# Movies that were BETTER than the book they were based on **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 13, 2018, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515 "2018-01-13T05:36:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/221 "2018-10-08T19:57:00Z")
Stephen King’s **Carrie** was a better movie. I went to a lot of trouble finding Highsmith’s Ripley book, but I thought the movie was better. Also hunted down the short story **The Birds** and preferred Hitchcock’s movie. And I’m probably the only person on the face of the earth who liked Darryl Hannah in **Clan of the Cavebear.** ---
**Author:** ![Catsie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c0e974/32.png) [@Catsie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catsie)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/222 "2018-10-08T20:57:25Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Lord of the rings. Come at me. Not me. I struggled with the book. Finally decided that Tolkien tells a good story, but he doesn’t tell it good. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/223 "2018-10-08T20:58:32Z")
Alastair MacLean’s **Ice Station Zebra** and Robert Ludlum’s **The Ostermann Weekend** were both substantially different from the movies they inspired. I’ll take the movies ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/224 "2018-10-08T23:02:41Z")
Every movie version of The Count of Monte Cristo was better than the book, because… Spoilers? Do I need spoilers? This is a pretty old book. At the end of the book, instead of ending up with his old love Mercedes, who thought he was dead and who had pined for him and who was the only person to recognize Dantes in the Count, he ended up with a young woman, who was his ward from the age of 11 on. Virtually a father figure. The 11-year-old I was when I read the book did not like this one bit. Nor did any age version of me like it any better, possibly even less. In the movies, at least the two versions I’ve seen (maybe more, can’t remember), he ends up (a) realizing he has become an asshole and gone beyond vengeance and (b) reconnecting with his old lost love. On the other hand as I recall the movies omitted the part about the Count being addicted to hashish and the whole bit about the lesbian daughter of Dantes’s enemy. Have to admit I did not catch those in my original reading either. ---
**Author:** ![JB99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/225 "2018-10-09T00:07:55Z")
Lord of the Rings. Sorry, not sorry. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/226 "2018-10-09T01:20:52Z")
Man I can’t believe no one’s said _Fight Club_ yet. Significantly better than the book. Even Chuck Palahniuk said so. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/227 "2018-10-09T03:48:24Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > When I first saw “Strangelove”, I had thought it was based on “Failsafe”, a rather touching book where heroic flyers bravely overcome all odds to follow their orders and nearly doom the world. Very much in line with Slim Pickens valiant (above and beyond) efforts to get the bomb to release from his plane. > > But it’s a different story. > > It was made as a movie (didn’t see it). Apparently had good reviews, but was box office flop, probably because “Strangelove “ was released first, apparently by the same studio. The movie ignored virtually all of the background characterization in the book—who was who, and how they wound up in government service. This was especially true for the translator (Larry Hagman) and the Kissenger-like political scientist (Walter Matthau). Instead, it focused on the immediate military–political crisis, without dwelling on how it occurred … the book describes the equipment failure that triggered the attack signal. The biggest discrepancy was in the behavior of the Master Sergeant (Dom Deluise). In the book, he’s a big, dumb lifer who’s all to happy to supply the General with the information he needs, and is apparently oblivious to the consequences. In the movie, he’s a conflicted whiner who gives up the information grudgingly because he knows how its going to be used … to kill American servicemen so the Soviet Union will be safe. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/228 "2018-10-09T03:56:35Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > As I remember, > > the shark just died at the end, without Brody doing anything. I think it was supposed to have died from an accumulation of injuries. Also, Hooper (the oceanographer) didn’t survive in the book. Brody is in the water after the boat sinks, and the shark is closing in on him. He gets to within six feet and … just dies, much to Brody’s amazement (and mine, too). It’s a huge anticlimax. But yeah, the assumption is he died from earlier injuries. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/229 "2018-10-09T14:19:37Z")
^ Plus, as the shark sank, he pulled Quint down with him; Quint was tangled in one of the ropes attached to Bruce. And Hooper got shot in the throat by Brody while being munched up by Shark-o. Thanks, Chief! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/230 "2018-10-09T19:04:34Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > This was the scene that totally ruined the movie for me. The drawn-out silence into which Frodo says, “I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way” - that moment, AFAIAC, is the heart of the entire three-book tale. > > And Peter Jackson, may he be perpetually infested with the fleas of a thousand camels, turned that heart-rending moment into a cacophonic shouting match. I just re-read that. If shown on the screen, it would be Gandalf pontificating for a full hour, with a brief interlude when Bilbo offers, then a 5 minute silence, then Frodo offering. It would have been crap on screen. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2018, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/231 "2018-10-10T05:20:41Z")
> [@JB99](#): > > Lord of the Rings. You take that back! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2018, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515/232 "2018-10-11T00:16:06Z")
_Frankenstein_ It just took me a month to slog through the novel – I had to take a break and read a biography of Gen. Sheridan – and damned if I know why it’s considered a classic. The movie with Boris Karloff is a masterpiece, IMO. I also agree with Burpo the wonder mutt about _The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3_. I like the book, but I thought the movie was better. It eliminated some subplots I could do without and had great performances from Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-were-better-than-the-book-they-were-based-on/806515.md?page=11)