Books vs. their movie or television counterparts

[Norelco]

I'm a huge Chuck Palahniuk fan. After I saw the movie Fight Club, I went out and bought Survivor. I love it...so I went out and got Choke. I loved it, and since then have read everything he's written and loved all of it.

After 5 years, I finally got around to reading Fight Club. I fucking hate it. The movie was so well-done in my mind that it actually improved upon the book.

If I had read the book first and then saw the movie, do you think my opinion would be different? Probably.

So...which book/movie/television pairings have you read, and what do you like more, and why?

Most people will say the book is better, so let's see who says the movie/show is better.

[tonyg]

You guys probably haven't read this, but theres an author here in Quebec (lolCanada, milk in bags, etc. etc.), Patrick Senécal, who writes dark/horror novels. In each of his novels, he picks a flaw in the human kind, and enhances it so that the situation puts it into perspective, so his novels are really, really intense. Idk if his books were translated in english, but if so, you should definitely look him up, his books are the best reads I've had in my entire life (and I've read LOTR both in french and english, Harry Potter crap, and good french authors (Dumas,Balzac,Barjavel)).

Anyways back to the point, they made a movie about one of his books, "Sur le Seuil", which is about an author who writes horror novels that eventually becomes reality, so he cuts his fingers off so he can never write again, but it doesn't stop him from thinking about his next book, which takes place in the psychiatric department where he's held at. The book really pictures this incredibly well, as you can imagine all the fucked up scenes, but the movie only puts the really graphic ones, and never really captures the essence of the massacre that is going on. In other words, they dumb up the novel a lot (like most movies do), which makes it lose its essence.

Sorry for my english lol idk if it's broken as french is my first language

[dritero]

Read and watched the Borne Ultimatum. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other. 2 completely different story lines, so it's really hard to judge one over the other. The only thing that is similar between the two is the main characters name. This being said I liked the movie better.

[Tyche]

Watched several king movies as a kid. I was a huge horror flick fan when I was younger. Seriously, I would have like 10+ person parties over my house for a Nightmare on Elm Street marathon in Elementary school. So, I started reading King novels. Now, I have thousands of dollars in hardbacks. I even have the pseudonym Bachman books.

[Remyo]

Lord of the Rings book vs. Movies: I liked the movies a little more for the visual effects and cut out some of the drier parts of the books, except the movies going on and on about frodo and sams gay loving. However, I liked the books for containing more lore and what not, so I guess a toss up.

Harry Potter: Books all the way, except for Emma Watson, when does she turn 18?

RE: games, books, movies, but <3 them all.

Jurassic Park series: Original movie, Lost World book.

Hannibal series: movies

I guess I'm a visual person.

[Huggo]

I thought the ending of fight club from the book was way better than the movie's ending. Because he's in the mental hospital at the end, but all the orderlies are calling him "sir" and "mr. durden" really cement that fact in. Project Mayhem succeeded and Tyler eventually wins in the long run. Whereas the movie makes it look more like Jack comes out on top. (The narrator is widely referred to as Jack because of the articles written by organs in the first person.)

But hey, a little piece of news I heard earlier this year: I think it was Fox studios, I could be wrong though, they bought a reel of a movie rendition of Choke, it's scheduled to reach theaters this summer.

[Djghost454]

You guys probably haven't read this, but theres an author here in Quebec (lolCanada, milk in bags, etc. etc.), Patrick Senécal, who writes dark/horror novels. In each of his novels, he picks a flaw in the human kind, and enhances it so that the situation puts it into perspective, so his novels are really, really intense. Idk if his books were translated in english, but if so, you should definitely look him up, his books are the best reads I've had in my entire life (and I've read LOTR both in french and english, Harry Potter crap, and good french authors (Dumas,Balzac,Barjavel)).

Anyways back to the point, they made a movie about one of his books, "Sur le Seuil", which is about an author who writes horror novels that eventually becomes reality, so he cuts his fingers off so he can never write again, but it doesn't stop him from thinking about his next book, which takes place in the psychiatric department where he's held at. The book really pictures this incredibly well, as you can imagine all the fucked up scenes, but the movie only puts the really graphic ones, and never really captures the essence of the massacre that is going on. In other words, they dumb up the novel a lot (like most movies do), which makes it lose its essence.

Sorry for my english lol idk if it's broken as french is my first language

Seen a movie very similar to that about the agent of an author who is writing a series and dissapears and he goes looking. But he finds out that when people read these books it starts to actually happen, its a really fucked up movie, forgot what it was called, super low budget shitty SFX kinda shit tho.

[Melena]

So many cool things were cut out of Jurassic Park from the book it made my head spin. Going after the raptor nests with rocket launchers and the aviary scene would have been freaking awsome on the big screen. Still a good movie though. It really depends on the person though on what is better.

[Remyo]

So many cool things were cut out of Jurassic Park from the book it made my head spin. Going after the raptor nests with rocket launchers and the aviary scene would have been freaking awsome on the big screen. Still a good movie though. It really depends on the person though on what is better.

aviary scene was shown in 3 wasn't it, not the same scene but kinda close. Lost world movie was shit compared to the book with the invisidino.

[Penthesilea]

Some movie adaptations of short stories or books I want to read:

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
The Thing (John Carpenter's) - "Who goes there?" by John W. Campbell, Jr.


probably a lot more, but i'm going to bed

[sephir]

I liked the Bourne books far better than the movies. Not to say they were bad, but the books chronicaled the story of Bournes story much more thorough. This happens a lot though, I mean a lot of information gets clipped trying to fit a 500 page book into a 2 hour movies, since the typical 2 hour film is only 180 pages.

