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.
Not me. I struggled with the book. Finally decided that Tolkien tells a good story, but he doesn’t tell it good.
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
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.
Lord of the Rings.
Sorry, not sorry.
Man I can’t believe no one’s said Fight Club yet. Significantly better than the book. Even Chuck Palahniuk said so.
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.
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.
^ 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!
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.
You take that back! :mad:
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.