Is there any more irritating phrase in the English language?
“The book is soooo much better.”
We’ve all heard it countless times and we’ve probably let those very words flow from our lips as well.
The fact is…most movies are based on books.
The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Die Hard, Stand By Me, Psycho, The Princess Bride…. The list goes on and on. The majority of Hollywood screenplays are adapted from pieces of literature.
But while art in the written form is revered and held aloft as the epitome of intellectual integrity, the same story put on film is reviled and despised for its commercial aspirations.
It seems very difficult to adapt any source material into a visual medium without hardcore fans picking apart every aspect for inconsistencies or inaccuracies.
But why are books always better than the movie version?
For the most part, it’s impossible to include every aspect of a book into 120 minutes of film. TV shows and mini-series can do a better job, thus hearkening in our current “Golden Age of Television.”
Books are more detailed…they allow you to paint a picture in your mind…and sometimes the reality of seeing that picture on screen never lives up to expectations. And even in the age of CGI, it remains difficult to tap into the expectations of the human imagination.
But should we discard movies as low brow entertainment for the plebs, while the rest of us intellectuals look down our noses?
Not only are movies art…but movies are probably the most influential and accessible form of art that we have today. And although I find it inherently odd to compare two different mediums representing the same story, it seems we feel the need to do so.
So are there any examples of a movie being better than the book it was based on?
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The Movie Is Better Than The Book
The Linebacker
For me, I have great praise for commercial aspirations pulled off very successfully.
I had seen bits of The Godfather on TV before reading the book but not enough to grasp that much. I read the book and loved it. Soon after I wanted to see the entire Godfather epic. I really thought they did a superior job with the original first two Godfather movies.
Sure some great aspects of the book got left out but that is to be expected or the movie which was already very long would've been too long. I'd of course, still rate the book as better but give the highest marks possible for the movie.
I read Stand By me after seeing the movie in its entirety. The movie was really good but the old adage, the book is better is true for sure.
I've seen other movies made from books I've read but I haven't seen a movie that I could rate as better than the book.
I had seen bits of The Godfather on TV before reading the book but not enough to grasp that much. I read the book and loved it. Soon after I wanted to see the entire Godfather epic. I really thought they did a superior job with the original first two Godfather movies.
Sure some great aspects of the book got left out but that is to be expected or the movie which was already very long would've been too long. I'd of course, still rate the book as better but give the highest marks possible for the movie.
I read Stand By me after seeing the movie in its entirety. The movie was really good but the old adage, the book is better is true for sure.
I've seen other movies made from books I've read but I haven't seen a movie that I could rate as better than the book.
Bladerunner. The book (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick) is good, don't get me wrong, but Bladerunner kind of takes the idea and runs with it in a more interesting direction plot-wise. The book does flesh out the world more, and hopefully some of that makes its way into the upcoming sequel.
Cryptic Vigilante
The Hobbit movies were significantly more extensive/ambitious/grandiose than the book actually was. And ironically, this is the one book adaptation that I'm most inclined to despise and to accuse of what's described in the OP (ie. perverting a literary work for commercial purposes).
To put things into perspective, the original The Hobbit book contained 95,000 words, while The Lord of the Rings contained 450,000 words. The latter was nearly 5 times the magnitude of the former, and yet Peter Jackson managed to produce two trilogies of equal length out of each. And whereas The Lord of the Rings trilogy was admirably congruent with what's featured in the books (ie. no major omissions/additions), The Hobbit felt like the producers simply magnified one of Tolkien's lesser novels to recreate the commercial success that The Lord of the Rings movies previously had.
For those not familiar with Tolkien's work, The Hobbit book essentially was a children's tale narrated in an innovative/eloquent way, while The Lord of the Rings (published 17 years later) took the exact same fantasy world and elevated it to something that's quite a bit more mature and elaborate. That pretty much summarizes Tolkien's legacy actually: taking a genre that was traditionally intended for kids (ie. fantasy) and giving it epic proportions to captivate adult readers.
I truly wish that they'd have respected that contrast/evolution with the movies, but instead they used the material of The Hobbit to present a monumental cinematic saga, which the book really wasn't (and never aspired to be). Plenty of superfluous characters/storylines were added, the original ones were completely aggrandized/denatured, the overall trilogy felt unnecessarily long and tedious. As someone who enthusiastically read Tolkien in his youth, I just couldn't get any sense of familiarity; and consequently, I developed virtually no interest whatsoever in the movies. The Hobbit should have been a lighthearted 2-hours movie, in my honest opinion. Proof that more isn't always better.
