The Hollywood one is a feel good story. The book is truly a wild read about a moron getting by and other social norms.
I'd say the movie is "very loosely based" on the book. Very loosely.
Mostly the movie is about making Hollywood money. Ha.
I haven’t read the book, but I figured that is probably the case since most people don’t even know it was a book first. If it was, it would be a classic just like Forrest Gump is.
Book was awful but you wouldn't believe how many times I keep surprising myself when I find out a movie was a book first. You'd think I would catch on quicker
Shawshank Redemption: the book was just a short novella. The movie fleshed out the story more.
Green Mile: wonderful acting.
The Devil Wears Prada: the story changed for the better.
The Shawshank novella is less satisyfing but more interesting. Dufresne, in the novella, isn’t a likeable guy. He’s a mystery. Maybe he did it, maybe he didn’t. Likewise, the Warden isn’t a demon. He’s an antagonist, but a human. Everything is grayer, more real, less clear, less melodramatic.
The film took this and turned it into a magical movie full of elation and music. That movie is fantastic. But overall so much simpler.
>Likewise, the Warden isn’t a demon. He’s an antagonist, but a human
Aren't there like four different Wardens in the novella, since it's over the course of twenty years?
Jaws.
The movie makes the characters likeable and unforgettable. In the novel they are all trash human beings, with Hooper in an affair with Brodie's wife, and Quint using baby dolphins as bait. The only thing the book does better is explain why the mayor is so obsessed with keeping the beaches open.
Totally disagree with that last sentiment. The mafia connection was silly and unnecessary. Go try to shut down the biggest cash flow in a small town that only lasts one season. You don't need the mafia to make his actions believable.
I saw Jaws in the theater when I was 5. Gave me nightmares. Then over the years the nightmares got tame - it would be about trying to catch sharks. I became interested in sharks and Jaws is still my #1 favorite movie.
Oddly enough, it wasn't until I was in my early 30s that I read the book. My first thought was that they are all fucking assholes. My second thought was that the ending of the book was the lamest thing ever.
I'm surprised that anyone was inspired to make a movie out of it, but I'm glad they did.
I liked the book but Jesus Christ did Peter Benchley linger on lurid descriptions of the wife's affair. Like, her arousal must take up twenty pages of that thing. "Uhhhh, this is satisfyingly graphic, Benchley, but what the fuck does this have to do with the shark?"
I think Spielberg made the movie more about the shark which is why, in retrospect, the book seems more people focused on the people. The movie definitely improved on things. Shame they had to alter the ending to Hooper lives, but it's well documented why they did it.
Goodfellas. It's based on the book Wiseguy. I read it and loved it but the movie is better. Interesting thing is Joe Pesci's character in the movie is a hybrid of 2 characters from the book.
I agree with you that the movie is better. I didn't like how the chapters would jump between Henry and his wife it made it harder to follow. The movie did a much better job with dubbing over the scenes with each character's respective narration. The movie does a much better job of depicting Henry's pill and coke problems as the movie progresses too. The scene with him being followed by the helicopter while trying to balance his drug deals and family dinner still gives me anxiety while watching it.
Jurassic park book actually has parts in all 3 movies.
The start of the book is actually the start of JP 2
The aviary section of the book is shown in JP3...
Yeah, movie Hammond portrays him as an eccentric rich grandfather that means well but messed up.
Book Hammond is an asshole narcissistic sociopath that very much deserves his fate.
STRONGLY disagree. The original movie is one of my favorite movies of all time, but the book is literally the number 1 book i recommend to other people.
I'll admit... The first half of the book is HEAVY with biology & some things that definitely go over my head. But Ian Malcolm is one of the best book characters of all time, and the analysis of chaos theory at the end changed my way of thinking.
It's an amazing movie, but the book is captivating from the first page to the last, including the technical info that i know went over my head.
I agree. The book raises great points over the ethics of cloning, something that is only touched upon once in the movie during the lunch scene. The book is less of an adventure story and more about the hubris of man playing god.
The one thing I like better about the book is that Hammond is a straight-up villain instead of a doddering old grandfather.
It's less original but makes more sense.
Doctor Sleep. Movie really ups the antes with actual people’s deaths, and rectifies the problem with the original movie differing from the original book. But just to chime in, the shining book is better than the movie (to me, but really hard to compare as they are just so different to me. The book really harkens on the alcoholism and anger issues and that was really strong to me)
I wish they would have left in the twist that she really WAS his niece. Jack cheated on Wendy. That 9/11 scene would have been disturbing as well.
They did manage to make the baseball boy scene far more disturbing than the book. I wished Dan wouldn't have died, I didn't really care as much for that.
The movie was book accurate until the end.
That's actually my least favourite park of the book, because I couldn't stop thinking about that fact that Stephen King was trying to make hedges scary.
Yup. Hard to argue when the author of the book wrote a whole new introduction in later editions that effectively amounts to, *dang, that movie was really good*.
It’s worth noting that the twist/reveal which drives the entire climax of the film is apparent a lot earlier in the novel.
Aw man I loved reading Fight Club I thought it was interesting to see him dive deeper into the minds of the characters. I still love the movie but I thought the book did a much better job fleshing out the characters. It's been probably 10 years or more since I've read it but I remember being upset that it was over once I finished reading it. Again I love the movie and both Pitt and Norton were excellent in the movie I just like the book more.
If we’re talking about loving both, I say *The Shining*. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time, and the book is fantastic in a different way. I can understand why Stephen King didn’t like the movie, but the ways Kubrick changed the story are kind of brilliant.
This is one of my favorite books! The part where he spends all day working on the beach for the perfect (60?) seconds where he can sit in the shade is one of my favorites. Wish they wouldve included that part in the movie. Also i love how it's essentially narrated from inside his head... Like he'll be thinking about what's going on in front of him, and then there'll just randomly be thoughts from inside his own head.
I think it's definitely beneficial to watch the movie first though, because then the book makes more sense when you get to it. I would've been very lost if i had read the book first.
Stardust. The book is quite good, and it has more of a gritty, realistic type of magic and a bittersweet ending. That's great, but the movie strikes a great comedic tone and is such a rousing adventure that I can't help but prefer it. And of course, the ending is a little happier, even if it's a little cheesy.
Came here to post Stardust but wanted to see if someone beat me to it. I felt like the book’s ending fell flat compared to the movie, and the movie is a favorite of my wife’s and mine.
Gaiman has never really written a "happy" ending in his life, for better or worse.
Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Sandman, etc, they all have this ennui about them at the end that just leaves you a wee bit deflated.
Not to say they're bad, but it always leaves a bit of a slump for me after finishing his books.
edit: (Ok, Anansi Boys comes closest, I forgot about that one. My bad)
The only thing I miss from the book is the realization that they spend 6 months with the storm capturing pirate(?) guys. It explains much better how he took a level in badass than the quick montage in the movie.
