There are many people I know that are excitedly discussing Twilight, based on the best-seller book. I’m sorta interested, but their discussions spoiled some of it for me. 
I’ve read a bit of the book, and it looked (to me) like bad fanfiction, so … since a movie can’t have any bad grammar and some things are changed by the director and producers … even though I won’t see it, it can’t be any worse than the books.
I never really read many novels before, so it would be a little difficult for me to judge the loyalty those films possessed towards the respective novels. However, my perception of films is that when I watch a film, regardless of how true it stays to the novel, as long as it is a good movie, a great piece of entertainment worth re-watching repetitively (regardless of the quality of its story as entertainment doesn’t necessary involves good stories), it’s a good movie.
Staying true to the novels is not really a factor that affects the quality of the film (though it does indeed disappoint the loyal fans as many live action films had disappointed the fans of the anime/animated series those films were adapted from). What’s more important, IMO, is probably the differences in quality between the film and the novel. A novel might have a top-notch story, but its adaptation might only be a shallow piece of tasteless humor, despite the amount of its entertainment values, but I’m getting off-topic here…
I think the only film adaptation I could ever review on is Charlotte’s Web as I have read the entire book (it’s actually a necessary school material for our literature class in Sec One and Sec Two [7th and 8th Grade]), and, I must say, the book was touching, but the film was compelling, especially with the added score during Charlotte’s death. Julia Roberts really added that human side to Charlotte, so it made the film even easier to be related to. Overall, I think it couldn’t have been a greater woven piece of masterpiece. 
I read all the Twilight books and I thought they were differently good maybe better then HP. and Today I recently came back from seeing the movie, twilight and I thought they really did a good job,. They stayed to the book. Some parts missing but they stayed close. I was happy.
I wasn’t able to see it today because I failed to make a reservation at the theatre, but hearing it from another Twilight fan makes me happy they didn’t kill it. =)
Best-Catch 22(Sure it was a litle off, but it was as confusing, funny, and twisted as the book)
Worst-Eragon/Maniac Magee
Most Disney classics were based on books- does that count?
I’ve read Eragon, but I will most likely never see it. Pretty much all of the people I know said the movie was horrible, and second because one thing ruined the book for me, and that is seeing The Lord of the Rings later. I mean, can you say RIP-OFF? Seriously!
Ras’ whatevers - Nightriders (I mean COME ON! How more identical could you GET?)
Brom- Gandalf/Bilbo Baggins
Arya-Arwen
That king dude who’s after the dragon- The scary dude who’s after the ring
That guy who meets Eragon near the end of the book, name starts with M I think- Aragorn (who’s name’s similarity with Eragon is suspicious too) and Borimir.
the urgals-Orcs (see first one)
The big fight at the end of the book- The big fights at the end of the first and second book
Nasuada and her father-Eowyn and her father (even the whole thing with them fighting!)
Real classy, Eragon.
I never realized the rip off, but then again I only read the first.
The movie was as bad as the book - I enjoyed Eragon to a certain extent, but the movie was just like it in the sense that the beginning was long and boring, and the ending was interesting because, leading up to it, included more action scenes.
One bit in the film had lost me though. Somewhere in the middle, I got confused and couldn’t remember any of it ever happening in the book, but after that it went on track.
Other than that, it’s pretty true to the book.
Best for me at the moment is Twilight. It stayed true to the book, so it defintely pleases book-readers. The effects were just…weird though.
Is there no fantasy movie-book adaption made from 2000-2008 that received generally good reviews? Seriously, Eragon, The Golden Compass, Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, etc. all received rather bad reviews. =/
Are you kidding? I saw good reviews for The Golden Compass, Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter. Especially Harry Potter - I don’t think people care whether it’s true to the book anymore because a lot of people haven’t bothered to read them because of the films, and if that’s the case the movie is a whole lot better to them because they don’t have what isn’t included on their mind like the readers do.
As for Chronicles of Narnia- some parts were untrue to the book, but so was the first, and by doing so they actually made it more enjoyable. I didn’t fully enjoy the books up until Silver Chair, anyways. Magician’s Nephew (the prequel) was good too, but I’m not so sure if they’ll actually make it.
And Golden Compass-- they actually got the actor’s approval for certain scenes, because the book was quite difficult to actually put to film. The only thing stupid about that film was the title.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest-rated Harry Potter movie, Order of the Phoenix, got 77%.
Twilight, so far, has 44%. The main problem is probably that, while they stayed true to the original book, the original book is Twilight.
Twilight: now I never read the book, and I’m not planning on it, but I thought the movie was just terrible. Only way it was any good was because of Kristen Stewart 
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I have heard Twilight is not that good, so I don’t have any plans to see it, or read the book. Has any one seen City of Ember? I found it to be very good, and close to the book. The production design on the movie is spectacular, and the film was very underrated.
