# Books made into movies, and the movie was better...



## Vendredi-is-Friday (Sep 26, 2008)

Hello.

After posting on another thread dealing with books and subsequent movies based on those books, I thought about the few times in my life where I actually thought the movie was better then the book (or at least of comparable quality).

I am very much a Studio Ghibli fan, so I will have to use _Howl's Moving Castle_ as my example. This movie was very loosely based on a book of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones.

Here is what the IMDB says about it:



> _Howl's Moving Castle/Hauru no ugoku shiro_ (1986) is a young adult fantasy novel by British author Diana Wynne Jones.
> 
> True to the style of Miyazaki's adaptations, the film veers wildly from the novel in many ways and combines or discards characters and plot points as necessary.


 (Hauru no ugoku shiro (2004) - FAQ)

Now the reason why I use this as an example is the fact that this movie does something that few film adaptions of books seem capalbe of. It "combines or discards characters and plot points as necessary." The movie becomes its own creative work. So many failed attempts at proper adaptions of books into movies I think either do not treat the original text with enough flexibility or they combine or discard characters and plot points whether it is necessary or not.

And then of course, certain films just select poor base material and so are doomed to fail, such as _Earagon._ No number of movie and video game contracts will save that wretched plot line. But I digress, this is supposed to be about good movies and books.


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## WriterDude (Sep 26, 2008)

I think Jurassic Park fits into this category to a degree. The movie isn't better than the movie, but not worse either. It's just different. Several things were left out and some things taken from the second book, but the end result is pretty good.

And then there's The Crow, of course. I didn't like the comic book that much, but the movie is as good as they get.


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## Damien. (Sep 26, 2008)

We have a lengthy thread on this somewhere.


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## Sam (Sep 26, 2008)

Damien. said:


> We have a lengthy thread on this somewhere.



Yes, we do, and the answer to the OP's question is: very few. Films rarely, if ever, match up to or better a novel. 

One notable exception is _The Bourne Ultimatum. _


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## Jocelyn (Sep 26, 2008)

Almost always, a movie can't do a book justice, but does your answer to that question depend on whether you see the movie first or read the book first?  That happens with me sometimes if I really enjoy a movie and then read the book, only to discover that the book is actually quite different.

P.S.  I put The Notebook in this category.


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## Vendredi-is-Friday (Sep 26, 2008)

As far as this topic goes, I think the main problem with it is that books and movies (and television for that matter) are different media forms. It is unfair, and problematic, to expect that you will have the same experience trying to cross the same material back and forth over media lines. For example, a book and a movie must use different methods to characterize due to the differences in the length of time of the narrative experience and the way the story reaches the imagination. You are able to see many things at once when dealing with images, and yet you may only read one letter at a time.

That is why I used _Howls Moving Castle_ as my initial example. _Howl's Moving Castle, _the movie, took certain things from the book it was based upon, but kept in mind the fact that it was itself an animated movie, not a moving version of a book.

By the way:

I own _The Notebook_ (the movie) and for some reason the plot of it is not coming to me just now. That shows how much I liked it I suppose.

And I am very sorry if I started a conversation we have already had before...


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## Sam (Sep 27, 2008)

Vendredi-is-Friday said:


> And I am very sorry if I started a conversation we have already had before...



Don't worry about it. It happens all the time around here.


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## Linton Robinson (Sep 27, 2008)

> I use this as an example is the fact that this movie does something that few film adaptions of books seem capalbe of. It "combines or discards characters and plot points as necessary."



Done all the time, actually.

The two guys in "Bright Lights, Big City"?   One of them is not in the book.

The Jack Nicholson role in "Terms of Endearment"?   Mentioned only in passing in the book.

Sometimes this makes a movie better than the book  ("Endearment" sure pleased people more than the McMurtry book)   Sometimes it sucks (the other one)

A guy like Miyazaki is going to take ANY source material to new heights of wonder.


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## Vendredi-is-Friday (Sep 27, 2008)

lin said:


> A guy like Miyazaki is going to take ANY source material to new heights of wonder.



