Note: This article lists examples that take place within fandoms; not TV Tropes' opinion as to whether a change is for the worse. TV Tropes doesn't have opinions. The focus is on over-reaction about minor changes.
Superhero costumes:
- Any Superhero film is inevitably going to have tons of complaints about the lack of costumes or the costumes being changed from their comic counterparts. No matter how long these tropes have been in effect, people still get upset over any change to the outfits.
- People complained about Hawkeye not wearing purple tights and a mask in The Avengers, specially since his movie outfit was a fairly accurate adaptation of his look from the much maligned The Ultimates.
- The infamous "yellow spandex" line from the first X-Men movie. ("Not only did they change the costumes, but they had to make fun of the old ones too!")
- The Winter Soldier not wearing a Domino Mask in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
- There was a massive amount of outrage over the new Superman suit from Man of Steel. The biggest sticking point seemed to be the removal of the red trunks from the outfit and the loss of Superman's trademark spit curl.
- There was much grousing over the lack of head wings on Captain America's mask in Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers (2012).
- There was internet controversy over the new costume from The Amazing Spider-Man.
- There are some fans who absolutely loathe the armored Batsuit from The Dark Knight Trilogy, with a lot of criticism about it it's "too dark" and clunky when compared to the comic costume.
- The suit from Daredevil (2003) also took some criticism. Many people complained that the leather made it look like fetish gear, even though the director argued that a leather outfit would be the most sensible thing to wear since it'd offer greater protection than spandex.
- This mindset is actually lampshaded in an episode of Community, where Abed plans on "crashing" the Continuity Reboot of his favorite movie Kickpuncher while wearing the classic Kickpuncher costume. When his friends are baffled as to why he's upset in the first place, he tells them the filmmakers had no right to change Kickpuncher's design for the new movie.
Examples. They changed them, and now they suck.
- Star Wars:
- Best exemplified by the Robot Chicken parody of the "Luke, I Am Your Father" scene.Darth Vader: No, I am your father!
Luke: That's not true! That's impossible!
Darth Vader: And Princess Leia is your sister!
Luke: [bewildered] No! That's... improbable!
Darth Vader: And the Empire will be defeated BY EWOKS!
Luke: [totally lost] That's... very unlikely.
Darth Vader: And as a child, I built C-3PO!
Luke: [by now completely stoic] ...Huh.
[Later, with Vader sipping coffee and Luke smoking a cigarette]
Darth Vader: [matter-of-factly] And the Force? Oh, that's just microscopic bacteria in your bloodstream, called midichlorians.
Luke: [getting up, bored and exasperated] Look, if you're not gonna take this seriously, I'm out. (exits) - The original trilogy had a bunch of changes made in Special Editions, because George Lucas was not satisfied with his movies and wanted to use modern technology to make them how he always envisioned, those changes are very controversial, some listed below:
- Most notably is that at the very end Luke sees young Anakin's ghost, not the older version as he did originally.
- In the Blu-Ray release, Darth Vader has one final line as he throws the Emperor over the railing: "Nooooo!" Got rather ridiculous as numerous angry fans tried to turn Vader shouting into the new "Greedo shoots first". While various characterization arguments re: Han and his shooting first could be made (thus arguably an example of "They changed it and made it suck" instead), Vader's shouting or silence just boils down to "They changed it, now it sucks". Somewhat justified: while more people defended this change than the infamous Han Shot First and Hayden Christensen Force ghost edits, others (not just the nostalgic
Fan Dumb) argued that Vader's Big "NO!" turned a once-emotionally powerful scene into a heaping pile of Narm. - Boba Fett's voice in the Blu-Ray. While both Jason Wingreennote and Temuera Morrisonnote provided similar vocal performances for the character, fans treated what is basically a change in accent as just as horrible as Greedo shooting first. Let's not even get started with the fact that Fett only has about three lines to begin with. There again, some felt that it was rather disrespectful to the original actor.
- The removal of the 20th Century Fox Vanity Plate and fanfare from Disney-distributed digital copies of Episodes V-VI and the prequels upset fans who thought this made the opening feel less epic, and that the music that replaced Fox's fanfare (an excerpt of Empire Strikes Back end credits music, clumsily edited to match the runtime of Lucasfilm's "Logo Shining II" Vanity Plate) doesn't transition as smoothly into the Star Wars theme. It also creates inconsistency with Fox retaining their logo and fanfare on A New Hope digital copies. Oddly, when Disney acquired distribution rights to the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies originally released through Paramount, two years before they started distributing any of the original Star Wars films, they didn't remove Paramount's logo.note The 2019 4K remasters restored the Fox logo and fanfare, since Disney acquired the assets of 21st Century Fox that same year.
- Although Star Wars fans have a point because one thing is a bad sequel or bad reboot, you can still enjoy the original and ignore the new version, another thing is the movie we like getting changed after it was already released, and to make it worse, George Lucas doesn't allow the public to obtain copies of the movies in their original forms, making fans resort to piracy or old copies like VHS tapes or LaserDiscs.
- Rogue One, the first installment in Disney's new Anthology spinoff series, departed from the usual stylistic norms in the franchise. The Black-and-White Morality is replaced with Black-and-Gray Morality, there are no Jedi, the opening crawl is gone, and the film more closely resembles a gritty war movie than a whimsical space opera. Subsequently, some fans complain how Rogue One doesn't feel like Star Wars.
