Discuss: Movies That Are Better Than the Books
Filed under: Fandom
When a studio in Hollywood snatches up your favorite book, I think you die a little inside. How many fantastic novels have been rewritten, gutted, misrepresented, and utterly destroyed in their big screen adaptations? Too many to count, right? You could probably devote a film blog to documenting them all. But every once and awhile, a movie comes along that is actually better than the book. It's rare, but it does happen. As we have a fair number of film and book fans browsing our fair site, I'd like to know which adaptations you think make this elusive category.
I'll give you two of my own to start -- and I'll probably cause a flame war just for my opinions on T.H. White. I'm a medievalist at heart, and a junkie for the fantasy genre, who eagerly picked up a copy of The Once and Future King one summer as a break from studying Old and Middle English. I thought it was a crime I hadn't read it, since I do own multiple copies of the Morte d'Arthur and promised my professor I would read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the North Midlands dialect someday.
I expected to be blown away, to sneer at Disney's milquetoast adaptation, and put it there alongside my umpteen copies of Chaucer. Instead, I could barely get past the cat boiling, the threats against Questing Beasts and hedgehogs, and the blatant misogyny. (Guinevere is a basket case because she can't have kids!) Disney's The Sword and the Stone may not be my favorite film, it may not even rank among the greats of animation, but it's better than The Once and Future King -- if only because it lacks cat torture and misogyny. (It does, however, lack Robin Hood, which is the highest point of White's novel for me.)
I'll give you two of my own to start -- and I'll probably cause a flame war just for my opinions on T.H. White. I'm a medievalist at heart, and a junkie for the fantasy genre, who eagerly picked up a copy of The Once and Future King one summer as a break from studying Old and Middle English. I thought it was a crime I hadn't read it, since I do own multiple copies of the Morte d'Arthur and promised my professor I would read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the North Midlands dialect someday.
I expected to be blown away, to sneer at Disney's milquetoast adaptation, and put it there alongside my umpteen copies of Chaucer. Instead, I could barely get past the cat boiling, the threats against Questing Beasts and hedgehogs, and the blatant misogyny. (Guinevere is a basket case because she can't have kids!) Disney's The Sword and the Stone may not be my favorite film, it may not even rank among the greats of animation, but it's better than The Once and Future King -- if only because it lacks cat torture and misogyny. (It does, however, lack Robin Hood, which is the highest point of White's novel for me.)
My other pick would have to be Doctor Zhivago. This is one of my favorite films, and I dutifully read the book. It's a good book (like the film, it's far more about the Stalin era than it is about the 1917 Revolution), it's poetic, and it's romantic. Some of the most cinematic parts are even left out of David Lean's classic. But Lean, at least, understood that the story's heart was the war-ravaged romance between Yuri and Lara. It's their relationship that symbolizes the life, love, and beauty that the regime is suppressing. I know Boris Pasternak knew it too, and yet betrayed his own characters with an unforgivable ending. If you cherish your memories of Yuri and Lara, never read it. For years, I was convinced that something was lost in the translation, and that there was something deeply Russian I was missing ... only to have my native Russian professor suddenly blurt out the same thing in history class one day.
So, if your a White or Pasternak devotee, you can argue the point now -- but I would much rather hear some of your own suggestions. Debate away in the comments ... and be brave about stating your picks!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
1-07-2009 @ 9:51AM
Scott Weinberg said...
As we discussed earlier, my picks would be Hannibal and American Psycho. Both better than the book.
Reply
1-07-2009 @ 4:03PM
NP said...
American Psycho for sure. In some ways it completely subverts the book.
1-07-2009 @ 12:22PM
Commodorius said...
Hamlet....the one with Ethan Hawke. Much better than the book. Got rid of all that old Dannish crap.
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1-07-2009 @ 12:28PM
Aunalis said...
As amazing as the book for this is, I think that that Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a lot better on film. The book was a lot funnier and did more in the imagination area, but the story was a lot better in the movie, but it could be because I saw the movie many times before I read the books.
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1-07-2009 @ 5:33PM
Paul Nicholson said...
Aside from disagreeing with you on your statement that the movie was better (it was great, don't get me wrong) - the HHG2TG was a radio show first, and I think that's where it is at its best. The book was an adaptation, and those are rarely any good. The fact that it is as good as it is, is pretty remarkable.
1-07-2009 @ 12:31PM
Clark Parker said...
Two Words.
Die Hard
Much better then Nothing Lasts Forever, the book on which it is based.
Also, it was not a full book, rather a short story but I thought that Darabont improved the ending of The Mist greatly... I think Stephen King himself agrees on that.
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1-07-2009 @ 5:37PM
Dan said...
Agreed! I actually enjoed the movie version of The Mist quite a bit more.
1-07-2009 @ 12:47PM
Kanon said...
