History TheyChangedItNowItSucks / Film

* ''Film/SherlockHolmes2009'' by Creator/GuyRitchie 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.

* ''Film/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians: 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. Standalone sequel ''Film/PercyJacksonSeaOfMonsters'' immediately brings many of these things back.
* The remake of ''Film/TheKarateKid2010'', in which 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. Creator/JackieChan 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.
* The 2010 ''Film/{{Robin Hood|2010}}'' movie has taken a lot of heat for being a history-oriented original origin story instead of a retelling of the Robin Hood story "[[AudienceColoringAdaptation everybody knows]]". The story everyone knows includes the usual setup of Prince John acting as regent in [[UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionHeart King Richard's]] absence, Robin being an outlawed knight, and Robin StormingTheCastle to save Maid Marian. In the 2010 film, these plot elements are either absent ([[spoiler:Richard dies at the start, and John is king for the rest of the film]]) or given a new twist ([[spoiler: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 [[spoiler: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 [[Film/TheAdventuresOfRobinHood Errol Flynn]], [[Film/RobinHoodPrinceOfThieves Kevin Costner]] and [[WesternAnimation/RobinHood1973 Disney]]) is itself an AdaptationDistillation 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.

* If you need proof that following a book word by word isn't always a good plan compare BBC's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfNarnia'' and Creator/WaldenMedia's adaptation. The former uses the exact dialogue and is an excruciatingly long and dull endeavor. The latter takes a more liberal approach to the storyline but does much better at capturing the spirit of the books. Fans didn't like the liberties taken with the second and third adaptations[[note]]Which were arguably necessary since both ''Literature/PrinceCaspian'' and ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'''s formats don't lend themselves very well to films. ''Prince Caspian'' is an extended HowWeGotHere that would require the protagonists to disappear for half the story while the flashback is shown. ''Voyage of the Dawn Treader'' meanwhile is very episodic with no real plot thread tying things together.[[/note]] and claimed they were moving closer to InNameOnly. 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!".

* ''WesternAnimation/{{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 AdaptionalVillainy, converting him from a heroic GentleGiant who liked giving hugs to people to an {{ItsAllAboutMe self absorbed}} one note jerk who is obsessed with money and wanted to tear down Stoker stadium out of spite for Rayburn.

* While ''Film/{{Paddington}}'' was positively received by film critics, it still wasn't without its detractors regarding changes:

* The ''Film/SilentHill'' 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 GenderFlip (he thought [[PapaWolf a man going through an almost literal hell to rescue his child]] was too unbelievable and made game protagonist Harry Mason seem very feminine) coming off as idiotic and more than a little insulting.

* ''Film/ManOfSteel''. In addition to the usual complaints about the movie using a modified costume for Superman, the casting of African American actor Creator/LaurenceFishburne [[RaceLift 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 [[spoiler: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 Music/JohnWilliams' iconic, legendary score with a much more generic soundtrack from Music/HansZimmer. The movie is a huge example of a BrokenBase.

* Hardcore crazed ''Film/{{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 [[VideoGameMoviesSuck an awful film]] regardless of fidelity to the source material.

* Hardcore crazed ''Film/{{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.

* If you need proof that following a book word by word isn't always a good plan compare BBC's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfNarnia'' and Creator/WaldenMedia's adaptation. The former uses the exact dialogue and is an excruciatingly long and dull endeavor. The latter takes a more liberal approach to the storyline but does a much better at capturing the spirit of the books. Fans didn't like the liberties taken with the second and third adaptations[[note]]Which were arguably necessary since both ''Literature/PrinceCaspian'' and ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'''s formats don't lend themselves very well to films. ''Prince Caspian'' is an extended HowWeGotHere that would require the protagonists to disappear for half the story while the flashback is shown. ''Voyage of the Dawn Treader'' meanwhile is very episodic with no real plot thread tying things together.[[/note]] and claimed they were moving closer to InNameOnly. 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!".

* It's amazing to see how much criticism the ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'' movie received ''before its release''. People couldn't even wait to see it to start complaining. The movie is based on an Creator/AlanMoore comic. Moore himself is quite vocal about how much he thinks the previous movies based on his works suck. Furthermore, ''Comicbook/{{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 [[DoubleStandard 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.

* ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' film adaptation was based on a new script written by Douglas Adams [[DiedDuringProduction 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.

* In-universe example would be poet Lallafa from ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' whose work was [[DeadArtistsAreBetter 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 [[StableTimeLoop so they could be discovered]]. Some argue that this makes his poems worse, while others argue they're the same.

* An article in the Hollywood Reporter interviewed several people involved with Franchise/TheMuppets (who were not named, of course, except for veteran Muppeteer Creator/FrankOz) who expressed their opinion that ''Film/TheMuppets'' 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 [[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_muppets/ do not]].

** An example caused by CriticalResearchFailure similar to ''The Hunger Games'' example below. When Katie Leung was cast as Cho Chang, many fans were angry at the apparent RaceLift - 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.

* A misguided example of this happened with ''Film/TheHungerGames''. Fans complained about an alleged change [[CriticalResearchFailure that was actually accurate to the source material.]] In it, Katniss Everdeen meets a tribute from District 11 named Rue, who later [[spoiler: saves Katniss' life after a MushroomSamba, 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 [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/hunger-games-racist-tweets-rue_n_1380377.html here.]]

* ''Film/{{Rumble|2021}}'': 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 AdaptionalVillainy, converting him from a heroic GentleGiant who liked giving hugs to people to an {{ItsAllAboutMe self absorbed}} one note jerk who is obsessed with money and wanted to tear down Stoker stadium out of spite for Rayburn.

* ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan'' 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'.

* The ''Film/SilentHill'' movie. Changing the main character was, among other things, met with such a reaction by the fans, with the director's rationale for the GenderFlip (he thought a man going through an almost literal hell to rescue his child was too unbelievable and made game protagonist Harry Mason seem very feminine) coming off as idiotic and more than a little offensive.

* The ''Film/ResidentEvilFilmSeries'' 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 InNameOnly. 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 exist as separate intellectual properties despite sharing one.

* ''Film/ManOfSteel''. In addition to the usual complaints about the movie using a modified costume for Superman, the casting of African American actor Creator/LaurenceFishburne [[RaceLift 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 [[spoiler: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. The movie is a huge example of a BrokenBase.

* ''Film/ResidentEvilFilmSeries''. Never mind that it's [[AlternateContinuity not meant to take place in the same world as the games]], or that it might actually be GOOD in its own right, as soon as they added a character that didn't exist in the games and a backstory for Nemesis, people wanted to kill ANYONE involved in this movie for taking a new story and plastering the ''Resident Evil'' name on it. Although to be fair, they may be more pissed about Alice.

* The ''Film/SilentHill'' movie. Changing the main character was, among other things, met with such a reaction by the fans.

!! Superhero costumes:

*** 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 [[WesternAnimation/XMen 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 ''WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen2009''.

'''Note''': This article lists examples that take place within fandoms; not Wiki/TVTropes' opinion as to whether a change is for the worse. Wiki/TVTropes doesn't have opinions. The focus is on over-reaction about minor changes.

* ''Film/BatmanBegins'' is commonly agreed to be the second-best ''Franchise/{{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 RuleOfScary. 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 [[spoiler:he loses it in the sequel and shows he's quite adept with high-performance sports cars, too...]]. Many hardcore fans decry Burton's decision to have the Joker [[spoiler:be the murderer of Bruce's parents]] in [[Film/Batman1989 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 [[Film/TheCabinetOfDrCaligari Dr. Caligari]].
** In something of a twist on the outrage of changing the Joker to be the Waynes' killer, when ''Film/BatmanBegins'' went back to the source material to use the original killer, many who were ''only'' familiar with Batman thanks to the movies believed ''this'' to be the alteration. "Everyone ''knows'' the Joker killed Batman's parents!"

*** The removal of the Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox VanityPlate and fanfare from [[Creator/WaltDisneyHomeVideo Disney]]-distributed digital copies of the sequels and 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 Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse movies originally released through Creator/{{Paramount}}, two years before they started distributing the ''Star Wars'' sequels and prequels, they didn't remove Paramount's logo.[[note]]While most of the Marvel/Paramount movies didn't have any audio accompanying the Paramount logo, if Disney removed it from ''Film/IronMan2'', they probably would have also cut out part of the opening recap, of Tony revealing himself as Iron Man.[[/note]] The 2019 4K remasters restored the Fox logo and fanfare.

* ''Film/{{Rumble2021}}'': 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 AdaptionalVillainy, converting him from a heroic GentleGiant who liked giving hugs to people to an {{ItsAllAboutMe self absorbed}} one note jerk who is obsessed with money and wanted to tear down Stoker stadium out of spite for Rayburn.

''Film/{{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 AdaptionalVillainy, converting him from a heroic GentleGiant who liked giving hugs to people to an {{ItsAllAboutMe self absorbed}} one note jerk who is obsessed with money and wanted to tear down Stoker stadium out of spite for Rayburn.

* Hardcore crazed ''Film/{{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.

* The 2010 ''Film/{{Robin Hood|2010}}'' movie has taken a lot of heat for being a history-oriented original origin story instead of a retelling of the Robin Hood story "[[AudienceColoringAdaptation everybody knows]]". The story everyone knows includes the usual setup of Prince John acting as regent in [[UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionHeart King Richard's]] absence, Robin being an outlawed knight, and Robin StormingTheCastle to save Maid Marian. In the 2010 film, these plot elements are either absent ([[spoiler:Richard dies at the start, and John is king for the rest of the film]]) or given a new twist ([[spoiler: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 [[spoiler: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 [[Film/TheAdventuresOfRobinHood Errol Flynn]], [[Film/RobinHoodPrinceOfThieves Kevin Costner]] and [[WesternAnimation/RobinHood Disney]]) is itself an AdaptationDistillation 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.

* ''Literature/TheWestingGame'' had LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters 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 [[AdaptedOut removed some of the heirs]], and [[AdaptationPersonalityChange changed other characters' personalities and motivations]]. Consequently, fans of the book don't hold it in high regard.

** 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 they ending of the film goes on far too long even without it.

** ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'' 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), and assumed [[PinkMeansFeminine 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 [[RealWomenDontWearDresses hates pink and would never wear a pink dress]]" as a PlotHole and there are still plenty of Facebook pages complaining about it.

* The film versions of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' suffered from their fair share of overly critical complaints, notably with the removal of the last part of ''The Return of the King'' and the complete removal of Tom Bombadil (walking DeusExMachina, quintessential WackyWaysideTribe and unplayably strange person that he is) from the story. Ghan-buri-Ghan and ''his'' WackyWaysideTribe, but arguably they are more important to the narrative and the themes than ol' Tom. Many Tolkien purists also complain about Tolkien's "precious" dialogue being altered for the film. While the flowery, poetic, Shakespearean prose works well enough in the books, it sounds 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 real people, which, on screen, is more important than including every last tiny detail and bits of dialogue, unaltered in any way.