You know, not every sci-fi adaptation is a winner, and in some cases, they’re absolutely dreadful. When looking at sci-fi book adaptations, there are a lot of awful movies out there, ranging from the hilarious to the downright abysmal.
The worst sci-fi book adaptations of all time
Some of these are backed up by their review scores, whereas a number of them are my personal opinion. You’re allowed to disagree, but just know that you’re wrong. If you’re looking for the best science fiction adaptations, check out our list here.
World War Z (2013)
Are zombie movies counted as science fiction? I think there are some grounds to include them, especially the masterpiece written by Max Brookes. His unique and novel approach to telling the story of the end of the world captures the nuance and horror through many individual tales. However, the 2013 film starring none other than Brad Pitt was barely recognizable.
How they took the source material they had, with its many stories, in-depth descriptions of outbreaks, tales of survival, and detail, and turned it into the movie they made is beyond me. Barely a scrap of what Max Brookes originally wrote was present in the film. As a standalone film, it is fine; it is passable as a subpar zombie film. As a sci-fi book adaptation, it is appalling.
David Lynch’s Dune (1984)
I am not talking about the newest renditions of Frank Herbert’s Dune novels but Lynch’s versions. Although I personally think they’re an absolutely wild ride, they’re certainly not a good sci-fi book adaptation. He goes a little off-track with the telling of the original story, in a way that maybe only David Lynch could.
The film itself is a visual treat, but overly long at two hours and fifteen minutes. It also has little to do with the original book. However, I would recommend chucking it on one day just to compare it to the masterpiece we get to enjoy today.
Ready Player One (2018)
I may rustle a few feathers with this one, but I thought the book was mediocre, and the film was downright forgettable. I understand that, as an adult, fiction written for hormonal teenagers with a low reading bar isn’t really aimed at impressing me. However, I found the predictability and obsessive nostalgia-porn referencing of the book remarkably dull. It was a thinly veiled way to disguise a very uninspired storyline with endless nudges and winks to the “nerds” out there. Constantly referencing “retro” doesn’t make for an engaging narrative.
The film, although visually engaging with its $150,000,000 budget, most of which I am sure went on CGI, really highlighted just how uninspired the storyline actually was. It tried too hard to tick too many boxes and, in the meantime, lost out on any real originality. The film was like being on a rollercoaster. Sure, it was a wild ride at the time, but once you leave the park, you forget the experience completely.
Mortal Engines (2018)
Growing up, I loved the Mortal Engines books. They featured gigantic rolling cities that chowed down on smaller cities to recycle their materials and enslave their people. The books themselves told great stories of both the lives within these roving leviathans and the monstrous battles that raged around them. There was politics, love, and war, all wrapped up in a solid YA fiction series.
The films, on the other hand, did what many of these terrible science fiction adaptations did: they tried to cut corners and condense. The books could have made a decent enough series or even a trilogy, but they missed the mark badly. Somehow, they turned the books into a dull, lifeless experience that left absolutely nobody wanting more. How you make a rolling, war-ready city underwhelming is beyond me.
Farenheit 451 (2018)
The absolute audacity of taking source material like Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and turning it into a shoddy science fiction film is beyond belief. There should be some kind of board that stops the sacrilege of revered pieces of science fiction. That’s like taking the Bible and turning it into a terrible, barely watchable film. Then having it feature Russel Crowe and Emma Watson, releasing it in 2018, and calling it Noah. Wait a minute…
In an age of rife misinformation, the suppression of free media, fake news, and book burning, you would think a film about those very things could have some potency. Instead, this science fiction film adaptation completely misses the mark, opting for a shallow and uninspiring show. What could have been very prominent ends up as a weak and spineless retelling of a masterpiece.
The Time Machine (1960)
Again, this is a case of a director taking on a classic work of science fiction and failing to really capture it for their adaptation. The original text is a marvel of imagination, broaching the subject of time travel very early on. The times and spaces the Traveler visits are fascinating and barbaric, leaving him shocked by the state of the world.