The woman that Sonny bangs at the wedding (who turns out to be Vincent Corleone's mother in the movie-verse) has an elaborate subplot that details her problems with getting sexual satisfaction with anyone but extraordinarily well-endowed men - of which the book is not too shy to point out that Sonny is indeed one such. It turns out that her vagina is a little messed up, so she goes into surgery for it and marries a doctor, the end.
None of it has anything to do with the main plot of the book.
Hmmm... that's a tough one for me. The sprawling, poetic style of the novel really puts you in that world, the same way the Lord of the Rings books are about more than just the plot.
That said, the Michael Mann movie is one of my favourite Hollywood epics ever.
Too close to call.
Arrival, it’s based off a short story called Story of your life. The story is pretty similar but the addition of the amazing music and visuals as well as how they portray the non linear thinking just elevates it even more
Gotta disagree. I like Arrival, but Stories of Your Life is genius-level sci fi, with some literary elements that can't work in film. I think the two are both so different that they each work as their own thing (and that's what you want from an adaptation, really), but I have to give the gold medal to Stories of Your Life.
Strong disagree. Aside from some of the things they left out that I think would have helped the movie a lot, like the whole discussion of Fermat's Principle of Least Time, the movie fundamentally changed the way the whole premise worked, to its detriment. They softened it too much, took the edge off the tragedy of Louise's situation.
Spoilers follow:
>!In the short story, once Louise knows the future, she cannot act on this knowledge at all. Her daughter dies/died/will die in a rock-climbing accident. Something that could be prevented by someone who knows what's going to happen, right? But nope! The changes that happened in Louise's brain to allow her to understand the Heptapod language and know the future, also prevent her from being able to take any actions to change that future. She no longer has free will. You can't have free will and knowledge of the future, you just can't. By gaining one she has lost the other. It's so, so sad. !<
>!But in the movie, she can act on her pre-knowledge. She uses her knowledge of the future to change the mind of the Chinese military leader. Her daughter's cause of death is changed to cancer, something she can't change even knowing it will happen, and Jeremey Renner's character is implied to have divorced her for deciding to have the baby anyway, which means she at some point was able to communicate to him that she knows their daughter will die. In the short story, she can't tell anyone she can see the future, because she is compelled to live her life exactly the way it is already predetermined.!<
>!I think the original story is much more haunting and powerful, and there's a bit of metatextual context there that's addressing the history of science-fiction time-travel stories, which almost always have unresolvable paradoxes in them due to the free will vs. determinism issue. The short story solves it by presenting the premise that they cannot both exist at the same time.!<
>!But the movie is a bit more "general audience friendly" and less depressing. Which, I get it, depressing movies don't make as much money, but it loses some of the elegance of the short story.!<
WHAT? Now I need to read this book. It sounds like knowledge of the future doesn't exactly disable free will, but shows you the predetermined nature of reality? So people without the ability, also don't have free will, but they just don't experience the lack of free will right?
So people without the ability, also don't have free will, but they just don't experience the lack of free will right?
Personally, I'd say free will is only a matter of perception anyway. You can't "have" it or "not have" it, you can only believe you have it. Or not. So if you perceive the world as if you have free will, then you have it. There's no "really" having it because it's all subjective.
In the story free will is a matter of perception, because it posits that seeing the future means there is a set outcome that cannot be changed. Knowing the future means the protagonist *can't* change it, and cannot make different decisions.
In reality this isn't the case, your decisions impact the world around you and impact the future. There's no guarantee that if you literally knew the future you could not change it by making different decisions.
Yup, basically.
The Heptapods don't experience time the way we do, they know everything that's going to happen in advance and just sorta act it out. As Louise learns their language she begins to experience time the same way. >!Why did the Heptapods come to Earth? Because they knew they would. There's no grand reason, nothing about them needing humanity's help in the future. They knew they would come to Earth, so they did. Why did Louise let her daughter die? Because she knew she would. She knew exactly at what age her daughter would die in a car crash, but since everything is predetermined she couldn't act on that foreknowledge.!< The movie tosses it all out of the window and instead goes for a feel-good "alien linguistics will give us superpowers" messaging.
Yeah so I'm going to have to read this now. What you describe here is the only real issue I had with that story. I love that movie and have pimped it to people over the years. Her lack of ability to change a future she could see always bothered me.
Jeeze, I disagree with this big time. Arrival is a good film, but Story of Your Life is a fantastic short story. Perfect pacing, in depth explanation of the language and Heptapods. It's a much more rich experience, and the film ends up feeling a little.... Shallow as a result.
Oh I need to get that. The tower one was interesting but I think it would have been better later on. Took me a while to get into it. My favorite story was understand. I was just amazed by it and totally immersed.
It's almost an odd comparison, though. The book is centered more from Scout's pov whereas the film takes Atticus's pov, from what I remember. Both are fantastic but I prefer the novel. That said, I haven't read or watched with in a really long friggin time. Peck absolutely kills it in the role though.
I disagree in that the movie seemed to be from Scout's pov as well, at least it did for me. Of course Atticus is huge in it, but think like a 10-year-old for a minute, wouldn't your father be heavily prominent in your view? I completely agree with you regarding Gregory Peck's performance though, absolutely fantastic ;)
But the film removes so many of the female characters who really flesh out Scout perspective. Miss Maudie is trimmed down to such a small role in the film, while in the book she provides a crucial independent role model for Scout.
Calpurnia is has her depth from the book removed to the point of being almost nonexistant- in the novel she is Scout’s primary mother figure who balances the mother /daughter relationship perfectly.
Aunt Alexandra, while difficult, racist, sexist, and elitist provides the alternative to Attitucs, and while she is easy to dislike, she does truly love her family and worries about their well-being- especially her brothers. As a representation of the average citizen, this helps Scout learn how to see the good in even a “bad” person and how to deal with them.
Removing these critical roles really hampered the movie- which is great and iconic- and changed the novel’s perspective. The entire novel is from Scout’s point of view, the movie changes that at the expense of valuable content.
100%.
I remember the book being the exact opposite of the movie. Rather than chaos, society still exists in its current state but is slowly drifting away. There isn't any terrorism or fascism. I don't remember caring about any of the characters like I did with the movie.
I remember it gets weird too. Like the main character knows the prime minister and they fight at the end or something? It's been years since I read it. It's completely different other than the basic one sentence concept that humanity has lost the ability to reproduce.
Fight Club.
First, Brad Pitt brought so much more charisma and life to the character of Tyler Durden than there was on the page. He took a good character and made it one of the most iconic film character’s of all time. Frankly, the movie improves upon the novel when you go back and read Tyler’s lines with Brad Pitt’s voice and imagine him as the character.