The City of Ember is gonna be a movie??? I haven’t read it, but I know about it because I read its sequel: The People of Sparks.
I saw Hoot a long time ago, and it was a pretty good movie. However, I saw it before I read the book. Now I’m reading the book, but I can’t remember much so I can’t tell if the film is true to the book or not.
I can’t really judge whether or not the books were good since I never read them, but I’m confident I won’t be wanting to see the movie. From what I’ve heard from critics and even Twilight fans themselves, it’s not worth seeing. I might see it one day, but I would never waste money on it. I’ll let someone else do that and then I’ll watch it with them. As for the books, I attempted to read the first one but I couldn’t stay interested. It just seemed very base and I couldn’t understand what the big deal was. My sisters keep telling me I have to keep reading, but I don’t really want to waste my time. After Harry Potter I promised myself I would never get hooked to a book series ever again. It drains you emotionally.
I won’t touch the thing with a ten foot pole since it looks to me like bad fanfiction, and that’s all it’ll ever be in my mind. A good waste of paper, that’s for sure.
Trilogies are the way to go - book series do drain you emotionally - I’m hooked on Septimus Heap, but it takes a while for the next to come out and I wind up reading books in between and it just never ends! At least with trilogies, I know they’ll end after the third is over.
Movie-wise on Twilight, I’ve heard and seen bad things. I didn’t waste my money - I just saw a clip online, and without teeth … they look like your average neighborhood perverts. The nasty vampires, anyway. So stupid that they left out the sharp teeth - my old tutor reads them and says that the author wanted to avoid cliches, but I’ve realized that in her attempt to stray from vampire cliches, she’s failed to stop the cliche that is her entire storyline.
Also, my project partner is a fan of Twilight, and she hated the movie because apparently it was boring and strayed from the book. But I will never be able to tell, because I’ll never read it.
If you can enjoy it somehow, bravo to you, but to me, it just looks garbage and I’d rather waste precious time on ANY book series but that one.
City of Ember was already movie. It opened October 10th, and is coming on DVD Jan. 20th.
I read the book of Hoot, and saw the movie. As far as I can remember, the movie is slightly different, but the book is better.
Saw The Note. Inspiring, miraculous, and truly touching. Couldn’t find the novel though, but the movie was splendid, so the book must have been really good.
The Golden Compass started off pretty good. I really liked the world. I really liked the characters at the start. Halfway through however… it started getting bad. The last half hour was so incredibly bad that it soured the rest of the movie for me. I certainly hope that the book wasn’t that poorly plotted because man, those were some terribad plot holes. They weren’t merely overlooks or mistakes… they were insultingly stupid. I’m generally pretty bad at guessing plot twists, but there was not a single surprise towards the end. “Ok, now is about the time for the witches to join the fight. Right… about… ah, there they are.” So boring.
I really really liked The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Sure, when you compare it to LotR, it’s going to fall short, but almost everything will. That’s really not a fair comparison. The final battle sequence is… rrrowl. It’s amazing. And incredibly well shot and directed, with a soundtrack for the ages. Sadly, Prince Caspian fell short of those lofty hights. Now, I re-read the book shortly before seeing the movie and because of that my expectations were not high because… well, sadly Prince Caspian the book is just not very good. It is not only extremely difficult to film, there’s just not much there. I think that the movie was decent, and it’s one of the few movie adaptations that is better than the source material. It would have been an entirely forgotten story if it wasn’t part of the Chronicles of Narnia. Unfortunately, The Horse and His Boy is going to be in the same category. The actor who plays Prince Caspian actually made the character likable and rememberable, which is good because the character in the book was shallow, boring, and lifeless. Reepicheep was one of my favorite characters in the book, and I didn’t really like his portrayal in the movie. It’s my one major quibble. 
Next up is the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was my favorite entry in the Narnia series, so let’s hope for something good. 
It’ll have a different director.
I’m hoping that the same thing happens to the Narnia series which happened to the Harry Potter series. Scott Columbus did a pretty poor job with the excellent material he was given in Chamber of Secrets. So for Prisoner of Azkaban, Alfonso Cuaron
was brought in to direct, and he did an amazing job. My favorite Potter film by far, and the only one that didn’t feel like a pale imitation of a better book.
But come now… worst movie adaptation and no one has yet to bring up that awful adaptation of The Dark is Rising? No one even remembers it? I’m not surprised. It was renamed to The Seeker, and Susan Cooper, who wrote the original five book series, utterly detests it. It was a good book series and this adaptation utterly trashed it. It changed all the characters and their motivations, and The Dark, which was such a malevolent and mysterious force in the books, is just a comic-book joke in the movie version.
I can’t say I was terribly pleased with the Disney adaptation of the Black Cauldron either, but meh. It’s not as detestable as The Seeker.
I agree about Holes. It was extremely close to the book. Many lines were taken from the book and they didn’t do anything ridiculous to the plot.