Better as movies than books

[melchar]

Heard a comment made on the radio that books were always better than the movies and wanted to immediately take issue with this. So wrong.

I can think of 3 movies right offhand that dispute this =

'Jaws' was tons better than the book - and made one of the characters sympathetic instead of a complete ass;
'Princess Bride' is better as a movie than a book by far [in part because the author just plays too many literary pransk with himself];
and 'The Relic' is much better than the book [which isn't saying much, this is true]

Comments

[higginsdragon.livejournal.com]

Princess Bride the book and screenplay were written by the same person. Fitting enough that Princess Bride, the movie, plays a lot of film genre/cliche pranks. :)

[melchar.livejournal.com]

[nods] I know he wrote both. It puzzles me how the movie can be so very, very good - possibly perfect - while the book just dragged in place [like where he dwells on the hideously poisonous door spider] as he seemingly played 'pat the author on the back/I'm so clever'. Just mystifies me.

[maestrodog.livejournal.com]

I never saw or read the original "Jaws" or "The Relic," but on "The Princess Bride" I'm in complete agreement, having both read the book and seen the film.

I find that when the opposite happens (movies being made into books), the movies are usually better. Come to think of it, this holds true for games as well. The "Baldur's Gate" books are hideously inane, as was the book "Terminator 2" back when I tried to read it in college. There was some slight merit to the "Wishbringer" and "Planetfall" novels, but then again I'm slightly biased in favor of Craig Shaw Gardner's writing.

And the couple of "Magic The Gathering" novels I tried read...my only impression was that they tried to cram too much into one story and only left me feeling confused.

[aeto.livejournal.com]

People may not agree, but I liked Jurassic Park, the movie, better than the book. Of course, it may be because I don't really like Crichton writing... at all. :>

[melchar.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh Crichton! I very much agree with you. I keep reading his books because he has -great- ideas, but the books are so disappointing.

Just as examples - the -book- 'Andromeda Strain' took a great concept, then muddled it up with soap opera and minutia. The original novel, 'Jurassic Park' was such a good idea - and then threw in character angst, truly/absolutely -bad- chaos theory - [[tho the -compsognathus- parts were adorable & left out of the movie as my only complaint/counter-point of something nifty in the -book-]] - and very unsympathetic characters all 'round.

But both made such wonderful movies.