For me, “The Running Man” by Stephen King would fit into this. I love the book for the dark, dystopian vision it presents, and its prescient portrait of reality television run amuck. I would love to one day see a serious movie made from it.
But I also love the Schwarzenegger flick, which has almost nothing to do with the book, other than the protagonist having the same name and him competing on a murderous game show in the future. In my mind I see it pretty much as its own thing, which is a goofy, over-the-top, Reagan-era action flick. Not great cinema by any means, but a good “turn-your-brain-off-for-90-minutes, blow-shit-up-real-good” romp, complete with professional wrestler-style villains.
So, what are your instances of liking both the book and the movie, but for different reasons?
I’m not sure if it counts as they were produced parallel rather than one being based on the other but I like both versions of 2001:A Space Odyssey. The novel is an extremely well executed sci-fi novel, the film is a visually stunning experience.
The Shining, the novel actually focuses on Jack Torrance and seeing the character repenting his former actions and rebuilding himself only to slowly descend into madness is quite powerful. The film on the other hand focuses on Danny, and is significantly scarier IMHO. In fact it’s one of the very few horror movies I find truly terrifying.
LOTR - books I love cause, well, they’re Lord of the Rings. Movies I love for the visualization of middle earth, the music, the actors, the cinematography.
To kill a Mockingbird - books for the beauty of the writing; movie for the beauty of the acting
“Congo” the book and “Congo” the movie were quite different, but I thought they were both fairly entertaining. The book was kind of a techno-thriller and the movie was kind of a pulp adventure.
I was thinking the Shining, too. The movie comes off as very surreal, very off, whereas the Jack of the book is very fleshed out and sympathetic. I agree that I like both (prefer the book personally, though) but for very different reasons as you say.
The Princess Bride (the movie) is very faithful to the book, but I’ve always thought the tone was just slightly different. The book is a satire of fairy tales, the movie is a parody; but both are done with great affection for what they’re poking fun at.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; the book, for being brilliant and excellent in every way, and the movie for giving me a mad crush on Zooey Deschanel.
I’ll second The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I have never, alas, heard the radio plays that started the whole thing off, but I love the books for being funny and smart and funny and charming and funny. The movie is also a very good story - a very different story that happens to share most of the same characters and a few of the same events, and got criticized for not being a film of the books, but to heck with that. I liked it, and it introduced my kids to the Hitchhiker’s universe.
I like all three version of Dune. The novel for the world building, the movie for the gorgeous scenery, and the miniseries for the characters which I thought shined a bit more than in the novel.
I like Jurassic Park the novel as a relatively intelligent science fiction story of man pushing nature too far. I like the movie for the dinosaur action which has yet to be topped on screen.
Ditto on The Princess Bride (screenplay written by the author of the book, by the way).
As Robot Arm says, the movie is a light parody, with a happy ending; I might even say that the parody elements are pretty minimal, and most of the film is just a straight-up fairy tale, with an occasional left-handed jab at a trope or two.
The book, however, is a biting satire about adulthood, growing up, and the pursuit of happiness.
Both are excellent, but are really opposite sides of the same coin, so to speak.
*Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory *(the first one) and *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory * (the book) are different in many ways. The movie is one of my all-time favorites, and I also love the book (I like the movie better–apparently Roald Dahl hated it).
Logan’s Run. The book and the movie are drastically different, but I like both. Neither is an Immortal Classic, but both are entertaining yarns.
The book I read was a mass-market paperback, with several pages of photos from the movie. So I knew from the beginning that the book and movie had little in common. So when I finally saw the movie, years later, the changes didn’t infuriate me.
I liked both the film and print versions of:
The Shining
The Shawshank Redemption
Misery
One Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest
Although ALL of the books were better.
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Shining
One Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest
Lolita
A Clockwork Orange
I haven’t read the sources for his other films, but these alone dominate the topic.
The Pope of Greenwich Village
True Confesssions
Rebecca (Hitchcock/DuMaurier) Frankenstein
Thank You for Smoking (The adaptation dropped the ball in a few places, but made some very good decisions in others, like giving the kid a bigger part)
Starship Troopers. Love the book for it’s discussion of warfare, politics, and the character’s dry wit. And of course, for the powered armor. Love the movie for the music, scenery, and beer-and-popcorn fun of it all.
Flight of the Intruder. The movie was actually a pretty danged effective adaptation of the book. Minor characters that revolved around the plot (but had no direct part in it) got merged together, many of the day-to-day hijinks got trimmed out, but the story was effectively the same. Big change was that the protagonists in the movie came off as a bit more idealistic than the jaded guys in the book due to one big difference:
In the movie, Cool Hand and Tiger decide to go on an unauthorized raid on a stockpile of North Vietnamese anti-aircraft missiles in Hanoi. In the book, they decided to bomb the Communist Party Headquarters instead, and they missed their target to boot.
Also (and probably a bit obviously) I love most Jane Austen movies. Most of them center on the love story and miss quite a bit of the biting humor, but are still quite fun pieces in their own right. The books are masterpieces, of course.
I really like the radio series, I like the later series better than the books.
There is also the TV series (and some record albums also, not to mention the Infocom game)
I would second some of the ones other people have mentioned, and add:
I liked (though didn’t love) Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter the movie as a cheesy, over-the-top action flick, and the book as an interesting alternative take on history and Lincolniana.
If this counts, I love both the books and the BBC adaptations of Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster. Some of the reasons why apply to both versions; but I love Bertie’s jaunty first-person narration in the books, and Fry and Laurie’s performances in the show.
That link is kind of expensive; I’ve found the BBC series for less on Amazon and at Audible.com.