- The Last Jedi deliberately subverts and toys with audience expectations, leading to some fans complaining how it didn't meet their expectations. The decision to make Luke a more jaded mentor didn't sit too well with some fans. Ironically, many of these same people complained that The Force Awakens didn't do enough to change things.
- The Star Wars Legends fandom suffers from this reaction every time someone dies, even when a single character that wasn't even in the original movies was killed off. In recent years, the universe has dipped more into Anyone Can Die territory, leading to this happening frequently. Perhaps most shockingly of all, Chewbacca was killed during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. At least he got a Heroic Sacrifice.
- It also suffered this reaction when Disney decided not to base the sequel trilogy on the existing book timeline.
- Best exemplified by the Robot Chicken parody of the "Luke, I Am Your Father" scene.
- X-Men Film Series
- X-Men, based on possibly the most sprawling, confusing and self-contradictory comic book franchise in all the land, had an infinite number of complaints leveled at it, from "Wolverine's like a foot too tall!" to "Magneto's too old!" to "Rogue's too young!" to "Since when is Jean Grey a doctor?!" to "How come Storm didn't freak out when she was in that elevator shaft, she's supposed to be claustrophobic!" to... well, let's stop while we're still young. Subsequent films in the series have just made things worse. Lampshaded with the "yellow spandex" line.
- X-Men: Days of Future Past:
- Wolverine being the one to travel back in time rather than Shadowcat, who did so in the original storyline. Part of the reason this causes backlash is that Shadowcat's role has been played by another character before, by Bishop in the 90's cartoon (presumably in an attempt to capitalize on the then-recently introduced character's popularity). Not to mention the Professor more-or-less filling the role in Wolverine and the X-Men (2009).
- Pietro being renamed 'Peter' to Americanize him is also a point of contention for some. Especially as it comes after the many times the films have turned non-American characters into Americans, including changing their names to more American-sounding ones.
- Roger Ebert made a case for why Black & White films should not be colorized says the same thing
. He has a point, especially the part where he says that choosing the right colors is basically Wild Mass Guessing. Orson Welles allegedly exclaimed, "Tell Ted Turner to keep his crayons away from my movie!" - Harry Potter:
- This phenomenon has caused many fans to have the exact opposite reaction to the film adaptations as many critics do. While film critics generally agree that the films got better from Prisoner of Azkaban, many fans vilified these for not being as word-for-word faithful as the first two had. But part of this is down to the first few books being shorter and not needing as many plot points and scenes dropped as the others.
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire provoked an incredibly extreme backlash over one thing - Hermione's dress for the Yule Ball. It was blue in the book and pink in the film. Hundreds of fans complained about the change, believing that the costume designer must have not gotten the memo, not read the book(s), assumed she would wear pink because she is a girl or was colorblind. For a time, the film's IMDB page was in an edit war over listing "Hermione is a person who hates pink and would never wear a pink dress" as a Plot Hole and there were many Facebook pages complaining about it.
- A rather vocal portion of the base complained about one thing in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. After Umbridge dismisses Professor Trelawney, Dumbledore says to the students "don't you all have studying to do?" - which prompted cries from purists that Dumbledore was acting uncharacteristically angry.
- The Burrow Burning scene in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince got this too naturally. Some particularly vocal fans claimed it would cause a Plot Hole for the wedding to take place there in the next film. This was ignoring that the attack happened in December and the wedding in June - which would be long enough for the Weasleys to rebuild their house. The criticisms of the scene being a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment with not much mention afterwards were a little more valid.
- Not even the first films were immune from this. A portion of the base reacted negatively to a change in the Devil's Snare scene. In the book, Hermione panics and Ron has to tell her to get a grip. In the film, it's Hermione who remains calm. The complaints about Ron becoming an Adaptational Wimp were taken a little out of contextnote - with many forgetting that the film still keeps the chess scene intact. Ron still saves the day, Hermione panics and has to be stopped by Harry - just like in the book.
- An example similar to The Hunger Games example below. When Katie Leung was cast as Cho Chang, many fans were angry at the apparent Race Lift - not realising that Cho was meant to be Asian. To Rowling's credit, her race is never mentioned in the book and the only description of her is about her long dark hair. But a few missed the last name, which is the only indicator of her race.
- Voldemort's death scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was heavily criticized by fans. In the book, his body "hit the floor with a mundane finality", showing that despite all his posturing and efforts to make himself immortal, he had truly met his end just like anyone else. In the film, his body just...disintegrates. In an effort to make Voldemort's death more of a spectacle, it loses its actual significance, not to mention opening up another possible Never Found the Body situation like the first time he was defeated.
- Fans didn't like the liberties taken with the second and third Narnia adaptationsnote and claimed they were moving closer to In Name Only. The extremeness of this audience-reaction-trope was demonstrated by a small line at the end of the third film - "Jill Pole's stopped by for a visit". Cue dozens of purists wailing "Jill and Eustace aren't meant to be friends! Why is she coming over to his house! It's ruined!".
- The film versions of The Lord of the Rings suffered from their fair share of overly critical complaints:
- Fans commonly complain about the removal of the last part of The Return of the King, the Scouring of the Shire. A common criticism of the film from non-fans is that the ending of the film goes on far too long even without it.
- Some fans miss Tom Bombadil. Most accept that he's a walking Deus ex Machina, quintessential Wacky Wayside Tribe, and that he would probably be unplayable on film.