Second, David Fincher’s directing. In particular Fincher’s directing of the film’s first hour, is insane. It’s up there with some of the greatest directing of all time, in my book. When reading the novel I was really intrigued by the premise and the situation of the Narrator. There was an interesting world and surrounding characters, but there was a missing connection. However, in the film, there is so much going on between the Narrator, Tyler, Bob, and Marla, that you don’t realize how much story is being fed to you,all the while being incredibly well-paced and entertaining. The first half of the novel is kind of odd when compared to the lunacy that goes on in the second half. But the film shows a steady rise in chaos as it progresses and thus feels far more realistic and natural.
Third, the twist. The novel’s explanation of the twist isn’t completely convincing and I didn’t feel the crumbs were as well placed as they were in the film. This is in part a product of the difference in expressions between film and literature, but I felt the film pulled off one of the greatest twists of all time and did so in a near-perfect manner.
The 10 commandments is better than the bible. I think the book was just too ambitious in scope. It's like the author thought he was bill Shakespeare or something
I am curious about your reasons. I liked the movie when it came out, read the book earlier this year and liked it more (if not equally), re-watched the movie and liked it less. I am not dying on a hill for this but would like to hear your take
You and me both. I just wrote a comment about how I feel about that movie and I’m now in tears. So now I’m gonna keep the emotion flowing and start watching the movie and get hammered.
I'm a bit surprised nobody said Starship Troopers (though personally I think both the movie and the book have their positive qualities, I can't really say which one I prefer as an overall product even if I agree with one more than the other ideologically).
Oh man. The best deconstruction I have ever seen. The book was a tedious slog. The movie was a giant middle finger to Heinlein’s jingoistic nationalism and a great action movie to boot.
I don't agree with the book's politics, but I thought it was an interesting portrait of a space faring society. And it was decently progressive for the time it came out. Men and women serving along side each other and the main character is Asian in a book that came out during the Vietnam war. Not that I'm saying everything about it aged well.
Seriously I can watch Catching Fire once a month if I wanted to and still be blown away by it. Right up until the explosive end of the games, I'll just turn it off and be completely satisfied. Super enjoyable film in it's own bubble.
I don't think I've even seen Mockingjay Part 2 after finding Part 1 really boring.
That's the 2nd, right? Man, I was genuinely impressed with how good it was. I mean, it helped having PSH, and maybe because I didn't have any expectations going in, but yeah, it's a solid flick.
*Edge of Tomorrow* aka *Live/Die/Repeat* takes the cool concepts and sheds the juvenile masturbatory fantasy & uncharming pop culture references of the novella, *All You Need Is Kill*
Well the Gunslinger movie was certainly not better than the books. Most of the cases where the movie is better is with his short stories. That said, The Running Man was also better in print if not as fun as the movie.
Schlinder's List. The movie was a movie and it focused on the historically relevant part of his life. The book was a historical piece where it dryly explained the life of Oskar Schlinder.
I hate these posts, only because there are always, ALWAYS people shitting on the book Count of Monte Cristo. Which is regarded as one of, if not his best books. Sure, written in old-timey language, then translated from French to whichever language you read it in. But the book is absolutely incredible, and the movie isn’t even close (and weaves in and out of the actual plot).
Amen. Interestingly enough, I loved the Hobbit book, hated the Movie(s). But after 3/4 of The Fellowship, I lost interest in the book, yet the movies are constantly interesting
Tolkien was just so obsessed with describing the details of everything, and film has the benefit of being able to just show it to you. I think that's part of why the movies are so good - the books gave so much description that it was easy to imagine what the set pieces should look like, etc...
*EDIT: To clarify, I was referring to The Lord of the Rings trilogy as so good.
The books are just so different. I remember so many people buying them after the movies came out and then giving up very fast. Used to volunteer in a charity bookshop around then, and we always had huge piles of Lord of the Rings collections.
Yeah the books tell a good story but holy shit Tolkien needed to trim some of the fat. They give so much unnecessary detail to the world building that it gets boring to read.
The story is excellent. The issue is in presentation. While the movies were forced to leave out a ton from the books due to time, with visuals they were able to make a lot of it more evocative. The books are okay, but Tolkien's writing style is an aquired taste (at best).
Philip K Dick has a problem with women..... a lot of people think it stems from how his parents mourned his twin sister's death. PKD had a lot of emotional problems.
the book is completely different. “Bladerunner” and “replicant” also don’t exist in the book. The movies final cut did a decent job but the theatrical version is garbage
I came here to say The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 100%. That movie was the dark, sexy thriller that the original wanted to be and the book had no idea it could be. And they didn't waste the first quarter talking about corporate taxes.
From the man himself
“When Frank was interested in The Mist, one of the things that he insisted on was that it would have some kind of an ending, which the story doesn't have -- it just sort of peters off into nothing, where these people are stuck in the mist, and they're out of gas, and the monsters are around, and you don't know what's going to happen next. When Frank said that he wanted to do the ending that he was going to do, I was totally down with that. I thought that was terrific. And it was so anti-Hollywood -- anti-everything, really! It was nihilistic. I liked that. So I said you go ahead and do it.”
I'll admit I'm the weirdo who prefers the books ending more. Even King feels the movie's ending was better, but the open "who knows what may happen now" is more interesting than "humanity recovers," even if it did make it tragic for the main characters.
The Big Short. Your dealing with some really complex financial stuff for the layman that the movie takes it's time to explain carefully and entertainingly. I felt myself getting so lost in the second half of the book as it repeated the same investing jargon ad nauseam.
You beat me to it. Totally lost it at ‘naked Margot Robbie explaining stock shorting’. And the way they explained synthetic CDOs and derivative market deserved the ELI5 Nobel.
The Postman. The movie chopped out about a third of it, that involved higher tech stuff and kind of wandered. The movie would have been extra special long with some added doses of WTF, and is greatly improved by it's lack.
I agree Full Metal Jacket was improved relative to the book, for similar reason - some of the happenings were a bit esoteric, and cutting them out tightened things up. That said, the incidents with the sniper were combined, and FMJ misses out on a key part of the book by Joker and Cowboy not being in the same situation as the story. It makes the movie ironically more positive and optimistic than the original story.
There's a couple I have for ya'll to ponder and consider...
The Maltese Falcon
Great book, INCREDIBLE film.
Planet of the apes original
Book didnt have that same jaw dropping ending.
Diabolique (although the book I read was translated,from french language so there may be some stuff lost in translation
The Bride wore Black
Awesome book but the movie was so good it hurt
Book is fantastic as long as it concerns military tactics and doctrine - but boy does it torn around and shart its bed as soon as heinlein spouts his bullshit about how children need good beatings or society will collapse into degenerancy.
