Movie better than the Book

[Jacen]

This is hard to think of any. As we all know, the book is better 9 times out of 10.

Seconded on Blade Runner. Much better film than the book.

Fight Club, fairly good book, but its message and content became much more interesting and vivid through film.

[Minaku]

[quote name='Insert Edit' post='1339403' date='May 2 2008, 12.12']Movie characters less nuanced than book characters? No way!

How long did you want the LOTR movies to be? Six hours each?[/quote]

Let's just say I would much rather take an extended edition in two sittings than have to sit through another theatrical edition.

[Shryke]

[quote name='Nadie' post='1339395' date='May 2 2008, 12.10']And to all of you who say that the LOTR movies were better than the books, there is a level in hell, just for you. :)

Its filled with Terry Goodkind books and nothing else. :thumbsup:[/quote]

Pfft, your just mad cause you know we're right. LOTR is a cure for insomnia, something the movies tried but ultimately failed to emulate.

[Fenny]

[quote]Even though the book was completely over the top - that guy has issues with basic animal behaviour comprehension; the one with the rats was even more risible - the film's characters were annoyingly goody two shoes and Walt Disneyish. Jeff Goldblum saves the day and that's about that.[/quote]

Nope. You're forgetting Bob Peck's turn as Muldoon. The movie was thus much better than the book. Bob Peck... :drool:

[alguien]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1339460' date='May 2 2008, 12.38']Pfft, your just mad cause you know we're right. LOTR is a cure for insomnia, something the movies tried but ultimately failed to emulate.[/quote]

My reply to you, my good sir, can be read in either recently deceased actor Charleton Heston's voice:

Damn you, sir. Damn you to hell.


or in Cartman-ish tones, if you so prefer:

You can go to hell and you die!

:)

[niamh]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1339460' date='May 2 2008, 18.38']Pfft, your just mad cause you know we're right. LOTR is a cure for insomnia, something the movies tried but ultimately failed to emulate.[/quote]
Failure is in the eye of the beholder. It was fairly successful with me.


All that can be said about the movies vs books is that the movie catered for a much lower IQ range than the book, and not much else.


[quote name='Fenny' post='1339462' date='May 2 2008, 18.40']Nope. You're forgetting Bob Peck's turn as Muldoon. The movie was thus much better than the book. Bob Peck... :drool:[/quote]
Who?

[Werthead]

It's very difficult to call it between the movie and books of [i]Fellowship[/i]. Losing Tom Bombadil (yay!) but also losing the barrow-wights and the greater hardship in crossing the pass? Plus the scene on the boat where Legolas takes down a fell-beast is pretty good, but Jackson obviously wanted a big reveal for the fell-best in the movie version of TTT. I think the book just manages to win out there.

The other two? No contest. The books obliterate both TTT and RotK movies from a great height. And I quite like the films, it's just...they have issues.

I think otherwise [i]Shawshank[/i] and anything written by Michael Crichton work much better on screen. Even [i]The Lost World[/i], which is a very bad film, still steamrollers over the novel, which was unreadable garbage of the highest order.

[Maid of Tarth]

Seconding on Children of Men. Mediocre (at best) book = brilliant movie.

Stardust on the other hand, wonderful in all of its forms. Seen the movie probably half a dozen times, read the book nearly as many.

[Maltaran]

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, simply because the Christian allegory isn't nearly as blatant in the movie.

[Fenny]

[quote][quote]Nope. You're forgetting Bob Peck's turn as Muldoon. The movie was thus much better than the book. Bob Peck... :drool:[/quote]

Who?
[/quote]

Muldoon = a minor, boring character. The park's game warden. Ends up being eaten by a raptor.

[url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1760000/images/_1764616_darkness_peck150.jpg"]Bob Peck[/url] = a fantastic, but sadly now deceased, actor.

I imagine there are rather a lot of films around that are better than the books they were adapted from - quite often, because said books are best forgotten. [i]Kind Hearts & Coronets[/i] is a case in point. I haven't read the original, but it's supposed to be dreadful.

ETA: Just checked online. I take my words back concerning KH&C. Apparently, the book is quite good.

[Arthmail]

Firstly: It is a testament to the power of both versions that the Shawshank Redemption is just a phenominal story. King outdid himself, perhaps writing one of the best short stories of his career. The movie though...Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman....everyone in that movie was perfect. They looked perfect, they acted perfect, they simply were perfect. One of the top ten movies of all time.

Children of Men: I liked the book, but the movie was better. The whole thing in the book with the Warden of England and all of that, the Quietus...a littel boring. Though one thing i did like about the book was some of the craziness people turned to without the comfort of having children. Doll babies, kitten babies...that sort of thing. It seemed very realistic.

Lord of the Rings: Great movies, BETTER books. The only thing i didn't like in the books (aside from a mild distaste for Hobbits...i know, i know), is Tom Bombadil. I have never wanted to see Gandalf curb stomp anyone as much as Tom. I did not miss him in the movies, and i always skip his chapters in the books.

Battlefield Earth - Hahahahahaha....just kidding. The book sucked almost as much as the movie. A bunch of barbarians flying harrier jump jets. And then, in the book, there is, in essence, this massive discourse on stellar politics and trade at the end. I felt like i was reading a treatise on intergalactic economics. Absolutely mind boggling.

