Iconic Characters That Movies Can't Seem To Get Right

Nowadays, people complain that Hollywood has become too dependent on adapting existing novels, comics, video games, etc. But the truth is the film industry has always relied heavily on existing IP with inbuilt fanbases. Movies like "The Wizard of Oz," "The Godfather" trilogy, and "To Kill a Mockingbird" did very well with adapting already-popular content for the big screen.

Sometimes Hollywood does a good job of adapting the source material, staying faithful to the original plot and creating a cinematic adaptation that charms critics and fans alike. Other times, audiences aren't so lucky, and instead, we get a mish-mash of storytelling where the film is at odds with the intentions of the source material. This can be most obvious when it comes to the big-screen depiction of beloved characters.

These heroes and villains delighted fans in comic book panels or on the printed page, but when they made the jump to movies, they ended up getting the short stick with puzzling, unsatisfying adaptations — no matter how many times filmmakers have tried to get them right. So let's take a look at such characters that Hollywood just doesn't seem able to make work in films even after repeated attempts at nailing their characterizations. 

Before DC and Marvel gave us superheroes to root for, there was Tarzan, King of the Jungle. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the character first appeared in 1912's "Tarzan of the Apes," and he was deeply a character of his times in terms of origin story and the nature of his adventures.

Tarzan's fictional backstory involves being abandoned in the African forests as a young child after his parents are killed. Raised by a group of apes, Tarzan has little use for Western civilization and prefers to live in the forests even after moving to England to become a member of the aristocracy. Throughout Tarzan's original adventures in the novels, you notice recurring plotlines relating to outdated themes like the idea of the "noble savage," "racial superiority," and "uncivilized natives" who must be taught their place. Naturally, making a modern hero out of a character deeply entrenched in concepts that are considered repulsive today is an uphill task for modern filmmakers. 

Newer versions of the character try to frame Tarzan as working alongside local African tribes rather than ruling over them as the "King of the Jungle." But these versions haven't been well-received by audiences. The most memorable recent incarnation of Tarzan was in the 1999 Disney animated movie, which changed major aspects of the character's backstory from Burroughs' work, making it more comedic and kid-friendly, thus the wise-cracking animal sidekicks and keeping Tarzan in the jungle at the end instead of leaving for England as in the novels.  

Long before horror movies popularized the idea of regular, everyday guys who transform into maniacal killers in secret, Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a seminal novella on the subject entitled "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." In Stevenson's work, you see many of the "split identity" tropes that have been used by filmmakers in modern times. 

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde themselves have grown to become iconic characters, with Jekyll being the noble yet tormented heroic figure and Hyde being his uncontrollable alter ego that delights in causing mayhem. However, movie tends to depict Jekyll and Hyde in a very different light than Stevenson intended — especially when it comes to Hyde's appearance.

In the original novel, since Jekyll is essentially a good person, his villainous alter ego is described as "smaller, slighter, and younger than Henry Jekyll." But movies like "Van Helsing" and "The Mummy" insist on showing Hyde as an overpowering figure, sometimes literally, more closely resembling the Hulk than the scrawny little villain that Stevenson originally wrote about. Strangely enough, the movie that got this aspect of Hyde right was 1996's "The Nutty Professor," where the antagonistic "Buddy" was much smaller in size than his heroic alter ego Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy).

Hollywood has never had a lot of luck with pirate characters. Up until Captain Jack Sparrow came along, the only movie pirate with any significant currency was Captain Nemo — except calling the character a pirate does a disservice to his backstory as laid out by writer Jules Verne in "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas" and "The Mysterious Island."

In the novels, Nemo is the son of an Indian king who was forced to flee from his home after the British imperialist army attacked. A scientific visionary, Nemo had his special submarine, the Nautilus, built from parts from all over the world, and he took to roaming the seven seas with his crew. All the while, Nemo burned with a hatred against the British Empire and dreamed of taking revenge against the foreign interlopers who'd conquered his kingdom.   

Unfortunately, all that complex backstory is thrown out the window for the big-screen adaptations of Captain Nemo. Most film versions of the character don't even bother making him Indian, with actors like James Mason, Herbert Lom, Patrick Stewart, and Michael Caine playing him in various capacities. Naseeruddin Shah was the only Indian actor to play Nemo in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," but the submarine Nautilus got more attention than Nemo in that film.

First thing's first — we're talking about Frankenstein's monster here, not Frankenstein himself. See, Frankenstein is the lead character of Mary Shelley's 1818 horror novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus." He's a brilliant doctor obsessed with understanding and perfecting a way to create life and bring back the dead. 

In the course of his research, Dr. Frankenstein builds a monster out of dead human body parts, successfully reanimating the multi-corpse structure and giving it human intelligence. This new creation is Frankenstein's monster, and he's appeared in many movies over the decades as a slow-moving, barely comprehensible, simple-minded creature. But that's not how the monster appears in the original novel. In Shelley's story, the monster is extremely agile, fast, powerful, and self-reliant. 

He's also highly intelligent, able to speak multiple languages and strikes a hard bargain with Frankenstein to furnish him with a mate he can start a family with. The monster from the novel is not a literal superhero as in Aaron Eckhart's "I, Frankenstein" but a cunning, articulate, yet deeply tragic figure who both loves and hates his creator and its own existence. The closest thing to the book is 1994's "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." Robert De Niro plays a version of the monster that hews closely to the novel. But he's distinctly more handsome than his absolutely monstrous-looking book counterpart, and his intelligence is said to be a result of retaining memories from the brain of the corpse he's made out of rather than natural ability.    

Some pop culture figures become archetypes of a particular genre for all future generations. For example, what's the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of the word "barbarian?" Chances are you thought of a guy named Conan — a massive, loincloth-wearing warrior with a giant sword and an all-consuming rage. 

Conan first became popular in movies when a young Arnold Schwarzenegger played the role in 1982's "Conan the Barbarian."  The role turned the muscular actor into an action star, and the movie showcases Conan as a well-meaning brute who needs the help of his wily comrades to succeed in various quests. This idea of Conan being a guy who's better at swinging his sword than thinking his way out of situations has persisted over the years, and it followed the character into the 2011 reboot starring Jason Momoa as a version of Conan who feels closer to Khal Drogo.  

But in the original novels written by Robert E. Howard, the character was anything but dumb. In fact, Conan was well-known for being remarkably erudite and eloquent. Consider the time he expressed his admiration for poetry as an artform. "A great poet is greater than any king," Conan states in "The Phoenix on the Sword," adding, "[The minstrel's] songs are mightier than my scepter, for he has near ripped the heart from my breast when he chose to sing for me." Can you imagine Schwarzenegger or Momoa's Conan ever saying something that deep?  

Few novels in history have enjoyed the widespread popularity of the "Harry Potter" books. The series was a publishing phenomenon before Hollywood jumped on the bandwagon, churning out eight movies based on the novels depicting the journey of the titular Harry on his quest to defeat the dreaded Lord Voldemort. 

What made the franchise so beloved was the host of fascinating and likeable side characters, most of whom translated well to the big screen. But some weren't so lucky — like Ginny Weasley, who in the books is a fiery, funny, intelligent character Harry falls in love with. Fans of the novels remember Ginny as someone who's unafraid to stand up to bullies and who speaks her mind to everyone all the time.

Unfortunately, the movies do a poor job of reflecting those qualities in Ginny, played by Bonnie Wright. The character is a pale shadow of her book self in the films, with hardly any important lines or scenes to showcase her spunky nature. Ginny's relationship with Harry is also a lot more subdued, to the point where you wonder why the two ever got together given their noticeable lack of chemistry.