Regarding the overall discussion, I believe that two scenarios can occur: on one hand we have immensely illustrious literary works that are adapted into movies (eg. The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina, etc.), on the other we have movie producers who use unknown/average books as source material (eg. Million Dollar Baby, Full Metal Jacket, etc.). As was expressed in the OP, it'd be pretty damn hard to ever equate the greatness of the former through cinema, especially since the particular literary style of the author is totally lost in the process. However (and I don't have any specific example to present), I'm confident that plenty of mediocre books also inspired exceptional movies. The film industry doesn't receive much credit for that though, because... well practically no one ever bothers to read those obscure books, right?
And I'd tend to disagree that the majority of adaptations are disparaged anyway. Even the movies mentioned in the OP received quite a lot more praise than otherwise, and you could add plenty of other successful titles to the list (eg. Forrest Gump, Silence of the Lambs, Misery, Scarface, etc.). Really, I think that the line "the book is so much better" is mostly intended as "the movie doesn't exactly capture everything that the book was about" in a lot of cases. Which is fair enough. And which mostly gives literature its own merit/respect, more than it truly denigrates the art of cinema.
About the whole 'literature vs cinema' debate, call me an illiterate moron but I actually much prefer movies to contemplate works of fiction. I read plenty of French classics in my youth (eg. Balzac, Dumas, Maupassant, Hugo, Camus), but nowadays the majority of what I read is mostly factual/historical/encyclopedic stuff. Movies allow me to plunge into a vivid story and then reach a certain interrogation/realization/whatever in under 2 hours; books hardly provide me anything additional but are considerably more time-consuming. Some people love to lose themselves in detailed descriptions or stylistic literary efforts, and that's great, but I rarely have the patience for that myself. So yeah, I'm part of the crowd of simpletons who often has to wait for movie adaptions to appreciate certain literary works. Sue me, haha.
To put things into perspective, the original The Hobbit book contained 95,000 words, while The Lord of the Rings contained 450,000 words. The latter was nearly 5 times the magnitude of the former, and yet Peter Jackson managed to produce two trilogies of equal length out of each. And whereas The Lord of the Rings trilogy was admirably congruent with what's featured in the books (ie. no major omissions/additions), The Hobbit felt like the producers simply magnified one of Tolkien's lesser novels to recreate the commercial success that The Lord of the Rings movies previously had.
For those not familiar with Tolkien's work, The Hobbit book essentially was a children's tale narrated in an innovative/eloquent way, while The Lord of the Rings (published 17 years later) took the exact same fantasy world and elevated it to something that's quite a bit more mature and elaborate. That pretty much summarizes Tolkien's legacy actually: taking a genre that was traditionally intended for kids (ie. fantasy) and giving it epic proportions to captivate adult readers.
I truly wish that they'd have respected that contrast/evolution with the movies, but instead they used the material of The Hobbit to present a monumental cinematic saga, which the book really wasn't (and never aspired to be). Plenty of superfluous characters/storylines were added, the original ones were completely aggrandized/denatured, the overall trilogy felt unnecessarily long and tedious. As someone who enthusiastically read Tolkien in his youth, I just couldn't get any sense of familiarity; and consequently, I developed virtually no interest whatsoever in the movies. The Hobbit should have been a lighthearted 2-hours movie, in my honest opinion. Proof that more isn't always better.
Regarding the overall discussion, I believe that two scenarios can occur: on one hand we have immensely illustrious literary works that are adapted into movies (eg. The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina, etc.), on the other we have movie producers who use unknown/average books as source material (eg. Million Dollar Baby, Full Metal Jacket, etc.). As was expressed in the OP, it'd be pretty damn hard to ever equate the greatness of the former through cinema, especially since the particular literary style of the author is totally lost in the process. However (and I don't have any specific example to present), I'm confident that plenty of mediocre books also inspired exceptional movies. The film industry doesn't receive much credit for that though, because... well practically no one ever bothers to read those obscure books, right?
