Books where you prefer the movie.

Started by Thesunmaid, May 31, 2014, 09:52:19 AM

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Thesunmaid

This is not something that happens often for me..I admit I love my books and usually the books can give me much more detail and most of the time I will prefer the book. Oh and there are spoilers here so...stop reading now if you don't want to know.

With this said there is a few where I do prefer the movie. Two of them being Clive Barker short stories. They were both awesome stories...but the movie sort of brought it to life for me. The hell born heart = Hell raiser and The forbidden which became later on candy man.

In the hell born heart it was for me a bit on the short side. Barely over 100 pages and the movie actors just showed the cynobytes so much more detailed. And well lets face it Pinhead for his time was pretty awesome for a movie bad guy.

The forbidden apparently in the story he was a white guy with this weird patchwork quilt coat and no one knows the origin of him. In candy man I sort of liked they made a back story of him. And Tony Todd was just dam creepy.

And the one that actually just pissed me off to no end was Forrest Gump. Yes this was a book it was written in 1986 by Winston Groom. Now..had I not seen the movie it might not have pissed me off so much. Also had they not had Tom Hanks playing him(I am a big fan of Tom Hanks and am pretty sure he could play a character called Slaughterfuck Von Assenstien and still made it somehow endearing)
But yes...the book...it...was horrible. It did have Forrest as a dim young man who loves his momma and such...but in the book...he swears all the time...he is in a band called the fried eggs...he gets shot into space with a chimp and a female astronaut gets lost in the amazon,He is also a chess champion and hes a stunt man..oh and a professional wrestler called the dunce..

I am a sucker for an underdog story but...this book which I get came out first just made me not like Forrest...he has more of a potty mouth that I do and that's really saying something considering I can make a sailor blush when I am in the mood. But Forrest is supposed to be this lovable sweet guy who just happens to stumble into the right place at the right time and not realize that he was making history.

Oh and there's ones I like equally as well...To kill a mocking bird...both book and movie were wonderful. :)

So I was just wondering if anyone else had books that got made into movies and they liked better? Or a TV show that was based off a book. Whichever. Just wondering if anyone else had some thoughts.
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Inkidu

I prefer the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka to the book, chiefly because it's got the better ending. In the book Charley Bucket is just the good little Gary Stu boy meant to be the object lesson in proper childhood behavior. In the movie he isn't perfect and has to pass a secret test of character.

The film version of Watchmen has a better ending than Moore's comic book for me too. In the comic book the ending is little better than a deus ex machina, but in the Film it tied back into the characters, which I think was more skillful.
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Frank Herbert's Dune.

The Harry Potter series.
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Lilias

Interview with the Vampire. I don't remember being so badly disappointed by any other book in my life.
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Cassandra LeMay

I haven't seen many films I also read the book they are based on, so my list is short:

The Last Unicorn: I'm undecided if I like the movie as much as the book or even more, but one way or the other it's an excellent book adaptation (probably only small wonder, given that Peter S. beagle himself wrote the screenplay). Extra bonus for me: Christopher Lee voiced King Haggard in the German dub too, which was quite a treat.

Game of Thrones: Not strictly a movie, but I prefer the TV series to the books. Martin killed the books for me with "minor character overload" at some point. At least with the TV show I get who the important characters are instead of waiting a few hundred pages, wondering if suchandsuch will ever appear again and if I should have committed his name to memory or not.
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Shjade

Quote from: Inkidu on May 31, 2014, 11:00:07 AM
The film version of Watchmen has a better ending than Moore's comic book for me too. In the comic book the ending is little better than a deus ex machina, but in the Film it tied back into the characters, which I think was more skillful.

While I see where you're going with this and agree it's nicely circular to have it all tie back into the same cast, it makes less sense from a logical perspective:
Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide
If Ozy's goal is uniting the world against a common, independent foe, why would he pick Dr. Manhattan - an individual who up to this point has been distinctly tied to the United States - to play the role of universal villain? He's a single entity rather than an entire alien nation (Which means, regardless of how nigh-omnipotent he is, when he leaves Earth he's gone; there's no future invasion to worry about or anything for humanity to unite against. If he wants to wipe out the Earth, he can just do it, end of story.) and he's already marked on the political spectrum. Why would Soviet forces help the US deal with their strongest weapon gone rogue rather than sit back and celebrate their downfall to their own hubris in thinking they could control this massive power source? What's the incentive for the Soviets to band together with the US in this scenario? Doesn't stick. That's the whole point for making up this entirely alien, unknown enemy in the first place.

