Often, the two are so different that if you started with one the other will disappoint. So which to go with? Specifically I was thinking of:
A Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin vs. Game of Thrones
and
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker vs. Hellraiser
A short story, but:
Graveyard Shift, by Stephen King, vs the movie by morons.
I cannot think of any case in which I felt the video was as good as the book. Always going to prefer the book.
The film, The Princess Bride, is so well cast and performed, that it surpasses the original (which I’ve read several times) by being “the good bits” of what already claims to be “the good bits”.
Almost all non-Tolkien fans would probably say that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a superior version of the written trilogy, aided by amazing visuals, and a moving soundtrack. Certainly this includes my wife, who after watching them tried to read the books - she made it through Fellowship, but never made it past Two Towers.
I’m on the fence. For 90% of the trilogy, I’m more a fan of the movie, but the last 10% … Faramir deserved better, and the foreshadowing of the cleansing of the Shire and the painful bite of mercy was always a favorite of mine, even if I acknowledge it’s a second or third excess climax from a film POV.
Now, these are probably exceptions that prove the rule, as I normally agree that the book is better than the film, but there are plenty of options where the adaptation is superior in one way while failing in others. For example, both The Martian and Project Hail Mary are wonderful books, but the movies keep all the essence while cutting out both unneeded and needed elements.
Jaws. The book is…not good. I would go so far as to say it is subpar. Give me the movie every time.
Star Wars is a terrible book. I assume it was written as a tie-in rather than being the original product. Ditto Jurassic Park. Make Room! Make Room! is much less interesting than Soylent Green.
You assume correctly; George Lucas hired Alan Dean Foster to write a ghost-written tie-in novel, based on Lucas’s shooting script for the film (which is part of why the novelization includes scenes which were filmed, but never made it to the final cut). It was released as a novel about six months before the movie premiered, to help build interest for the film.
The movie version of “Julie and Julia” was MUCH better than the book.
I think it depends on how great your expectations are. Before I explain that, let me tell you about a rule my parents had for my brothers and me. We could not go the cinema without their permission. It didn’t matter what the movie’s rating was: no permisson = no movie. If there happened to a book adaptation of the movie or the movie itself happened to be an adaptation of the book, we had to read the book first then give an oral book report to our parents. We were not permitted notes. Mind you, this was long before the days of PowerPoint and the like. My brothers and I hated that rule until one day I went with some friends to see a flick after obtaining the necessary permission. After the movie, my friends and I went to our favorite ice cream place (Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour) and, of course, we discussed the film. My friends were impressed and said I got more out of the film than they did. I begrudingly admitted that was my parent’s fault.
So, what expectations? I really enjoyed the novel True Grit and the first film was outstanding. There were some differences, but nothing to ruin the experience. The remake, it seemed to me, tried too hard to put every word of the book onto the screen so to speak (so to see?) and basically was a hard slog to sit through, mainly because I got the feeling the actors didn’t consider what they were doing to be acting, but was simpy reciting.
There are plenty of film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. Plenty of them are simply just filming the stage. At least one I saw was cinema instead of a play recorded on film but the dialog was exactly the way the Bard wrote it. And there are adaptations which take the plot of the play and try to work it out into a modern work of cinema without getting stuck on the details of being exactly what Shakespeare wrote.
Oddly enough, I enjoy all of those depending on my mood and what experience I’m seeking at the time.
So, what am I saying? I guess it depends on what you expect, how good the actors are, and how good the director is.
Also, it depends on how invested you are in the experience. Mom and Dad managed to force investment into the written page on us but I don’t condemn them for that. Further aside: a couple of decadeds after the Ice Cream Parlour evening, while waiting for a friend’s naturalization ceremony to begin in Sacramento, California, a woman standing next to me was on her cellphone, then she hung up and I asked, “How long have you been away from Richmond, Virginia?” She was shocked, said it had been about twenty years or so, and asked how I knew. I said, “You have the same accent as my parent’s; that’s their hometown.” We chatted for a while and it turns out her parents had the same rule as mine!
Getting back to it. Why choose between the two? Try to enjoy both!
