NEEDS to be remade -- could have been a GREAT movie

Rating: 4/10 (31 August 2006)

Ever since I saw the trailers for the Beach, I've loved the concept. The story has so many interesting components: drug culture, a hidden paradise, rural dope farmers with Ak-47s, a beautiful french girl, an exotic country, surviving off the land, etc. I recently got around to reading the book and if you at all like the movie, you'll LOVE the book! I read the book in less than 2 days (it's 400+ pages long). Every time I stopped reading, I couldn't think of anything but what was going to happen next. So, after I finished the book, I watched the movie again.
Ugh. The movie is so much worse than I remember and completely different from the book.
***LOTS OF SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT*** Now, Leo isn't bad as Richard, but his character is supposed to be British!! And after checking IMDb, Ewan McGregor (who was supposed to play Richard) would have made a much better Richard.
In the book, there are a lot references to insanity and Apocalypse Now. Richard going insane in paradise is a great aspect of the story, but it's practically skipped over in the movie! In the book, Richard does a lot commando missions and spends a lot of time in the jungle, stealing weed from the dope farmers and talking to the ghost of Daffy (not booby traps). This is a great part of the book but the movie horribly butchers it. The homages to Apocalypse Now are sooo bad. The movie skips the details and plot build-up only to have Richard eating poisonous slugs and running around the jungle like he's in a video game?! And Banjo-Kazooie at that?! TERRIBLE! Prehaps the biggest offense is the character named Jed (or the lack thereof), who is one of the book's best characters but completely missing in the movie. In the book, Jed is a mysterious loner (Colonel Kurtz?). Richard is assigned to work with Jed and they do all sorts of commando missions, swim into underwater caves, and make the rice run together (not Richard and Sal -- poor excuse for a bad sex scene). Jed is a great character with a lot of good scenes and quotes -- WHY WOULD YOU CUT HIM OUT OF THE MOVIE!? The American surfers who get killed are also extremely messed up. They are not supposed to be retarded stoners, but Harvard kids who pretend to be stupid only to mess with snobby Europeans. Their stay on the nearby island is a huge part of the book and builds up to the climax SMOOTHLY. When they do make it to the island -- they aren't gunned down in the marijuana field. Instead, their fate is much MUCH MUCH more gruesome and theatrical (very Hitchcock like).
In fact, the ending of the movie is soo lame compared to the book. I won't go into great detail, but in the book, the ending features: a marijuana laced feast, discovering the fate of the American surfers, the death of a main character, the dope farmers don't kick everyone off the island, and a sum up of what happened to everyone after leaving the Beach.
In general, the movie is a terrible adaptation. It is made up of a lot of the more boring parts of the story and cuts out some of the best scenes. The plot was butchered by John Hodge and Danny Boyle for seemingly no reason. It really angers me to think that such a good book was so poorly translated onto the screen.
A much better version of The Beach must be made.