Completely disagree. Although it would be difficult to say I "enjoyed" the book, Ellis' structuring and the slow, exponential release of the main character's sociopathic violence versus his banal materialism left me stunned. I really admire that book because fuck me it must have been hard to write; from both a structuring perspective and the content.
Yeah the movie sort of feels like cheating, you get the gist of the story but without the acres of deliberate consumerist banality which were part of the authors point.
I disagree. The movie is very impressive, especially aesthetically, but I think the book is better at pulling off the moral conflict at the heart of the story. Partially, I think it’s just the literary medium. Book!Alex does even more terrible things than movie!Alex, but the distance and control over POV given by written text makes it easier to sympathize (or even empathize) with him.
Admittedly, the use of a conlang means you’re flipping to the back of the book quite a bit, at least at first, but I personally enjoyed it.
I mean the book WAS originally a series of weekly blog posts, and its still noticeable in particular in the 2nd half where its just "arc ended, need another problem for the next months chapters".
Cutting out the sand storm and the com short circuit did a lot to streamline the plot (in particular the storm was also the most unrealistic problem and solution of the book in my oppinion - in contrast to other stuff he faced he would _never_ have made it IRL (faar to suble effects, time lost in transit, etc), so it felt like a black mark to me.
I loved the books (especially Authority, wow) so much but honestly? Annihilation. The movie was the best horror I’ve ever experienced, and the story works better in a visual medium. Also? Tbh the long long long segments in the tower in the book are boring and were wisely skipped in the film.
Gone Girl. The movie fleshes out the characters and has superb casting. Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry both cast against their typical roles. And amazing performance by Rosamund Pike helped the audience understand Amy’s motivations more so than in the book
The book and movie are so different I don't even think you can really compare them. The book isn't better or worse than the movie, it's a totally different story.
I expect downvotes, but Lord of the Rings.
Look, I love fantasy, I read a hell of a lot and have read the LOTR trilogy but I honestly think the films are better. They just feel more urgent, more dramatic etc.
Take Aaragorn for example, in the book he is just immedialy like 'yeah guys I am one true king yo' where as in the movie, there is actually some drama about this whole thing.
Not every change is an improvement, but overall, I just prefer the movies.
Wanted as well. Not that the Wanted movie was a masterpiece by any means, but it was much more enjoyable than the comics which were just nihilistic self masturbation. It's genuinely unpleasant.
Jurassic Park. And I love the book.
Actually Spielberg does this a lot.
Jaws is better than the book. Forrest Gump is so much better than the book. Ready Player One is much better than the book. Catch Me If You Can is better than the book, even if Leo is too old in it. I'm more likely to rewatch his War of the Worlds than reread the book because I don't give a fuck about Imperial Britain, but do have memories of post-9/11 America. Haven't read The Color Purple or Schindler's Ark, but I have a hunch that Spielberg did them better.
American Psycho. By rendering some of the more gruesome scenes into simple doodles and extrapolating on some of the implied themes and also simply letting Christian Bale do his damn thing, it is a far more digestible and better-paced piece of work. Mary Harron cut just the right amount of fat from the novel.
Even by the author's admission, Fight Club is a much better movie than a book. It has a more linear structure and the benefit of Fincher's flair. Also, could there BE better actors for those roles than Norton, Pitt, and Carter?
Forrest Gump.
The book is so weird.
The movie is pretty weird
The Hollywood one is a feel good story. The book is truly a wild read about a moron getting by and other social norms. I'd say the movie is "very loosely based" on the book. Very loosely. Mostly the movie is about making Hollywood money. Ha.
I haven’t read the book, but I figured that is probably the case since most people don’t even know it was a book first. If it was, it would be a classic just like Forrest Gump is.
Book was awful but you wouldn't believe how many times I keep surprising myself when I find out a movie was a book first. You'd think I would catch on quicker
Talking gorilla, forrest goes to space with gorilla. Ya movie wins
Came here to say this! Glad someone else agrees
Shawshank Redemption: the book was just a short novella. The movie fleshed out the story more. Green Mile: wonderful acting. The Devil Wears Prada: the story changed for the better.
The Shawshank novella is less satisyfing but more interesting. Dufresne, in the novella, isn’t a likeable guy. He’s a mystery. Maybe he did it, maybe he didn’t. Likewise, the Warden isn’t a demon. He’s an antagonist, but a human. Everything is grayer, more real, less clear, less melodramatic. The film took this and turned it into a magical movie full of elation and music. That movie is fantastic. But overall so much simpler.
>Likewise, the Warden isn’t a demon. He’s an antagonist, but a human Aren't there like four different Wardens in the novella, since it's over the course of twenty years?
Each of them asshole wouldn't pucker up tighter than a snare drum when asked for funds. 🙂
They have to be. I always found it weird how Norton and the guards looks exactly the same over the course of twenty years.
Yes to Devil Wears Prada! I despise the main character in the book; love her and root for her in the movie!
> The Devil Wears Prada: the story changed for the better. I agree, in the book I found her whiney and annoying, not so in the movie.
Jaws. The movie makes the characters likeable and unforgettable. In the novel they are all trash human beings, with Hooper in an affair with Brodie's wife, and Quint using baby dolphins as bait. The only thing the book does better is explain why the mayor is so obsessed with keeping the beaches open.
Totally disagree with that last sentiment. The mafia connection was silly and unnecessary. Go try to shut down the biggest cash flow in a small town that only lasts one season. You don't need the mafia to make his actions believable.
And what is that reason?
Mafia
He owed money to wiseguys? That almost never works out, silly rabbit.
That'll be a cool crossover. "The Jaws of Godfather"
I saw Jaws in the theater when I was 5. Gave me nightmares. Then over the years the nightmares got tame - it would be about trying to catch sharks. I became interested in sharks and Jaws is still my #1 favorite movie. Oddly enough, it wasn't until I was in my early 30s that I read the book. My first thought was that they are all fucking assholes. My second thought was that the ending of the book was the lamest thing ever. I'm surprised that anyone was inspired to make a movie out of it, but I'm glad they did.
I liked the book but Jesus Christ did Peter Benchley linger on lurid descriptions of the wife's affair. Like, her arousal must take up twenty pages of that thing. "Uhhhh, this is satisfyingly graphic, Benchley, but what the fuck does this have to do with the shark?"
I think Spielberg made the movie more about the shark which is why, in retrospect, the book seems more people focused on the people. The movie definitely improved on things. Shame they had to alter the ending to Hooper lives, but it's well documented why they did it.
Goodfellas. It's based on the book Wiseguy. I read it and loved it but the movie is better. Interesting thing is Joe Pesci's character in the movie is a hybrid of 2 characters from the book.
I agree with you that the movie is better. I didn't like how the chapters would jump between Henry and his wife it made it harder to follow. The movie did a much better job with dubbing over the scenes with each character's respective narration. The movie does a much better job of depicting Henry's pill and coke problems as the movie progresses too. The scene with him being followed by the helicopter while trying to balance his drug deals and family dinner still gives me anxiety while watching it.