Some books that were better than the movies:
The Outsiders
American Gangsters
Oil!(There will be Blood)
Seabiscuit

im out of ideas right now on some others, but theres a much bigger list.

[Remyo]

Some books that were better than the movies:
The Outsiders

disagree.

[archibaldcrane]

If you want a real challenge, read "Naked Lunch" by William Burroughs and then watch the adaptation by David Cronenberg. In some ways it seems like the film has nothing to do with the book, but I think it is quite possibly the most brilliant adaptation to film ever.

[Fhqwghads]

Lord of The Rings vs. the movie: Books are infinitely better than the movie in my opinion. The Hollywood spin on everything from the lame-ass "Titanic" pan flute music to the forced love interest coupled with unecessary changes (wtf @ Faramir's initial struggle with Frodo over the ring and Gimli made into the butt of every joke) made it suck. It wasn't all suck, though. There were parts in the movie that felt like Jackson got it right. Mostly just the scenery though, but I thank John Howe for that more than Jackson.

Eragon vs. the movie: Again, book was better than the movie. Book wasn't all that great either though, but the guy was only 15 when he wrote it. However, he must have been blinded by having his book made into a movie, because I get the impression he didn't have a whole lot of say in the matter considering how god awful the movie was. It's also blatantly obvious that his influences were Tolkien and Anne McCaffery. "Eragon" couldn't be any closer to "Aragorn" without drawing scowls from rabid Tolkien fans, and the way he and the dragon are paired up is strikingly similar to Anne McCaffery's "Dragonriders of Pern" series.

Chronicles of Narnia vs. the movie: Very easy reading, with an obviously young target audience. Still, Lewis does a good job of telling a story as long as you can stomach the strong christian undertones. The movies were OK, nothing special, but at least they didn't deviate from the books like LotR did, so I rate it higher than Jackson's effort.

Chronicles of Narnia vs. the TV mini-series: What? There was a TV series? Yes, there was. It was a British mini-series made in the late 80's, and I'm sure some of BG's UK readers have seen it. Really REALLY freakin' low budget, but it was exciting at the time to see the books portrayed on the small screen. Nothing to get too excited about though. They did "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe", "Prince Caspian", and the "Silver Chair."

[Isiolia]

You guys probably haven't read this, but theres an author here in Quebec (lolCanada, milk in bags, etc. etc.), Patrick Senécal, who writes dark/horror novels. In each of his novels, he picks a flaw in the human kind, and enhances it so that the situation puts it into perspective, so his novels are really, really intense. Idk if his books were translated in english, but if so, you should definitely look him up, his books are the best reads I've had in my entire life (and I've read LOTR both in french and english, Harry Potter crap, and good french authors (Dumas,Balzac,Barjavel)).

Anyways back to the point, they made a movie about one of his books, "Sur le Seuil", which is about an author who writes horror novels that eventually becomes reality, so he cuts his fingers off so he can never write again, but it doesn't stop him from thinking about his next book, which takes place in the psychiatric department where he's held at. The book really pictures this incredibly well, as you can imagine all the fucked up scenes, but the movie only puts the really graphic ones, and never really captures the essence of the massacre that is going on. In other words, they dumb up the novel a lot (like most movies do), which makes it lose its essence.

Sorry for my english lol idk if it's broken as french is my first language

Seen a movie very similar to that about the agent of an author who is writing a series and dissapears and he goes looking. But he finds out that when people read these books it starts to actually happen, its a really fucked up movie, forgot what it was called, super low budget shitty SFX kinda shit tho.

In the Mouth of Madness with Sam Neill?

[ircgeek]

Some movie adaptations of short stories or books I want to read:

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

Pretty good read, very lengthy, and definitely more "gore" scenes in the book.

Plus, whole chapters on Phil Collins and the like instead of the minute or two you get in the movies. How can you not like that?

[Creeps]

The Chronicles of Narnia books were far better than the movie, so far at least

Also, Congo was a decent book, but that movie was terrible

[Penthesilea]

Some movie adaptations of short stories or books I want to read:

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

Pretty good read, very lengthy, and definitely more "gore" scenes in the book.

Plus, whole chapters on Phil Collins and the like instead of the minute or two you get in the movies. How can you not like that?

Did you happen to read Rules of Attraction? Jessica Biel as a coked up, college slut sounds like the movie is pretty good.

[Haelian]

I thought the ending of fight club from the book was way better than the movie's ending. Because he's in the mental hospital at the end, but all the orderlies are calling him "sir" and "mr. durden" really cement that fact in. Project Mayhem succeeded and Tyler eventually wins in the long run. Whereas the movie makes it look more like Jack comes out on top. (The narrator is widely referred to as Jack because of the articles written by organs in the first person.)

But hey, a little piece of news I heard earlier this year: I think it was Fox studios, I could be wrong though, they bought a reel of a movie rendition of Choke, it's scheduled to reach theaters this summer.

I'm actually on the other side of this. I saw the movie first and then read the book and I think the movie did the ending better. In fact, I think I read somewhere that Palahniuk admitted that the movie's ending was better than his own. I just thought that the book's ending was a little too typical and predictable. That and I didn't think the book kept it as much as a secret that narrator = Tyler and so the shock and twist wasn't as strong (although I did see the movie first).

I still liked the book though, was strange how they got fat from Marla's mom (if I remember correctly) and I laughed a few times at the messages they sent her. I would recommend Choke over Fight Club for reading though I think.

[Shuemue]

The Running Man. Reasonably entertaining Arnie movie, much better Stephen King book.