. Koopa Troopas and Goombas zigzag into Adaptational Badass by changing into big burly guys with tiny heads, but then it gets subverted when you see them in action. Mario and Luigi never once jump on someone's head or change into tanukis. There's even a brief moment at the end where the movie teases us by having the Devolution Device used on King — correction, President Koopa, turning him into a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Sadly, a T. Rex still isn't quite as badass as a fire-breathing turtle dragon, and he ends up being an Anti-Climax Boss anyway, getting devolved into primordial ooze in short order.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows: Karai, the Shredder's daughter, the successor who would take over the role as the feared leader of the Foot Clan, and the same girl who murdered Leonardo once (He got better), ends up becoming a barely present backup lieutenant who suffers a One-Hit KO from April O'Neil, of all characters, in her only fight scene.
  • Transformers Film Series:
    • Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen:
      • Arcee and her sisters (named outside of the movie as Chromia and Elita One). In most previous adaptations, they could hold their own with the male Autobots against the Decepticons. In the movie, they're barely able to make a dent in Sideways and two of them end up getting destroyed in the film's final battle in Egypt.
      • And then there's The Fallen himself. In the original comics, he was an immortal being older than the planet itself, a powerful sorcerer capable of apocalyptic dark rituals, strong enough to casually curbstomp Grimlock (even managing a Bare-Handed Blade Block against a Laser Blade), and always on fire for no particular reason. Later stories elaborated further, suggesting him to be a member of the Thirteen and therefore a former retainer to the Cybertronian overgod Primus, and the former guardian of the universal concept of entropy. Then there's the film version of the Fallen, who is some old guy robot who isn't on fire who orders around Megatron for a few scenes and then gets murdered by Prime in under two minutes. Even odder, Word of God claims that the Fallen in the films and the Fallen in the comics are the exact same individual — did he decide to not bring his godlike power into battle that day?
    • Transformers: Dark of the Moon does this to Wheeljack. While both versions are a cunning Gadgeteer Genius; Wheeljack in The Transformers could still do well in battle. In the movie, Wheeljack, now referred to as Que, ends up getting captured by the Decepticons in the final battle in Chicago and begs for his life before getting unceremoniously shot to pieces.
  • V for Vendetta turns Gordon Dietrich into a chubby, middle-aged comedian (played by Stephen Fry, no less) when he was younger, more physically imposing career criminal in the book. Then again, the film also has him defying the Party's laws by hiding banned books and films in his house, and openly mocking Chancellor Sutler on his show (which he is eventually executed for), which is far more badass than anything the character did in the book.
  • We Were Soldiers: Sergeant Major Plumley, believe it or not. While everyone who saw the film who knew the man said that Sam Elliott did wonderful work of capturing his essence, it also severely downplayed just how much of a hardass he actually was.

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