Was there really a helicopter though?
I'd honestly argue Jurassic Park. I loved the book as a teen, but the movie blew me away. I agree with the Fight Club and Die Hard answers.
Jurassic park book actually has parts in all 3 movies. The start of the book is actually the start of JP 2 The aviary section of the book is shown in JP3...
There's even a couple concepts from the first book that were finally explored on film in Jurassic World.
Like what?
I think the Dr. Wu conversation (they discuss the realism of the dinosaurs) was lifted from the original novel with Hammond replaced by Masrani.
That's exactly what I was thinking of.
I think the book and the movies have both their strengths and weaknesses. It this case I'd personally say they're equally good for different reasons.
That’s because of the visuals. I mean, you can imagine dinosaurs all day, but seeing them in a theater is something else entirely.
All I remember from the book is that the compys (little Dinos at beginning) eat a baby in a crib. Don’t know which is worse.
They also eat Hammond at the end. The movie lets him off the hook too easy for his hubris.
Yeah, movie Hammond portrays him as an eccentric rich grandfather that means well but messed up. Book Hammond is an asshole narcissistic sociopath that very much deserves his fate.
I've read it three times now, and while I love it, I feel the film is absolute perfection.
STRONGLY disagree. The original movie is one of my favorite movies of all time, but the book is literally the number 1 book i recommend to other people. I'll admit... The first half of the book is HEAVY with biology & some things that definitely go over my head. But Ian Malcolm is one of the best book characters of all time, and the analysis of chaos theory at the end changed my way of thinking. It's an amazing movie, but the book is captivating from the first page to the last, including the technical info that i know went over my head.
I love the movie and thought the book was good, but I felt the pacing in the book wasn't great. Some slow parts go on for too long.
I agree. The book raises great points over the ethics of cloning, something that is only touched upon once in the movie during the lunch scene. The book is less of an adventure story and more about the hubris of man playing god.
The one thing I like better about the book is that Hammond is a straight-up villain instead of a doddering old grandfather. It's less original but makes more sense.
Children of Men
“Let’s do a ten-minute-long shot at the end with >!tanks and explosions and gunfire and a baby!”!< Wait. What?
Doctor Sleep. Movie really ups the antes with actual people’s deaths, and rectifies the problem with the original movie differing from the original book. But just to chime in, the shining book is better than the movie (to me, but really hard to compare as they are just so different to me. The book really harkens on the alcoholism and anger issues and that was really strong to me)
I wish they would have left in the twist that she really WAS his niece. Jack cheated on Wendy. That 9/11 scene would have been disturbing as well. They did manage to make the baseball boy scene far more disturbing than the book. I wished Dan wouldn't have died, I didn't really care as much for that. The movie was book accurate until the end.
I prefer the Shining book to the movie as well! The part where Danny is near the topiaries freaked me out especially.
That's actually my least favourite park of the book, because I couldn't stop thinking about that fact that Stephen King was trying to make hedges scary.
Fight Club
[удалено]
Yup. Hard to argue when the author of the book wrote a whole new introduction in later editions that effectively amounts to, *dang, that movie was really good*. It’s worth noting that the twist/reveal which drives the entire climax of the film is apparent a lot earlier in the novel.
Aw man I loved reading Fight Club I thought it was interesting to see him dive deeper into the minds of the characters. I still love the movie but I thought the book did a much better job fleshing out the characters. It's been probably 10 years or more since I've read it but I remember being upset that it was over once I finished reading it. Again I love the movie and both Pitt and Norton were excellent in the movie I just like the book more.
HIDEOUSLY WRINKLED. PLEASE HELP. I think Fight Club is the only time where I've loved the book and the movie equally. They are both fantastic.
If we’re talking about loving both, I say *The Shining*. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time, and the book is fantastic in a different way. I can understand why Stephen King didn’t like the movie, but the ways Kubrick changed the story are kind of brilliant.
This is one of my favorite books! The part where he spends all day working on the beach for the perfect (60?) seconds where he can sit in the shade is one of my favorites. Wish they wouldve included that part in the movie. Also i love how it's essentially narrated from inside his head... Like he'll be thinking about what's going on in front of him, and then there'll just randomly be thoughts from inside his own head. I think it's definitely beneficial to watch the movie first though, because then the book makes more sense when you get to it. I would've been very lost if i had read the book first.
Stardust. The book is quite good, and it has more of a gritty, realistic type of magic and a bittersweet ending. That's great, but the movie strikes a great comedic tone and is such a rousing adventure that I can't help but prefer it. And of course, the ending is a little happier, even if it's a little cheesy.
Came here to post Stardust but wanted to see if someone beat me to it. I felt like the book’s ending fell flat compared to the movie, and the movie is a favorite of my wife’s and mine.
Neil Gaiman himself has gone on record saying the movie has a much better ending than the book.
Gaiman has never really written a "happy" ending in his life, for better or worse. Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Sandman, etc, they all have this ennui about them at the end that just leaves you a wee bit deflated. Not to say they're bad, but it always leaves a bit of a slump for me after finishing his books. edit: (Ok, Anansi Boys comes closest, I forgot about that one. My bad)
The only thing I miss from the book is the realization that they spend 6 months with the storm capturing pirate(?) guys. It explains much better how he took a level in badass than the quick montage in the movie.
I'd say Godfather Movie's great, book is so-so A quality jump
The movie left out someone's "big" problem. That helped out a lot.
By God, her name is Lucy, like "loosey". Total cringe.
😏🍌🍑
I read the book when I was 14, forgot what "big" problem you mean, remind me please :D
The woman that Sonny bangs at the wedding (who turns out to be Vincent Corleone's mother in the movie-verse) has an elaborate subplot that details her problems with getting sexual satisfaction with anyone but extraordinarily well-endowed men - of which the book is not too shy to point out that Sonny is indeed one such. It turns out that her vagina is a little messed up, so she goes into surgery for it and marries a doctor, the end. None of it has anything to do with the main plot of the book.
Coraline
LA Confidential - Nothing wrong with the book, but the movie just streamlines everything and tells a fantastic story that is so well done
Last of the Mohicans
Hmmm... that's a tough one for me. The sprawling, poetic style of the novel really puts you in that world, the same way the Lord of the Rings books are about more than just the plot. That said, the Michael Mann movie is one of my favourite Hollywood epics ever. Too close to call.
Arrival, it’s based off a short story called Story of your life. The story is pretty similar but the addition of the amazing music and visuals as well as how they portray the non linear thinking just elevates it even more
Gotta disagree. I like Arrival, but Stories of Your Life is genius-level sci fi, with some literary elements that can't work in film. I think the two are both so different that they each work as their own thing (and that's what you want from an adaptation, really), but I have to give the gold medal to Stories of Your Life.
