Movies and Books

[athelind]

Everyone always gripes when a book they love gets "mangled" in the translation to the silver screen. The common wisdom -- among those who bother to read, anyway -- is that "the book is always better than the movie."

Here's a challenge: come up with a movie that was better than the book upon which it was based.

I can think one right off the top of my head, and it's an extreme example: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
The book, Who Censored Roger Rabbit, is justifiably forgotten, one of those "parodies" that relies on a poorly-concieved gimmick for its "humor".* The movie, however, is an all-time classic.

---

*You know the type.
"Let's do a Star Trek spoof where all the characters are furries!"
"Okay, got any good jokes in mind?"
"Dude, they're furries!!!"

Comments

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

Silence of the Lambs
Psycho
Jurassic Park (it has less wrong information about chaos theory!)

[rikoshi.livejournal.com]

Jurassic Park (it has less wrong information about chaos theory!)

Yeah, but does that necessarily make it better on the whole?

[cynicaloptimist.livejournal.com]

Yes. I found the book oddly constructed (deliberately, but confusing) and generally a case of 'Nice idea, shame about the writing', whereas the film was 'Nice idea, cracking adventure, cool dinosaurs and shame about the science'.

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

Blade Runner

[hedgegoth.livejournal.com]

I Robot.


[runs very fast away]

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

Lord of the Rings

[nicodemusrat.livejournal.com]

Seconded!

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

Thirded and motion carries.

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

Blasphemy! Now excuse me while I go dig up the block-quote of forty pages of Frodo puttering around the Shire doing absolutely nothing... ^.^

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Gone With the Wind?
The Wizard of Oz?
Goldfinger?
Bridge on the River Kwai?
Spellbound?
2001: A Space Odyssey?
Stagecoach?
E.T. The Extraterrestrial?


::B::

Mmm,

[animakitty.livejournal.com]

I'd have to second 2001, and add 2010 to that as well.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

E.T. doesn't count -- the book is a novelization of the movie. I think the same thing may be true of 2001, but I'd have to look it up.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that Clarke and Kubrik worked on a screenplay based on material from The Sentinel, and the movie and book both came from that collaborative effort, with work on both going on simultaneously.

[cynicaloptimist.livejournal.com]

I actually prefer the book of 2001 - it explains things so much better, but the film is beautiful. And yes, they were worked on at the same time from The Sentinel short story.

[mythos-amante.livejournal.com]

Um...Peter Pan?

And
The King and I.

[cynicaloptimist.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, must second 'The King and I' in all its versions is better.

[richardf8]

Jaws. Totally Jaws.

[drakegrey.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes, yes. YES.

Damn, I thought I was the ONLY one who ever pointed out how utter a waste of time 'Who Censored Roger Rabbit' was. Toons are real! And what do they do with their time?

Why, pose for comic *strips*. Not movies. Static poses in photographed comic strips.

And oh, they can't have anvils dropped on THEIR heads, it's their DOPPLEGANGER, which.... ah, forget it.

Oh wait, you wanted.. movie, book that.. um... wait a second.....

Dr. Strangelove. If you assume that it's truly based on Red Alert, an utterly boring potboiler if there ever was one.

The novel Fail-Safe wasn't bad, however.

--Drake

[silussa.livejournal.com]

There's an interesting story behind that......

Most of the movie not shot in the "War Room" were done seriously, with the actual intent of working from "Red Alert". However, they ran into two problems.

The first problem, of course, was the movie "Fail-Safe".

The second, being that they were finding it increasingly hard to take it seriously. (The Air Force checklist, for instance...that's serious, including the nylons and chocolates)

So, they revised in midstream....which is why the "War Room" seems so disconnected at times from the bomber and most of the air force base.

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

The Princess Bride

[athelind.livejournal.com]

No, sorry, can't give you that one. I LOVED the book.

Of course, I read it years before the movie came out.

[cynicaloptimist.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I hated the book!

[baxil.livejournal.com]

The original version or the "good parts" abridged version?

Haven't read the former; read the latter after the movie and enjoyed it at least as much.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

There is no "original version". The "good parts abridged version" is the whole book; all that wonderful backstory about his father reading it to him, leaving stuff out, and the capsule descriptions of what was LEFT out were as fabricated as the tale of Wesley and Buttercup itself.