- Ghan-buri-Ghan and his Wacky Wayside Tribe were also removed, but arguably they are more important to the narrative and the themes than ol' Tom.
- Before the release of the films some fans complained about Arwen being turned into "Xena Elven Princess", but this criticism died down after the actual films came out and it turned out that Arwen only had one action scene note .
- Some Tolkien purists also complain about Tolkien's "precious" dialogue being altered for the film. While the flowery, poetic, somewhat Shakespearean prose works well enough in the books, it can sound stilted, unnatural, and excessively formal, if not downright hammy, when spoken aloud by actual humans. The dialogue of the film makes the characters sound more like modern people, which, on screen, is more important than including every last tiny detail and bit of dialogue, unaltered in any way.
- The Hobbit film draws some fan ire for some rather severe background-story changes. The White Council claims that they are in the Watchful Peace, a period which in the source material ended 500 years before the events of The Hobbit. They claimed that the Witch-King was killed, buried, and entombed. Moved up the conversion of Greenwood to Mirkwood by about 2000 years (!), made Azog survive the battle of Azanulbizar (to allow him to be the Big Bad of the film series, rather than Bolg, his son in the book), and made it so that the Necromancer did not appear until the year of the book, rather than about 2000 years before.note
- There's also the Romantic Plot Tumor introduced by the love triangle between Legolas, Kili, and Tauriel, the latter a character invented out of whole cloth by the screenwriters. Including Legolas at all invoked fiery wrath among some, seeing as Legolas is not in The Hobbit and was blatantly shoe-horned in so that Peter Jackson could invite as many of his actors back as possible, but others argued that it made sense to feature him, as his father is a major character in the stories. Tauriel, however, was hated as soon as it was announced that she would be a character. It was as if a cardinal rule had been violated; thou shalt not insert original characters in Tolkien's world.
- Batman Film Series: Many hardcore fans decry Burton's decision to have the Joker be the murderer of Bruce's parents in the 1989 film adaptation. When the sequel rolled around, many fans were outraged at the Penguin's change from an eccentric professional criminal that was only slightly penguin-like in appearance (The origin of his nickname? He wears a penguin tuxedo) to a deformed subhuman that ate raw fish, had flippers, spewed black blood, and otherwise looked exactly like Dr. Caligari.
- Batman Begins is commonly agreed to be the second-best Batman film adaptation, but some die-hard fans are very, very angry that Scarecrow ran Arkham Asylum instead of teaching psychiatry and was more concerned about making money than obsessively studying fear, while others just accepted the Rule of Scary. Others disparage the new tank-like appearance of the Batmobile... even though it's Batman Begins and it's a prototype vehicle he hasn't had any time to modify into something more "battish". And that he loses it in the sequel and shows he's quite adept with high-performance sports cars, too....
- In something of a twist on the outrage of changing the Joker to be the Waynes' killer, when Batman Begins went back to the source material to use the original killer, many who were only familiar with Batman thanks to the Burton movies believed this to be the alteration. "Everyone knows the Joker killed Batman's parents!"
- There were also many who were furious that the Joker's rictus grin, white face, and green hair was due to make up, coupled with a Glasgow Smile, rather than being dumped in a vat of acid. Most of these complaints dried up once the film was released.
- It's amazing to see how much criticism the Watchmen movie received before its release. People couldn't even wait to see it to start complaining. The movie is based on an Alan Moore comic. Moore himself is quite vocal about how much he thinks the previous movies based on his works suck. Furthermore, Watchmen especially has been long considered a work that any adaptation would struggle with effectively bringing to the screen whilst remaining faithful to the source material. Bizarrely, fans of the comic even complained about the character of Dr. Manhattan himself - specifically, the rumor that he might be wearing a G-string to cover his glowing blue penis. Disregarding that male full-frontal nudity is very hard to portray on film without getting an X rating, it was only ever a rumor, and he's portrayed as wearing something similar several times in the comic itself. Things didn't help much when they trimmed out the supporting characters in order to fit the story in a 3-hour movie. Thankfully, the Director's cut adds much more of the minor recurring characters.
- Most of the criticism of the 2007 Beowulf movie was based on this reaction. The DVD includes an interview with Neil Gaiman explaining why he made these alterations, and they're pretty decent reasons.
- The Resident Evil Film Series made so many changes to the story, major shifts in tone, and alterations to the characters from the game series that it's practically the poster child for In Name Only film adaptations. They do have a fanbase and most of them turned a decent profit, but the overlap between fans of the movies and fans of the games is a whole lot smaller than you'd expect, because they pretty much feel like separate intellectual properties despite sharing one.
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Since the period of the film shifted from the 30s to the 50s, the villains (Nazis > Communists) and film influence (old Republic Film Serials > science fiction B-movies) changed, and some fans weren't happy. Not to mention the serious Fan Wank about CGI gophers. Goddamn CGI gophers.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) was based on a new script written by Douglas Adams before his death, as opposed to direct adaptation of the original text. As a result of this, the film contained many differences in plot from the original radio/book/TV stories (each of which also had rewrites between adaptations; one joke in the fandom goes that there is no canon, only suggestions), which annoyed some long-time fans of the series. Adams was a merciless self-editor. It's given that while he did write (at least some of) the film script, it was far from finished by his standards. Furthermore, the concept of the Hitchhiker's universe having anything that could legitimately be called Original Text is laughable at best. Numerous fans complained about Ford Prefect being played by Mos Def, apparently operating under the assumption that Ford was white. In fact Ford's race is never specified in the novels.
- Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining is quite different from the book, and gets a lot of Stephen King fans saying how much it sucks. It is a pretty bad adaptation, as it changes almost everything from the source material aside from the character names and the basic premise. Even Stephen King himself considers it the worst adaptation of one of his books. Outside of them, it's considered one of the best horror movies ever made.
- Stephen King movies in general tend to greatly simplify the novels because a two-hour movie isn't long enough to include every detail from even a regular novel, let alone a King doorstopper. People who prefer the books tend to think the movies represent butchery; people who prefer the movies tend to think King would really benefit from a ruthless editor.
- The Last Airbender, based on a series, suffered from this in the run up to its release. Besides complaints about its Race Lift casting, many show fans criticized minor changes; things like the color of Zuko's clothing, Katara's pulled-back loopies, Aang's grey colored arrow, Sokka not showing any sense of humor, the severity of Zuko's scar, and the size of Iroh's belly. Avatar, with its length and depth, arguably could never be shrunken into a film (especially since it's an adaptation from animation, instead of a book or comic). Still, it's like the director wasn't even trying. It was just drama after drama, without the adorable and silly characters and the superbly intricate (Emmy-winning) plot. When the film actually came out, these complaints fell by the wayside, with the film's dialogue, Exposition Fairy narration, wooden Dull Surprise acting, and Special Effect Failure eclipsing those earlier criticisms out of existence (though the mere mispronunciation of the characters names is a sticking point with many).
- Many Lion King fans disliked the fact that they put "The Morning Report" a song that isn't even 2 minutes long, into the Special Edition DVD. Oddly, many like the musical version, and some complainers might have overlooked the DVD's option to replace "The Morning Report" with the original scene of Mufasa teaching Simba how to pounce.note Outcry proved so negative, Disney eventually made the Blu-Ray relegate "The Morning Report" into a bonus short, with no option to branch it into the movie. Yet more fans complain that the DVD's "Original" version of The Lion King still has some differences from the version presented in 1994, such as an updated Disney logo,note redrawn crocodiles during "I Just Can't Wait to Be King", and a reanimated pollen cloud that no longer looks anything like the word "sex". Even though none of these changes affect the plot, some fans have accused Disney of "false advertising" for not telling them about the changes sooner.
- Fans of G.I. Joe are complained about the new movie and leaked plot details before it was filmed, going as far as to say that statements that the story is based on the comics (even coming from the comic writer Larry Hama himself) are out and out lies because: Ripcord is Black which is incompatible with stories Rip Cord had in the comics, Not everyone on the team is American, Baroness had a relationship with Duke and Cobra Commander wasn't a used car salesman but rather a former soldier and a scientist who works for Destro in the first movie. They will ignore the numerous plot elements that come from the comics story, and decry "it's not based on it at all." One review actually began with the line "If it doesn't feature the line "Cobra, retreat!" then it isn't a GI Joe movie." Naturally, the phrase "real fan" showed up within two paragraphs...
- The Silent Hill movie. While the fidelity to the game's visual style was praised, changing the main character was, among other things, met with such a reaction by the fans, with the director's rationale for the Gender Flip (he thought a man going through an almost literal hell to save his child was too unbelievable and made game protagonist Harry Mason seem like a very feminine character) coming off as idiotic, patronizing, and more than a little insulting.
- Sherlock Holmes (2009) has been criticized for making an action film out of the source material. This is despite the fact that there are a number of action sequences in the Sherlock Holmes adventures. Holmes is canonically a martial artist, fencer, etc., and Watson is an army veteran. Point of fact, it is only in later adaptations of the beloved characters that Watson was relegated to nothing more than foil, medic, and narrator. Many instances in the original series have Watson physically helping Holmes fight off the villains, and is considered a crack shot better than Holmes.
- The Phantom of the Opera (2004): Frickin' third-degree sunburn. Many other things different than that, including Erik's complete backstory.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief changed many things in the books. Common minor complaints were character's appearances and behaviors being changed, e.g. Grover being black, Annabeth being brunette and bossy rather than nerdy, all three main characters being 5 years older than in the book, and all Greek Gods and monsters not appearing modernised. Bigger complaints were that several characters were omitted entirely, notably Dionysus, Clarisse, the Oracle, Kronos, and Ares, which greatly changed the plot seeing as Kronos and Ares were important villains. As a result, some characters had their motives completely change, turning Hades, who spent most of the book appearing to be an evil god who stole the lightning bolt but was actually innocent, into an openly evil god who was instantly revealed to not have taken the bolt. Several small sub-plots were also forgotten, such as Zeus' daughter Thalia and Grover's quest to get a searcher's license. The standalone sequel Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters immediately brings many of these things back.
- In The Karate Kid (2010), the setting has been changed to China and the young man learns kung fu. Perhaps they should have renamed the movie The Kung Fu Kid? In defense of the franchise, it was only supposed to be in America that the film would be called The Karate Kid in order to spark interest from new and old fans. Jackie Chan and supposedly the whole film crew and cast referred to it as The Kung Fu Kid while filming. Despite this, the moniker The Karate Kid was still used when the movie was released in Asia and the rest of the world. In offense to the producers, there is no way Chinese kids would treat a foreign guest so poorly without provocation. As an American exchange student, that kid would have been instantly the most popular kid in school.
