The movie Ghost World is better than the comic book it’s based on.
The Jane Austen Book Club
Movie is a pleasant (not great) chick flick where everyone gets some sort of happy ending, featuring the members of a book club–half a dozen women and one man.
Book struck me as more of a journal style thing-y. Lacked much of the charm of the movie.
Well it has already been said, but: The Princess Bride. Definitely.
The Color Purple–While the book was fantastic, Speilberg’s movie was perfection. And he still didn’t get an Oscar nomination, while was an outrage.
johnspartan writes:
> It’s chic to go to or watch a film based on a book and say the requisite “Well
> the book was MUCH better. I mean, there were whole parts of the book left out
> of the movie! Well I guess they have to do that for time, or whatever”.
It’s chic where? In my experience, it’s clearly more common for people to prefer the movie than the book it’s based on. That’s true on the SDMB also. I think most people today are more movie-oriented than book-oriented, so they tend to prefer the movie for that reason. It takes a lot of reading to become used to the tropes of literature, and it takes a lot of watching to become used to the tropes of cinema. I think that it’s not generally useful to compare the experiences of reading and watching.
:eek: I didn’t know that! I’d probably call the book and movie a draw, but that movie is one of the most spectacular films ever created, and on my list of favorite movies it’s head and shoulders above the rest.
My nomination is Stardust. I saw the movie first and loved it. I’d read Good Omens (jointly written by Gaiman and Pratchett) and was utterly convinced this work would be comparable in brilliance. Not so. It was incredibly tedious and very dull. Big disappointment. I have since found a lot of Gaiman’s books quite boring.
ETA: According to wiki TCP got eleven Oscar nominations but not a single win. Wow.
How does a movie that gets 11 nominations not get one for Best Director? Did the Academy think Speilberg had nothing to do with it?
Stardust is not only better than its book, but is a really overlooked movie by a lot of people.
Good one. Gaiman is a much better storyteller in a visual medium. Stardust-the-movie worked really well with the ghost brothers. And in the movie there was much less moral ambiguity which, oddly, made for a much better story.
The Commitments and Angel Heart, both directed by Alan Parker, are better than the books on which they were based.
The book version of the Commitments, by Roddy Doyle, is very short, and the movie actually helps to flesh out the characters a bit and adds scenes not present in the book (like the classic “what are your influences” audition scene). Since it’s a story about a band, it also helps to be able hear the music.
The film version of Angel Heart (based on Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg) benefits primarily from a standout performance from Mickey Rourke in the lead role. But the movie also has a better overall atmosphere than the book achieves.
Almost any movie of The Phantom of the Opera. The original book is a muddle.
I think David Lean’s Dr. Zhivago was better than the book. He cut out large chunks and concentrated on Yuri & Lara’s love story.
I am actually surprised at the amount of people who came to say what I came in here to say; Silence of the Lambs.
The thing about that book being made into the movie is, they’re the EXACT SAME.
I read the book before seeing the movie, then saw the movie literally the next day. The movie has the same lines the verbatim to what they are in the book. And not important “Luke I am your father” type lines, but small seemingly insignificant ones. Maybe I will call this one a wash, but I’d prefer the movie simply because of the visuals.
I hate disagreeing with folks in these kinds of threads, because obviously it is your own opinion. But I can’t believe you feel this way! It just breaks my heart, because I love that book so much, I assumed everyone agreed the movie was awesome but the book was better.
The relationship between Shug and Ceilie, especially.
I can’t believe three other people have said ‘Stardust’ - I was sure I’d be run out of town on a rail for suggesting that. I saw the movie first (actually, many many times), and then read the book, and was crushed.
I was going to say Iron Giant. The book it’s inspired by is just weird nonsense, but then again, that’s kinda what makes it good, so I don’t know.
Welcome to the true beauty of the internet, where like-minded perverts connect.
They are both lovely works of art. I can’t bring myself to say one is better than the other. They both succeed astonishingly well at being what they are – an amazing book, and an amazing movie. Walker wrote a beautiful and heart-wrenching story; Spielberg and a cast of excellent actors turned it into something altogether different – not better, not worse-- just different.
I guess you are right, marchy. The truth is, that book has some sentimental value for me. It is one of very few works of fiction from black authors that I truly love, and I believe it is for sentimental reasons mostly that I prefer the book to the outstanding film.
Practical Magic and Night of The Twisters are both better than the books they’re based on. NOTT gets a pass because it’s a kids’ book; not even a young adult book considering I read it in the 5th grade. There’s no excuse for Hoffman’s lame novel, though.
Hoo boy. Exactly what I came in to say. One of the worst novels I’ve ever had the pleasure of throwing across the room.
Most of the Tom Clancy novels made better films than novels because they removed the endless clutter about technical details. So many characters, so many subplots, and some of them never seemed to link together. I recall reading a scene near the end of one book where a character goes out jogging and throws himself in front of a bus. This was supposed to be a big shocking climax, and yet I had to flip back several chapters in order to figure out who the guy was in the first place.