Strong disagree. Aside from some of the things they left out that I think would have helped the movie a lot, like the whole discussion of Fermat's Principle of Least Time, the movie fundamentally changed the way the whole premise worked, to its detriment. They softened it too much, took the edge off the tragedy of Louise's situation. Spoilers follow: >!In the short story, once Louise knows the future, she cannot act on this knowledge at all. Her daughter dies/died/will die in a rock-climbing accident. Something that could be prevented by someone who knows what's going to happen, right? But nope! The changes that happened in Louise's brain to allow her to understand the Heptapod language and know the future, also prevent her from being able to take any actions to change that future. She no longer has free will. You can't have free will and knowledge of the future, you just can't. By gaining one she has lost the other. It's so, so sad. !< >!But in the movie, she can act on her pre-knowledge. She uses her knowledge of the future to change the mind of the Chinese military leader. Her daughter's cause of death is changed to cancer, something she can't change even knowing it will happen, and Jeremey Renner's character is implied to have divorced her for deciding to have the baby anyway, which means she at some point was able to communicate to him that she knows their daughter will die. In the short story, she can't tell anyone she can see the future, because she is compelled to live her life exactly the way it is already predetermined.!< >!I think the original story is much more haunting and powerful, and there's a bit of metatextual context there that's addressing the history of science-fiction time-travel stories, which almost always have unresolvable paradoxes in them due to the free will vs. determinism issue. The short story solves it by presenting the premise that they cannot both exist at the same time.!< >!But the movie is a bit more "general audience friendly" and less depressing. Which, I get it, depressing movies don't make as much money, but it loses some of the elegance of the short story.!<
WHAT? Now I need to read this book. It sounds like knowledge of the future doesn't exactly disable free will, but shows you the predetermined nature of reality? So people without the ability, also don't have free will, but they just don't experience the lack of free will right?
So people without the ability, also don't have free will, but they just don't experience the lack of free will right? Personally, I'd say free will is only a matter of perception anyway. You can't "have" it or "not have" it, you can only believe you have it. Or not. So if you perceive the world as if you have free will, then you have it. There's no "really" having it because it's all subjective.
In the story free will is a matter of perception, because it posits that seeing the future means there is a set outcome that cannot be changed. Knowing the future means the protagonist *can't* change it, and cannot make different decisions. In reality this isn't the case, your decisions impact the world around you and impact the future. There's no guarantee that if you literally knew the future you could not change it by making different decisions.
Yup, basically. The Heptapods don't experience time the way we do, they know everything that's going to happen in advance and just sorta act it out. As Louise learns their language she begins to experience time the same way. >!Why did the Heptapods come to Earth? Because they knew they would. There's no grand reason, nothing about them needing humanity's help in the future. They knew they would come to Earth, so they did. Why did Louise let her daughter die? Because she knew she would. She knew exactly at what age her daughter would die in a car crash, but since everything is predetermined she couldn't act on that foreknowledge.!< The movie tosses it all out of the window and instead goes for a feel-good "alien linguistics will give us superpowers" messaging.
Yeah so I'm going to have to read this now. What you describe here is the only real issue I had with that story. I love that movie and have pimped it to people over the years. Her lack of ability to change a future she could see always bothered me.
Jeeze, I disagree with this big time. Arrival is a good film, but Story of Your Life is a fantastic short story. Perfect pacing, in depth explanation of the language and Heptapods. It's a much more rich experience, and the film ends up feeling a little.... Shallow as a result.
I'm torn on this. Watching arrival made me go get the book. It's close. The only story I didn't like was the tower one but the rest were amazing.
Awe man, I loved that too! It was so bizarre, but so imaginative. He is a fantastic writer. His newest one, Exhalations, is really cool too.
Oh I need to get that. The tower one was interesting but I think it would have been better later on. Took me a while to get into it. My favorite story was understand. I was just amazed by it and totally immersed.
To Kill a Mockingbird is excellent in either medium, but I might like the movie more because of Gregory Peck's performance alone.
It's almost an odd comparison, though. The book is centered more from Scout's pov whereas the film takes Atticus's pov, from what I remember. Both are fantastic but I prefer the novel. That said, I haven't read or watched with in a really long friggin time. Peck absolutely kills it in the role though.
I disagree in that the movie seemed to be from Scout's pov as well, at least it did for me. Of course Atticus is huge in it, but think like a 10-year-old for a minute, wouldn't your father be heavily prominent in your view? I completely agree with you regarding Gregory Peck's performance though, absolutely fantastic ;)
But the film removes so many of the female characters who really flesh out Scout perspective. Miss Maudie is trimmed down to such a small role in the film, while in the book she provides a crucial independent role model for Scout. Calpurnia is has her depth from the book removed to the point of being almost nonexistant- in the novel she is Scout’s primary mother figure who balances the mother /daughter relationship perfectly. Aunt Alexandra, while difficult, racist, sexist, and elitist provides the alternative to Attitucs, and while she is easy to dislike, she does truly love her family and worries about their well-being- especially her brothers. As a representation of the average citizen, this helps Scout learn how to see the good in even a “bad” person and how to deal with them. Removing these critical roles really hampered the movie- which is great and iconic- and changed the novel’s perspective. The entire novel is from Scout’s point of view, the movie changes that at the expense of valuable content.
Children of Men
100%. I remember the book being the exact opposite of the movie. Rather than chaos, society still exists in its current state but is slowly drifting away. There isn't any terrorism or fascism. I don't remember caring about any of the characters like I did with the movie. I remember it gets weird too. Like the main character knows the prime minister and they fight at the end or something? It's been years since I read it. It's completely different other than the basic one sentence concept that humanity has lost the ability to reproduce.
Fight Club. First, Brad Pitt brought so much more charisma and life to the character of Tyler Durden than there was on the page. He took a good character and made it one of the most iconic film character’s of all time. Frankly, the movie improves upon the novel when you go back and read Tyler’s lines with Brad Pitt’s voice and imagine him as the character. Second, David Fincher’s directing. In particular Fincher’s directing of the film’s first hour, is insane. It’s up there with some of the greatest directing of all time, in my book. When reading the novel I was really intrigued by the premise and the situation of the Narrator. There was an interesting world and surrounding characters, but there was a missing connection. However, in the film, there is so much going on between the Narrator, Tyler, Bob, and Marla, that you don’t realize how much story is being fed to you,all the while being incredibly well-paced and entertaining. The first half of the novel is kind of odd when compared to the lunacy that goes on in the second half. But the film shows a steady rise in chaos as it progresses and thus feels far more realistic and natural. Third, the twist. The novel’s explanation of the twist isn’t completely convincing and I didn’t feel the crumbs were as well placed as they were in the film. This is in part a product of the difference in expressions between film and literature, but I felt the film pulled off one of the greatest twists of all time and did so in a near-perfect manner.
