# Books you read before they were turned into a movie. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 11, 2004, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325 "2004-12-11T17:42:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/21 "2004-12-12T05:00:17Z")
> [@PoorYorick](#): > > Dozens for me also. One book that I almost wished I hadn’t read, however, was _Mystic River_. Both the book and the movie were excellent. However, I couldn’t really appreciate the movie because it was so faithful to the book, and so the entire element of suspense was lost on me. To the best of my memory that’s my one example of where I really hated the book but liked the movie. It’s almost always the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![iggy\_popov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f17d59/32.png) [@iggy\_popov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iggy_popov)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/22 "2004-12-12T05:06:00Z")
I read Sphere before they made it into that crapfest. Also I have read Acid House before I realized there was a movie. Does Rum Diaries count? The movie is still being made but I’ve read the book. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/23 "2004-12-12T13:24:13Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > All of them. 🙂 Well, not really, but I’m more of a reader than a moviegoer, so the list would be really long. To echo what **AuntiePam** said, it is more likely, rather than less that I read the book before seeing the movie. Indeed, more likely that I read the book \*rather \* than seeing the movie. The one that I recall seeing first was _The Princess Bride_ and in this case I thought the movie was better. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/24 "2004-12-12T17:39:38Z")
> [@don't ask](#): > > There would be dozens: > > Just Cause > … > Cat Dancer > > and on and on > > Plus lots I read before seeing the older movie like Hammet and Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, _Cat Dancer?_ What’s this? The only Cat Dancer I know is _Omaha._ did they make a movie of the comic? I doudt it, somehow. Or is this some other book/ movie. I can’t find any likely candidates in IMDB. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/25 "2004-12-12T17:53:09Z")
> [@vibrotronica](#): > > Too many to recite here, but the most significant on was John Varley’s _Millennium_, which is just about my all-time favorite time travel book. Imagine my chagrin when [this happened](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097883/). > > Even if you’ve seen that god-awful crapfest, read the book. It’s really good, and Kris Kristofferson, Cheryl Ladd, and director Michael Anderson have nothing whatsoever to do with it. Actually, the movie was not made from the book (it’s antecedent was Varley’s short story, “Air Raid”); the book was a novelization of the movie. Varley was hired to write the screenplay from his short story, but the movie got delayed, so he turned the screenplay into a book. The same thing happened with “Fantastic Voyage” – Asimov’s novelization was published before the movie came out and it was assumed the movie was based on the book. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/26 "2004-12-12T18:53:06Z")
The Princess Bride. I thought they were going to ruin it ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/27 "2004-12-12T21:02:56Z")
All of Stephen King All of Robert Ludlum Most science fiction Tolkien All three Hannibal Lector books Leon Uris Many of the books/stories that Hitchcock based his movies on All of Edgar Allan Poe “Alan Quatermain”, by H. Ryder Haggard (movie of the same name, plus the Indiana Jones character) _“Robinson Crusoe” “Tom Sawyer” “Huckleberry Finn” “Treasure Island” “Robin Hood” “The Three Musketeers”_ Well, this could just go on forever. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/28 "2004-12-12T21:22:49Z")
It’d take me much less time to list the books I’ve read after seeing the films, largely because if I enjoyed the movie reading the book would ruin it for me, and if I hadn’t I wouldn’t waste the time on the book. (That said, I read _The Razor’s Edge_ after seeing the film, and thought the film adaptation hacked out a lot of the dross from the book). Sometimes I refuse to see a film if I’ve really enjoyed the book. I thought _The Sheltering Sky_ was an amazing read, and did everything possible to avoid seeing anything from the film to avoid adulterating the mental images I had from the book. ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/29 "2004-12-12T21:37:14Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Actually, the movie was not made from the book (it’s antecedent was Varley’s short story, “Air Raid”); the book was a novelization of the movie. Varley was hired to write the screenplay from his short story, but the movie got delayed, so he turned the screenplay into a book. Wow! I did not know that. The book is seriously one of my all time favorite science fiction novels. But the movie is shit-tay. It’s not even badgood. ---
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/30 "2004-12-12T21:58:15Z")
I can only think of one: _Breakfast of Champions_. And I guess _Hitchhiker’s Guide_, too, but that movie won’t be out for a while. I can’t remember if I read _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ before or after the movie came out. ---
**Author:** ![dare\_devil007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@dare\_devil007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dare_devil007)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/31 "2004-12-13T03:50:35Z")
\*Harry Potter A Walk to Remember Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Lord of the Rings Angela’s Ashes\* I’ve also read a lot of books after I’ve watched the movie, like _Ben-Hur_… ---
**Author:** ![easy\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb8c5e/32.png) [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/32 "2004-12-14T04:32:35Z")
The only one I can think of that hasn’t been listed yet was **Contact**. I know some people thought the movie was more realistic in that it’s easier to hush one person than 5 (in the book, 5 people go in the dodecahedron), but I really liked the interactions between the characters. I also enjoyed Ellie’s relationship with her mother and the bit at the end with pi and the circle. ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/33 "2004-12-14T05:11:25Z")
Having read dozens and dozens of books (and stories) before they I saw the movies (or TV Miniseries) they were based on, as well as the other away around, I can honestly say I almost always prefer reading the original source material after seeing the visual interpretation. The reason for this mainly, I think, is that the written material is usually superior. What this does is makes it easier to enjoy the movie for what it is, rather than expecting it to live up to an ideal that is almost impossible to achieve. It can and does lessen some of the impact of the source material, but the fact that the story, in writing, can be presented with so much more detail, and is absorbed sometimes over the course of several days rather than in one 2 hour sitting, makes it a rich experience regardless. One of the adaptations of books I liked that I still haven’t seen is _Watership Down_, which is one of my all-time favorite books, and I’ve heard mixed reviews about the cartoon movie they made of it. I’m afraid I won’t enjoy it. I kind of wish Pixar would decide to pick this up and make a really good, long movie for adults. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/34 "2004-12-14T05:16:06Z")
The only one I can remember is _House of Sand and Fog_, and I read it before Oprah had it on her book club, as well. Oh! I also read _The Hours_ before it was made into a movie. I still haven’t seen that one. . . ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325/35 "2004-12-14T13:04:14Z")
> [@Peter Morris](#): > > _Cat Dancer?_ What’s this? The only Cat Dancer I know is _Omaha._ did they make a movie of the comic? I doudt it, somehow. > > Or is this some other book/ movie. I can’t find any likely candidates in IMDB. Sorry, _Cat **Chaser** _ one of many bad movies made from Elmore Leonard books like _52 Pick-Up_, _Touch_ and _The Big Bounce_ but it was the first one to spring almost-to-mind. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-read-before-they-were-turned-into-a-movie/279325.md?page=1)