And I'd tend to disagree that the majority of adaptations are disparaged anyway. Even the movies mentioned in the OP received quite a lot more praise than otherwise, and you could add plenty of other successful titles to the list (eg. Forrest Gump, Silence of the Lambs, Misery, Scarface, etc.). Really, I think that the line "the book is so much better" is mostly intended as "the movie doesn't exactly capture everything that the book was about" in a lot of cases. Which is fair enough. And which mostly gives literature its own merit/respect, more than it truly denigrates the art of cinema.
About the whole 'literature vs cinema' debate, call me an illiterate moron but I actually much prefer movies to contemplate works of fiction. I read plenty of French classics in my youth (eg. Balzac, Dumas, Maupassant, Hugo, Camus), but nowadays the majority of what I read is mostly factual/historical/encyclopedic stuff. Movies allow me to plunge into a vivid story and then reach a certain interrogation/realization/whatever in under 2 hours; books hardly provide me anything additional but are considerably more time-consuming. Some people love to lose themselves in detailed descriptions or stylistic literary efforts, and that's great, but I rarely have the patience for that myself. So yeah, I'm part of the crowd of simpletons who often has to wait for movie adaptions to appreciate certain literary works. Sue me, haha.
Quote by SereneProdigy
The Hobbit movies were significantly more extensive/ambitious/grandiose than the book actually was. And ironically, this is the one book adaptation that I'm most inclined to despise and to accuse of what's described in the OP (ie. perverting a literary work for commercial purposes).
To put things into perspective, the original The Hobbit book contained 95,000 words, while The Lord of the Rings contained 450,000 words. The latter was nearly 5 times the magnitude of the former, and yet Peter Jackson managed to produce two trilogies of equal length out of each. And whereas The Lord of the Rings trilogy was admirably congruent with what's featured in the books (ie. no major omissions/additions), The Hobbit felt like the producers simply magnified one of Tolkien's lesser novels to recreate the commercial success that The Lord of the Rings movies previously had.
For those not familiar with Tolkien's work, The Hobbit book essentially was a children's tale narrated in an innovative/eloquent way, while The Lord of the Rings (published 17 years later) took the exact same fantasy world and elevated it to something that's quite a bit more mature and elaborate. That pretty much summarizes Tolkien's legacy actually: taking a genre that was traditionally intended for kids (ie. fantasy) and giving it epic proportions to captivate adult readers.
I truly wish that they'd have respected that contrast/evolution with the movies, but instead they used the material of The Hobbit to present a monumental cinematic saga, which the book really wasn't (and never aspired to be). Plenty of superfluous characters/storylines were added, the original ones were completely aggrandized/denatured, the overall trilogy felt unnecessarily long and tedious. As someone who enthusiastically read Tolkien in his youth, I just couldn't get any sense of familiarity; and consequently, I developed virtually no interest whatsoever in the movies. The Hobbit should have been a lighthearted 2-hours movie, in my honest opinion. Proof that more isn't always better.
Regarding the overall discussion, I believe that two scenarios can occur: on one hand we have immensely illustrious literary works that are adapted into movies (eg. The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina, etc.), on the other we have movie producers who use unknown/average books as source material (eg. Million Dollar Baby, Full Metal Jacket, etc.). As was expressed in the OP, it'd be pretty damn hard to ever equate the greatness of the former through cinema, especially since the particular literary style of the author is totally lost in the process. However (and I don't have any specific example to present), I'm confident that plenty of mediocre books also inspired exceptional movies. The film industry doesn't receive much credit for that though, because... well practically no one ever bothers to read those obscure books, right?
And I'd tend to disagree that the majority of adaptations are disparaged anyway. Even the movies mentioned in the OP received quite a lot more praise than otherwise, and you could add plenty of other successful titles to the list (eg. Forrest Gump, Silence of the Lambs, Misery, Scarface, etc.). Really, I think that the line "the book is so much better" is mostly intended as "the movie doesn't exactly capture everything that the book was about" in a lot of cases. Which is fair enough. And which mostly gives literature its own merit/respect, more than it truly denigrates the art of cinema.
About the whole 'literature vs cinema' debate, call me an illiterate moron but I actually much prefer movies to contemplate works of fiction. I read plenty of French classics in my youth (eg. Balzac, Dumas, Maupassant, Hugo, Camus), but nowadays the majority of what I read is mostly factual/historical/encyclopedic stuff. Movies allow me to plunge into a vivid story and then reach a certain interrogation/realization/whatever in under 2 hours; books hardly provide me anything additional but are considerably more time-consuming. Some people love to lose themselves in detailed descriptions or stylistic literary efforts, and that's great, but I rarely have the patience for that myself. So yeah, I'm part of the crowd of simpletons who often has to wait for movie adaptions to appreciate certain literary works. Sue me, haha.
