Movie better than the Book

[Blaine]

Silence of the Lambs is one of the very, very few movies that is as good as the book and in many, many ways even better.

The reason it's as good as the book is because it is quite faithful to the language and storyline the novel set in place.

What makes it better is the incredible performances by Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. Say whatever you want about Lecter in the novel... Hopkins totally owned that character after the movie.

[Calibandar]

[b]Tom Bombadil's Song[/b]

[i]Now let the song begin! Let us sing together
Of sun, stars, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather,
Light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather,
Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather,
Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!

Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow;
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
green were his girdle and his breeches all of leather;
he wore in his tall hat a swan-wing feather.
He lived up under Hill, where the Withywindle
ran from a grassy well down into the dingle.

Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling!
Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.
Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight,
Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,
There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,
Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.
Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing
Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing?

Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o,
Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o!
Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away!
Tom's in a hurry now. Evening will follow day.
Tom's going home home again water-lilies bringing.
Hey! come derry dol! Can you hear me singing?

Hop along, my little friends, up the Withywindle!
Tom's going on ahead candles for to kindle.
Down west sinks the Sun: soon you will be groping.
When the night-shadows fall, then the door will open,
Out of the window-panes light will twinkle yellow.
Fear no alder black! Heed no hoary willow!
Fear neither root nor bough! Tom goes on before you.
Hey now! merry dol! We'll be waiting for you![/i]

[Shryke]

DIAF

[post menopausal rhino]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1339819' date='May 2 2008, 21.38']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.[/quote]

:eek: what is with all the Tom Bombadil hate? he was my daughter's fave character.... well actually his pony.... fatty lumpkin was it?

[EHK for Darwin]

Tom Bombadil is an unforgivable fucking atrocity that Tolkien himself should have been curb stomped for simply foisting upon us. The film gains HUGE points over the book just for eliminating that part. Of course even Uwe Boll would have been smart enough to edit that crap for his Fellowship adaptation, so its not like PJ gets points for brilliance on this matter. But the fact that that whole sequence is gone remains one hell of a saving grace.

As for the rest? Much better characterizations and character growth all around. That never was a strength of Tolkiens and its immediately obvious. Give me film Boromir, Faramir, Saramun (not that there was much of a book Saramun), Theodin and others anyday. Its also nice to see some of the action on screen rather than through exposition after the fact. It also had better pacing. Less boring. (as others have noted) The first film ifrom several flaws of excess and/or clumsiness that others have pointed out. But a few of the so called 'flaws'n particular was far superior to the book. The second and third suffered I'd take issue with.

Faramir's struggle with the ring worked and better conveyed both the awesome corrupting power of the ring and the strength of Faramir's character in resisting it than the book ever managed to. If Faramir had given it up so easily, its suddenly diminished as a threatening force because by that point, everyone and their dog had denied the ring. That makes his accomplishment much less impressive because 1. The ring suddenly ain't a big deal and 2. He didn't appear to overcome much of a struggle to deny it in the books. Proper dramatic decision on the part of the film-makers. And greatly improved over how the book handled the matter.

Sam and Frodo abandoning eachother. I have absolutely no problem with that decision. This one I think could have worked either way, but the route they decided to take certainly wasn't a flaw. It provided an thematically effective dramatic turning point, never seemed out of character given the struggles they'd been through, once more heightened the power and danger of the ring for the viewer by showing the outright alienation that the ring-bearer endures in the face of a 'rest of the world' that could never quite understand what it means to bear it. (which works for the later epilogue scenes and themes quite well)

Both of those complaints...i don't really see the issue with. They fall more into the 'well, its different from the book' justification which doesn't really fly as far as I'm concerned.

[Zoë Sumra]

[quote name='Jacen' post='1339438' date='May 2 2008, 18.29']Fight Club, fairly good book, but its message and content became much more interesting and vivid through film.[/quote]
I actually thought the message and content came across very well in the book, in some cases better than in the film; however, I agree that it's a fantastic film. I find it very difficult to say either way.

The LOTR movies... I feel the books shade them as artwork. However, even when I first read LOTR when I was six I realised that for story pacing purposes Tolkien should have killed Boromir at the end of FOTR instead of the start of TTT. Massive kudos to the films for doing this correctly. :thumbsup: And massive down-marks for doing the Dernhelm=Eowyn reveal too early. :thumbsdown: I also agree with sundry posters that the film of FOTR was the best of the three.

In general I feel that particularly big battles will often work better on screen than in books. One picture tells a thousand stories, and all. An author's general ability to write is apparently unconnected to their ability to write effective fantasy battles.

[Werthead]

Losing Tom Bombadil is a no-brainer. Interestingly, [i]none[/i] of the adaptions of LotR leave him in. The Bakshi movie drops him and even the extremely faithful 26-ep BBC radio adaption, which even includes the Scouring of the Shire IIRC, drops that whole sequence. I think. It's been a while since I last listened to it. It's like twenty hours long.

[Mister Manticore]

The MMO keeps Tom!!!!

Therefore, it wins.

[Brude]

"The Godfather" definitely. I didn't bother continuing with the book after about 40 or 50 pags it was so poorly done. The movie (as well as Part 2) are among my 10 favorites of all time.

