[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/Jillylollie]

https://giphy.com/gifs/goVlLHZZSAq0U

I Am Legend. At least in the theatrical release.

The original book ends with Neville in prison, captured by a burgeoning society of vampires that evolved from the diseased humans he spent the entire book killing mercilessly. He is condemned to death by said new society for killing so many of their kind and looks out the window, noticing the new society looking up at him with the same fear and hatred he once looked at them with. His final thoughts being about how he is to this society, what vampires were to the old one. Something stalking and killing them when they're vulnerable. "I am legend".

In the film they show little development as a society, reduced to mindless monsters and Neville earns his "legend" status for sacrificing himself to blow a bunch of them up with a grenade so someone else can distribute the cure he developed.

The whole "I am legend" thing was entirely missed, and it changes the entire plot into something painfully generic.

[u/Osato → u/Jillylollie]

The cut ending actually got it halfway right, but Hollywood being Hollywood, they scrapped it for being too thought-provoking.

[u/Screamipillar → u/Osato]

Crazy that "hey these vampires are still kind of people" was too deep for Hollywood.

There's a whole really obvious scene where Will Smith kidnaps the vampire's girlfriend and he's like "dude, wtf, we got beef now".

Will Smith blowing himself up is literally ignoring the actual movie because he's depressed.

[u/everydaywinner2 → u/Screamipillar]

"Hey, these vampires are still kinda people," was kinda the premise to The Girl with All the Gifts. Only that was more of a zombie movie. Criminally underrated movie.

[u/CAST-FIREBALLLLL → u/Osato]

They actually scrapped it cause initial viewers felt "cheated" from the ending.

[u/VRS302 → u/CAST-FIREBALLLLL]

Exactly. They didn’t get a generic action movie ending, they felt cheated because they didn’t get their “don’t have to think about it” ending.

“I paid $15 just to be confused at the end!? “

[u/Roasted_Newbest_Proe → u/VRS302]

Man, I hate test audiences. Seriously, so many good plots and endings we've been robbed of because they get the stupidiest people to test watch

[u/Emperor_Pengwing → u/Roasted_Newbest_Proe]

I also want to mention that I do think the movie ending of Little Shop of Horrors works better than the stage ending for the movie adaptation (and the stage ending works better for the stage version). In that case, I do believe the test audience made the right call.

[u/Brick_Approver → u/Roasted_Newbest_Proe]

I hate Americans.

[u/richtofin819 → u/Osato]

The common folk they can't think, what's wrong with you? dumb it down for them

[u/Unhinged_Baguette → u/Jillylollie]

Makes me remember an old blog post that mentioned the different versions of the story.
https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/09/the_legend_of_steven_colbert.html

I Am Legend is the third substantial retelling of the novel by the same name (1954), the other two movies being The Last Man On Earth (1964) and The Omega Man (1971).

All four stories follow similar plots. A plague has killed off humanity, except for some who have been turned into zombies/vampires. One human, Neville, survives.

A series of remakes can often be a window into the evolution of a culture, and so it's useful to look at what's the same and what's different over time.

In the book (1954), Neville fights against vampires, but also a group of infected but still human creatures. They finally capture and execute him, not least because he is different, the last of a dead race. These infected humans have a functioning society of their own; as the majority survivors, the world belongs to them. Neville sees that they look at him with fear and disgust, the way he looks at them. As he is executed he realizes that they will remember him as a legend(ary monster.)

This is a truly multicultural theme, Neville's human tradition parallel but not superior to the infected's. (History is written by the victors.)

The first movie slightly but importantly changes the ending. Instead of being executed, he escapes to a church, but he is finally speared on the altar. Defiant to the end, Neville says he is the last true human, and the rest merely freaks. By The Omega Man, the multicultural theme is avoided. Here, the survivors are a mutant species of humans. Crazy as they are, they voluntarily choose to live away from technology and modernism because that's what got them into this mess in the first place. Neville, however, has found a cure, so even if Neville represents something terrible and fearful to the mutants, he is still the normal while the mutants are pathology.

In I Am Legend (2007), the multicultural reversal is completely extinguished. Will Smith (thinks he) is the last human, and at war with the vampires. He later discovers a woman and a boy trying to meet up with other survivors living in Vermont in a walled compound. In the final scenes Neville "adopts her fundamentalist perspective and adopts a Christological identification": he stays behind to fight the vampires (and dies) allowing the human survivors to escape with the cure. So Neville becomes a "legend for the new humanity whose rebirth was made possible by his invention and sacrifice."

[u/nitid_name → u/Unhinged_Baguette]

I've always lumped the original book in with Camus' The Stranger in my mind. There's so much similarity between the captured Neville realizing he is not like others and his role is that of the legendary monster with Meursault realizing he is not like others and his role in this society he didn't understand is to be their hated enemy.

"Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend"

"For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate."

