# Any Movies that were BETTER than the book? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 27, 2008, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394 "2008-06-27T03:37:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/101 "2008-06-28T18:01:58Z")
[QUOTE=Max Torque] One that gets mentioned quite a bit is **Jaws**. The movie is a masterpiece, well done from start to finish, and remains one of Spielberg’s best. The Peter Benchley book, however, has a long and irritating subplot about a romance between Sheriff Brody’s wife and marine biologist Matt Hooper, which takes up nearly a third of the book, during which the shark doesn’t appear once. Fortunately, they dropped all that nonsense from the movie. [/QUOTE] Exactly the book I came in to mention. Jaws is one of my top twenty movies or so, but I tossed the paperback after a first reading. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/102 "2008-06-28T18:08:51Z")
Stephen King’s **Thinner** was a better movie than book because the ending was changed for the film to a more mean-spirited\_and therefore effective\_one. ---
**Author:** ![bufftabby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@bufftabby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bufftabby)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/103 "2008-06-28T19:02:26Z")
[QUOTE=Trunk] **American Psycho** was a better movie. [/QUOTE] Oh hell yes. I generally like Bret Easton Ellis, but that book seemed like he was being gory and disgusting just for the sake of being shocking, pushing the envelope, etc. The worst part for me was when a character with my same name (his exgirlfriend Bethany) was being tortured. I really don’t like to read about someone with my name getting her fingers cut off, and (I believe this was the same girl, I kinda skimmed through the worst parts) getting a rat stuffed into her vagina via pvc pipe. Ellis’ _Rules of Attraction_ is worth a mention as well, because I think the book and the movie were precisely _equally_ good, much like with _The Shining_. The movie was extremely faithful to the book, but the movie is very good in its own right, visually and musically (hard to have visuals and music in a book, I know). ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/104 "2008-06-29T00:55:47Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] I find your choice of **The Andromeda Strain** odd – that’s one of the closest cases of adaptation of the movie to the book I’ve seen. [/QUOTE] Perhaps they were thinking of a different version? I think you mean the [first version](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066769/), they might be thinking of the [A&E version](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424600/). IMHO, any of the movies based on Thomas Harris books (_Silence of the Lambs_, etc.) are profoundly better. I found his writing so clumsy as to be close to unreadable. **Promethea** mentioned _Blade Runner_, which I put in a different class – the movie and book are both really good, but they’re different enough that they deserve separate consideration. Also in this category for me are _Starship Troopers_ and one that no one has mentioned yet – _One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest_. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Surb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@The\_Surb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Surb)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/105 "2008-06-29T01:42:35Z")
I just read **The Shootist**. To me the movie is far better than the book. John Wayne added depth to the character that I didn’t think the book had. Maybe he identified with the J.B.Books dying of cancer. Or maybe he learned to act since this was his last movie. As for Stephen King, I think the level of suck in his movie adaptations is inversely proportional to his involvement. The movie **The Shining** = good, his mini series = suck. **Stand By Me** = good, **The Stand** mini series = the big suck. Just my theory btw. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/106 "2008-06-29T02:00:24Z")
I wonder how many unsuspecting young romantics tried to muddle their way through James Fenimore Cooper’s book after Daniel Day Lewis drama’d up the frontier in 1992’s _The Last of the Mohicans_. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/107 "2008-06-29T02:21:36Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] _Stardust_ is said to be a better movie than the book. I haven’t confirmed this by reading the book though, but it’s a nice, well-rounded movie. [/QUOTE] I’ve seen the movie, read the book, and totally agree with this. The book kind of fell apart in the middle. “Then they traveled around a bit and had a bunch of adventures I won’t bother describing.” The movie changed the sky pirate adventure and made it better, filling in that gap. The time frame of the book made much more sense than the movie, though. How was Tristram supposed to do all that in one week? ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/108 "2008-06-29T02:49:19Z")
It’s interesting the number of people who preferred the movie of The Shining to the book. I couldn’t stand the movie because killing off Scatman Crothers made that entire character utterly pointless. The topiary animals into a hedge maze, the evil hotel NOT blowing up, Tony turned into a talking finger - all these I didn’t like but I could forgive. Scatman’s death was a huge blunder on Kubrick’s part, IMHO ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/109 "2008-06-29T03:17:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Except, once I thought about it some, I’m not sure it made sense. The idea is that by destroying the supply at Fort Knox, the rest of his gold will be worth signifigantly more. He shouldn’t care about that. He says it himself; he loves gold, its brilliance, its devine heaviness. He cares about gold, itself, not what he can buy with it. It seems against his nature to blow it up. It’s the old cliche: you always hurt the one you love. Most of the examples I’d give have already been mentioned. _The Godfather_ was a pretty medicocre piece of late sixties trash reading - a lurid soap opera. Coppola threw out the trash and made it into a great film. _Who Censored Roger Rabbit?_ is an example of an author who almost got a great idea but just missed it. _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_ hit the bullseye. Older works like _Dracula_, _The Last of the Mohicans_, _The Three Musketeers_, or _The Man Who Would Be King_ have all become somewhat dated as literary works. (Not that this is necessarily bad but anyone reading _Frankenstein_, for example, is going to be aware they’re reading a 190 year old story.) The film versions can take the story and tell it in contemporary language so that the telling is invisble and the focus is on the story. Works like _The Lord of the Rings_, _Gulliver’s Travels_, _Moby Dick_, or _Starship Troopers_ suffer because the authors were actually expounding on their imaginary world as a philosophical metaphor. They saw the story as just a hook to hang the exposition on to. If you agreed with the philosophy you might prefer the book. But if not, you prefered the movies because they generally dropped the philosophy and showed only “the good parts”. _Jumanji_ was good because it took a pretty short children’s book with no real plot and expanded the story until it was big enough to fill a movie. In my opinion, they did so successfully (unlike the recent live action versions of Dr Suess’ books that have failed in trying the same trick). ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/110 "2008-06-29T04:25:56Z")