While I love the LotR movies, the books are still far superior to me - reading them was a major turning point in my life on par with hearing The Beatles for the first time and seeing Star Wars for the first time. Going to my first baseball game is maybe close as well. Nothing else can compare.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote]"The Godfather" definitely. I didn't bother continuing with the book after about 40 or 50 pags it was so poorly done. The movie (as well as Part 2) are among my 10 favorites of all time.[/quote]

Heh...a smarter man than I. I got a few hundred in before I said 'fuck it.'

[Jaxom 1974]

[quote]Children of Men.[/quote]

Won't agree or disagree. I think one has to put the movie and the book into two seperate categories. The book is so very good. THe movie is so very good.


As to Jurassic Park? Possibly Crichton's best book IMO. The movie is far far inferior to the book. Actually, I don't know that any Crichton novel brought to the screen is better than the book. Even the crappy ones. Possibly Disclosure, but I think that's about the closest adaptation of any of them.

[Mauvka]

[i]Perfume[/i]
anyone familiar with this one? the movie is a feast for the senses. it conveyed the themes and developed the main character subtly. The movie managed to make a revelation out of what the book simply had the narrator explain at the beginning.

[blackwater]

Sphere was bad movie , but the book was even worse.
Every movie based on Crichton's book was better, with exeption of Timeline.

[alguien]

[quote name='EnlightenmentHK' post='1339978' date='May 2 2008, 17.23']Sam and Frodo abandoning eachother. I have absolutely no problem with that decision. This one I think could have worked either way, but the route they decided to take certainly wasn't a flaw. It provided an thematically effective dramatic turning point, never seemed out of character given the struggles they'd been through, once more heightened the power and danger of the ring for the viewer by showing the outright alienation that the ring-bearer endures in the face of a 'rest of the world' that could never quite understand what it means to bear it. (which works for the later epilogue scenes and themes quite well)[/quote]

Its funny you mention that. I remember feeling so bothered by Frodo ordering Sam to leave him.

On one hand, I know why they did it in the movie. It makes sense for the timeline, the drama, the story on film. The part where Sam steps in to save Frodo from Shelob is fucking brilliant. On the other, the book purist in me was like "NO! NO! Frodo would never fall for Gollum's trick and order Sam off like that!" But its a testament to their work that I didn't let this spoil my enjoyment of the moment.

So I guess its one of those things where I wish they hadn't, but completely understand why they did. Honestly, I think there never has been a better translation of literature onto the screen. (although I wish Elijah Wood hadn't played Frodo as such a pussy)

I believe the books are much better than the movies, which even Peter Jackson I think would acknowledge.

[Ser Barry]

[quote name='Brudewollen' post='1340149' date='May 3 2008, 01.51']"The Godfather" definitely. I didn't bother continuing with the book after about 40 or 50 pags it was so poorly done. The movie (as well as Part 2) are among my 10 favorites of all time.[/quote]


[quote name='EnlightenmentHK' post='1340154' date='May 3 2008, 01.57']Heh...a smarter man than I. I got a few hundred in before I said 'fuck it.'[/quote]


How could you deny yourself the Flappy Fanny storyline?

[Zap Rowsdower]

Forest Gump. I enjoyed the book and found it funny but it was much more slapsticky than the movie.

The Thing From Another World and also John Carpenter's The Thing were both better than the original short story "Who Goes There?"

The animated movie Flight of Dragons was better than the melange of "The Flight of Dragons" by Peter Dickinson and "The Dragon and the George," by Gordon R. Dickson that the movie was based on.

As much as I love "Herbert West- ReAnimator," Jeffry Combs' marvelous portrayal of the title character in the movie version won me over.

I've never managed to get my hands on a copy of Gary Brandner's "The Howling," but I'm going to guess and say that the movie version was better, simply because they are few werewolf movies than can top "The Howling." I'll also hazard a guess and say that any and all of Gary Brandner's writings, including illegible scrawls he made as a toddler are better than that all of the "The Howling" sequels that have been unleashed into the theaters.

Outlaw of Gor was easily better than the book because, to the best of my knowledge, the book never received the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment like the movie did.

The horror movie the Ring was ten billion times better than that book it was based on. How a book that bad could get made into a movie, I'll never know. The book was written in Japanese, so maybe I'm being unfair and the translators were simply awful. Nevertheless, I simply could not finish the book.

[Marcin]

Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King

I saw the film first and then read the novel. I was very disappointed - the film was much better. I think that Stephen King is overrated. Some of his novels are brilliant, but most of them are average and sometimes irritating.

[sio]

[quote name='Maid of Tarth' post='1339823' date='May 3 2008, 07.10']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.[/quote]

Hm. I would agree that the movie was better than the book, but only by a little bit - I didn't like either of them; I found the book poorly written and the movie tedious.

[saint777]

I just saw an adaptation of Jack Ketchum's [b]The Lost[/b] which I found better than the book. I also saw an adaptation of [b]The Girl Next Door[/b] which was far worse than the book.

[b]Jaws[/b]: One of the greatest monster movies. The book is toilet.

Peter Jackson's [b]Lord of the Rings[/b] is better than the book. Bakshi's [b]Lord of the Rings[/b] is infinitely inferior to the book even though Bakshi's adaptation is more faithful to the text.

I second [b]Re-Animator[/b]: One of the greatest cult classics of the 80's and I feel it holds up better than the [b]Evil Dead[/b] films.

[Turinqui-Calima]

[quote name='King in the North.' post='1339161' date='May 2 2008, 10.21']fear and loathing in las vagus anyone??[/quote]

What???? Although the movie is great, the book is amazing!