I thought the battle of Battle of the Pelennor Fields was described so much better in the book of The Return of the King than in the film. The film version was a bit scrappy and disjointed, it just felt like a series of attacks thrown at the screen and not really a battle like that at Helm’s Deep, which was great on film. After reading about Pelannor Fields in the book I really was left with a sense that it was very much an epic battle.
EDIT: Have to ask, why do people start out posts with a “I fully expect to be flamed for this”. Is it an attempt to disguise what they feel is a poor post or opinion?
There seems to be a pattern here. Are we predisposed to like better the one we encountered first? Anyone read the book, then see the film and prefer it?
Anything by Tom Clancy, I really hate his writing style, but a couple of the films have been ok.
Similarly for books by Thomas Harris (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal) in general I don’t like his writing style, but the stories are fantastic. Anthony Hopkins carries the whole series and makes the films, for me, better than the books.
Iread my way through the trilogy plus The Hobbit before the films and I always thought that Tolkien while a genius for writing this material at a time when nobody else had the courage or imagination to do so was pretty appalling at descriptive writing in the sense that he would tell you for example that you were in a dark and gloomy wood and that was pretty much it.
To compensate for this he’d go overboard on names and irrelevant histories .
I enjoyed the films more then the books.
As to the poster saying that he expects to be flamed for this…its not an attempt to disguise what they feel to be a poor post or opinion but pretty much stating as a fact what is likely to happen to them.
The poster has submitted an opinion that will be unpopular with many and viewed also by many as uncool (Not the best word choice but you get my meaning)
It would be the same if you dissed Star Trek or books or similar.
What would be described in the political world as making a "Very courageous statement"ie. political suicide.
The Shawshank Redemption is better than the King short story/novella.
The Godfather is better than Puzo’s novel which I read first and really liked.
Silence of the Lambs and The Hunt for Red October loved both books, which I had read first, but the movies are better.
In each case although I liked the original material I have never felt the urge to reread any of them but have seen each movie several times. If all 4 played on TV tonight one after the other I would probably watch them again.
I have read lots of other things mentioned in the thread but never reread any of them either but have seen several of the movies more than once.
A point about V for Vendetta. It’s a bit dated. It was written to be, as much as anything, a metaphor for the Thatcher era in british politics. Time passes, and it can appear to be weaker because of it.
Fight Club is a better movie than book, IMHO- but the book is still very good. The movie just happens to be brilliant.
I’ll also add the 1939 film version of The Four Feathers being a lot better than A.E.W. Mason’s turgid book which (IMHO) had far too much sappy romance and parlour-room pleasantries and not nearly enough gunfire and adventure…
Unless the movie totally blows it, I usually don’t have problems with adaptations. If anything, I admire how filmmakers will alter the books to meet the different demands of cinema. I’m a huge Tolkien fan, but I believe the film improved many aspects of the story over the book. Too many fans of the LOTR treat the books like they are the Torah and hate any alteration at all (I use Glorfindel as a litmus test. If you can’t see how the film was improved by that change then you don’t understand movies and are too in love with the book to even discuss it). My preferred way, though, is to see the movie first then read the book as it usually enriches the experience rather than compromises it the way it often is the other way around.
As for movies better than the book, The World According to Garp, The Dead Zone (the ending is much better in the movie), Carrie, are a couple I can think of right off the top of my head.
But this is Cafe Society, on the Straightdope boards, I can’t think of fans of any work that would react en masse in a knee jerk manner on the boards. Not even Star Trek fans like me
The only exception to rational behaviour cat owners, who have to post a picture of their kitty and a strongly worded rebuke when there’s any mention of harm committed to anyone of their pets’ race
I think the comics were generally very good, but they were a sophomore work, and do have a lot of problems: Moore’s writing has tightened up considerably, thankfully. The second act in which Eve decamps and finds a friendly gangster to live with until he’s killed just drags {as well as being somewhat implausible}, ditto the various Party machinations {not helped by David Lloyd’s samey artwork, which meant that I couldn’t tell who was shafting whom}, Adam Susan falling in love with his glorious surveillance computer is just horribly dated, the detective solving the mystery of Larkhill by going there and dropping acid is just plain laziness, and the ending, in which Eve takes on V’s mantle and her own apprentice, doesn’t fit. The movie did an excellent job of tightening and pruning to render the original both more plausible and coherent as a story, while resisting the temptation to turn V into a Superhero {TM}.
