Movies Based on Books - Should you see the movie before or after you r

This popped into my head, reading the various positions on the worth of the Dune movies and its obvious corollary issue. So, someone writes a book and it's popular. Years later, someone else makes a movie, supposedly based on the book. That works better sometimes than others, but people who think that the book is "better" (whatever that means) usually get on a high horse about that.

I find myself in a quandary on this. Books can obviously indulge more lengthy conversation and detail, but they don't have imagery, sound and motion. Movies, on the other hand, can quicken the pace so that someone who does NOT want to read, for example, The Lord of the Rings, can consume the story somewhat more quickly. Nuances are lost, details are changed, but now I know what Sauron looks like now. Our brains consume images much better than words.

So, what's your preference and why? I prefer to see book-based movies before I read the book. Lots of people righteously and morally pronounce that the movie isn't as "good" as the book. The current focus of this seems to be the Dune movies, people's expectations of what they'd be, perception of characters, look of the environment, etc.

What say ye?

The act of reading a book from start to finish typically takes more effort than watching a film, so depending on how much time we're talking about (i.e., a couple weeks to both read the book and watch the film), I'm more likely to skip the book adaptation if I watch the film first. Due to that, I prefer to read the book first.

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If the movie is made after the book, I'd say one should read the book first - then watch the movie.
But nowadays many times you see books written after the movie was made - mainly to produce more income. In this second case I will never read the book But people buy them anyway.
I think there are books which are worth to be seen on the screen though. I mean well written books.
After I read Dune and seen Villeneuve producing a good quality movie that enchanted me.
Also there was a book written by John Fowles (in fact 2) - The Magus and The Collector. The Magus was corrected and written again by the author in the 70's. I've seen then both movies.
The Magus - with Anthony Quinn & Michael Caine in '68 and The Collector in '65 with Terence Stamp. I did enjoy both movies, but the books were a bit different and had more complexity than the films.
I also don't like when they change the characters from the books distorting the story and changing their gender or other characteristics just to fit into some new trends. As an example Liet Kynes was a male in the book - also played by Max von Sydow in '84 in David Lynch's Dune, but in the new films he turns out to change in a she. I just don't see why should they change the characters from the book.
Also there are other examples I could give from TV Shows, but since we're talking about movies I'll just remain at the previous example.
And finally I saw books written after Alien and Predator and seen younger generations buying those like freshly baked bread
I guess people should also get some info before watching a movie or buying a book.

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Normally they will make the book and movie very different. So if the book was published first then read it first

Never read the book first, if you love movies. And if you love reading books, don't bother watching movies based on books as inevitably you'll say the old tired truism, 'the book was better'. That's my two cents worth of advice.

I tend to agree with that. My guess is that the majority of movies made based upon books are likely to be a disappointment to those who've read the book. Unless the book is short, it's going to be difficult for a screenwriter to capture all the pertinent material, and perhaps even the essence of the book.

There are plenty of exceptions. I read The Godfather (1969) when it came out, and I couldn't wait for the movie. When I finally saw it in '72, I was impressed about how well they captured the book on the screen.

Another example for me was Zorba the Greek (1946). Again, I had just read the book in '64, when I heard that a movie version was coming out. I was very excited to see the film. The movie was superb and was able to dramatize most of the book's highlights.

I've had several reverse experiences. But those will be for another post...

They're such different literary forms that it seems hard to compare them. Books are something you take in portions, a chapter or two at a time compared to one compressed time span, generally less than 3 hours. Movies have to be compact and most people generally don't like long "speeches" in movies. Books are "talky" in a way that would crash and burn in a movie.

I tend to make the book-movie decision quickly, generally about 4 PM on movie night. If I think I might read the book, I'll check some reviews and see how they compare. Generally, once I've seen the movie, however, that's it.

The movie becomes the story.

I have loved movies based on books I've read first, but I've never loved a book I've read after first seeing the movie.

It's true that a movie is more visual and you can get the information quicker also when you watch a movie you take greater pleasure watching it because it takes you into those places.
For many people movies are a way to let their troubles away and escape into another dimension while watching that movie.
I guess it depends also on how the movie was made or how the book was written.
If we talk about Dune in particular I'd say both Frank Herbert and also Denis Villeneuve did a great job.
If someone else had made Dune, he probably would have been less successful than Villeneuve. Probably.
But seeing his movies he got pretty close to Frank Herbert's idea.

It's high time people realize that, cinema and literature being two distinct forms of art, filmmakers have no obligation to stick to the source material. So, viewers cannot compare the film to the book in any other terms than beauty and impact. With that in mind, the question asked in this thread is rendered vacuous, as films "based on books" merely take the book's ideas and story and project them onto the screen with varying degrees of loyalty. The final outcome is a completely new work of art that is no longer connected to its progenitor. It might grow on top of it, but it mutates and modifies it. It can be almost identical, but it's a separate entity now, and it should be treated as such. Incidentally, the greatest films based on books are those that improve on the originals, change them, enter into polemics with them.

In essence, one ought to experience films as standalone entities, irrespective of familiarity with the written work.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

That's kind of a "sez who?" question. Why evoke a name from a well known book and then do something else? Just make up your own name, if you want to make up your own plot.

As far as the "high time" part....who the heck doesn't know THAT? It's not like I've only seen 3 movies and was shocked to find that out.

Whether you're obligated to follow a book's plot can also be a reflection of the legalities when you license the name or characters....copyrights. It's not a "completely new work of art" when you trespass on copyrighted material.

I just reject the premise of the question in the thread's title. The book and the film adaptation are separate, incomparable works of art, ergo two standalone entities. What the question implies is which order is best in terms of being the least disappointed. But I think the very phrasing of that reveals that somebody sets out to be disillusioned with one work of art over another based on how disparate they are, or how one's expectations raised by the work of art they experienced first are not met by the other work of art. But if that happens, it's on them, not on the adaptation. The "the book was better" argument only works in terms of unadulterated and sincere response to the beauty of the work of art, but this is always analyzed on a work-by-work basis, never collectively. In other words, if somebody's disappointed with a film because it does something differently than the book it's based on, it's their fault, not the film's.

When you adapt something, you breathe a new life into it, infusing it with a part of yourself, trying to improve it. If you merely retell a story, that's no adaptation, that's mindless copying. Thankfully, movies and books are so distinct, that even a verbatim adaptation in terms of the story, dialogues, etc. is a wholly different experience in general, as cinematography, scenography, and sound come into play and transform the work into something beyond mere textual beauty. Copyright has nothing to do with it.

Actually that depends on the human. I'm a complete book worm in my personal life and even I can admit that the movie adaptations of Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules (2011, 2022) beat the book (2008) by a mile.

Yup, of course. I was speaking in broad generalities, but like you said, mileage might vary.

I think I hit my apex on fiction when I read Thomas Pyncheon's Gravity's Rainbow, which was long and obtuse. I spent too much time reading a book that didn't deliver what I wanted.

The advantage of a movie is that you're in an out in a few hours. Even if I hate it, it's not that much of a time investment and I still get out of the house.