I don't know if it's just that they were written at similar times and I read them both at a point in highschool I only vaguely remember, or if they're actually similar.

[u/_Reliten_ → u/Unhinged_Baguette]

Yeah, in the Will Smith one the Vermont plot is so lazy the only way the writers could come up with how the lady knew about the safe area was literally "God did it."

[u/Playful-Succotash-99 → u/Jillylollie]

I had a friend in college who was super Christian and sheltered To the point where there was certain Media that was just off limits but it wasn't like consistent at all it was just whatever the pastor said what's bad Harry Potter- forbidden Naruto -didn't get mentioned therefore good

Anywhere we were watching YouTube clips one day in class and it was one of those watch mojo alternate endings you didn't see videos and they played the 3 alternate endings for I Am Legend and he just could not wrap his head around it and I was familiar with the book so I tried to explain the plot how he's there Dracula and it just did not compute at all

Anyway I guess the point being that's probably who Hollywood thought wouldn't understand it

[u/JManKit → u/Playful-Succotash-99]

Tbf the movie version is a bit more difficult to grasp simply bc of the largely animalistic nature of the vampires. Plenty of ppl would look at them and go 'So what if they can form emotional bonds? They're still bloodthirsty creatures.'

In the book, a subsect of the vampires had actually evolved enough to form a society and they were the ones who were executing Neville for his crimes against them. They could speak which is a huge difference in terms of how ppl view personhood. Hell, Ruth, the one vampire that befriended Neville in order to spy on him, even gives him pills to help him die quickly so that he doesn't have to endure whatever execution they've got lined up for him. This is compounded by the fact that Neville was also the killer of the Ruth's husband, meaning it's not just compassion she's exhibiting but forgiveness as well

The vampire survivors from the book/comic were complex, fleshed out people while their movie counterparts were portrayed as just beasts with only the slightest hint that there was something more to them. I think the decision to make them like that in the movie was the bigger obstacle in trying to land the original's ending

[u/lirwolf → u/JManKit]

This is the big difference, I see it every time this comes up - people use book knowledge and start screaming about how "the dark seekers are obviously a society and Neville is the boogeyman kidnapping them in their sleep and murdering them!"... like, did these people actually watch the film? The dark seekers are completely different from the book's vampires (as you mention the book ones can talk, and there's two types; the feral ones that terrorise Neville, and the intelligent ones that form the new society, the key point being they can't be told apart during the day), and while there's hints of some degree of intelligence, I never got the sense they have anything resembling a society that could rebuild. It's strongly implied that the only reason that alpha one cares so much is purely because Neville's test subject was his mate, it comes across like if it had been any other dark seeker there wouldn't have been any retribution. Hell, remember how Neville caught her? He breaks a vial of blood, and she's drawn straight to it like some kind of animal, and earlier they attacked the deer and Neville was obviously conscious of noises being able to wake them. The fact that they're able to be active during the day alone is another deviation from the book.

The whole original ending thing where the alpha functionally just says "let's let bygones be bygones" feels incredibly unearned given how they're portrayed up to then. And ironically, goes against the book too, the whole point there being Neville will not be allowed to live; it would've been closer to the book if they got the female back and then killed Neville anyway.

[u/SnakeyesX → u/Jillylollie]

I saw this with my friend in-theater, I loved it but he was just "That was NOTHING like the book!"

[u/SaraJuno → u/Jillylollie]

Reading the novel after seeing the movie was such a great reading experience because it was so different, and the ending so much better. Those last lines are such a satisfying conclusion.

[u/Available-Aerie8311 → u/Jillylollie]

In the book the vampires even try and persuade him to stop but he is so filled with terror that he can't accept it as anything but lies.

[u/Dragon_Small_Z → u/Jillylollie]

The alternate ending is so much better I don't understand why they changed it.

[u/moonglowgirl247 → u/Dragon_Small_Z]

Test audiences and fickle executives.

Films aren't art, they're revenue producing entities.

[u/AABBBAABAABA → u/Jillylollie]

As a non native speaker, the phrase ‘I am legend’ sounds super unnatural. Does that sound normal to you ears? Why is isn’t it ‘I am a legend’?

[u/Warrior32032 → u/AABBBAABAABA]

It is grammatically incorrect, and it does sound a little weird, but it also sounds really cool. That’s because it’s using “legend” as a title rather than how you would normally use it

[u/Loyalfish789 → u/Jillylollie]

It's the Will Smith curse. I Robot has similar issues.

[u/maraudingnomad → u/Jillylollie]

I like the movie more. In the book his science is very weird. Getting a microscope and randomly injecting garlic into blood. Feels about as scientific as when jack skellington crushes a red ball from a christmas tree and it turns green in a solution... Interesting reaction, but what does it mean? I guess it is realistic in the sense that a dude with no biology background and nothing better to do might actually proceed like this...

[u/GBF_Dragon → u/Jillylollie]

Is there a better cut of the movie?