Lord of the Rings is a canny suggestion. Agree that the film is a far better film than the book is a book, but it is a bit of an unfair comparison as it was written so long ago. When it was written it stood alone in the genre.
The Bourne films are good, probably quite influential on how modern thrillers / action films are made. The books are shite.
The Bridges of Madison County was a decent film, old Clint showing some charm. Not read the book, so stand to be corrected, but understand it’s fairly juvenile.
I came in to mention this. I just finished the book last week, and it was a highly engrossing train wreck. Even as I was finishing it up at 1:00 AM when I had to get up at 5:30 for work, I was telling myself “This is shit.” Totally unbelievable plot that just kept spinning more and more out of control with every chapter, and the characters were all monsters, even Bud White. The movie took the book, trimmed the weirder subplots and conspiracies, got rid of some of the more whacked-out characters, and toned the remaining players down to give a very pleasant and engrossing story. It was like the book on decaf.
My standard entry in this thread is the movie Carlito’s Way based on the book After Hours. The book Carlito is very different from the movie version. He’s an unrepentant thug who makes a lukewarm and not particularly successful effort to go straight more out of a fear of going back to prison than a genuine wish to reform. Also, he and Kleinfelt are not friends. He doesn’t particularly like or even respect Kleinfelt, although Kleinfelt worked his ass off for Carlito (True, Kleinfelt is a scuzzbucket in the book, although I don’t remember if he fucked Carlito over like he did in the movie.). Add to that a confusing and jerky narrative which switches back and forth between the first and third person, and I would say that Brian De Palma treated the source material very charitably. As an author, Edwin Torres is a good judge.
Another one is Full Metal Jacket, based on Gustav Hasford’s The Short-Timers. Hasford was a very weird man who wrote a very weird book about Vietnam. The book kind of rambles and rambles and rambles, going from one blood-soaked atrocity to another, but it doesn’t really wind up anywhere. Like LA Confidential, the movie got rid of the really pointless mondo-beyondo shit, and switched the characters and events around to get the very poignant story that Hasford was going for. It’s like Hasford was going for something in the book that he wasn’t quite talented enough to reach, and when Kubrick read the material, he immediately figured out what Hasford was trying to say and said it for him. Or not. Like I said, Hasford was out there. Who knows what he might have been aiming at?
This is my own usual suggestion to these threads. Both are good, but the tone of the movie is different from the book. And because of that I like the movie better.
Similarly, I love the movie Mr. Roberts, but found the book to be a much more varied thing. Now, part of that is that is that the movie had less time, and so tightened up the story to focus far more of the conflict between the captain and Mr. Roberts, while the book was at least equally interested in presenting a view of naval service in the Pacific away from the battle fleets. But, again, part of it is the difference in tone between the two works. The book was grittier and I found more abrasive for that, rather than “real.” Obviously YMMV.
The example I always give (and I don’t see it above, and forgive me if I missed it) is Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger. Most of the Bond nooks are actually much better than the associated movies (usually there isn’t even much rresemblance), but in Goldfinger Fleming’s villains seemed even more comic-book-like than usual, and the crime – (Does this need spoilers at this late date? Especially as it doesn’t really spoil much) – the robbery of Fort Knox, isn’t logically possible. The movie points out why, in fact, and changes the crime to something rational. The villains, amazingly, aren’t as bad in the film. Oddjob’s death is more believable. They threw in some visually interesting stuff not in the novel (the tricked-out Aston-Martin with the ejector seat, and the laser-beam threat) that was pretty obviously sort of meant as a joke, but which resonated so well with the audiences that they changed the course of the series – Bond became more outlandish and gadget-prone.
The one thing I couldn’t believe about the film was Auric Goldfinger’s NOT stealing a bar or two of Gold from Fort Knox. There no WAY he’s pass that up.
I’ll second Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption both being better than the book (actually, short story). Both stories, interestingly enough, appear in the same book by Stephen King (Different Seasons, I believe, which also contains the story for Apt Pupil).
In both movies, there’s more plot development and nuance than the book, which is a juxtaposition from what normally makes a book better than the film version.
This, this, 1,000 times this. Movie = fun little supernatural romp. Book = proof that John Updike writes women like an elephant fucks a Volvo: clumsily, awkwardly, and with very disappointing results.