However, the film itself was, again, a complete mis-telling of a classic piece of science fiction. I think where the real problem lies with the film and its adaptation of the book is the interpretation of the source material. While it doesn’t exactly leave much in the short story to build a narrative around, it instead makes political and social statements and introduces new ideas. The 1960s film doesn’t flesh this out enough, resulting in a dull, if visually quite impressive, film.
The Dark Tower (2017)
If you have dug into The Dark Tower books, you will be aware of just how vast Stephen King’s narrative is. There are eight books currently, and each one is around 700 pages, resulting in a lot of tales to tell. Even trying to take on the epic collection of books is a real challenge, and the sci-fi adaptation to film does not rise to it.
There is little to no chance of ever being able to condense the story being told in The Dark Tower collection into one film. Even a trilogy would miss the point in many ways, with the varied and winding narratives that often take whole books to tell. They jump backward and forward in time, filling in gaps and expanding on the universe. The film does none of that and clearly just tries to capitalise on a well-loved collection.
I think that everyone who is already a fan of the book knew that the film was going to miss the point. Nobody expected the story to be able to be told in such a short amount of time. They did the opposite of what The Hobbit did and tried to compress a long science fiction collection into one short adaptation.
I, Robot (2004)
Again, we see a film using the name of the source material it barely sticks to at all. I, Robot is part of the Robot series that Asimov wrote alongside the Foundation series. The books talk about the role of robots and AI in the world of the future. Many issues, observations, and theories are broached and addressed in the books resulting in some wonderful, seminal works by the author.
The film starring Will Smith misses the point entirely and instead uses the “but what if robots were evil” trope that we have all seen way too often. In actual fact, the original source material stays away from that idea for the most part. There is absolutely none of the depth or scientific exploration of the original sci-fi book in the adaptation. It is another film that should have been called something other than the name of a very well-known and loved book. Maybe just call it Angry Robots, I don’t know.
The War of The Worlds (2005)
I am talking, of course, about the 2005 film with Tom Cruise rather than the incredible radio adaptation in 1938. That is a true work of art, and if you haven’t listened to it, I would go and do that right now, after researching content, of course. But I digress.
The film itself isn’t exactly terrible, but I don’t think anyone is going to rush to watch it again. The source material leaves so much for any talented writing and directing team to work with, and yet, the film itself is just like any other alien invasion film from the early 2000s. The dull and overly long narrative is held up by Tom Cruise doing what he does best, which is running incredibly fast on camera and not dying while doing his own stunts.
The original sci-fi book has a lot more to it than the adaptation gives credit to. Listening to the radio adaptation reveals the depth of devastation and on-the-ground reaction to a massive alien invasion. The book shows us the horrors of war, the loss and confusion. However, in its typically heavy-handed way, Hollywood misses this and just sees another excuse to blow stuff up and make Tom Cruise jump off things with his stupid, outdated haircut.
Total Recall (2012)
This one goes in for a double, because the original sci-fi adaptation with Arnold Schwarzenegger is a masterpiece of ’90s action. The previous success makes the 2012 version even worse, because it has already been proven that a good adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s We Can Remember It for You Wholesale can be done. This leaves no excuse.
Now, there is a little space for understanding when it comes to adapting anything by Phillip K. Dick, as his writing can be pretty out there. However, many of his books, novels, and novelettes have been adapted to the screen with resounding success. Just look at Blade Runner, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, to name a few. The man writes wild stories, but they fit the screen wonderfully.
However, the 2012 version of Total Recall was absolute rubbish. Loving the original as much as I do, the retelling was a clear money grab by a desperate and talentless studio. There is little to nothing of the original film in the remake. With the director so set on trying to recreate the fan-favorite moments from the original, he forgets to make a good film at all and still fails to capture the essence of what made the ’90s action film so fantastic. It is a flop on every count, with none of the nuance of the book, none of the hilarity of the first film, and nothing new brought to the table.
