And if so, are you typically disappointed?
I make a point of avoiding it because I am usually disappointed. The only exception has been the Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson, and Howl’s Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki.
Either that or the other way around (Watching the movie then reading the book). I can appreciate both for what they are.
Books don’t entirely translate well into movies. Take Lord of The Rings for example, If we had a movie that was true to the book we’d have at least five 3 hour movies to watch. I think books have a much easier time in that they can sometimes get away with showing and not telling.
Dune is even worse.
Me too.
I think some do OK though. Take the Harry Potter series for example or Apocalypse Now being an (not literal) adaption of Heart of Darkness.
There have been some excellent ones like The Lord of the Rings Trilogy of movies.
To Kill a Mockingbird which I read before I saw.
Not so great book Amityville Horror was a satisfying translation to screen.
Jurassic Park Movie was actually superior to the book.
Narnia was well done.
Most of the Harry Potter Books were made into worthy movies.
Shawshank Redemption was a perfect movie, I had barely remembered the story. But with most Stephen King books I saw the movie first.
I saw the movie first in the case of Jaws and The Godfather. In both cases the movies were superior to the book. In fact Jaws wasn’t a very good book.
But most of time I’m disappointed.
Like The Hobbit trilogy, very inferior to the book.
Percy Jackson movies were not good.
Spiderwick was a disappointing movie, not that the book was great.
Golden Compass I didn’t love the book but hated the movie.
Wrinkle in Time was really disappointing.
Does Good Omens count? A limited series that was pretty much perfect from a very good book.
Many times I’ll read the book after seeing the movie. And then realizing how much the movie I just enjoyed actually sucked. I saw the Shining before reading the book (the one King book I hadn’t read at that point) and thought the movie was cool, then I read the book and saw why King was unhappy with the movie.
I did the exact same thing with 2001 Space Odyssey.
Haven’t read the book but I’ve heard about Forrest Gump being superior as a movie.
I was disappointed in Howl’s Moving Castle for one reason. I loved where the black spot on the dial took Howl and what it meant. In the movie it was lame and had no resonance…with me, at least. Other than that I loved it. I remember seeing a documenatary about Pixar, and the CEO was raving about Miyazaki and how he thought Miyazaki was such a genius for having that dial in the house. I retorted: No! Diana Wynne Jones was the genius who came up with that idea. Harrumph.
Off the top of my head, a movie I like much more than the book was The Third Miracle.
ETA: All the Wrinkle in Time movies/series sucked.
That is correct. The Gump book was forgettable, the movie was awesome.
I don’t make a specific point of it be I don’t them avoid either.
I think Jaws and The Godfather were better as films.
The Lord of the Rings was a great book and a really good film series, especially when you consider what an impossible tasks that was.
Contact was perhaps better as a film as well but I enjoyed the book and film almost equally.
The Silence of the Lambs stands out as an excellent book and excellent film.
A lot of the Stephen King books stand out as much better books than films with perhaps the exception of “Misery” which worked well in either format.
I forgot Contact, I recall liking the book more than the movie, but the movie was OK.
Nope.
If I’ve read a book (and particularly if it’s one I liked), I’ll watch a movie adaptation out of curiosity.
I wouldn’t say I make a point of it, but it does increase the likelihood.
We’ve had threads before around “movies where the movie was better than the book.”
It’s actually not the exception. It’s rather common.
That’s a weird one because it was written concurrently with the movie production and released afterwards. But there are still differences, and I remember reading it in the 70s and thinking it made the movie so much clearer.
It’s common for people to prefer the movie to the book. It’s far less common for “everyone” to prefer the movie to the book—for the general consensus to be that the movie was considerably better than the book.