Should you read the book before or after the movie?

As Dr Sheldon Cooper would say "...and there is a right answer."

I say after, and Ill tell you why. Misery with Kathy Bates & James Caan. I wanted to see Misery so bad when it was gonna come out. Huge Rob Reiner fan and the movie was coming out in a week. So I thought Ill read the book and go see it. I read it, and I cant even remember if it was good or not as Im only able to recall my experience watching the film.

Watching Misery, I knew I was watching a good movie, but I wasnt getting anything out of it. I knew all the shocks and twists. Halfway thru I gave up being disappointed FOR SPOILING THE MOVIE FOR MYSELF, and watched the audience scream, laugh, and enjoy a great flick.

Never will do that again. Not everyones alike though as there are people that like to know the endings of stuff beforehand.

But wouldn't you be just as likely to spoil to book by watching the movie first?

I know movies take artistic license with their adaptations, but the general story tends to stay the same. You also generally invest a lot more time in reading a novel than in watching a film, so it seems like you wouldn't want to spoil the book either.

I just let things happen naturally. If watching a movie inspires me to read the book, then I'll go in that order. If reading a book makes me want to watch the movie, I'll go in that order.

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In my opinion you should always read the book after. In almost every case the book is better. Of course you have to like reading. LOL! Anyway, I feel that the books can go into far more detail and most times my imagination does a better job than any movie.

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You are no Vader. You are just a child in a mask.

After. I don't have any specific reason drawn from first principles or anything. To the extent I ever did I probably would have argued for the opposite order, but just from of experience I've found I'm likely to enjoy the movie more if I haven't read the book, while the reverse doesn't seem to hold.

i suppose it all depends i saw Rambo: First Blood before reading the book and thought they were both great

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Officialadamn

I usually read the book before seeing the movie. If it's an author or series I like then I don't want to wait two or three years for the movie to come out especially since I almost always like the book better. And there are lots of books I like that probably won't be made into movies any time soon, if ever e.g. the rest of Nausicaa manga volumes, the Darth Bane trilogy, the Inheritance series, Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, the Bartimaeus trilogy and so on.

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Iroh

If I can I always read the book after. I get a lot if visuals in my head when I read and I don't want the movie screwing with that. I don't want to picture the character as whoever they cast in the role and I would rather imagine the setting as well. Plus, I always have what happened in the book going on in my mind and I can't help but critique how the movie is handling it. The reverse doesn't usually happen for me.

Personally, i am an advocate of reading the book after watching the film. you devote a much larger portion of your time to reading a book, and therefore, i would rather know i am getting into a good plot, rather than wasting a few weeks on a bad book. Where you can write off a couple of hours watching a film, it is much more disappointing to write of a few weeks from reading a bad book.

Also, i find that if you have read the book first, i tend to find myself being one of those people thinking, "oh i would have done that differently". I tend to find this ruins my enjoyment of the film whereas, for whatever reason, i don't do this so much when reading the book after the film.

before the movie

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I've never been much of a reader, I've always been a "wait until the movie comes out" kind of guy. I can count on one hand the number of books I read before I saw the movie and that's OK, because I learned a long time ago that the book is ALWAYS better and reading the book first seems to put unfair expectations on the movie. There are things in a book that just can't be reproduced on a movie screen, but there are a few movies where the book was as good as the movie...Mystic River, The Exorcist and The Outsiders come to mind.

I don't suppose there's any specific rule. Just do what you prefer.

For me it's before. Really only because once I've seen a film, most of the time I really can't be arsed to read the book once I've seen what happens in the film even if they turn out to be quite different or more things in the book. The film has to be something really special to get me interested in reading the book - for example One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, saw the film first then read the book, and saw The Lord of the Rings series of films before the books and after seeing them I had no interest in reading the books - I had all the books too but ended up giving them to someone.

There isn't exactly a right answer, I think. But I prefer reading before, It's kinda boring to watch a movie that you've already read the book of, but a movie is a short experience, so you can take it. Hell, the other day I saw BOTH Carrie movies and I have read the book a couple months ago. As for the contrary, a book also gets spoiled if you see the movie, in most cases and then you may not want to bother to read it.
It may be controversial to say it in this forum, but if I have to chose in only watching the movie or only reading the book, I'd pretty much always pick the book.

It's complicated. I would rather read a book before watching its cinematographic adaptation because I didn't like to know the end of "The girl with the dragon tattoo" when I read the book, despite I liked it a lot. To the other hand, I found the movie much worse when I already had read the book. However, that didn't happen when I watched "The lord of the rings" because the adaptation was awesome. Anyway, I think that if you like the story, you should read the book before, especially if you really enjoy books. If you are more into movies, watch the movie first. If you like both at the same level, well... Make a decision.