Movie versus Book
 

Just out of curiousity, has anyone ever seen a movie that they liked BETTER than the book version? Usually everyone always says the book is better...

NOPE as an English teacher and an avid reader, the BOOK is ALWAYS BETTER. :D :cool:

The only case in which I liked movie better than book was Beaches, and that barely counts because the movie was so incredibly different from the book. Only the basic premise was the same. The movie is a part of my childhood, whereas I didn't read the book until I was much older. And I love Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey's Cece and Hillary, whereas I didn't really like the Cece and Bertie in the book.

Other than that, the closest I can get is appreciating the movie as a movie in its own right. These are in cases where it's really not fair to compare the movie to the book. For example:

Gone With the Wind: The movie is a great movie. When you compare it to the book it sucks (the movie skips two whole children!), but it is an Acadamy Award-winning movie for a reason. It is beautifully made and fabulously directed. The plot is a good plot in and of itself. It's just not Margaret Mitchell's plot.

Wizard of Oz: Ditto. The book is excellent for its innovation and fabulous political parallels. The movie is beautiful. 'Nuff said.

Mary Poppins: Walt Disney's interpretation of the book is fabulous. The integration of animation and live action was revolutionary for its time.

Schindler's List: The book is a work of historiography. It is thoroughly researched and painstakingly put together. The movie is a work of historical fiction. It is, in my opinion, the capstone of all Stephen Spielburg's work.

And so on... you get the idea.

Good points, KappaKittyCat! Another thing that I think is interesting is comparing movies and their remakes. Like Cruel Intentions as a remake of Dangerous Liaisons... so different, yet both good in their own right.

i personally liked the movie girl, interupted better than the book

I agree with those who say that comparing the movie to the book is sort of unfair. For instance, Sex and the City, the book, is much different than the series. I think the TV show has composites of some of the book characters.

Yes, SATC the book is SO different. I love that the show focuses only on the four girls and develops the personalities, instead of having tons of characters that just come and go (like the book does).

I don't think that a straight book treatment would work for SATC, the TV version, because it would have to be an anthology series of sorts. It's much easier to follow the four girls.

Mostly I think the books are better, but in cases of dense, older novels, the movies are better to sit through. Usually, I see the movie and then read the book because the book clarifies things that were left out of the movie because of time constraints. If I read the book first, I am usually disappointed when my favorite parts are left out.

I thought that Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood did the best I've seen with being true to the book.

That is so funny because I thought "Divine Secrets" was horrible when compared to the book... if I had never read the book, I would have liked the movie though. :)

Interview with Vampire is both good movie and book. Movie is shorter which is just like my attention span.

two movies that were better than the book:

Stand By Me which is based on the novella "The Body" by Stephen King.

Legally Blonde, based on the book by Amanda Brown. The book...I don't know how it ever got published. It was poorly written, badly developed characters, and to add insult to injury the villian was a Kappa Kappa Gamma!

I've never yet met a movie I liked better than the corresponding book.

Stephen King books/movies are great examples of this. "Christine", "Pet Semetary" and "Salem's Lot" all scared the jeepers out of me when I read them but I actually broke out in laughter while watching one of them because it was just THAT BAD.

Yep. I was laughing my ass off when I watched Pet Semetary. "Hello?! You're an idiot! You deserve to have the zombies kill you!"

The only book that's ever scared me is The Exorcist, but the movie didn't scare me at all.