- Robin Hood (2010) has taken a lot of heat for being a history-oriented original origin story instead of a retelling of the Robin Hood story "everybody knows". The story everyone knows includes the usual setup of Prince John acting as regent in King Richard's absence, Robin being an outlawed knight, and Robin Storming the Castle to save Maid Marian. In the 2010 film, these plot elements are either absent (Richard dies at the start, and John is king for the rest of the film) or given a new twist (Robin, a commoner, poses as Marian's deceased husband, a knight), and the main plot is about setting up the legend to happen in the context of a (fictional) French invasion. The movie ends with Robin finally being outlawed by John. Many people were dissatisfied, to say the least, with the film for not following "the story everybody knows". But "the story everybody knows" (most probably through the combination of Errol Flynn, Kevin Costner and Disney) is itself an Adaptation Distillation of centuries of folklore, literature and previous adaptations. Most of the details in the version everyone knows were only established through the years - including all of the above familiar elements, and Robin robbing the rich and giving to the poor itself (which is in the film, but not as much as people expected). So the film is bashed somewhat unfairly for changing and adding to the story when that's how the legend developed in the first place.
- Some fans take more issue with the ridiculously ahistorical parts of the film - for instance the almost Omaha-beach-like landing craft that the French arrive in. Whilst in some instances, authenticity is upheld (certainly more than Errol Flynn ever managed), some scenes so horribly butcher the 'historical' setting that this version of Robin Hood is sometimes seen as the worst.
- 3D technologies had a resurgence when stereoscopic 3D was used on blockbuster movies including Coraline, Avatar, and How to Train Your Dragon. However, there's a resistance forming amongst directors and users, especially among the visually impaired, mainly because 3D requires both of a person's eyes to be good, and not everyone has that luxury; not to mention the requirement of 3D glasses. Indeed this is the reason why movie theaters have still offer 2D showings and many argue that 3D cannot become the standard until this is solved.
- One of the most common criticisms of the Americanization of the French Film Le diner de cons, Dinner for Schmucks. The humor and pacing are completely different, as are the characters - the adaptation could almost be deemed In Name Only. In the French original, Brochand was a bastard, the dinner was not shown and the "cons" were utterly normal people with regular hobbies. The American version however makes the "schmucks" total freaks, invites you to point and laugh at them for half of the movie, and then ends with the usual "different strokes for different folks". The Brochand counterpart was really only pushed to be mean and he's the hero. Broken Aesop.
- When James Cameron released the remastered version of The Terminator the changes made were incredibly minute, limited primarily to the opening credits, the lightning effects, and the sounds of gunfire. But for a number of fans, these changes weren't minute enough and apparently detracted from the overall quality of the movie.
- Hardcore crazed Tekken fans were vilifying the movie before the trailers were even released. Among such rants were whining that Christie was meant to be black/Hispanic/Asian, Kazuya isn't supposed to have facial hair, and labeling it an awful film simply because their favourite character wasn't in it. Then when it came out, the fans got even worse, since it turned out to be an awful film regardless of fidelity to the source material.
- Godzilla:
- Fandom's take on Godzilla: Final Wars; primarily in designs on everything from the actual giant monsters to the aliens and vehicles with Gigan arguably being the only exception.
- Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! version of King Ghidorah got flack because he was turned into a good guy.
- For Godzilla (2014), there are fans who don't like how they changed Godzilla's roar or design or even atomic breath (which may seem weaker or less substantial than usual, partly due to how small it looks compared to Godzilla's bulk, and that its appearance is more akin to the Showa films' vapory blast◊ rather than the more solid energy beam◊ of the Heisei and Millenium films.)
- Godzilla (1998) had so much indisputable change that even the creators admitted that they had made a mistake by changing so much. However, some people who actually liked the movienote and its monster disliked the creature getting depicted as the classic Godzilla with his usual powers and fighting other monsters in Godzilla: The Series and then officially being renamed to "Zilla" and presented as a useless weakling in Final Wars as part of a grand Take That! against the '98 film. As well, the movie's niche fandom didn't take too kindly to later media going back to Godzilla's traditional look and powers, leading to a sort of Fandom Rivalry.
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. For the film's 20th anniversary in 2002, it saw guns replaced with walkie-talkies, gave the title character a CGI makeover, and changed one line of dialogue using the word "terrorist" (replaced with the word "hippie", which was done to distance it from 9/11 but went too far in the other direction and made the 1982 film appear more dated than it was). Mercilessly lampooned in the South Park parody episode "Free Hat". Incidentally, while said episode portrays Steven Spielberg as the diabolical mastermind behind editing Raiders of the Lost Ark, with George Lucas only reluctantly following, in reality Spielberg later stated that editing the movie was a mistake, and the subsequent home video reissue in 2012 was that of the theatrical version.
- If you want to see a fanbase metaphorically explode, just bring up any part of the live-action Transformers films that's different from the G1 show on a forum that's full of G1 fans. For starters, many fans were upset that Optimus Prime's truck mode was not a cab-over truck, he had flames painted on his cab because the director thought they looked cool (Specifically, they'd screen-tested a solid red paint scheme, and the director determined that it looked boring), and his magically appearing/disappearing trailer from G1 was nowhere to be seen. Believe it or not, there were even fans who complained about Megatron's alt-mode being one that was actually usable without having to depend on one of his subordinates to pull the trigger.
- Later films started incorporating more concepts and characters from G1 (and other parts of the brand) into the movie series, as well as redesigning the robots to be more human-like as opposed to overly alien-looking (which has been a major part of why old-school fans hated the movies). This, naturally, lead to fans of the movie series complaining about the changes.