Yes. I suppose there is a certain requisite talent and skill to make any movie or book good or bad. And treating the source text with flexibility does not make for a good transition into movie form always.


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## Linton Robinson (Sep 27, 2008)

> And treating the source text with flexibility does not make for a good transition into movie form always.



Actually, some flexibility is REQUIRED in ANY film adaptation.  Movies just aren't long enough to get everything in.


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## Ghost.X (Sep 28, 2008)

IMO some movies that follow the book too closely are boring. There was this one film adaption of The Lord of the Flies that's rather old. All it did is copy the book word for word, only leaving out a lot of the scenes and cutting them short. It was quite boring.

I think Memoirs of a Geisha is a great movie that does the novel justice. I'm not going to say either or are better because both are great works of their own. Anyone who has watched the movie or read the book first can still enjoy the other medium. I myself watched the movie first, and still found the book just as great. What the movie did was add a whole new set of images to the reading.


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## SilkFX (Sep 28, 2008)

My all-time favorite example of a movie that's better than the book: _The Bridges of Madison County_. The movie boils off most of the purple prose and gets down to the bones of the story, which is simply about the choices one makes and how one lives with them. I thought Clint Eastwood (as director) did a really good job with this.


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## Vendredi-is-Friday (Sep 28, 2008)

Ghost.X said:


> IMO some movies that follow the book too closely are boring. There was this one film adaption of The Lord of the Flies that's rather old. All it did is copy the book word for word, only leaving out a lot of the scenes and cutting them short. It was quite boring.



I find that I enjoy reading Shakespeare well enough, and I enjoy going to actual plays of his (on stage with actors I could actually throw fruit at if I happened to have any and the acting was not to my liking). But following this same sentiment, I find many movie productions of his works to be wanting. What are especially clunky are those renditions set in modern times but they still use the original language.

But I have enjoyed a few where the movie is based on Shakespeare but not too closely. Also, I really enjoy _House_ (the TV show) and I have heard that the show was based on Sherlock Holmes. That is a clever sort of flexibility.


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## Ghost.X (Sep 29, 2008)

Vendredi-is-Friday said:


> I find that I enjoy reading Shakespeare well enough, and I enjoy going to actual plays of his (on stage with actors I could actually throw fruit at if I happened to have any and the acting was not to my liking). But following this same sentiment, I find many movie productions of his works to be wanting. What are especially clunky are those renditions set in modern times but they still use the original language.
> 
> But I have enjoyed a few where the movie is based on Shakespeare but not too closely. Also, I really enjoy _House_ (the TV show) and I have heard that the show was based on Sherlock Holmes. That is a clever sort of flexibility.



Sgakespeare is one of those things that you kind of expect to be played out exactly. But like you said, the other variations aren't too bad.


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## froman (Oct 11, 2008)

I'm not surprised about "Howl's".  It is a wonderful film like all of Miyazaki's stuff.  He is just a genius (I really can't say enough good things about him).  

Anyway, movies that are better than the novels (I read the novels first in all cases):

*The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe (2005)*
The book was just a fairy tale and I think the movie had a darker tone that I enjoyed.

*No Country For Old Men*
I liked the novel but it was written in such a spartan, script like style that the Coen bros. (who are also geniuses) had no problem turning it into a great film.

That's all I can think of right now.


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## VinrAlfakyn (Oct 24, 2008)

Perfect example of the movie being much better than the book:
The Prestige

The book was alright, but the main secret in the movie was pretty well guessed at in the book and wasn't such a big deal. The book had a different secret that in my opinion was still pretty weird, but not as surprising as the secret in the movie was. Or at least Christopher Priest didn't build up on suspense enough to make it as surprising as the directors of the movie did.


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## Swift84 (Oct 24, 2008)

The Godfather. The book was pretty much bereft of subtlety, one of the film's greatest strengths.


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## ThePinkBookworm (Oct 24, 2008)

I think, and I know that many people may disagree, but the Lord of the Rings was a better movie series then a book series.  Maybe it was because I watched the three movies before I read the books, and let me tell you, the books seemed SO LONG!  I loved the Hobbit, but the rest were so long and pieces of the movie were left out and added so it was weird.  

