I’ve been re-reading the Harry Potter books. For the most part, I like the books better, though I do see why they omitted certain scenes or characters.
But in some cases, a scene in the book was done better in the movie. For example:
In “HP and the Goblet of Fire”, Harry gets help from Neville in the 2nd Triwizard task. In the book, Harry misses the opportunity to get Neville’s help, and instead lucks into help from Dobby.
In “HP and the Chamber of Secrets”, the whole scene after Harry rescues Ginny in Dumbledor’s office. I like the dialog between Harry and Mr. Malfoy. Also, how Harry tricks Malfoy into releasing Dobby was done better in the movie.
As an aside, I’m glad the movies don’t include Peeves. He really doesn’t add much to the plot in the novels, except for one place: he’s the one that broke the vanishing cabinet in the HP&CoS that was later repaired by Drace in HP&HBP.
Princess Bride. The sequence where Inigo and the Man in Black meet for the first time, and Inigo tells his story. The book just had this ridiculously long flashback, which takes you out of the action up at the edge of the Cliffs of Insanity, and didn’t give an opportunity for the two warriors to bond.
Of course, ‘the princess bride’ almost counts as a special case in itself, for a variety of reasons - the screenplay was written by the author, someone who arguably has more experience adapting other people’s books for the screen than in writing books. The movie and the book are both great, but I’d say the movie is a superior work of art.
In Flight of the Intruder, pretty much every scene with Captain Dookie Camparelli that was both in the book and the movie (the book has some stuff the movie lacks, and vice versa) was better in the movie, just because of how Danny Glover delivers his scenes. Also, it has the recurring moviemaking joke of taking an ethnic minority white guy (ie: Italian, Irish, whatever) and replacing him with a black guy who then interprets the character accordingly. In this case, Dookie complained of “A Wop in the Woodpile” and claimed to be Third Generation Mafia.
“Silence of the Lambs”–the scene where Starling first interviews Lechter. It’s good on paper, but it doesn’t capture the two actors’ performances, particularly Hopkin’s Lechter.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest–The entire scene where the inmates watch the World Series on TV.
All of the “Lord of the Rings” saga!Tolkien was big on names,mythical languages and "histories " but as for descriptive writing !..if youre told youre in a gloomy wood thats pretty much it!and you have to paint the scene for yourself . “First Blood” (and I most certainly am NOT including the appalling film sequels here lol ) The writings very dry ;and the" book Rambo"is such a cold killing bastard that you WANT him to get killed! whereas I thought that the movie worked well and the situation escalated in a believable way. "Dune"Ive tried again and again to read the books but cant get into them but enjoyed the film not least because it seemed so different to the majority of Hollywoods offerings. Lastly “Point Blank”,not a bad book but the film impacts better in my opinion .I wonder if its just coincidence that they`re amongst my most favourite ever films ?
Well, if anything, the common complaint amongst my friends with the Lord of the Rings trilogy was that Tolkien would spend forever describing the room, and you’d just want him to get on with the story.
Also, while I enjoyed the Dune movie for it’s super diferent-ness, I really thought the book was uniformly better (except for Gurney Halleck. Patrick Stewart is just cool). Haven’t seen the other movies, so I can’t really compare.
