Now think about it, has there ever been a movie based off of books that has been done nicely? Some are ok, but do they really show the whole series? NO!!!! I think it's time for someone to change that... But which one of us future directors will do it?
Lord of the Rings... Theres not many parts tht they left out, especially in the 45min extended edition
No movie based off books has followed the book exactly, otherwise movies would be hours long I think Harry Potter did pretty good. They stuck to the book mostly.
From harry potter i would of loved to see the death day party scene even tho movie wise the scene would be kinda useless
Like in the last airbender they left out some scenes and never put them flying on appa cause it wasnt in the budget
What you sometimes don't notice is that, films rarely but sometimes stay true to the book. The films are just made really poorly. Take The Hunger Games. If they made it properly, it should be a 15, but it was made too poorly to be a 15 and is simply a 12A. Plus it is hard to stay true to a book with though tracking.
The best adaptation I have seen was the Dune / children of dune mini-series. It has an 8-10 hour runtime and was very well done.
A Game of Thrones started excellent but I think they needed 10 more episodes in the first season. It felt like they did a great job on the first 4 episodes, then realized they used 40% of the season to cover 20% of the book. Still great though.