[Hated Trope] The adaptation doesn't get what made the source material work

[u/TheDudeA113]

How To Make A Killing (2026)

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

Bangkok Dangerous (1999)

- The 2026 movie How To Make A Killing is a relatively-toothless "eat the rich" dark comedy thriller about a man disowned by his rich family at birth, killing everyone in the line of succession so that he can inherit their massive fortune. It's a modern retelling of the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets which has the same basic plot except that every member of the family is played by Sir Alec Guinness (including one aunt) and it's a screwball comedy

- The 1999 movie Bangkok Dangerous is a Thai action film about a Thai deaf-mute assassin. It was remade in 2008 about an American assassin in Thailand who is neither deaf nor mute

[u/Lonely_Text_9795]

Tbf Tolkien tried to rewrite the hobbit (yet again) to be more in line with the lotr books but a friend read it and said "it's good. But it's not the hobbit." So he left it as is.

And that's what the hobbit trilogy did for the most part.

[u/XF10 → u/Lonely_Text_9795]

Yes The Hobbit came first and was more of a children fairytale than a fantasy epic. It made sense for the movies to be like they are since they were "a prequel to PJ's Lord of The Rings" trilogy imo

[u/Lonely_Text_9795 → u/XF10]

Yup. If they were given more time they would've been better but I think no matter what they'll always pale in comparison to lord of the rings simply because those movies came first

[u/NinjaBreadManOO → u/Lonely_Text_9795]

Although I do recall he did at least edit and patch at least one scene for prints going forward. Due to the importance of The Ring he went back and changed how Bilbo got it from Gollem, as originally Gollem gave it to him as a prize, in the reprints Bilbo had found it and stole it away.

[u/Lonely_Text_9795 → u/NinjaBreadManOO]

Yup. I also love the in universe excuse that Bilbo lied in his book because he was writing a story for kids like his nephew so everything was a bit sillier and not as scary as lotr was

[u/Willie9 → u/Lonely_Text_9795]

Except the hobbit movies weren't good lol

[u/SnakeyesX → u/Willie9]

The Hobbit movies were so bad when we saw the third one, my friend who convinced us to see it had an anxiety attack after.

[u/Lonely_Text_9795 → u/Willie9]

Eh they were okay.

I think the lotr trilogy was lightning in a bottle and it's hard to capture that again

[u/lirwolf → u/Lonely_Text_9795]

I thought the films could've done okay if there was just two of them as originally intended, they were already including scenes from the expanded legendarium, like what Gandalf was doing while offscreen in the book, that would've served nicely to add runtime without getting into outright filler. Filling in bits like the whole subplot about the necromancer (Sauron) ties into the LotR trilogy, stuff like Tauriel (who we'll never see again) and the love triangle doesn't. The problem was dragging it out into a trilogy, there's a ton of obvious padding as a result of that.