posted
I know I'm probably gonna get lynched for saying this, but I couldn't even read a chapter of Harry Potter without falling asleep, and I'm an insomniac (Diagnosed by a real doctor even).
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
While I think the Fight Club movie was amazing, and was an extremly difficult book to turn into a movie(understatement), the movie was NOT better than the book. A great adaptation..Yes. Better...No.
Though this is just my opinion. You don't have to agree. Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Thank you, whoever backed up Harry Potter. I thought I was going to be run out of town...err.. board.
Posts: 154 | Registered: Nov 2000
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I'd just like to point out that picking my SN came long before the later books have come out. It was in the 1st and 2nd book era... and THOSE were good.
Posts: 154 | Registered: Nov 2000
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I think Fight Club really just WAS the book. Almost all of the lines were taken straight out of it. The only thing they changed was the ending, and Chuch Palahniuk said that that ending fitted the tone of the book better than the one he had written.
Posts: 2258 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Oh man, that was beautiful! I loved that post, little doctor! And yet, sorry Tolkien fans, I agree! (And the LoTR movies were better). Shoot me now.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Jun 2002
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The movie is almost exactly the same as the book, but more streamlined. And you get to hear James Earl Jones. That can tip the scales in any contest.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I just read Contact. Maybe his prose is awkward (although I didn't notice it), but at least the story makes sense in the book.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I'd go with The Godfather and Forest Gump. Especially the latter, as Tom Hank's simple-minded Gump had little to do with the novel's moron.
Does it make a difference which version you encounter first? While I love the movie The Princess Bride, I'd already loved the book for years.
Then again, I read LOTR many years back and frankly I prefer the movies. When I read the books I tended to skip past the songs and the page after page of exposition, and that's a lot of pages. I do miss Tom Bombadil, though.
Better books: What Dreams May Come, The Queen of the Damned
posted
The original King Kong (movie) was better than the book. I remember wanting to read the book after I saw the movie, so my dad got it from the library and we read it together (I was little). And I was disappointed.
Something entirely different happened with East of Eden. I watched it because I had just seen Rebel Without A Cause, and had fallen madly in love with James Dean (that passed after I watched Giant - thankfully, I watched Giant after Rebel and EoE). Liked East of Eden so much I asked for the book for Christmas, not realizing it was Steinbeck (my exposure to Steinbeck in school up through 9th grade had left me with an intense loathing of the man), and that the movie only covers a very small portion of the book.
So I opened the book Christmas morning, started reading, and emerged from my book-induced trance four days later. I probably would have finished it more quickly, but my parents made me stop for meals, sleep and obligatory family "togetherness".
Loved it. It blew away the movie. I couldn't even imagine Dean as Cal Trask while I was reading it - he became someone completely different. And I adored Lee, who isn't even IN the movie.
So, while I do love the movie, for its own sake, the book is far better. Really, I love the pair, and how one was made into the other - I was fascinated by the translation of literature into film, and made that the topic of every school project after that (when I could get away with it).
Maybe I'll translate literature to film as a profession. After I do everything else I want to do with my life. Posts: 54 | Registered: Sep 2004
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My imagination is built on LOTR. So, when i've seen the movie, i felt (to feel... ???) a shock. I wonder how Peter Jackson can see in my mind...
Anyway, i'm not able to say if the movie is better than the book... Les deux sont des chefs-d'oeuvres (i don't know how to translate it).
Posts: 5 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:Does it make a difference which version you encounter first? While I love the movie The Princess Bride, I'd already loved the book for years.
I loved the movie, but loved the book much more when I read it after the movie.
I think the Princess Bride movie was close to the best movie possible that could be made from that book. But the book added a whole extra layer of humor, insight, and plot that couldn't be made put into the movie without ruining it.
posted
The biggest and most inexplicable change in The Princess Bride from the book to the movie? At the end of the book, the princess saves them all from a last round of guards. She does something.
In the movie, she's pretty much useless.
But I'll forgive almost anything for the sword fight.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I prefer LOTR movies to the books, but I wouldn't say they were better. Different would be better.