- An article in the Hollywood Reporter interviewed several people involved with The Muppets (who were not named, of course, except for veteran Muppeteer Frank Oz) who expressed their opinion that The Muppets (2011) is not true to the characters, makes them act out of character to set up jokes, and that it seems less like a Muppet movie and more like "a Jason Segel movie that happens to have the Muppets in it." A few fans and critics still feel this way, but the vast majority do not.
- Halloween III: Season of the Witch got tons of undeserved flak for the sole reason that it was not about Michael Myers anymore. The film itself is not bad (and it has received a resurgence of appreciation in later years), but people wanted Michael Myers and nothing else. Of course they got what they wanted with subsequent movies, and a really bad case of sequelitis ensued.
- Disney revised the Walt Disney Pictures Vanity Plate in 2011 so that it no longer includes Walt's first name nor the word "Pictures". Fans see this as an insult to Walt Disney, while others are simply cool with it. The company tried to justify the change by saying this version would look easier to read on mobile digital copies. However, the preceding version doesn't look that hard to read when shrunken to iPhone dimensions◊.
- A misguided example of this happened with The Hunger Games. Fans complained about an alleged change that was actually accurate to the source material. In it, Katniss Everdeen meets a tribute from District 11 named Rue, who later saves Katniss' life after a Mushroom Samba, and then has a heartbreaking death. Some fans were outraged that this beloved character was played by 13-year-old Amandla Stenberg, an African-American actress, almost certainly because of racism. The problem is that Rue and her male counterpart, Thresh, were already supposed to be black in the book. Their introduction specifically mentions them having dark brown skin. Thankfully, it seems Amandla hasn't taken this to heart. You can view an article on these complaints here.
- This trope struck hard with the film adaptation of Allegiant, which took so many liberties with its source material that even the most hardcore fans of the book series were left scratching their heads wondering what the everloving hell they just watched was. Naturally, this led to the film completely tanking... so hard, in fact, that it ended up torpedoing the planned finale movie, Ascendant, entirelynote .
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- The Avengers (2012): A number of fans (including author George R. R. Martin) complained about founding members Ant-Man and The Wasp being left out of the movie in favor of Hawkeye and Black Widow, who are portrayed as founders in the film despite not joining the team until well after it was already established in the original comic books. Other complaints ranged from Hawkeye not wearing purple to Captain America not having wings on his helmet. Captain America did have wings on his helmet; the only thing is these wings are painted on, not jutting out.
- Iron Man 3 received mostly positive reviews and was the second movie in the entire MCU to gross over a billion dollars, but is still reviled by a number of comic fans because of the Mandarin getting a Race Lift and being revealed to be a fraud with no powers. There exists a bit of Opinion Myopia here, with casual viewers and critics generally giving the film far better scores than comic book readers.
- Ant-Man: There are a lot of fans outraged over the fact the movie is about Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man, and not Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man. The fans were also not pleased towards the fact that Pym appeared in the movie with a massive Age Lift.
- Black Widow (2021) repeated the "changing a well-known villain too much" with Taskmaster, who instead of Tony Masters was Antonia Dreykov - less for the Gender Flip, more for taking a Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy and turning it into an Empty Shell without personality. To a much lesser extent, how two characters were reinvented regarding their connection to Natasha, Yelena Belova (Evil Counterpart in the comics, sister figure\successor in the movie) and Red Guardian (ex-husband in the comics, father figure in the movie).
- Man of Steel. In addition to the usual complaints about the movie using a modified costume for Superman, the casting of African American actor Laurence Fishburne as Lois Lane's traditionally Caucasian boss Perry White, as well as the casting of a British actor to play (Krypto-American) Superman have also ruffled some feathers among some less than progressive fans. In a weird case, Superman's killing of Zod and the large amount of destruction fighting him is both seen by fans as extremely out of character, and in character, for some fans. To say nothing of replacing John Williams' iconic, legendary score with a still good, but much more generic soundtrack from Hans Zimmer. The movie is a huge example of a Broken Base.
- The James Bond series is subjected to this whenever anyone brings up who is the better actor to play as James Bond. The biggest uproar came when Daniel Craig replaced Pierce Brosnan to be the actor playing as Bond due to the fact that Daniel looked very different compared to Pierce, along with his mannerisms. The Pierce VS Daniel flame wars even boiled over to the Goldeneye video game remake when Daniel Craig's voice and likeness were used instead of Pierce Brosnan.
- The Amazing Spider-Man receives complaints of various kinds, from casting choices to changes in costume design, some fans have even complained about the mechanical web-shooters, in spite of the fact that Spider-Man's web-shooters have only ever been mechanical in the comic book continuity, except for a few rare occasions in which Peter went through a power upgrade. There were also complaints about Peter Parker's character since while still an introverted science geek, he's given a more modern wardrobe and shown to be a skater, which some fans felt made him 'too cool/athletic'.
- Film adaptations of The Hunchback of Notre Dame have a tendency to demonize Claude Frollo, omitting his compassionate side and presenting him as an evil villain through and through. This has not been welcomed by fans of the original novel.
- Whether or not the sequel is good in general is hotly debated, but probably the most commonly asked question by people who dislike An Extremely Goofy Movie is "What happened to Roxanne?" Roxanne was a Living MacGuffin Satellite Love Interest, Max's love life was not the focus, more than three years had passed between the two movies, and she was not the first to disappear, but this one change is enough to account for much of the movie's Hatedom. A typical side effect of this is people being picky about very minor Series Continuity Errors when this was one of the biggest weaknesses of the show the movies were based on (in other words, nothing new).