[Arthmail]

[quote name='Fenny' post='1339570' date='May 2 2008, 14.32']Who?


Muldoon = a minor, boring character. The park's game warden. Ends up being eaten by a raptor.

[url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1760000/images/_1764616_darkness_peck150.jpg"]Bob Peck[/url] = a fantastic, but sadly now deceased, actor.[/quote]


But if i remember from the books, he survived the island. That was the part that actually made me hate the movies more. The Muldoon character in the book was awesome, the one in the movies was a wanker.

[Gold Storm]

[quote name='Arthmail' post='1339573' date='May 2 2008, 10.33']Battlefield Earth - Hahahahahaha....just kidding. The book sucked almost as much as the movie. A bunch of barbarians flying harrier jump jets. And then, in the book, there is, in essence, this massive discourse on stellar politics and trade at the end. I felt like i was reading a treatise on intergalactic economics. Absolutely mind boggling.[/quote]

:rofl: Yes I tried to read the book but it goes on and on, I loved the part about the moon eating spaceship/dragon and the interstellar trade and regulations. I guess the movie could not be that bad could it :dunno:

[Derfel Cadarn]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1339279' date='May 2 2008, 12.12']I used to have a mental list of all the stupid shit in the last 2 movies, but it's been too long since I saw them. Denethor is the biggest one though. Or at least, they should have pushed the whole "He's been using the Palantir" thing, to give a REASON for his insanity at the end. The ghosts thing was bad too. They should have kept the plot like in the book, where the ghosts free the men and then the men fight.

EDIT: OOH, Gimli as comic relief. Forgot that one. He was actually not stupid in the first movie.[/quote]

His favourite son dying and his country about to be overrun by orcs wasn't enough of a reason?

I prefer the films though some decisions were dubious. I prefer the film-Faramir to the book Faramir. The book Faramir was a bit too quick to let the ring go. Albeit Frodo going all the way to Osgiliath was too much, and could have been cut (along with cliff-jumper Aragorn) in favour of Saramun being confronted. The extended film of the Two Towers really shows more of Faramir's mindset and how he knows that if he gives the ring to his father he thinks he can earn his father's love. For him to let Frodo go despite knowing this makes it much more of a sacrifice than the book-Faramir basically just letting him go straight away.

The books had no real character growth other than the Hobbits. Okay the films made Gimli a comedy relief but that was more of a role than he had in the books where he was only there as a token dwarf.

I liked the elves being at Helm's Deep, never saw it coming and it was a good way of showing the other races were fighting without a huge exposition telling us about the Lonely Mountain dwarves, men of Dale and the elves of Mirkwood nearly getting pwned.

My main gripe though is the undead saving Minas Tirith. I can understand why they needed to keep things moving in the film but it was a bit too easy.

[Shryke]

[quote name='Arthmail' post='1339573' date='May 2 2008, 13.33']Battlefield Earth - Hahahahahaha....just kidding. The book sucked almost as much as the movie. A bunch of barbarians flying harrier jump jets. And then, in the book, there is, in essence, this massive discourse on stellar politics and trade at the end. I felt like i was reading a treatise on intergalactic economics. Absolutely mind boggling.[/quote]

Wait, we're mentioning Battlefield:Earth and you DIDN'T bring up the planet with atmosphere that explodes when exposed to radiation?

Come on, that's the best thing EVER. They blow up a whole planet with 1 nuke.

[King James]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1339169' date='May 2 2008, 07.23']The LOTR films were smart enough to leave [b]alot of the boring [/b][u][/u]on the cutting room floor. Although more and more kept creeping in as the trilogy went on. The first one is the best. It retells Fellowship of the Ring while cutting out all the boring.[/quote]

And there was a LOT of boring in the books. The movies were, by far, superior.

[williamjm]

I'd say [i]The Bourne Supremacy[/i] is a better film than book, not that there's really any connection between them other than the title - the film has more depth, better characterisation and more memorable action scenes. The same might be true of [i]The Bourne Identity[/i] to a lesser extent as well.

I'd also say I preferred the [i]Children of Dune[/i] miniseries to the book, but that's mainly because I didn't like the book very much ([i]Dune[/i] on the other hand is a much better book than either of the adaptations).

[Astra]

LotR movies are crap. Utter crap. The only good things are the first movie until they get to Bree and you understand that they lost a whole journey through the forest.
And when Boromir dies. The rest is crap.

Cannot even imagine how lotr movies could be compared to the book while most of the deepr ideas and emotions were completely lost.

[Shryke]

I believe ditching the boring was the key to the movies success. The forest was boring. And full of Tom Bombadil.

Fuck Tom Bombadil. Fuck him right in the ear. With a pinecone.

[Maid of Tarth]

[quote name='williamjm' post='1339688' date='May 2 2008, 12.27']I'd say [i]The Bourne Supremacy[/i] is a better film than book, not that there's really any connection between them other than the title - the film has more depth, better characterisation and more memorable action scenes. The same might be true of [i]The Bourne Identity[/i] to a lesser extent as well.[/quote]Only read the first Bourne book (I thought it was a bit boring) and tried picking up the second but gave up, and agree that the movies are [i]way[/i] better. Though I do like some of Ludlum's other stuff. But his Bourne books didn't really do it for me.