[baxil.livejournal.com]

... I'll be darned. Consider me (formerly) snookered.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I could say Starship Troopers and see if I made it out of here alive... };> But instead... Hmm.

The Andromeda Strain.

Mind you, I liked the book very much, but I think the movie just... flowed a better.

I might nominate Battlefield Earth, but I've never read the book. Hell, I only watched the movie because I had the flu*, was zonked out on NyQuil, and HBO was the only thing on in the motel...

Actually, I still think it might have been West Nile, but I have no proof of that...

[athelind.livejournal.com]

No, you would not have made it out alive.

I think you've got one with Andromeda Strain, all right.

And... yeah, Nyquil would be about the only way that Battlefield Earth could be rendred watchable.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

And yet I've heard it's still better than the book. ^.^

[stalbon.livejournal.com]

No way! Andromeda Strain, the novel, was so excellent...I mean, granted, the movie is good, but...

[araquan.livejournal.com]

I liked the book... Just liked the movie a bit better... }:>

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

Battlefield Earth was funny in all its badness. I doubt the book is. So I second the Battlefield Earth motion :)

[archteryx.livejournal.com]

I would have joined you. The novel Starship Troopers was superb, even if I rather violently disagreed with Heinlein's political assertions and sermonizing. It's one of the few books that my father never got to read, that I wish he had.

[skorzy.livejournal.com]

"The Plague Dogs"

I found the movie (animated) much more interesting than that god-awful dreadfully dull book. It was several hundred pages of an old English bloke waxing nostalgic about his childhood homeland memories.. Blah!

[edhyena.livejournal.com]

I don't remember the book being that bad. Just very, very confusing.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

There's one that comes immediately to my mind.

Gone With The Wind

And to put forward several more, in my humble opinion (gets out the flame retardant foam.....)

The Tolkien Trilogy

[cynicaloptimist.livejournal.com]

The usual suspects:
Lord Of The Rings
Bladerunner
Jurassic Park

Further add:
The Andromeda Strain
The Princess Bride
The Neverending Story
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Trainspotting
Hannibal


I thought Starship Troopers was an entertaining film but almost entirely unlike the book. The book was fun, but not one of my favourites.

[ssthisto.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.

The Green Mile (movie version) has a much less depressing ending (and THAT's a scary thought!) than the book. It also makes you care more about the characters.
Dreamcatcher -also- appeared to make more sense in the movie version, but not by much *chuckle* But then again, that's my -least- favourite SK book so far.

Forrest Gump might have actually been better a movie than the book except for the movie mangling one of the most often quoted (and thus, MISQUOTED) things from the book... the quote being "Life's like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get." ... which, in the book, was much much less cheerful. "Life ain't a box of chocolates."

I don't agree on The Neverending Story movies being better than their book - particularly the offensive rotting dog that was TNS 3... and Jurassic Park is -meant- to be about human intestines and various ways for dinosaurs to remove them, so really the movie didn't work all that well.

As for Silence of the Lambs, I LIKED the book... I'm still uberdisappointed that they ended Hannibal-the-movie WRONG.

[mythos-amante.livejournal.com]

As for Silence of the Lambs, I LIKED the book... I'm still uberdisappointed that they ended Hannibal-the-movie WRONG.

I know what you mean...can we say "HOLLYWOOD couldn't understand it any other way?"

[ssthisto.livejournal.com]

Hollywood wanted to keep a wide, wide distinction between 'The Good Guys' and 'The Bad Guys'. And, of course, anyone who enjoys eating other people must be a 'Bad Guy', right?

However, I am firmly convinced that Hannibal Lecter himself fits firmly into the 'Good Guy' box (because I LIKE him!) I disagreed with the split with the text at the conclusion of the movie. Clarice could follow the original ending and -not- become a 'Bad Guy' - just another uberpredator in the human world.

[soreth.livejournal.com]

I'd like to nominate everyone's choices for the opposite category. Every book for the "better than" side should go into the "worse than" pile, and vice versa.

I mean, it's already starting to happen small-scale.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Auntie Mame, definitely.

-TG

Gah....I came up with some while I slept!

[mythos-amante.livejournal.com]

HAH! Sense and Sensibility.
The Conan Movies (because I am a liberated woman. :P )
And The Horation Hornblower "movies." (What depressing books!)