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Notes -
But yes the plot suffers because the most exciting naval ploys and scenes from several different episodes from early books are condensed to a single 'chase'. However, if they were more 'true' to the series, it wouldn't have been necessarily any less like a series of vignettes. it's been some time since I read the books, but I got the impression the author leaned towards realism in a way which makes for boring cinema by Hollywood blockbuster standards: Aubrey receives boring or exciting assignments or no assignments at all depending on the interpersonal politics and favors and strategic situation of Napoleonic wars (all essentially random from Aubrey's POV) -- often nothing much happens -- individual naval battles are more often due random happenstance than forming a satisfying narrative arch.
The naval romanticism comes in how Aubrey and Maturin find themselves in once-in-lifetime action improbably often and Aubrey gets to execute all the naval tactical genius of the Royal Navy of the era personally. (All the battles and stratagems are supposedly historical or closely inspired, but Aubrey's career is not.) Additionally, later on Maturin turns a little bit into James Bond of Napoleonic times, with all improbable features and events inherit in that.
There would have been some romance in the books, which might have been good for box office if they had incorporated that.
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