I agree completely with your take on the Hobbit movies, although I still watched them with anticipation. There was far too much extraneous "action movie" stuff added in that I felt detracted from the subtle fairly tale feeling of the Novel.
i do think that most people that read a book, and then witness that book being turned into a popular movie... will inherently display a notable sense of intellectual superiority when conversing with someone that has only watched the movie. Just discuss Game of Thrones with someone that has read the books.....
Cryptic Vigilante
Quote by DamonX
I agree completely with your take on the Hobbit movies, although I still watched them with anticipation. There was far too much extraneous "action movie" stuff added in that I felt detracted from the subtle fairly tale feeling of the Novel.
i do think that most people that read a book, and then witness that book being turned into a popular movie... will inherently display a notable sense of intellectual superiority when conversing with someone that has only watched the movie. Just discuss Game of Thrones with someone that has read the books.....
I don't think I would have been bothered all that much if additional action sequences were simply added; or if they included extra bits of humor or vaguely modernized a few themes to satisfy a broader audience (which they actually did with The Lord of the Rings). I get that, sometimes what was written 75 years ago could be pretty fucking tedious to watch on screen if it was 100% faithful to the book (the lengthy/exhaustive traveling sequences notably, which are rather prominent in Tolkien's work).
As I expressed in my previous post however, they easily could have covered the entire material of The Hobbit in a 2-hours movie. To me, The Lord of the Rings trilogy was pretty much bang-on regarding the pace/content of the books: a few minor things were altered, but it neither felt inflated nor rushed. With The Hobbit, they didn't simply allow themselves 10-20% of freedom to accomplish the book-to-movie transition; opting for a trilogy meant that they literally had to come up with 6 hours of extra content from the get-go.
Add a bit of mayonnaise to a hamburger and you still have a hamburger; throw it in the blender and then bake the remains for an hour, and you get a different recipe entirely. That's how The Hobbit felt to me, the additional content was such that it seemed completely disconnected from the book. It's not that I had a resentful urge to boycott the movies, I genuinely became indifferent to them after watching the first installment. And in a way, I could hardly blame the producers for anything: they had all the proper staff/resources conveniently at their disposal after The Lord of the Rings, and that new trilogy effortlessly grossed 3 billions at the box office. Why in hell would anyone expect them to spit on such an opportunity?
Concerning the main discussion, I get the gist of what you're saying, no worries. However, I feel like we're mostly comparing 'readers vs non-readers' as opposed to strictly 'literature vs cinema'. I think that most people will agree that cinema can be a form of art that's just as demanding, inspiring or astonishing as literature can be. With that said, picking up a book and investing a significant amount of time/energy in it is definitely more praiseworthy than just browsing Netflix while sitting on your ass. Readers still need to perform plenty of cerebral efforts to appreciate an author's words (ie. painting pictures/concepts in their minds, as you fluently expressed yourself in the OP); movies practically do all of the work for you. So in a way, the 'intellectual superiority' that you mention isn't all that groundless (and that's coming from someone who admitted to not reading works of fiction all that often, haha).
Besides, that kind of snobbery really isn't exclusive to literature. People are always eager to use the slightest triviality to express their apparent superiority: I have more style than thou, I know more about wines than thou, I have a better saw-bench than thou. We're essentially analyzing the basic tenets of human nature, haha.
Active Ink Slinger
I feel that 'Goodfellas' is so much better than the book 'Wiseguy' by Nicholas Pileggi, which was a very good read, but not even in the same class as the film.
I agree that the Godfather, which was an excellent novel, was absolutely over-shadowed by the movie.
Honorable mention to 'The World According to Garp'. Steve Tesich took author John Irving's book and masterfully adapted all the sprawling elements into a film that I feel is the book's equal. I learned a lot about adaptation from it.
The Hobbit movies sucked. A novel that was half the size of ONE of the LOTR books becomes as long as the three LOTR films, filled with 'Hollywood-ized' bullshit
(at least in my opinion).
I agree that the Godfather, which was an excellent novel, was absolutely over-shadowed by the movie.
