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Thread: Book vs. Film:

  1. #1
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    Smile Book vs. Film:

    Greetings!

    Is there a book you like that has become a movie?
    Did you like the book better than the movie?
    Post it in here:

    I liked The Shawshank Redemption book as well as the movie.
    The book tells more about some of the inmates though.

    Lots of Stephen King's books became films, but I saw the films before reading the books.... Same thing with The Lord of the Rings films.
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    Janet Evanovich's One for the Money is the first book in her Stephanie Plum series. The movie was okay but it felt like more of a folksy White damsel romantic sitcom of sorts. The books, from my recollection, were more universal than the sort of white female glorification role that the movie seemed to have.

    It wasn't that the movie was particularly bad to me but that message and whatnot took away from cool factors of the story and character being from my hometown and crossing between the various segregated portions to lead her life and pursue her career as a bond enforcement agent.

    Evanovich is storied to have done a lot of research before she made the transition into mystery writing with this series. I didn't "see" Trenton, NJ in the movie. I saw another Friends TV series version of a city ethnically cleansed except to suit the stereotypical roles and the "element" of danger. Ultimately it was probably packaged with much less care than what went into the books.

    James Patterson's Kiss the Girls is the second book in his Alex Cross series. I was STUNNED that they'd make a movie of such nuanced killers and the hunt to stop them. The book was more comprehensive with regard to their interactions and such. With the book I'd been disappointed by the ending. When I saw the movie, I was already prepared to get over that aspect and marvel out how the story could be told without the vivid details and personality conflicts which made the book so remarkable.
    Last edited by Intellexual; 06-18-2013 at 08:50 PM.

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    The Joy Luck Club is one of my favourite books. My aunt gave it to me to read when I was 9 or 10. I think the movie tried, but there just wasn't enough time to dig into relationships. Not just between mothers and daughters, but between the women as friends. I think it would have made a much stronger tv series or week-long special.

    I'm old, so I really loved week-long specials like Roots, Queen, Shogun and The Thorn Birds.

    Stephen King: his stuff is hit and miss for me. Sometimes the movie is better. Sometimes the book is better. I love the movie The Shining, but I hated the ending for the book. The Tommyknockers was an awesome book, but the movie is low-budget and badly told. All the good parts were cut out and made into cheesy, short television spots.

    Malcolm X. I have a dog-earred book and a worn out VHS.

    Foxfire. The movie was just bizarre compared to the book. I like them both for different reasons.

    The Color Purple. Legendary. But I think The Bluest Eye would have made a better movie.

    Lord of the Flies. I wish this movie were remade. I think it lost the horror. Same with A Clockwork Orange. And Catch-22.

    Matilda. The book was 100 times better. The movie was too cute. The Witches wasn't nearly as popular, but I think the British movie captured the feel better than the Americanized Matilda. It's worse than the film version of Charlotte's Web.

    Watership Down. Felidae. The Secret of NIMH. Were perfect.

    The Plague Dogs. The original ending to the book. Much better than the later edition.

    Of Mice & Men and The Grapes of Wrath: I think the movies tried.

    Dangerous Liaisons is my favourite play to movie adaptation. The worst thing about it are the actors' accents.

    Even Cowgirls Get The Blues was an awesome book with a horrible movie. I think it's too caught up in the visuals and you don't really get to know the other ranchers. Plus there was just so much fun in the prose.

    This sentence is made of lead (and a sentence of lead gives a reader an entirely different sensation from one made of magnesium). This sentence is made of yak wool. This sentence is made of sunlight and plums. This sentence is made of ice. This sentence is made from the blood of the poet. This sentence was made in Japan. This sentence glows in the dark. This sentence was born with a caul. This sentence has a crush on Norman Mailer. This sentence is a wino and doesn't care who knows it. Like many italic sentences, this one has Mafia connections. This sentence is a double Cancer with a Pisces rising. This sentence lost its mind searching for the perfect paragraph. This sentence refuses to be diagrammed. This sentence ran off with an adverb clause. This sentence is 100 percent organic: it will not retain a facsimile of freshness like those sentences of Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe et al., which are loaded with preservatives. This sentence leaks. This sentence doesn't look Jewish... This sentence has accepted Jesus Christ as its personal savior. This sentence once spit in a book reviewer's eye. This sentence can do the funky chicken. This sentence has seen too much and forgotten too little. This sentence is called "Speedoo" but its real name is Mr. Earl. This sentence may be pregnant. This sentence suffered a split infinitive - and survived. If this sentence has been a snake you'd have bitten it. This sentence went to jail with Clifford Irving. This sentence went to Woodstock. And this little sentence went wee wee wee all the way home.
    ETA! The Best Best Most Memorable Always Funny Book to Movie wasn't even a whole book. A Christmas Story is a part of the book In God We Trust (All Others Pay Cash). I crack up laughing watching this foolish movie and I almost peed myself reading the book. The only thing about the movie that makes me sad is that when the dogs eat the turkey and the dad's yelling about The Bumpuses, you have no idea who they are. There was another movie from that writer's stories: Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss, but it sucked.
    Last edited by fuzzy_slippers; 06-19-2013 at 01:29 AM.
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    And I hated The Watchmen. Both versions. I guess it's good in a way, since it inspired hate instead of apathy like all those tired superhero movies. Nobody wants to see Wolverine's Eighth Origin Story or Batman: Again. If these comic/movie makers really cared, they'd make The Sandman as done by Neil Gaiman. And follow it with Death: The Time of Your Life.
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    WOW! I'm so old, I nearly forgot about The Secret of NIMH.
    I only read a few chapters of "The Shining" many yrs. ago, but I like the 1980 film The Shining... classic Jack!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Intellexual View Post
    Janet Evanovich's One for the Money is the first book in her Stephanie Plum series. The movie was okay but it felt like more of a folksy White damsel romantic sitcom of sorts. The books, from my recollection, were more universal than the sort of white female glorification role that the movie seemed to have.

