Tony Alpsen
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Some things are simply unfilmable. Not due to technological limitations or budgetary issues, but because you couldn't do so without traumatizing your audience and sending your entire crew to jail. Here are six books that made the filmmakers adapting them nope right off into space.
First Blood, the movie that introduced John Rambo to the (non-reading) world, has the lowest body count required to qualify as a body count. If you don't count dogs, that is. To be fair, it's not entirely clear what happens to the dogs in the movie. You see them run off-screen, hear some yelps, and the rest is up to you to decide. Maybe Rambo scared them off, or taught them to yelp on command with liberal belly rubs and praise.
But the book leaves nothing to the imagination. Rambo ruthlessly shoots the dogs with a rifle from the comfort of a "cool underbush," in the process making a cop fall off a cliff.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing GroupThe book omits the moment when the cop pulls out a sign that says "Uh-oh" before falling.
So Rambo kills all the dogs ... except for one. That one he leaves to suffer in agony, with its insides spilling out of its stomach, forcing a cop to mercy-kill it. Yes, the book makes a cop shooting a dog in the head come out looking like the good guy.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing GroupThen he also slipped and fell off a cliff.
The whole thing turns out to be a ruse to distract the cops so that Rambo can kill them too. Whoever read this and saw a mainstream action movie must have had some serious imagination, been seriously psychotic ... or most likely, both.
Nothing kills the mood of a blockbuster quite like babies getting eaten (Snowpiercer aside). And that's one thing Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park absolutely did not skimp on. The book goes right ahead and treats us to not one but two scenes of babies becoming dinosaur food, neither of which made it into any of the movies.
First there's a scene in which a baby in a nursery is found surrounded by small lizard-like dinosaurs. Assuming you've seen any dinosaur movie ever made, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out that they aren't standing around gushing over how cute it is. No, the gushing comes later:
Ballantine BooksEven the guy making Schindler's List thought this was too depressing.
Later on, Tim and Lex are being chased by velociraptors, just like in the movie. Unlike in the movie, they encounter a baby raptor who takes a liking to them. Aww. Do they adopt it as their sidekick and go on fun adventures together? Nope! They throw the little guy at the bigger ones in order to distract them. Which does work, just in the most awful way imaginable.
Ballantine BooksLex thought they'd get distracted changing its diapers, apparently.
Honestly, in this case, maybe they deserved to get eaten.
The 1939 Wizard Of Oz movie isn't remembered for a plethora of decapitated limbs, severed heads, or broken necks. The same can't be said of L. Frank Baum's Oz books. A more faithful adaptation would have resulted in Hollywood running out of red paint.
Take the Tin Man, who after trying to marry a Munchkin was cursed by the Wicked Witch to chop off his own arms, legs, and head. Luckily, he knew a tinsmith capable of recreating all his missing pieces (even the intimate ones, presumably). The Wicked Witch then sends 40 wolves after him, and the Tin Man handles it by brutally axing down all 40 of them.
L. Frank BaumHe missed a huge opportunity by not then replacing his tin parts with wolf parts.
Meanwhile, the Scarecrow doesn't merely scare crows; he snaps their fucking necks. Again, he takes on exactly 40 crows while Dorothy and the gang stand by, either too horrified to say anything or silently enjoying the show.
L. Frank BaumDorothy's sad that she only gets to murder two witches, since they owe her 38.
And then there's Princess Langwidere, who doesn't appear in the movie -- more than likely due to her hobby of stealing and collecting severed heads, which she uses in place of her own.
L. Frank BaumShe did make it into The Walking Dead , with a few changes.
Felix Salten's Bambi, A Life In The Woods was the basis for the classic Disney movie, and it is a full-on goddamn bloodbath. Bambi witnesses enough horrific stuff to scar him for life. Fortunately, as a deer, his life expectancy isn't long enough for that to be much of a worry.
Throughout the book, Bambi sees every kind of horror, from crows killing a hare's sick child as it moans for help to a fox tearing a pheasant to pieces. Then there's this awfulness:
Read Books Ltd.In this version, Bambi's mother is the lucky one because she didn't have to see this stuff.
Bambi also comes across a pheasant with its neck broken, and the same hare from earlier's wife ... lying helplessly, with her bloody leg hanging off. This is practically a Vietnam novel with cute animals. Bambi himself even gets shot by a hunter and has to walk it off to avoid becoming venison. He then fights through the burning pain with the guidance of his father as he loses blood ... and patience for his bossy ass.
Read Books Ltd.
Read Books Ltd.Calling him "the old stag" is the deer equivalent of saying "YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD, JEFF."
2003's League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie (LXG if you're nasty) isn't what you'd describe as "well-received," or "fondly remembered," or "passably enjoyable." Kevin O'Neill, who drew the original comic book series, once claimed that the movie's awfulness was a result of it not being "respectful of the source material." Let's consider what's in that source material, written by the venerable Alan Moore. In the comics, the Invisible Man is a serial rapist who moonlights as the Holy Spirit in order to take advantage of young women. And he's not a bit shy about doing so in front of an audience.
DC ComicsA rape scene? In an Alan Moore comic? There must be a mistake.
Later, he attacks Mina Murray and subsequently finds himself in the crosshairs of Mr. Hyde -- and Mr. Hyde's dick. You see, unbeknownst to all, Hyde has able to see him the whole time. So when Hyde has him cornered, he decides to give him a taste of his own medicine ... until he dies.
DC ComicsNo one wanted to publish Moore's spinoff series in which Hyde goes around raping rapists, Dexter-style.
There's a scene in A Clockwork Orange wherein protagonist Alex has consensual sex with a couple of girls around his age. And that scene is in the original book, except it's not so consensual, and each of those girls is a perfect 10 ... years old.
W.W. Norton & CompanyThe bed is unmade? We're starting to get the impression this guy is no good.
Understandably, Stanley Kubrick drew the line at the part where Alex rapes children while bragging about his large penis. Whether he's supposed to be impressing us or the unconscious girls with this information is debatable.
W.W. Norton & CompanySomehow the fake future slang in this book sounds more realistic than the average YouTube star's lingo.
Being a gentleman in no sense of the word, Alex ends up sending them on their way bruised and yelling in pain ...
W.W. Norton & Company"Punchipunching"?
It's unclear how exactly the girls acquired their bruises, but some things are better left unsaid. And most certainly unfilmed.
Check out Yingandyan.com for all the conjoined twin jokes your little heart could possibly ever desire.
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