Books vs. their movie or television counterparts

[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.

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.

thank you for reminding me of that horrid movie that made me want to puke. One of those times I was damn glad I read the book first.

[isladar]

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."

Watched these over and over as a child. Yes, its BBC-budget, but I do think they did a wonderful job with what they had to work with. I found the book series charming, but the sudden-death left turn of doom he took writing the last novel was pretty heavy fare for a six-year-old. Of course I find out later he was watching his wife die of cancer at the time, so all was made clear.

[Groovebox]

No Country for Old Men, the movie did the book great justice. I wouldn't have changed a thing.

[sb]

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

Not sure which you are saying is better, but there are major differences between the two. Overall the story is similar, though a lot of it is left out. The movie seems to focus on a few characters and their support cast, whereas the book in the book all of the characters have more of an equal weight.

The only movie I can think of that was a clear improvement over the book was The Last of the Mohicans. A friend of mine wrote an article for a magazine a few years ago where he named the few instances where the movie was best of the two. I'll try and track it down and post the link for it(if one exists).

[Penthesilea]

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

Not sure which you are saying is better, but there are major differences between the two. Overall the story is similar, though a lot of it is left out. The movie seems to focus on a few characters and their support cast, whereas the book in the book all of the characters have more of an equal weight.

The only movie I can think of that was a clear improvement over the book was The Last of the Mohicans. A friend of mine wrote an article for a magazine a few years ago where he named the few instances where the movie was best of the two. I'll try and track it down and post the link for it(if one exists).

sorry, I was kinda vague. I was interested in knowing how the two compared, as I've only seen bits and pieces of the movie. Didn't know which I should check out first.

[Byrd]

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

The only thing the movie and book had in common was the title and the basic nature of the game show. Everything else was entirely different; you can easily enjoy one without ruining the other, and they are both pretty good (at least as far as Ah-nuld moves and King books go).

Die Hard was actually based on a book by Roderick Thorp called "Nothing Lasts Forever." It was actually pretty good; McClane was an older guy, and it was his daughter instead of his wife. There's enough differences it was worth a read.

(P.S. Hans actually drags the daughter out the window to her death in the conclusion in the book).

[Correction]

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

Stephen King's a special case. There have been some absolutely wonderful movies made from his books

Stand By Me
Shawshank Redemption
Green Mile
The Shining
Misery

Definitely A+ movies in almost every case. Of that list I'd only name Misery as the case where I hold the book in higher esteem by any measurable margin. It doesn't diminish how goddamn awesome the movie is of course.

But then you realize that this only represents a very small fraction of everything he's had turned into film, and wish he'd quit doing it. At least the Dark Tower series got turned into comics before movies. There's hope yet.

I remember trying to read 'Trainspotting' after seeing the movie. I gave up about 10 pages in. I got my fucking fill of phonetic writing from reading Finnegans Wake in college. Makes my head hurt. Definitely preferring the film there.

[Howard Roark]

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.

i think it's fair to say that we should be looking at books vs their "movie with a proper budget"* counterpart

that being said i want to read this author but my french is tres horrible

[Shuemue]

If you can get past the phonetic language, it's a good read. From what I remember, it's pretty close to the movie in general. It might be worth you trying some of Welsh's short stories, they're kinda interesting, some dire, some good.

[rezn0r]

i feel as though Palahniuk can do no wrong, my god do i love his books. i'd agree on the Fight Club ending being a bit better in the book, but i also really thought they did an incredible job with that film. one author who i've almost always liked the books better than their film versions is Michael Crichton, although Jurassic Park 1 did come out at the perfect age for me to really get sucked into the movie (which is what caused me to read the book, and then read everything else he had at the time). i have severely been slacking on his most recent releases though. anyone happen to read Next yet? i've been planning on stealing it from my gf's dad if he ever finishes it...

[sb]

sorry, I was kinda vague. I was interested in knowing how the two compared, as I've only seen bits and pieces of the movie. Didn't know which I should check out first.

The movie is much more vanilla. Though they fallow the same basic plot, the book fallows more of the characters and the movie edits out a lot of the more not for Hollywood moments. The thing is the movie does a great job with it's manipulation of time and is shot and organized very well to get the feel of the writing.

I'd probably go book ~> movie in this one, as you will appreciate the framing and methods the movie uses to a greater extent.

[Rigor]

One thing that bugged me is in the movie Jurassic Park the main dino guy hated kids, but in the book he loved them. Why the fuck would you change that shit? Makes no sense.

Also, Fuck the Lord of the Rings movies. Those movies ruined Frodo forever. Before those movies I saw him as a badass hobbit who bit fool's ankles and shit. Now all I see is a whiny little bitch named Elijah. So weak.

[Isiolia]

One thing that bugged me is in the movie Jurassic Park the main dino guy hated kids, but in the book he loved them. Why the fuck would you change that shit? Makes no sense.

For more character development/dynamic I guess. They rebalanced the two kids too. Rather than have Tim be the complete dinosaur/computer geek and Lex be a baseball glove-toting tomboy, in the movie both of them were geeks of a sort, only for some reason Tim was making fun of her being a hacker...made less sense to me really.

They changed all sorts of crap, then used scenes mostly from the first book in the second movie, which was in turn barely similar to the book.

Far as Crichton stuff goes, Sphere was reasonably close to the book until the end...which ruined it IMO. They didn't take enough time, and changed the final outcome too.



Complete tangent too, Interview with the Vampire was a very good rendition of the book to screen I thought. What was shown was faithful.
Then the sequel was absolute crap >_>

[Penthesilea]

Complete tangent too, Interview with the Vampire was a very good rendition of the book to screen I thought. What was shown was faithful.

Mostly cause Anne Rice did the screenplay I'd guess.

[Infiltrator]

Starship Troopers - director admitted that he never read the book in audio commentary.

[Brill Weave]

It honestly depends on the book for me. The Bourne series I thought was a fantastic group of movies. They do not follow the books at all however, except for the very first one. In the books for example, Marie ends up living and marrying Jason Bourne etc. I felt that the movies were fantastic and a lot of fun to watch.

Jumper was a fairly decent movie but didn't follow the book at all. I'm still not sure which one I enjoyed more. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was by far and away better as movies. The problem with the books is that they aren't actually "stories" persay, but more of just a recounting of deeds etc.

Fight Club was a great movie that improved upon the books in my opinion.

[pirahna1]

A LOOOONG time ago I read The Relic, which is a fucking AMAZING book. The movie didn't live up the book, not even close.

We watched Fahrenheit 451 in school, the version we watched was terrible next to the book. The book was just so vivid and imaginative that the movie ( I think it was from the 60-70s) could have never lived up to it.

As for video game movies, the only ones I liked were RE 1 and 2 (3 was crap), Silent Hill, and FFVII Advent Children. House of the Dead was ok, but only because I knew what it wasn't before watching it - good. Uwe is just a terrible director, I'm lookin at you Alone in the Dark.

Has anyone seen The Kite Runner in theaters yet? My fiance wanted to see it, but it didn't play around here.

[Toth]

Timeline - Fantastic book, mediocre movie.