Which do you prefer - the book or movie?

Cafe Society
21

I gotta disagree with you on the Stephen King issue. The Shining and Stand By Me are great films, but King isn’t a great writer.

i agree with *lissener, generally. they’re two different things, and it’s pointless to compare them most of the time. For instance are Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream… are both good works of art. But it’s pointless to try and compare them - one’s a good book, the other is a good movie.

That’s not to say that I didn’t think that the Harry Potter movie was a two hour plus shite fest - there are times when the book is better because the movie just sucked (or vice versa).

22

The Bridge on the River Kwai is a good book but became a masterpiece as a movie.

To Kill a Mockingbird loses something in translation from book to screen, but how could it not? Great book; great, if lesser, movie.

Matilda perfectly captures the tone of the book upon which it is based. Roald Dahl’s books have consistently been captured well on screen: Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and to a lesser extent, The Witches all do a good job of capturing the essense of the stories on which they are based without being slavish recreations of the movies plots. In each case, I slightly prefer the book.

Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and Carrie, all top notch horror novels, were improved in their translation to the big screen.

And I suppose I’ll be the lone voice of dissent in saying that I liked the movie version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I’m not a big fan of the book, though I do like it, but I think the movie does a convincing job of showing us on screen what was described in the book, and is visually interesting in the process.

23

A Beautiful Mind was a very good book, about John Nash.

The film was very good also. There was aspects and things about Nash’s life left out of the movie.

Russell Crowe played Nash, exactly as he was written about in the book. The mannerisms, the way Nash speaks, RC should have won the Best Actor Oscar.

But, both were very good, no complaints.

24

Just to throw another [set of] example[s] into the mix: Most of Hitchcock’s movies were adaptations of books. Good movies, no? But from what I’ve heard (haven’t read any of them) all of the books were horrible. There are some things that work well as movies. There are some things that work well as books. If you take something that works well in a movie, and try to make a book out of it, you’re likely to make a bad book.

25

I agree with Rilchiam, that the book Forrest Gump was pretty bad.

I like the movie The Natural better than the book. But then, the two have very different tones–the movie is much more idealistic about the game of baseball, and the book isn’t. Roy Hobbs is so much more of a bastard in the book, too. FWIW, I saw the film way before I read the book.