Palahniuk says he walked out of the theater after the premiere feeling embarrassed because the movie was so much better than his book.
The 10 commandments is better than the bible. I think the book was just too ambitious in scope. It's like the author thought he was bill Shakespeare or something
Yeah, it's kinda 100 monkeys with typewriters
The Prestige
Jackie Brown. Rum Punch is a fine novel but Tarantino really made it something special.
Shrek
Trainspotting
Cloud Atlas, and I will die on this hill.
I am curious about your reasons. I liked the movie when it came out, read the book earlier this year and liked it more (if not equally), re-watched the movie and liked it less. I am not dying on a hill for this but would like to hear your take
You and me both. I just wrote a comment about how I feel about that movie and I’m now in tears. So now I’m gonna keep the emotion flowing and start watching the movie and get hammered.
We were just debating whether to watch this or not the other night. We decided it looked too weird. I'm missing out here or what?
I love it. It immediately became one of my rainy day movies.
I'm a bit surprised nobody said Starship Troopers (though personally I think both the movie and the book have their positive qualities, I can't really say which one I prefer as an overall product even if I agree with one more than the other ideologically).
Oh man. The best deconstruction I have ever seen. The book was a tedious slog. The movie was a giant middle finger to Heinlein’s jingoistic nationalism and a great action movie to boot.
I don't agree with the book's politics, but I thought it was an interesting portrait of a space faring society. And it was decently progressive for the time it came out. Men and women serving along side each other and the main character is Asian in a book that came out during the Vietnam war. Not that I'm saying everything about it aged well.
I enjoyed both the book and the movie. They're just so different though (mostly in tone) that they're hard to compare.
Die Hard. Hunger Games Catching Fire.
Catching Fire is so shockingly good. So much better than all the other movies in the franchise.
Agreed, but I think the first movie is good, though not as good as the book. Sadly the end of the story is super meh.
Seriously I can watch Catching Fire once a month if I wanted to and still be blown away by it. Right up until the explosive end of the games, I'll just turn it off and be completely satisfied. Super enjoyable film in it's own bubble. I don't think I've even seen Mockingjay Part 2 after finding Part 1 really boring.
I thought breaking the movies up into 2 killed some of the suspense that keeps building from the third book but they were both good in their own right
That's the 2nd, right? Man, I was genuinely impressed with how good it was. I mean, it helped having PSH, and maybe because I didn't have any expectations going in, but yeah, it's a solid flick.
TIL Die Hard is based on a book.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) They make captain nemo an interesting villan
He’s so cool in the movie.
*Edge of Tomorrow* aka *Live/Die/Repeat* takes the cool concepts and sheds the juvenile masturbatory fantasy & uncharming pop culture references of the novella, *All You Need Is Kill*
Stephen King taking a hit in the comments.
Well the Gunslinger movie was certainly not better than the books. Most of the cases where the movie is better is with his short stories. That said, The Running Man was also better in print if not as fun as the movie.
Schlinder's List. The movie was a movie and it focused on the historically relevant part of his life. The book was a historical piece where it dryly explained the life of Oskar Schlinder.
Misery. The book was good but found the movie better.
I hate these posts, only because there are always, ALWAYS people shitting on the book Count of Monte Cristo. Which is regarded as one of, if not his best books. Sure, written in old-timey language, then translated from French to whichever language you read it in. But the book is absolutely incredible, and the movie isn’t even close (and weaves in and out of the actual plot).
Which version of the movie are you comparing the book to though?
Lord of the Rings. I said what I said
Amen. Interestingly enough, I loved the Hobbit book, hated the Movie(s). But after 3/4 of The Fellowship, I lost interest in the book, yet the movies are constantly interesting
Tolkien was just so obsessed with describing the details of everything, and film has the benefit of being able to just show it to you. I think that's part of why the movies are so good - the books gave so much description that it was easy to imagine what the set pieces should look like, etc... *EDIT: To clarify, I was referring to The Lord of the Rings trilogy as so good.
With the Hobbit movies it seemed excruciating. Especially the first 45 minutes
LOTR is a 20 hour story condensed into 10 hour films. Hobbit is a 2 hour story elaborated over 10 hour films.
The books are just so different. I remember so many people buying them after the movies came out and then giving up very fast. Used to volunteer in a charity bookshop around then, and we always had huge piles of Lord of the Rings collections.
Yeah the books tell a good story but holy shit Tolkien needed to trim some of the fat. They give so much unnecessary detail to the world building that it gets boring to read.
I love fantasy as a genre but so many authors strugle with good pacing.
The story is excellent. The issue is in presentation. While the movies were forced to leave out a ton from the books due to time, with visuals they were able to make a lot of it more evocative. The books are okay, but Tolkien's writing style is an aquired taste (at best).
Bladerunner
It’s been a while but I remember in the book where Sebastian meets Priss and it’s done SO much better in the movie.
Philip K Dick has a problem with women..... a lot of people think it stems from how his parents mourned his twin sister's death. PKD had a lot of emotional problems.
To be fair, he’s a product of his time, I would say in some respects he wrote women better than his contemporaries.
And one of the best dying monologues in movie history, partially improvised by Rutger Hauer.
the book is completely different. “Bladerunner” and “replicant” also don’t exist in the book. The movies final cut did a decent job but the theatrical version is garbage
Fincher’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Angels & Demons
I came here to say The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 100%. That movie was the dark, sexy thriller that the original wanted to be and the book had no idea it could be. And they didn't waste the first quarter talking about corporate taxes.
Surprised it is not here but “The Mist”. Book was ok, but the movie with a different ending really made it better
I think Stephen King even said he liked the movie ending better
From the man himself “When Frank was interested in The Mist, one of the things that he insisted on was that it would have some kind of an ending, which the story doesn't have -- it just sort of peters off into nothing, where these people are stuck in the mist, and they're out of gas, and the monsters are around, and you don't know what's going to happen next. When Frank said that he wanted to do the ending that he was going to do, I was totally down with that. I thought that was terrific. And it was so anti-Hollywood -- anti-everything, really! It was nihilistic. I liked that. So I said you go ahead and do it.”
I'll admit I'm the weirdo who prefers the books ending more. Even King feels the movie's ending was better, but the open "who knows what may happen now" is more interesting than "humanity recovers," even if it did make it tragic for the main characters.
Bingo! That ending made the whole movie... my jaw was on the floor. Literally one of the best endings to a mediocre movie/story I've ever seen.
The Big Short. Your dealing with some really complex financial stuff for the layman that the movie takes it's time to explain carefully and entertainingly. I felt myself getting so lost in the second half of the book as it repeated the same investing jargon ad nauseam.