I think that the Merchant & Ivory production of _Maurice_ is better than Forster’s novel. And I adore Forster. ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/111 "2008-06-29T04:42:59Z")
Pretty much everything Phillip K Dick wrote. He was an amazing story creator, but not a great storyteller. He had fantastic ideas for plots, characters, and settings, but his writing style was always a little problematic. His short stories were fantastic (with the above considerations), but his novels were mostly awful, and were just begging to be shortened into movie-length. MOVIE IS BETTER: _Total Recall Minority Report Blade Runner_ NOT SO MUCH: _Paycheck Screamers_? (I never saw the movie, but the short story was pretty cool). ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/112 "2008-06-29T10:31:01Z")
My second-favourite film of all time is One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. I saw the film before I even knew there _was_ a book. The book by Ken Kesey is great, with beautiful tone and a great deal to offer. The film is even better, in my opinion, and for once they did a terrific job of adapting the story for the screen. The book as such was more or less unfilmable since it’s all told from the p.o.v. of Chief Bromden. The producers jettisoned this slant and told the same story in a completely different way, with a significantly altered structure, and it worked magnificently. Digressing from the OP, I’ve also seen the stage version several times (once with Gary Sinese in the McMurphy role). For some reason, the play doesn’t quite work, certainly not as well as either the book or the film. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/113 "2008-06-29T11:13:36Z")
I would like to add two more. The Paper Chase with John Houseman was far better thaan the book. Anatomy of a Murder, again much better than the Book, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/114 "2008-06-29T13:33:22Z")
[QUOTE=Randy Seltzer] Pretty much everything Phillip K Dick wrote. He was an amazing story creator, but not a great storyteller. He had fantastic ideas for plots, characters, and settings, but his writing style was always a little problematic. His short stories were fantastic (with the above considerations), but his novels were mostly awful, and were just begging to be shortened into movie-length. [/QUOTE] Amen to that, although I’d question whether even his short stories were that good. I tried to get into his writing, even started a thread about it last summer, but _Christ_, the man just Could. Not. Write. It was like reading my own 6th grade creative writing assignments. I would just add two things: **Through a Scanner Darkly** belongs on your MOVIE IS BETTER list, and you should see **Screamers**. It’s an overlooked gem, and Peter Weller kicks major ass in it. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/115 "2008-06-29T13:46:00Z")
[QUOTE=Linty Fresh] **Through a Scanner Darkly** [/QUOTE] Sorry, that should be **A Scanner Darkly**. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/116 "2008-06-29T14:05:37Z")
[QUOTE=ianzin] My second-favourite film of all time is One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. I saw the film before I even knew there _was_ a book. The book by Ken Kesey is great, with beautiful tone and a great deal to offer. The film is even better, in my opinion, and for once they did a terrific job of adapting the story for the screen. The book as such was more or less unfilmable since it’s all told from the p.o.v. of Chief Bromden. The producers jettisoned this slant and told the same story in a completely different way, with a significantly altered structure, and it worked magnificently. [/QUOTE] On a related note - even though the book is very good, IMHO the movie version of \*Ragtime \* is better. I’m a big fan of Milos Forman’s work, and he approaches Ragtime as another of his outsiders’ examinations of American culture; he also has a measure of empathy towards his characters that Doctorow, frankly, lacks. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2008, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/117 "2008-06-30T03:21:11Z")
[QUOTE=Le Ministre de l’au-delà] It’s interesting the number of people who preferred the movie of The Shining to the book. I couldn’t stand the movie because killing off Scatman Crothers made that entire character utterly pointless. The topiary animals into a hedge maze, the evil hotel NOT blowing up, Tony turned into a talking finger - all these I didn’t like but I could forgive. Scatman’s death was a huge blunder on Kubrick’s part, IMHO [/QUOTE] As a friend of mine put it in college: he came all that way… just to catch an axe?! LOL! ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2008, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/118 "2008-06-30T12:44:13Z")
[QUOTE=lisacurl] As a friend of mine put it in college: he came all that way… just to catch an axe?! LOL! [/QUOTE] Actually, he came all the way to deliver the Snowcat, which is what kept Boy and Mother from dying. Don’t know how it went down in the book since I never read it. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2008, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/119 "2008-06-30T13:10:49Z")
Crothers’ character served some important purposes in the movie:[spoiler]First, in the book, King could just put information about “the Shining” into the text. Kubrick needed to have it brought up in dialogue. So Crothers served for exposition duty. Second, you had a problem with a movie which was about a man succumbing to homicidal madness but where you only had two potential victims available. Crothers was brought in so Jack could murder somebody. This showed that he had gone over to the crazy side but still kept his wife and son alive for the rest of the movie. Third, he brought in an outside element, the snowcat, as Merijeek wrote. Fourth, he provided the set-up for a funny joke in a Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” years later.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2008, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394/120 "2008-06-30T13:41:23Z")
And the paintings in his Florida apartment are the best part of that movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-movies-that-were-better-than-the-book/454394.md?page=7)