You’re right. I opened this thread to post precisely that. And I liked the book a great deal. To me, it’s probably King’s best work, and I think it’s a great story. Kubrick took a great story and makes it fantastic. The mini-series that was closer to how King wrote it? Not so fantastic.
Adaptation, the, well, adaptation of Susan Orlean’s book The Orchid Thief. I thought the book was pretty cool, but the film became something far beyond, I think, anyone’s expectations.
I think the movie version of “The Princess Bride” was excellent, but the book still outshines it. The author’s comments were priceless, something that was lost (rightly) in the movie version. I always recommend the movie to friends, but not without recommending that they read the book first.
My first thought was “The Shining”. Steven King doesn’t do much for me in written form, but others have taking his books and done wonders. “Carrie” worked better as a movie as well.
Wow, I’m of such the opposite opinion on that.
The Godfather movies were really good, but the book, to me, is Awesome. It’s one of only a couple of books I’ll re-read, cover to cover everytime I make the mistake of picking it up. I love how the book let’s you see Michael as the one true heir to the Corleone power. How he’s just like his dad, and it was his destiny to become the next head of the family. Again, while the move was really really good, I never felt it had that element.
Mystic River.
The opposite of the my comments about The Godfather. It’s one of the few books I couldn’t finish (Another one that comes to mind is LOTR… I take that back, it was also The Hobbit that I couldn’t get into).
E3
The book is called The Diggstown Ringers. I too read it after seeing the movie. You’re right not nearly as good as the movie. Everytime I drive from Atlanta to Oklahoma, (via Birmingham to Memphis) I pass through a lot of towns that had to have been a source for the book. Winfield County, etc.
I’ll do better than books. I’ll do authors:
Philip K. Dick - I personally find his stuff unreadable. Not to say I haven’t read any of it, but I find the movie adaptations are better than the short stories from which they’re taken. Even Paycheck. You heard me.
Richard Matheson - Wooden writing, at best. Movies are much more compelling. See Omega Man and Stir of Echoes.
And the hands down winner -
Peter Benchley - Worst. Author. Ever. Go ahead, read some of his books and tell me how you like the endings. Especially Jaws and The Island.
I’m a reader, I’m hard pressed to come up with an example, but the Movie The Hunger beats the book by Whitley Striebler, hands down. This was brought up in a semi-recent thread on the vampire genre.
I do have to agree that I would rather see the Movies than try to wade through the Ring Trilogy again, though.
Another vote for Jaws. The novel just doesn’t hold the same tension that the movie manages.
And I have to agree with Lord of the Rings as well - I’ve always been a big fan of Tolkien’s works, and did a term paper on him for English in High School, but the man’s prose was so dry it made me thirsty just to read it.
Y’all better duck! Kubrick’s version better than the book?! Oh, the insanity! :eek: The Shining is the best and scariest thing King has ever written. Kubrick’s version, while visually appealling, was simply not good. YMMV.
I’ll heartily agree with Jaws, Field of Dreams, and Forrest Gump.
Was this really necessary?
As bad as the movie Logan’s Run was, the book and its sequels managed to be far worse.
**Omega Man? **
You’re kidding, right?
Gotta disagree with you about Matrheson’s writing style. YMMV, of course, but I find his books much better than the flicks based on them. The Shrinking Man became The Incredible Shrinking Man, but with the loss of a lot of internal stuff.
And Matheson himself wrote the tekeplays for a lot of the original Twilight Zones
Paul Verhoeven’s masterfully directed *Starship Troopers * is brilliant on so many levels that it is probably the culmination of 100 years of cinematic art.
Heinlein’s novel, on the other hand, was mostly scribble scribble scribble.
Don’t flame me, I’m just BSing you.
It absolutely was. This is a thread discussing the difference between various movies and their book counterparts. A side-discussion regarding the *whys * and *hows * is certainly appropriate. Why would it not be?
I am surprised no one has yet mentioned Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I think* Blade Runner* far surpasses the book. The entire Replicant/Memory issue in the movie is so much better than the religion of Mercerism in the book. In the book there is no possibility that Decker could be a Replicant, which to me, is one of the best twists of the movie.
I agree. Back in the 70’s and 80’s my brother was a big fan of Dick, so to speak, and I tried to read some of his stuff. Unreadable is exactly the word to describe it.
The Phantom of the Opera. The book is very dry and dull as all get-out. The narrative does not flow well and there are all kinds of characters with fractured histories and personalities that go beyond single-dimension into some wierd half-dimensional space. The whole thing makes no sense until about three weeks after you read it and have forgotten all the jarring stuff and only remember the highlights. Oddly enough the basic story was so captivating that literally dozens of attempts have been made to make it into a watchable film, play, etc. They all varied from the book pretty wildly while retaining the name and most of the characters.
Enjoy,
Steven
Well, if you liked the movie better, then I guess that’s just a matter of differing tastes. The book is far superior (and far creepier) in my opinion. The movie is a lot of yelling, loud noises and running around. No effort to build tension gradually, as is done with the book. And don’t even get me started on the casting decisions.
But my real beef with this movie is that it dares to call itself “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Well, no. This is **Francis Ford Coppola’s ** Dracula. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is still waiting to be made.
Omega Man isn’t even the best movie version. The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price, though far less polished, is much creepier.
Based on a suggestion from Eve in another thread, I got and read the James M. Cain novel Double Indemnity. Easily one of the great film noir movies, but the book is deeper, the femme fatale scarier, and the ending more compelling. Great movie, great book, but the book is a bit better.
Both the live action Cocteau and the Disney versions of Beauty and the Beast are deeper, richer experiences than any traditional version of the fairly tale I’ve read. Robin McKinley’s novel length YA adaptation is excellent, though, better than the Disney version by a mile, but not in the same league with Cocteau.