I definately think that the books of Harry Potter are much much better that the first two movies. The third movie, although it is quite different, rivalled the book from which was adapted for level of enjoyment.
But the book is still better.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I enjoyed the LOTR movies tolerably well until Legolas skated down the stairs shooting arrows. After that point, I had it in for Jackson.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I agree East of Eden is better than the movie, which is wonderful. But but but, Giant is Dean's best movie, I really like it.
*off to stare at the "body language" keychain for a few more hours* (only allegra should get that joke)
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I'm inclined to agree that Fight Club the movie was better than the book, even if they were really similar. Sorry, but Palhinuk just isn't a great writer.
By the way, Fight Club is basically the story of a fascist organization.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Kaioshin, having seen the movie, I'm not sure...
I like the LotR movies better because I can experience all of them in 12 hours while it takes me about 12 weeks to finish the books.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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LOTR?? Harry Potter?!?! Clearly whoever said that is so innundated with modern TV/Movie culture that they just don't know how to enjoy a good read anymore. Long books, long reads, ARE GOOD!! The longer the better, cause it means more story and more time in that wonderful alternate universe. Movies can never, ever, ever come close to that. Especially movies where they take long books and make em single movies, becuase they are always too short, and leave far too much out. I love rereading LOTR and the Harry Potter books over and over, becuase thats several weeks where I can escape into that universe. The movies don't touch that.
Though PJ did a darned good job at making the LOTR movies. They were good for movies, but still don't come close to the book.
In general I don't think you can compare the two, becuase they are completely different mediums. And I like books better on the whole than movies.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I didn't like any of the HP movies were any better than the books. I particularly hated the third movie.
I thought the count of monte cristo was better than the book. The ending of the movie was much happier.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
all of you are fools.......the only movie that is better than the book(that i can think of) if Forrest Gump......there may be others but who cares..............LOTR movies were better than the books too i almost forgotted...i used a nonsense word......because the books were too description filled.....i read really fast.......like 200 pg an hour but those books took me months of time......they were good.....but way too slow(moving i mean)......the movies were better they made more sense of things
posted
I liked the details, but i'm a slow reader. I like to just soak it in. I did love the movies though.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Dec 2004
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"i used a nonsense word......because the books were too description filled.....i read really fast.......like 200 pg an hour"
Perhaps your problem is that, in reading too quickly for your brain, you skip over descriptive sections. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I personally enjoy watching the LotR movies more than I do reading the books. I just find Tolkien to be really...dry. The bext way to explain is comparing the LotR novels to a history textbook.
The Hobbit, however, is the one of the best books ever, and there is no way that Peter Jackson's version, if he ever makes it, could live up to its greatness.
Peter Pan (all of them) is better than the book, but that started out as a play anyway, so...
I haven't really watcted all that many movies based off novels I've read...
Herrm...
quote:The longer the better, cause it means more story and more time in that wonderful alternate universe.
Assuming that all this extra time isn't just filler or info that is completely and utterly worthless to the current story. Assuming the author doesn't get caught up in his own invention that he is unable to restrain himself from assing in little details that don't need telling, or even add anything if told.
Its a big problem in fantasy. The authors come up with these worlds and places and stuff that they seem to have to take the reader to every location just so they can show it, regardless of the importance of the chapter. Tolkien had it so bad that he couldn't even finish the book without adding appendices to tell us of stuff he couldn't figure out a way to put in the actual novel.
quote:Peter Pan (all of them) is better than the book, but that started out as a play anyway, so...
Ummmm..........no it didn't. The book by J.M. Barrie inspired the plays and movies(all of them). And I actually like that book more than the Disney version. The rest of the movies are somewhat better, but the plays aren't better.
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
No... JM Barrie wrote the play.. Then he wrote a novel called "Peter and Wendy" based off of the play...
Posts: 450 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:By the way, Fight Club is basically the story of a fascist organization.
How is Project Mayhem fascist?
I agree that the movie was better than the book, but sometimes the ridiculous, ham-handed 'Jack fights himself OMG' scene makes me change my mind.
Posts: 2443 | Registered: Apr 2002
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