Was the book ever better than the film - ANY! - in your view.?

Question

James Herbert 'The Rats' is one example - the film was an embarassment.

Answer 1

The book is ALWAYS better than the film. With a film, you're a passive observer but with a book, your imagination whisks you into the heart of the action. You're still an observer, passive even as you can't interact with the characters but, you can feel the heat of battle ..... experience the calmness of a moonlit stroll along the beach .... stand on an alien planet (now that's more my kind of thing).

I read Bridgit Jones before I saw it, the film was disappointing. I saw E.T. before I read it but I got more out of the book.

Don't even mention The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That film is just a joke. Where are the Dentrassi?

Answer 2

Simon Birch was an astoundingly bad adaptation (although, to be fair, it was supposed to be different). The movie was loosely adapted from "A Prayer For Owen Meany," by John Irving, who was so convinced his novel -- which is truly wonderful -- could not be adapted into an even halfway decent movie prohibited the use of the title and, indeed, of the protagonist's name.

Interview With A Vampire and The Vampire Lestat -- I was curious enough to see how wrecked the book would be to see Interview, and the ridiculous nonsense on the screen did nothing to change my mind about the degree to which pretty much everyone was miscast. I didn't even see Lestat, caught a few minutes on cable some time back. Rice tells a great story but those movies....Ouch.

The Hotel New Hampshire -- another fine example of why a John Irving novel should not generally be adapted for film.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -- while this was truer to the Dahl book than it's predecessor, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, it was truly awful.

The Michael Chreighton novels Jarassic Park and The Lost World were far superior to the movie versions. (Well, Jurassic Park, the book, was far superior to the movie of the same title. The Lost World, the book, can't even be compared to the movie....which was so mind-bogglingly bad.)

Frankenstein -- I'm specifically referring to "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," directed by Kenneth Branagh, featuring De Niro giving what may have been (until some of his more recent forays into comedy) the worst performance of his career.

And the list goes on.

I've seen several movies that I thought were good, that were adapted from novels or stories, but not having read the book beforehand I can't say if I think any of those movies stood up to (or surpassed) the original. Shawshank Redemption specifically comes to mind -- wonderful movie and I hear it stands up to the King story.

Answer 3

Actually I think the book is almost always better than the film. In fact the film can seldom compete with the book in developing the atmosphere, the characters, the storyline, the sub-plots which are usually left out of the movie, and on and on, and on.

But I guess if you are an "action junkie" and you find reading a bore, then you might feel like the movie is always better than the book. But I can almost promise you that the first time you find a book that steals your heart and captivates your imagination, it will be the beginning of a whole new world for you. Try reading James Patterson's "When the Wind Blows" and "Lake House" or his sequel that isn't really a sequel, "Maximum Ride" or one of the three books in that series, or perhaps Anne McCaffery's "Dragonriders of Pern" series . I suggest these since you mention James Herbert's "The Rats". which is also Science Fiction Fantasy. Anyway, best of luck and keep reading. Eventually you will find something that you love.

Answer 4

I'm a writer so I believe that most books are always better than the films because I prefer the drama the words and phrases create in my own imagination. Once I have read a book through to the end, I feel the author has given me the gift of ownership because I could freely interpret what I read as I went along.

That said, many filmmakers have successfully transformed the written material, including Gone with the Wind, The Godfather, Jaws, and To Kill a Mockingbird, and I can't help but watching each one over and over.

Reading the works of Shakespeare is almost always preferable to anything that has been interpreted on screen.

Answer 5

90% of the books are better than the film, in my opinion. In a book there is much more time to introduce yharacters, to tell just abut them - in a film it becomes very boring if nothing happens. They are totally different medias, so I would not compare them to each other.


But I'd say, that "The Lord of the Rings" was a fantastic adaption, even better than the book because it wasn't so long (I loved the book, but sometimes I was searching just for some "action", someone who really DO something, and I strted to hate those long tellings about landscape ;-) It belongs on what the director wants to make out of the book: just a film or a book adaption ;-)

Answer 6

I agree about the Steven King books...most of the films based on his books were a big letdown (except maybe Misery, IT was good right up until the end and also the special effects let it down...a remake would be interesting though!)
I enojoy watching the film adaptations of books I have read, but 90 percent of the time they change too much to appeal to a wider audience and I ruin it for myself by sitting there and nitpicking the differences between the film and the book..

Answer 7

All of Dean Koontz's books were better than the movies.

Warlock was better than the movie (which is sad because the book was written BASED on the screenplay)

Sphere was a better book than a movie

Eragon was a better book than a movie.

pretty much most books are better than the movie. Which is why you should always watch the movie first then read the book so that you are not disappointed.

Sometimes, if the studios can spend millions of dollars on the movie then the movie is better than or at least as good as the book, but not all the time.

Answer 8

I think '2001: A Space Odyssey' is an example of a book being on a par with a film, but, then again, one was being written as the other was being made. Arthur C Clarke's words couldn't convey some of the visual grandeur conjured up by Stanley Kubrick; similarly, Kubrick couldn't possibly reproduce on film all the various nuances of Clarke's novel.

Answer 9

I think in most cases the book is always better than the film!! Films generally only catch a snippet of the contents of a book. In my opinion books contain so much more detail, and I hate the way the films ruin my own visualisation of what I read!!

Answer 10

I think that generally any book is better than the film. Reason is that something that is supposed to takes many hours to read is shoehorned into a 2 hour slot and then modified to appeal to box-office hollywood audiences.

Asking the question the other way round would provoke some interesting responses.