Just my thoughts

:read:


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## Tsaeb XIII (Oct 25, 2008)

I agree. Lord of the Rings had a brilliant story behind it, that was sadly buried beneath a style of writing that took a paragraph to wrte a sentence (admittedly, the battle scenes in the books were good, but because they were good, they seemed to go quickly, and you were stuck in the flowery rubbish again before you knew it). The movies weren't dragged down by the writing, and thus were far more enjoyable (though I wish they'd managed to find a place for Tom Bombadil).


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## VinrAlfakyn (Oct 29, 2008)

I disagree because I absolutely loved the books, but I've heard of a lot of people say the same thing. I guess it just goes with different tastes. I really liked the movies too, though, so maybe it's me. *shrug* I do wish they would've put Bombadil _somewhere_ in the movie. I thought he was a fun character, and very mysterious.


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## Kayleigh7 (Oct 29, 2008)

Silence of the Lambs


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## RAlanCook (Nov 7, 2008)

I love Nick Hornby, and don't really like Hugh Grant as an actor, however I thought About a Boy was a much better film than movie, and then I saw the movie as a parent, and read the book pre kids.

My taste might have been skwewed a little


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## Dragonsoul (Dec 2, 2008)

I'm going to be shot dead for this, but I actually rather the movies of the trilogy Lord of the Rings over the book. I just found the books over-written and meandering. Good stuff, but not fast and edgy to catch my attention. The movies were more concise, tighter and IMO, better.

Not to say the books were bad by any stretch of the imagination--I just found the movies superior.


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## Mugician (Dec 9, 2008)

Here goes:

Bridge to Terabithia.

I saw the movie (I was just too damn curious) before I read the book and while I loved the book, I thought the relationship between the two main characters was portrayed much better in the movie. The movie was definitely fluffed up by a bunch of lame pop music and there were some cheesy kids movie moments, but an it's an amazing story and it was beautifully executed in the movie.

Can't think of much else. I haven't read No Country, but I'm obsessed with the Coen Bros and can't imagine the book being better. I probably shouldn't say that but oh well, I did...


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## Rei (Dec 18, 2008)

There is actually one book that was adapted that is essentially the book on screen: Of Mice and Men.  I read that book for grade nine English, and we watched the movie after.  They literally only changed one word in the book, as far as I can remember.  

Howl's Moving Castle was definitely one adaptation that was better than the book. The book was so boring I couldn't finish it.  The Narnia adaptations are also better depending on how you look at it.  It's an adventure for children.  Children don't care about character conflicts in adventure stories, and even story is a small character story, they can accept flat, simple, characters better than adults.  As an adult, I prefer the movie to the book (I just read and watched this week) because they did a lot more character work and expanded on the humour that was already there, as well as reorganizing the story so that most of the battles happen after the Pevensies get there.  

They didn't really add as much as some people think they did.  There were two mentions of battles in the book, and there were two battles in the movie.  It just expanded on the battles and other things that were already there and tweaked them to make them work better visually.  And who's to say that Caspian never did a covert attack on the castle before the Pevensies got there?  It's not mentioned, but he could 
have.  The only thing they really added was the bit at the beginning about a guy wanting to flirt with Susan, the fight at the train station, and a little extra character conflict.


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## BoredMormon (Dec 18, 2008)

I'm with the Lord of the Rings movie club. The movie cut out all the useless stuff in the books. Of course, Tolkien was and English proffessor, and originally presented the book to a bunch of English proffesors, so I guess we can understand why it was so flowery. But in saying that, the movie was only that good if you had read the book. My father, who hadn't, found the intracacies of the story line very difficult to follow.

And Tom Bombadil was right to be cut. He shouldn't have even made the book. He served no purpose except to show off some of Tolkiens poetic ability.

Here is an interesting one, they made a book adaption of the new Star Wars episodes. (So backwards from what we are discussing). The books were much better then the movies. I think that says something when books made from movies are often better, but we have to scratch our heads to find movies made from books that are obvious improvements.