As someone who became a fan of Tolkien and Middle-Earth as a tween, in the 1970s, I felt that the LotR films were amazing, and close, but not quite, as good as the books. There were so many moments in the movies where I thought, “that is exactly how I pictured this moment!” For me, most of the adjustments and deletions which Peter Jackson made were understandable, in the spirit of making a set of films which held together as films, and weren’t even longer.
However, I can understand how and why some devoted Tolkien fans felt that the movies were not just inferior to the books, but bastardizations of the novels that they love. (I have that reaction to the Hobbit movies…)
(My wife had not ever gotten past the Rivendell scene in trying to read the novels, but after seeing the first film, and loving it, she gave reading the trilogy another try, and enjoyed it.)
John Godey’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is an OK book, but the Matthau/Shaw film is not only an improvement, it’s an outstanding piece of filmmaking. We shall never again speak of the Travolta version.
Someone will eventually step in and point out that the movie Goldfinger improved on the Fleming novel by removing the idiocy of acually robbing ort Knox (I don’t feel bad about going with a movie rather than a straight-to-ideo adaptation, since it’s already been done), so I might as wel.
I have to admit that, even though I’m a huge fan of Mark Twain, I prefer the Nebraska PBS version of Puddin’head Wilson to Twain’s
IMO both The African Queen and To Have And Have Not were better film adaptations than the books.
Certainly the movie The African Queen has a more satisfying ending. After all that work, you really want to see the African-Queen-turned-torpedo take out the Luisa. C.S. Forester had a dislike for really happy endings, except for his “Horatio Hornblower” stories.
In most cases I think I prefer the original story, but there are a few cases where the movie managed to so completely change and confuse the original that it become something completely different, far beyond the usual omplaints about adaptations:
The Mysterious Island – the 1929 part silent/part sound version. They essentially rewrote Jules Verne’s original story so much that it doesn’t resemble his work at all.
Ice Station Zebra – I’m not sure what this is, but it isn’t Alistair MacLean’s story.
The Osterman Weekend – and this isn’r Robert Ludlum’s thriller.
Starship Troopers – we’ve hashed this one out on this Board often enough. It’s about as diametrically opposed to the Heinlein original in every way.
I, Robot – Why should Heinlein get all the bad adaptation treatment from Hollywood? There’s plenty left over for Asimov.
This Island Earth – Raymond F. Jones’ fix-up of a novel has its problems (it definitely peters out at the end), but it had a strong opening, which got bungled hopelessly by the filmmakers. Then they basically threw out the middle and wrote something apparently based on a perusal of the more outre SF pulp magazine covers. They never even explain what the title means! Read the novel sometime, if you get a chance.
From the Earth to the Moon – there are plenty of bad Jules Verne adaptations. This is arguably the worst.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – I still long to see faithful adaptation of his. Don’t believe the people who say it can’t be done. It’s never been tried.
I’ll also note that adaptations of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and H.G. Wells have generally been pretty awful. The adaptations of wells take the surface sheen and completely miss the underlying significance. We’ve been getting some good adaptations of Lovecraft in recent years, admit, but not enough.
Stephen King is a master storyteller. Sadly, movies based on his books are often poorly done. Firestarter and Pet Sematary come to mind. Some point to The Shining as not being true to the book, but I still think it was a decent adaptation and well made. Purists will always sneer at movies that don’t follow the books they are based on, but as stand alone efforts, they’re often quite good.
I assume you’re not talking about Tom Hanks’ miniseries?
I really enjoyed the book Ready Player One, which I thought did a much better job of world building than the movie, which I saw after reading the book.
The movie version of The Princess Bride is amazing, but I can’t rate it above or below the book. Pitting them against each other is just inconceivable.
As a Tolkien fan I have to say I enjoyed the movies more than the prospect of re-reading the books. Maybe it’s just my age getting to me, but parts of the books are a slog. But I’d re-read The Hobbit before ever watching the Hobbit trilogy again.
Jurassic Park, assuming we’re talking about the original Michael Crichton novel, was not a tie-in and was not a terrible book, though it’s not unreasonable to prefer the movie.
Certainly not, since that’s not an adaptation of Verne’s story (although they did steal the title).
I mean this 1958 monstrosity