Films that are better than the book...

Jaws was going to be my answer. The book is a mess, with too many dumb subplots and a sad overreliance on gore and a large body count. I'm glad that Spielberg crafted a great film out of what is at best a medocre novel.

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i prefer film to books

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I will agree with The Godfather, Misery, Shawshank Redemption and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the movie that enabled a bad actor from the series " Streets Of San Francisco " to become a major Hollywood star.

hmm always noticed books better than movies my opion =p

That's why this thread was posted: TO FIND THE MOVIE THAT'S BETTER

aw, this hurts me. I am in physical pain now.

I hate to say this, but I enjoy watching Stephen King movies rather than reading the books. The books depress me in some way, and I find a bit too surreal....of course, the first and last time I tried reading his books was when I was about ..13 or 14. Best I could do was Desperation, and I dont even think that was him. Love the movies though.

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something witty goes here......

If you're going to include short stories, I wager that They Live was better than Eight O'Clock in the Morning (the story that They Live is supposedly adapted from, even though the similarities are few and loose)

I read The Godfather before I saw it, so I have a relatively low opinion of the movie's portrayal of the book (especially the way Puzo built up the Don in the book). However, I can't argue that the movie streamlined it perfectly.

I don't really have that many examples. When I like a book, the movie always ends up being substandard or even bad.

Case in point - The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

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I'll probably catch hell for this, but the Lord of the Rings films decimated the novels. My apologies.

I personally disagree, but I can see where some folks might feel that way. Some of Tolkien's prose was a bit stilted, and there were times he went on and on too long. All that being said, I love the books, and Peter Jackson did an amazing job of bringing them to the screen.

American Psycho...the book was annoying as all hell...the movie...a bit less...

I have to agree with the godfather. The movie was brilliant. The directing and acting was ahead of its day.

I then read the novel about 4 years ago. I can see why it may have been great back then but i think if that book was released today by another novelist in the same writing manner, it would need some dramatic improvement.

SPOLIERS!!

Puzo doesnt seem to care at all about his writing style. He doesnt bother trying to draw the reader in, excite them, keep it tense which is waht great writing is about.

All he seems to be doing is describing events and characters as though it was a semi biography.

I didnt like the way he kept on using past tense. This is ok for about a chapter or two but when its throguhout the whole book its boring. We may not know what happens next but the fact that its past tense we know it has happened already and therefore cannot be changed.

There were other stuff i didnt like anyway.

I then read omerta also by puzo. That was so bad i put it down after a quarter way in and never went back.

Misery is a great film. Havent read the book.

Going back to my earlier post, i thought rambo was a great movie brilliantly acted by stallone. Read the book last year and stopped after halfway. That was awwwwful.

Countless books have been written in past tense, how do you feel about them?

Besides, "we know it has already happened and therefore cannot be changed"? It's a story. It's meant to involve stuff happening that can't be changed. That's what stories are all about.

I can accept your other reasons for not liking the book, but this one was really poorly thought out.

The Bridges of Madison County

The Robert James Waller novella is jaw-droppingly trite and horrible in every single way, but Clint Eastwood armed with Richard LaGravenese's fantastic script and his own subtle sensibility managed to craft an engaging and emotional piece of cinema from the steaming pile of literary embarrassment. If you want to judge by the intrinsic crappiness of the source material and the subsequent miraculous class of the film, I can't think of a better adaptation in the past fifty years.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I read the book after watching the film. It's on par with the film at the very least, although to be fair the film did cut out a fair bit of unnecessary stuff featured in the book and heavily re-edited much of the book. (plus of course it was much more graphic than the film could ever hope to be - the Narrator spends most of the book living with a hole in one of his cheeks due to such rough fighting)



And of course, the ending is very different.

Regardless, I highly recommend the book.

Of the top of my head ... these were better movitised than the books

Blade Runner far superior than Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.


The Birds (1963) adapted from a short story of the same title by Daphne Du Maurier.

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Thought of another: Silence of the Lambs.

I love the movie, but found the book to be unreadable: I quit about 30 pages in, which is very unlike me; I usually give a book 100 pages before I give up on it.
Anyway, the reason I disliked it so much was that Harris kept switching tenses, from past tense, as in most narratives, to present tense. I found it to be so annoying that I could not concentrate on anything else.

So I gave up and put the movie in the VCR (this was a while back)...again.

There are many books that are not written in past tense. They are done in present.

We follow the characters as they are experiencing events there and then. For example "she reaches for the handle. She grabs the gun and shoots the guy. She runs from the maniac" etc.

But past tense is "she grabbed the gun. After shooting the guy, she runs. She ran as fast as she could."

Da vinci code
secret smile
derailed

These are among the few that are written in present tense and which i enjoyed.

I think you're misunderstanding me.

I know a book that is written cant be changed. We dont buy books and expect the pages to magically change do we?

What i meant was the characters in the actual story. If we read sutff that has already happened such as " a few years ago, she was stalked by a crazy man. She tried to find help from the police but they couldnt do anything. She was then bombarded with prank calls"
then this takes away the excitement.

Whatever happens to the girl, we know it has happened already.

But saying " she IS being stalked by a crazy man" is present tense and is far more excting. Whatever happens to her depends on what she does there and then and we as the reader, feel more involved.

Not every single book done in past tense is bad. Im not saying that. Some can be done quite well. But puzo didnt do this well in my opinion.

I want to get the movie "Not wihout my daughter". I read the book, but cannot find the film. Its too old I think (

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The book is still good, but the language is kind of outdated now and Tolkien's conventions in telling a story , so it's more convenient to watch it.

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I saw the film Deliverance, but, for some reason, I found the book unreadable and put it down after a chapter and haven't picked it up again since.

I saw the film Hawaii many years ago--exciting film, but a boring book.