Honorable mention to 'The World According to Garp'. Steve Tesich took author John Irving's book and masterfully adapted all the sprawling elements into a film that I feel is the book's equal. I learned a lot about adaptation from it.
The Hobbit movies sucked. A novel that was half the size of ONE of the LOTR books becomes as long as the three LOTR films, filled with 'Hollywood-ized' bullshit
(at least in my opinion).
Active Ink Slinger
The African Queen. Even though I do admire the author.
"insensitive prick!" – Danielle Algo
I sure prefer Life of Brian over the Bible ;)
=== Not ALL LIVES MATTER until BLACK LIVES MATTER ===
Wouldn't you rather have a nice cup of tea?
The Running Man was originally written by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) in the 1970s. It was made into an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie in the 80s. The book was 'meh,' but movie diverts quite a lot from the book, and features so much ridiculous 80s action cheesiness (including Arnie himself) that you can't help but enjoy it.
Don't believe everything that you read.
I'm sot sure if it's better. But it definitely is comparable.
The movie with Reese Witherspoon is actually one of the best adaptations of a book that I have seen. Especially with all the flashbacks, one would think that it would be very difficult to adapt.
My view might be skewed by the fact that I watched the movie twice before reading the book. Still though... seems like a pretty faithful adaptation.
The movie with Reese Witherspoon is actually one of the best adaptations of a book that I have seen. Especially with all the flashbacks, one would think that it would be very difficult to adapt.
My view might be skewed by the fact that I watched the movie twice before reading the book. Still though... seems like a pretty faithful adaptation.
Bug
Misery, staring Kathy Bates and originally written by Stephen King is better as a movie. And I think that's because Kathy Bates just made Annie terrifying. I don't think that was one of King's strongest books but it was a tremendous movie.
Constant Gardener
Quote by Burquette
Misery, staring Kathy Bates and originally written by Stephen King is better as a movie. And I think that's because Kathy Bates just made Annie terrifying. I don't think that was one of King's strongest books but it was a tremendous movie.
Another Stephen King novel, Dreamcatcher, was difficult to read and follow - but that's probably because dude was stoned on Oxycontin for the six months he spent working on it - after King was splattered by a driver while walking down a road.
The movie was just a few rungs up the ladder - more coherent to follow, it was helped along by having several actors who made you like them or dislike them. The movie also showed us the shit weasels!
The same GQP demanding we move on from January 6th, 2021 is still doing audits of the November 3rd, 2020 election.
Advanced Wordsmith
If we're talking about King adaptations, I found the original adaptation of Carrie to be at least as good, if not better than, the book it was based on.
Active Ink Slinger
When 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas'was advertised, I elected to read the book first.
Whilst I thought that the concept was very interesting, I didn't actually enjoy reading it. My first impression was that it was written by an adult who was trying to write like a child and it didn't work.
Then I saw the movie and loved it. It was so well done that it now rates as one of my all time favourite movies.
The author, John Boyne admitted that he wished he had connected the story together in the way that the movie did.
Whilst I thought that the concept was very interesting, I didn't actually enjoy reading it. My first impression was that it was written by an adult who was trying to write like a child and it didn't work.
Then I saw the movie and loved it. It was so well done that it now rates as one of my all time favourite movies.
The author, John Boyne admitted that he wished he had connected the story together in the way that the movie did.
WooHoo!!!! 27,000 views! Could I dare to hope for a famous story... 
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/milf/the-runner.aspx
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/milf/the-runner.aspx
Active Ink Slinger
Someone referenced Full Metal Jacket already, but I'll comment specifically about it. The author was, I think, much more impressed with himself that was needed. His novel was interesting but frustrating, and his narrative not well crafted. Kubrick took that short novel and reworked it into a fantastic film. I consider it to be one of the best films about Vietnam ever made, and would also rank it very high in the Kubrick catalog overall. And perhaps some part of my feeling stems from the incredibly gratuitous manner in which Hasford killed off Rafterman in the book, as he was one of the more interesting characters in the novel, and was really well done in the film.
Quote by Raza
Good question. Film adaptations are rarely better than the books. I've read millions and I can honestly say there's been one.
Fight Club, staring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, was better than the book written by Chuck Palahniuk.
I just watched Fight Club Again for the first time in at least 15 years. I think a lot of people forget how good and original that movie was.