    It wasn't that the movie was particularly bad to me but that message and whatnot took away from cool factors of the story and character being from my hometown and crossing between the various segregated portions to lead her life and pursue her career as a bond enforcement agent.

    Evanovich is storied to have done a lot of research before she made the transition into mystery writing with this series. I didn't "see" Trenton, NJ in the movie. I saw another Friends TV series version of a city ethnically cleansed except to suit the stereotypical roles and the "element" of danger. Ultimately it was probably packaged with much less care than what went into the books.

    James Patterson's Kiss the Girls is the second book in his Alex Cross series. I was STUNNED that they'd make a movie of such nuanced killers and the hunt to stop them. The book was more comprehensive with regard to their interactions and such. With the book I'd been disappointed by the ending. When I saw the movie, I was already prepared to get over that aspect and marvel out how the story could be told without the vivid details and personality conflicts which made the book so remarkable.
    I don't know One For The Money, but I might check it out now. I usually don't like cop/detective movies, but I love Kiss The Girls. I never read the book. I was warned not to.

    Quote Originally Posted by QueenLocks View Post
    Greetings!

    Is there a book you like that has become a movie?
    Did you like the book better than the movie?
    Post it in here:

    I liked The Shawshank Redemption book as well as the movie.
    The book tells more about some of the inmates though.

    Lots of Stephen King's books became films, but I saw the films before reading the books.... Same thing with The Lord of the Rings films.
    I love the LOTR movies, but Tolkien's writing put me to sleep. I got a few chapters into The Fellowship of the Ring, then gave up.

    Another rushed/visually cluttered movie is John Dies At The End. It's really hard to make a lengthy comedy. And a lengthy sci-fi/horror/comedy? Forget it. It would have been better as a series of YouTube shorts than a whole movie. It's bad the way The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie was bad. (Another fun series.) Still I hope they make a movie of the sequel, This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It. Then I could have a DVD double feature night at home. Or a pirate double feature. *kanyeshrug*
    Last edited by fuzzy_slippers; 06-19-2013 at 03:58 AM.
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    The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I have seen the original Swedish version and the American. Swedish was better. In movies there is so much that is lost because of the length it will push the movie to. Overall I prefer books over movies.

    Although, with Dan Brown's Angels & Demons I needed to see the movie. I was lost in the book with the tecnical spects of things. The movie cleared it up for me.
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    Quote Originally Posted by MissChelle View Post
    The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I have seen the original Swedish version and the American. Swedish was better. In movies there is so much that is lost because of the length it will push the movie to. Overall I prefer books over movies.

    Although, with Dan Brown's Angels & Demons I needed to see the movie. I was lost in the book with the tecnical spects of things. The movie cleared it up for me.
    I'm currently reading Let The Right One In. I saw both movies before I got this book. The Swedish movie is miles better than the American one. The action in the silent scenes is clear and revealing. It felt like everything in the American version was explained to death.
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    *LBell waves at her fellow book nerd fuzzy_slippers and apologizes for bailing on her in the GoT spoilers thread*

    Too many books, too many movies, not enough time...I'm still trying to wake up (long story) so I'll post a few here.

    Since Stephen King has been mentioned: IMHO only a few of his books and stories have successfully translated well to film. Keep in mind he has a huge bibliography so "a few" is still quite a bit by most standards. So aside from The Shining and Shawshank Redemption, I thought Stand by Me, Misery, and the first Carrie (with Sissy Spacek) were pretty good films. On the miniseries side, I thought It was done pretty well but I wouldn't mind seeing remakes of both The Stand and The Langoliers. Sadly, I can think of several films (off the top of my head: Pet Sematary, Apt Pupil, and The Mist, among others) that they need to just erase from living memory and do again, they were that bad.

    I too am an old lady and I agree about all but one (Queen) of the miniseries fuzzy mentioned. When I had Thorn Birds on VHS I used to take a long weekend about every other year or so and watch it. Pretty sure all of these are online somewhere; think I may be due for another watch. As books, both The Thorn Birds and Shogun surprised me with how good they were.

    I made a point of reading LoTR before the movies came out and as far as I'm concerned the movies were much better. Then again (as my white male friend told me) 1) I didn't grow up with it and 2) being a girl, of course I was going to be bored by all the detail about battles, which takes up most of books 2 and 3.

    Re Stieg Larssen: Having now read 2 of the 3 books, seen 2 of the 3 Swedish movies, and the one American movie, I find them all to be good in their own way. Sorry, I heart Daniel Craig...but I did think Noomi Rapace (?) was a better Lisbeth than Rooney Mara.

    fuzzy, you and I are going to have to agree to disagree about Watership Down. Unless there's another version I don't know about...that's another movie they definitely need to do over.

    One more and I'm going to stop: Bridges of Madison County was far and away a much better movie...Clint Eastwood earned my respect for his treatment by boiling the story down to the bare esssentials.
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    I loved "Beeches" the movie with Bette Midler, but I could not get into the book or the sequel to the book.
    I just knew "Forrest Gump" the book would be a crappy movie. That was the first book I couldn't finish. I enjoyed the movie.
    I like the Stephanie Plum series(at least the first 9 books,it's getting harder and harder for me to read them), but I strongly disliked the movie. The casting was horrible. Debbie Reynolds as grandma Mazur was just horrible.

    I would love to see HBO/Showtime do a series based on the JD Robb(Nora Roberts) Sci-Fi Thriller The Death Series. I think the Stephanie Plum series would have done better on HBO/Showtime with an unknown cast.

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