I think I'd probably agree with Lilias. Interview with the Vampire was much more entertaining as a movie than a novel.
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RedPhoenix

Pretty much any movie based on a Steven King book.
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Inkidu

Quote from: Shjade on May 31, 2014, 04:29:58 PM
While I see where you're going with this and agree it's nicely circular to have it all tie back into the same cast, it makes less sense from a logical perspective:
Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide
If Ozy's goal is uniting the world against a common, independent foe, why would he pick Dr. Manhattan - an individual who up to this point has been distinctly tied to the United States - to play the role of universal villain? He's a single entity rather than an entire alien nation (Which means, regardless of how nigh-omnipotent he is, when he leaves Earth he's gone; there's no future invasion to worry about or anything for humanity to unite against. If he wants to wipe out the Earth, he can just do it, end of story.) and he's already marked on the political spectrum. Why would Soviet forces help the US deal with their strongest weapon gone rogue rather than sit back and celebrate their downfall to their own hubris in thinking they could control this massive power source? What's the incentive for the Soviets to band together with the US in this scenario? Doesn't stick. That's the whole point for making up this entirely alien, unknown enemy in the first place.

I think I'd probably agree with Lilias. Interview with the Vampire was much more entertaining as a movie than a novel.
Honestly, because Doc Manhattan is literally so powerful that it threatens everyone. His humanity and loyalty to the US are tenuous at best (public-awareness-wise). It's not that he's a nuke, he's a infinitely intelligent nuke that no one really can control. 
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Love And Submission

A Clockwork Orange.

The Book is a preachy mess written by a biased author. The movie  asks an important question about man's soul , is being happy more important then legality? And at what point does the cure for criminality become worse then the disease of criminality?




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consortium11

Starship Troopers.

The book, while not bad, is pretty much just a vehicle for Heinlein's heavily pro-military and somewhat pro-fascist political/philosophical ideals without really bothering with minor details like a worthwhile story. Frankly the war that is (or at least should be) the driving point of the book appears to be included because without a dangerous armed conflict with a high casualty rate and the threat of annihilation then the glorifying of the military would be pretty worthless; it's a lot easier to heap praise on the sacrifices made by the PBI ("poor bloody infantry") when they're fighting to the death against a seemingly remorseless attacker than it is if they're sitting in their barracks endlessly cleaning records and practicing their parading without a hint of danger.

The film is pretty much the opposite. It takes almost all of the themes that Heinlein included and parodies them, creating a deliberately cheesy and camp brilliant action flick.

Zeth

Jurassic Park, in the book they simply blew up the island at the end while in the movie they did not and created sequels. I just found the idea of simply blowing up such advanced research and technology unrealistic.

While not technically a book or movie I am also going to say Tenchi Muyo. The Kiyone character, The serious partner to the ditsy blonde, only existed in the anime and not the manga. She  is my favorite character in the series and  the manga felt kind of weird without her there.

Peripherie

The Shipping News. (Book by E. Annie Proulx)

It is a fantastic movie. The book is good but they streamlined a few things in the movie that the book went on and on about. (Also the movie is just full of some amazing actors that really bring the characters to life.)
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My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

AEvum

I prefer the I am Legend movie to the book personally. The book's ending felt forced and trying to hard to make the viewer connect with the infected. But then again I was unsatisfied with the movie's ending too; just less so.

GermanCake

The Shining. It removed some silly bits and had Jack Nicholson playing....himself. Just saw a weird documentary on all these fan theories about the movie and the making of. Really interesting stuff.

Arohk

I definitely prefer the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows movies better than the book. The pacing suited a movie far better. I found, when reading, I got bored of reading over half the book and the characters were just wandering and hiding almost the entire time. Reading about someone walking for a hundred pages tends to get old. It translated into a movie, way better. I can't say that for the other books and movies, as I tended to prefer the book over the movie, but the last one is the opposite.