- It doesn't seem hard to find fans of the Disney Animated Canon complain that the Platinum Edition Remaster of a certain movie doesn't have the same color scheme as an older VHS tape, laserdisc, or DVD does. Never mind the possibility that the latest restoration reflects the original theatrical release more closely than any before.
- And then there's Disney's push to produce live-action remakes of its animated classics. Reactions tend to be mixed, but fans of the originals are often not happy with the results or even the attempt. Perhaps the most controversial change (before the film is even released) is Ariel's Race Lift.
- Nikkatsu's live-action adaptation of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman sparked some pre-emptive complaints about its changes in the source material. The team no longer wears brightly colored spandex, but instead wear armored suits with more muted colors. The fact that their visors look less bird-like also caused grumbling, along with the fact that the Birdstyle technology was not developed by Dr. Nambu but instead from mysterious stones that grant superhuman strength to those who can draw upon their power. Just about the only change that seems welcomed by fans is the fact that Jun's new suit averts her habit of having panty shots.
- The first trailer of Seventh Son, the live-action adaptation of The Spook's Apprentice already shows many things that piss of the fans: Tom and Alice being significantly older, They kiss (Their relationship in the books played Unresolved Sexual Tension straight), Adaptational Attractiveness for Big Bad Mother Malkin, creatures not from the book (like a Dragon or a four-armed man), Gregory using magic and art martial moves...
- The Platinum Dunes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) reboot intended to retcon the Turtles' origins in order to make them... aliens. Thankfully, it was scrapped, but not before the Internet nearly exploded.
- The Westing Game had a massive cast and a storyline with more twists and turns than a racetrack. The 1997 TV movie simplified matters by focusing mainly on Turtle Wexler. However, it also removed some of the heirs, and changed other characters' personalities and motivations. Consequently, fans of the book don't hold it in high regard.
- Inverted with the Blu-Ray releases of some Disney-owned movies that exist in multiple cuts, such as Pocahontas, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. The Blu-Ray releases of those pictures restored them to the lengths from their US theatrical premieres, much to the disappointment of certain viewers, who actually preferred the extended versions.
- In Bedknobs and Broomsticks' case, this gets worse due to the fact that the extended version did receive a French dub, but the other languages did not receive redubs as they were only dubbed only to the theatrical cut (while the German dub was dubbed to an exclusive infamous Nazi-less cut), causing the extended version not to be available in countries like Italy at all.
- The majority of negative reviews Annie (2014) is garnering from critics seem to be complaints about:
- It was updated from Depression-era to modern-day, ditching any of the economic commentary that the original show included.
- Annie is brought into Stacks' life as a political ploy (even though the original used the little girl in a similar fashion — to make Warbucks look kindhearted and bring him good publicity).
- Nobody belts the songs at the top of their voice like in the '70s version. This one is somewhat merited — the singing is weak in places, and AutoTuned in others.
- They got rid of Punjab the Indian servant in favor of Nash the bodyguard.
- They added the topical plot point that Annie Never Learned to Read.
- It's materialistic. Hannigan wanted a rich life she thinks she was cheated out of; she wallows in nostalgia and uses foster girls as apparent sole source of income. Whilst Stacks worked his way up from either poverty or lower middle class, so he earned his smart house.
- Hannigan doesn't seem to know she's in a musical and keeps asking what's going on when a song starts. Some critics accused the gag of indicating the filmmakers were ashamed to be making a musical.
- While Paddington (2014) was positively received by film critics, it still wasn't without its detractors regarding changes:
- Paddington was drastically redesigned, and he looks more like a small American Grizzly, than the small loveable bear from Peru that we all knew as kids.
- The movie includes a thriller plot involving a "seductive taxidermist", whilst the books were Slice of Life comedy.
- The Toilet Humor shown in the teaser trailer.
- Superman Unbound: While most fans of the comic like the movie, many resent the omission of General Zod's Intro-Only Point of View scene (which casts him in an unusually sympathetic light) and the Back Story of Argo City surviving the destruction of Krypton.
- Trail of the Pink Panther was released in 1982, and fans did not care for it at all. Given that Peter Sellers was dead and David Niven was dying, it was clear that nobody cared about the respective uses of stock footage and dubbing by Rich Little.
- This was the reaction of some fans when it was announced that Paul Feig would be rebooting Ghostbusters with an all-female cast. Some of the loonier protests are discussed here.
- Fans of Paper Towns didn't take well to the changes made to the plot in the film adaptation (Q attending prom, his friends leaving him in Algoe after his outburst, Lacey and Ben getting together on the road trip instead of beforehand, etc).
- This went hand in hand with Critical Dissonance with Into the Woods. Critics responded well to the film, yet many hardcore fans of the stage show were not pleased that Rapunzel's fate is completely different, surviving and getting a Maybe Ever After with her prince - and voted it down for this reason.
- Fans didn't care for the alteration made in Superman vs. the Elite of Superman actually depowering the Elite and going through with lobotomizing Manchester Black instead of the Elite retaining their powers and Supes only giving Black a concussion as they felt it invalidated what Superman was talking about through the whole movie.
- Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday attempts to change up the standard Slasher Movie format of the franchise by playing up the supernatural elements, including depicting Jason as a soul-stealing demon worm that can possess people and can only be killed permanently by a mystic dagger wielded by a member of his own bloodline. Fans and critics alike hated the convoluted changes to the mythos and it's widely regarded as one of the worst Friday the 13th movies.
- Dragonball Evolution is one of the most justified examples of this, while the movie had many flaws of its own right, that you can notice and dislike even if you never watched any episode of the anime and never read the manga, the movie had many, many harsh changes to the source material to the point it not only becomes an In Name Only adaptation with only a few loose ties to the anime/manga, but it seems like something made to make fans pissed.
- Artemis Fowl:
- As soon as the casting call described Artemis as "a friendly kid with a sunny disposition", people knew something was off. The appeal of the book was that it starred a 12-year-old Villain Protagonist, who is as ruthless as they can be. Changing the character so drastically ended up alienating anyone who was already a fan to begin with.
- Mulch being changed to a "giant dwarf", only for justifying Josh Gad, who is of average height, playing him. While they tried to make it part of his character by giving him an Adaptational Angst Upgrade and an I Just Want to Be Normal motivation, people immediately accused the studio of being lazy, since composing the shot to make a normal-sized person look smaller or hiring actual people with dwarfism has been done before, which many find preferable.
- Butler's name being revealed nonchalantly in his first few minutes of screentime. Butler in the books goes by Last-Name Basis, even for the family he worked for for decades, with his Given Name Reveal being one of the most poignant moments in the entire series. To make things worse, they tried to patch things up by saying "he doesn't like being called the Butler".
- Jurassic Park III got it because the T.Rex was replaced by the Spinosaurus as the film’s Big Bad and killed the rex early on.
- Jurassic World was hit by it due to the decision to use almost all computer-generated effects and motion capture for the dinosaurs rather than the animatronics and computer effects combo the original film had. It was so big that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom reverted to animatronics for many of its dinosaurs. Then there were the trained raptors that made some miss their wilder, more vicious predecessors.
- A lot of fans cried fool when Dwayne McDuffie, writer of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, said Superwoman—who traditionally is the Mirror Universe version of Wonder Woman—was one of Mary Marvel and said an underling was WW's counterpart. But then, said movie's original form was to originally bridge the gap between Justice League and Justice League Unlimited and a lot of fans felt Wondy did suffer from how she was adapted there. Kind of stupid when you realize that it was more inspired by the Grant Morrison story where Superwoman was Lois Lane. A number of Grant Morrison fans proclaimed that the movie was bad simply because it didn't adapt his arc panel for panel, despite only loosely borrowing from it.
- Fans who thought the original Wally West was getting screwed over under Dan DiDio were happy when it seemed that he'd finally gotten some love again in Teen Titans: The Judas Contract with Kid Flash — only to be annoyed years later when when producer James Tucker revealed the Kid Flash in the movie is actually a young Barry Allen. Naturally, fans didn't take too kindly to this change, especially it being years after the fact.
- Space Jam: A New Legacy has two concerning Lola Bunny:
- The director has commented on all the backlash Lola got for not being sexualized anymore.
- Since more hardcore Looney Tunes fans prefer her more bubbly characterization in The Looney Tunes Show and New Looney Tunes, they were disappointed that she was back to being a level-headed Action Girl, making it a case of "They Changed It Back, Now It Sucks".
- Jack Reacher: A surprising amount of the criticism that the film received is that the character of Jack Reacher is tall in the books but not the film. The backlash was so pronounced that a good portion of the promotion for the later series adaptation centered on the fact that the character is tall again, with supporting characters seemingly unable to stop talking about how tall he is.
- Rumble: As this film is actually based on the graphic novel “Monster On The Hill” by Rob Harrell, the film received a lot of backlash for deviating heavily from the graphic novel in terms of plot and characters. Such changes included removing key characters such as Charles Wilkie and The Murk, and replacing them with several one note characters, jumping the era the novel took place in from Victorian era England to the modern age, and giving completely unwanted personality overhauls to the remaining characters. The most egregious example that the graphic novel fans found to be the most unforgivable was changing the character of Tentacular by subjecting him to Adaptational Villainy, converting him from a heroic Gentle Giant who liked giving hugs to people to an self absorbed one note jerk who is obsessed with money and wanted to tear down Stoker stadium out of spite for Rayburn.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid or rather the fourth live-action adaptation that is The Long Haul. The changing of the cast (mainly the Heffley family and Rowley) was met with universal backlash, with most of the vitriol targeting Charlie Wright's portrayal of Rodrick Heffley due to his lack of resemblance to the rest of the Heffleys casted, as well as the lack of charm compared to Devon Bostick's take on Greg's older brother (henceforth creating the #NotMyRodrick trend). But it doesn't stop there. The tone is massively shifted from a timeless comedy/drama flick about Greg trying to adjust to life in middle school (and the summer in Dog Days) to a typical road comedy overstuffed with grossed-out humor and current trends (i.e., memes, smartphones).
In-universe:
- In-universe example would be poet Lallafa from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) whose work was re-discovered long after his death and was subsequently, through time travel, brought to future. This resulted in him not being actually able to write the poems, which is why he was sent back to the past to copy them so they could be discovered. Some argue that this makes his poems worse, while others argue they're the same.
- In Bolt, after Penny and Bolt leave the show, they are replaced by different actors and the new Big Bads are now aliens. Rhino for one is not happy with the changes.Rhino: That is totally unrealistic