BM out


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## Rei (Dec 18, 2008)

That's not an entirely fair statement.  I know lots of people who haven't read it who have no problem with the movies.


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## S-wo (Dec 18, 2008)

Yeah more books need to stand up to the movies and it also needs to go the same with video games as well. The Harry Potter movies are terrible adaptations and provide a different feel than the novels. I presume the problem is is that the author is not as involved in the project, something that I will not allow to happen if the opportunity ever comes for my books to become movies.
I have read a book on one instance when it's about equal to the book and that was Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The movie was basically unchanged from the book which was bad since the book didn't really have an ending.
I read I am Legend after I saw the movie and it is definitely two different stories. I heard from someone that the books Waiting to Exhale and The Color Purple were worthy adaptations, but I wouldn't know since I didn't read them or Roots by Alex Haley.


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## Rei (Dec 18, 2008)

S-wo just made an interesting point.  If I understand him, his judgement of whether or not the movie is as good as the book relies on how faithful the adaptation was.  That doesn't make it a bad movie.  It makes it an inaccurate adapation.  Like I said before, the only book I've ever seen to successfully do a pure translation is Of Mice and Men, but that book is only about 100 pages long.

It may surprise him to know that J.K. Rowling has been involved in the writing of the script, and likes the adaptations.  An adaptation isn't supposed to turn the book into pictures with an identical story.  That simply cannot happen.  Scenes have to be cut out, and they have to rearrange the order of things sometimes.  And until computer animation reached the level it is in The Phantom Menace, they had to alter certain things because they simply could not be done on screen.  

And tone can be subjective.  It really depends on how you interpret language and what elements you're focusing on.


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## S-wo (Dec 18, 2008)

Are you sure she's not just saying she likes them because they're getting her millions of dollars?


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## Rei (Dec 19, 2008)

Dahl hated Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and to my knowledge, none of the others were made until after he died because of that.  That movie was a good money-maker.  Even now, the movies are made under the supervision of his widow.  Filmmakers aren't stupid.  They know what happened with that movie, and they know that the audience wants it as close to the book as possible.  They also have a new respect for the original source matieral that they didn't have before.  Do you really think that they would take the risk of not pleasing her?  And she's not stupid either.  She knows that she is handing her work over to several dosen other people, who are going to put their own personality into it, and that not everything she has written will be able to go into the movie.  

The book is the turkey.  The movie is the turkey sandwich.  Both good, but different.


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## S-wo (Dec 19, 2008)

Rei said:


> Dahl hated Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and to my knowledge, none of the others were made until after he died because of that.  That movie was a good money-maker.  Even now, the movies are made under the supervision of his widow.  Filmmakers aren't stupid.  They know what happened with that movie, and they know that the audience wants it as close to the book as possible.  They also have a new respect for the original source matieral that they didn't have before.  Do you really think that they would take the risk of not pleasing her?  And she's not stupid either.  She knows that she is handing her work over to several dosen other people, who are going to put their own personality into it, and that not everything she has written will be able to go into the movie.
> 
> The book is the turkey.  The movie is the turkey sandwich.  Both good, but different.


Your post seemed to contradict itself with an example of two negatives overseeing each other. I would also like to know where you get your info from that the two authors are fine or unhappy with the adaptations of their novels and the statement you had about the film industry. I get pissed off every time I hear about one of the HP books or see it on television. I see having my novels become movies as the opportunity to fix things that might have been done better in the book and to also provide the same experience that my fans felt to newcomers that might not have read the book. In that respect, I would probably have to be director, writer, and producer of the film to make sure that happens.

I also would like to add that some of these graphic novels or comic book movies turn out to be better than their original selves. Some of my examples are The Dark Knight and Iron Man. I've read a few of the old Batman comics and they were all right, but the film was one of the greatest things in the world.


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## Rei (Dec 19, 2008)

Ack, don't know how I ended up quoting instead of just editing.


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## Rei (Dec 19, 2008)

Rei said:


> All my information comes from interviews with the authors themselves, their widows, and film makers talking about their adaptations.


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