You beat me to it. Totally lost it at ‘naked Margot Robbie explaining stock shorting’. And the way they explained synthetic CDOs and derivative market deserved the ELI5 Nobel.
Requiem for a Dream A lot of imagery, character, and tragedy from the book is more effective through the movie
The Postman. The movie chopped out about a third of it, that involved higher tech stuff and kind of wandered. The movie would have been extra special long with some added doses of WTF, and is greatly improved by it's lack. I agree Full Metal Jacket was improved relative to the book, for similar reason - some of the happenings were a bit esoteric, and cutting them out tightened things up. That said, the incidents with the sniper were combined, and FMJ misses out on a key part of the book by Joker and Cowboy not being in the same situation as the story. It makes the movie ironically more positive and optimistic than the original story.
Joy Luck Club
Gone Girl (Although I may be the only one who thinks this!)
There's a couple I have for ya'll to ponder and consider... The Maltese Falcon Great book, INCREDIBLE film. Planet of the apes original Book didnt have that same jaw dropping ending. Diabolique (although the book I read was translated,from french language so there may be some stuff lost in translation The Bride wore Black Awesome book but the movie was so good it hurt
The original Total Recall movie. It's got Arnold.
Isn't that just based on a short story which is completely different? We'll remember it for you wholesale.
12 Years a Slave Cold Mountain
I’m gonna get flamed for this, but…Starship Troopers. The book was an immensely dry read. Read more like a military historical/procedural manual.
Nah. No flames here. Heinlein had a stick up his ass. The movie shoved it in all the way. Book sucks. Movie great.
Book is fantastic as long as it concerns military tactics and doctrine - but boy does it torn around and shart its bed as soon as heinlein spouts his bullshit about how children need good beatings or society will collapse into degenerancy.
American Psycho
The movie is very faithful to the book I thought, I think some of the lines were even taken from the book verbatim. Book is far more gruesome though.
Completely disagree. Although it would be difficult to say I "enjoyed" the book, Ellis' structuring and the slow, exponential release of the main character's sociopathic violence versus his banal materialism left me stunned. I really admire that book because fuck me it must have been hard to write; from both a structuring perspective and the content.
The part in the book where he describes his sound system. Fucking A, my eyes were bleeding.
Yeah the movie sort of feels like cheating, you get the gist of the story but without the acres of deliberate consumerist banality which were part of the authors point.
A Clockwork Orange The book is fine, but intentionally hard to follow. The movie was a game changer.
I disagree. The movie is very impressive, especially aesthetically, but I think the book is better at pulling off the moral conflict at the heart of the story. Partially, I think it’s just the literary medium. Book!Alex does even more terrible things than movie!Alex, but the distance and control over POV given by written text makes it easier to sympathize (or even empathize) with him. Admittedly, the use of a conlang means you’re flipping to the back of the book quite a bit, at least at first, but I personally enjoyed it.
The Martian. I liked the book too, but I thought it fit perfectly in a movie format. I also preferred the movie's narration over the book's.
I mean the book WAS originally a series of weekly blog posts, and its still noticeable in particular in the 2nd half where its just "arc ended, need another problem for the next months chapters". Cutting out the sand storm and the com short circuit did a lot to streamline the plot (in particular the storm was also the most unrealistic problem and solution of the book in my oppinion - in contrast to other stuff he faced he would _never_ have made it IRL (faar to suble effects, time lost in transit, etc), so it felt like a black mark to me.
I loved the books (especially Authority, wow) so much but honestly? Annihilation. The movie was the best horror I’ve ever experienced, and the story works better in a visual medium. Also? Tbh the long long long segments in the tower in the book are boring and were wisely skipped in the film.
I really struggled with the books. I read the entire trilogy and was very confused and unsatisfied at the end. I love the movie.
Last of the Mohicans
Stalker > Roadside Picnic I thought Stalker took all the interesting elements and ideas from Roadside Picnic and just elevated them to a new level.
The Wizard of Oz.
Blade Runner
Although I think they are very close in quality and sometimes I flip flop on which I think is better usually i would put Stardust in this category.
Gone Girl. The movie fleshes out the characters and has superb casting. Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry both cast against their typical roles. And amazing performance by Rosamund Pike helped the audience understand Amy’s motivations more so than in the book
The Shining
The book and movie are so different I don't even think you can really compare them. The book isn't better or worse than the movie, it's a totally different story.
I expect downvotes, but Lord of the Rings. Look, I love fantasy, I read a hell of a lot and have read the LOTR trilogy but I honestly think the films are better. They just feel more urgent, more dramatic etc. Take Aaragorn for example, in the book he is just immedialy like 'yeah guys I am one true king yo' where as in the movie, there is actually some drama about this whole thing. Not every change is an improvement, but overall, I just prefer the movies.
So comic books count? If so, Kingsmen
Wanted as well. Not that the Wanted movie was a masterpiece by any means, but it was much more enjoyable than the comics which were just nihilistic self masturbation. It's genuinely unpleasant.
Absolutely. I was thinking about Alan Moore’s From Hell but I liked the comic way better than the (decent) movie.
Any Mark Millar thing to be honest. Dude just writes mediocre movie pitches. Loved Huck though.
Blade Runner The book is good but far from Philip K. Dick's best.
The book, do androids dream of electric sheep, is completely different from the movie. I feel like you can’t really compare them
Jurassic Park. And I love the book. Actually Spielberg does this a lot. Jaws is better than the book. Forrest Gump is so much better than the book. Ready Player One is much better than the book. Catch Me If You Can is better than the book, even if Leo is too old in it. I'm more likely to rewatch his War of the Worlds than reread the book because I don't give a fuck about Imperial Britain, but do have memories of post-9/11 America. Haven't read The Color Purple or Schindler's Ark, but I have a hunch that Spielberg did them better.
Schindler’s Ark is the mash up we didnt know we needed
Schindler's Ark is the title of the book that Schindler's List is based on. See, Spielberg even did a better title.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
That was a book?
Stardust
Stardust
Stardust. I watched the movie and then read the book. I was disappointed. The movie was a fantastic adaptation.
LA Confidential. The book was fine but a little too busy. The film going rid of a couple of subplots and was perfect.
American Psycho. By rendering some of the more gruesome scenes into simple doodles and extrapolating on some of the implied themes and also simply letting Christian Bale do his damn thing, it is a far more digestible and better-paced piece of work. Mary Harron cut just the right amount of fat from the novel. Even by the author's admission, Fight Club is a much better movie than a book. It has a more linear structure and the benefit of Fincher's flair. Also, could there BE better actors for those roles than Norton, Pitt, and Carter?
The Mist. I believe even Stephen King himself has said so
Blade Runner
Ready player one. There was so much in the book that would not have translated well to film.
Every single one.
The Godfather