Book-to-Movie Adaptations

[Becky]

It's easy to say, in the case of book-to-movie adaptations, that the book was better because that is pretty much always true. However, some films are pretty good if you separate the film as much as you can from your perception of the original material. So, what movies have you found that, regardless of how true they remained to the original literature, were still pretty good films?

I love Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and although the movie is obviously not as good as the book, I think that it's still a good movie. (Of course, the books were based off the original radio show, but eh.) It has a loveable, sort of light quality to it while retaining some of the same basic quirky feeling that the books have.

[Little Bo Peep]

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest made a better movie than it did a book. So did Lord of the Rings, but only because Tolkein is wordy as hell.

[Becky]

I haven't read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but I've seen the play. It is awesome. :) And yeah, I certainly know what you mean about Tolkien.

[Anna]

Gone with the Wind was a surprisingly good adaption- I think that as a film it's possibly a little confusing but I really really enjoyed it and it was very true to the book!

[Jack And Jill]

I so agree about LotR! I hate the books, but I love the movies!

Also, Children of Men-- wayyyyy better movie than book! They changed the story a lot and really took a promising concept with poor execution and made it into a really cool story.

I also am probably the only person who would disagree with the original statement that the books are almost always better. I think people get disappointed easily because they have the book version of something in their head, and it makes it difficult to compare, but there are quite a lot of brilliant movies based on books that are just as good, if not better, than the book. I tend to prefer movies to books in general because they are intrinsically more visceral, but I think we're just getting through the first century of film's existence, so people are really only just getting to the point where they're accepting film as cogent text in its own right, whereas up until the 70s, many movies touted themselves as being based on books only because people felt that movies were such second-rate media that they couldn't be good unless they were based on a respectable art form.

You would actually be surprised at just how many movies are based on books. It is quite a lot more than actually advertise that they're based on books-- because many of them are based on books that are positively wretched or didn't sell, and the moviemakers came up with a way to translate them into an interesting film.

I would also argue that the less like the original the movie is, the better the movie is going to be. Books and movies are a completely different form of text and a movie that tries to slavishly follow the script of a book is generally going to suck because a book was envisioned differently from the start. The only movie I can think of that is practically identical to the book and is good is The Princess Bride, and that is mainly because the author (William Goldman) was a successful professional screenwriter before he wrote it.

Major movies that came out in the past year that come to mind as being better than the book:
The Devil Wears Prada
The Prestige
Children of Men
300

[Cheshire Cat]

The Princess Bride is DEFINITELY up there on my list of movies that are amazing, even without the books. Lord of the Rings, too. Definitely. Also The Hours. I thought that was a pretty amazing movie. Hmm, what else...I actually never read the book, but I'm willing to bet Jurassic Park belongs on this list. I know there are others I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Also, oddest thing, I was on this account, and I clicked on the gallery just to check it out, and it suddenly randomly switched me to Gilly's account, so I was like, er, okay, whatever, but then I tried to post here under Gilly and it wouldn't let me. Weird.

[Becky]

Oooh, yes, The Princess Bride!

I haven't seen many recent movies, although now that I think about it, since we're including things adapted from comic books, V for Vendetta is totally and completely awesome.

(Also, 300, which I thought was only so-so, makes me want to look at The 300 Spartans to see what it's like. I don't think I really want to look at the comic book though. :s)

And I got logged out when I clicked on the gallery too. I think it has something to do with the "www." or lack thereof.

[Jack And Jill]

The problem with the gallery should be fixed-- if it still isn't, let me know! Please post gallery comments to the gallery thread, though, or I might miss them.

[Little Bo Peep]

No one mentioned Fight Club yet! I can't get enough of the movie. I think it's the only time I've ever liked Brad Pitt's acting.

[Jack And Jill]

OH! Fight Club is awesome. I like it better than the book. I also like it better than the book of Crash, which is an awesome book with a terrible movie adaptation (not the award-winning Crash, the JG Ballard book about the guy who secretly wants to kill Liz Taylor in a car accident) and the Fight Club movie gets all the ideas from the book version of Crash down amazingly well for a movie about a completely different book.