I'm reading Jurassic Park for the first time, and though I'm enjoying it a lot, I think the movie is better. I like the movie versions of Dr Grant, and Hammond a lot more, and the pace... It's a great book, but the movie is wonderful
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1-07-2009 @ 12:40PM
Brian Marino said...
two words
The Godfather. I know its cliche to say so, but I read the book first and thought it was decent, but loved the movie.
and as much as I love Pahalaniuk...personally I like the movie more of Fight Club. Maybe its because I saw the movie first, or the movie is more funny and more pure entertainment, but I just like it more.
No COuntry For Old Men. I love Cormac McCarthy, The Road and Blood Meridian are two of my favorite books of all time and Child of God is up there. I enjoyed No COuntry when I read it, dug the prose and excitement and his narration and ideas. But I felt the movie did everything much better.
The Reader
And finally...Jaws.
then there are a few movies that I feel match the book in greatness (Atonement).
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1-07-2009 @ 1:07PM
Brian Marino said...
Oh and I forgot.
City of God. Much better than the book.
1-07-2009 @ 12:45PM
Shadow said...
oh and I forgot.
City of God
Reply
1-07-2009 @ 12:46PM
dukrous said...
Most people think I'm odd, but I've argued that the LOTR movies are better than the books. While the books are deeper, they're also much much denser and have a tendency to lose the plot. The movies allow you to get into the story much more quickly and moves along briskly. You don't get the details but you definitely get the broad strokes much better in the movie.
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1-07-2009 @ 1:10PM
Clark Parker said...
I'd agree that some things in LOTR work better on film, such as seeing everyone bow before the hobbits at the end... That carried a far greater emotional punch to actually see it happen. The same could be said of the battles, as seeing them carries an exhilaration that doesn't come with the books. Beyond that though, I felt like the films make great trailers for the books. Abridged primers for a greater story, if you will.
Not to knock them, they are some of the best made films I've ever seen, given the scope, and are exellent adaptations, I'm just not ready to call them better.
Brian mentioned Fight Club and I think that is a whole different category, at least in my mind. I'd put that in a list of movies that were adapted flawlessly, that exist in in pitch perfect tune with the books. The changes that are made are minor (such as the fat belonging to Marla's mother) but the tone is nearly identical. I wouldn't call it better, I wouldn't call it worse. It was the perfect companion to it's book.
That would make a great topic all on it's own, as there quite a few films that stand as equals next to their source material.
1-07-2009 @ 2:07PM
Jennifer said...
Agreed wholeheartedly. Once I got to Frodo and gang being with the Elves and Bilbo's incessant talking, I just got irritated and bored; 2 things you dont want to do to the reader. Made me want to put the book down...
Here's a movie/book off the wall Exit to Eden. No Dan Ackroyd and Rosie O'Donnell's characters werent in the book at all, but they should have been, cause the book may have actually been enjoyable.
1-07-2009 @ 12:52PM
MarkH said...
The Silence of the Lambs obviously comes to mind. Also the Da Vinci Code (or so I assume; the movie was pretty good, and I only got a few pages into the execrably-written book before figuratively tossing it across the room).
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I tried reading it again in 2001 before the first movie came out, and...meh. I couldn't even get 100 pages into FOTR; blame Tom Bombadil for that.
And this is just a guess, but I would imagine that the movie Ben-Hur (both of them actually) was better than the book.
M*A*S*H. Planet of the Apes. The Bridge on the River Kwai. Gone With the Wind. The Shawshank Redemption (though not by much).
Another guess: Sense and Sensibility (1995) was better than the book.
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1-07-2009 @ 1:10PM
Kurt said...
The Da Vinci Code? That was a horrible film!
Heretic!
1-07-2009 @ 2:22PM
Harless? said...
Blame Tom Bombadil? He was one of my favorite characters, and one of the reason I would keep LOTR off this list.
Ben-Hur was better than the book in my opinion. I couldn't agree more about the Godfather as well.
Never saw the Da Vinci Code movie, but I was one of the few that didn't like the book (apparently a larger minority than I thought). I heard it was awful.
I may get some attacked for this, but two graphic novels that I thought made better movies were: A History of Violence and Oldboy. Both films I think did a better job handling the subjects and themes of the story more coherently and succinctly. (I am NOT looking forward to the Spielberg/Smith "adaptation")
1-07-2009 @ 1:05PM
Patrick said...
Hud was better than Horseman Pass By, for reasons which I've now forgotten. Jaws is another one, where Spielberg tossed out all the melodramatic junk with the Dreyfus character and made him likeable.
Reply
1-07-2009 @ 12:56PM
Star22 said...
Children of Dune, though that is a miniseries rather than a book. I loved the first book and the fourth book of the series, but the second and third ones seemed confusing at times.
The miniseries made sense of the plot, made the characters more approachable, and vividly portrayed the universe where it takes place. It also at least minimized some of the misogynistic bits.
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1-07-2009 @ 1:18PM
Rebekah said...
I have to disagree. I really liked Dune Messiah and I felt the miniseries missed a lot of the, for lack of a better word, romance of Paul and Chani's relationship. But the series did do a good job of simplifying what was a very convaluted plot.