When has the movie been better than the book?

[Mufumonk]

+1 on the Shawshank Redemption. The book is pretty decent but the movie really makes it come alive.

I did prefer the ending in the book to the movie but overall the movie was better.

[endzone_dave]

Someone already said Fight Club. The movie took a cool book and made it even better.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

While I think Peter Jackson did as well as could be done for a book that was difficult to adapt to a movie, blasphemy! The movie left out alot, including some crucial parts like The Scouring of the Shire in ROTK.

You must be the only person alive who wanted the ending of the movie to be longer.

While I didn't miss the scourging of the shire, I do think that Jackson totally ****ed up the second movie and its ending... not to mention just screwing that one character who took the two back to that city.

The names totally have escaped me, so that probably didn't help at all, but the ending to the second movie blew it.

[btfoom]

Put me down for Shawshank Redemption as well, though the original is a 'short story' and not a stand-alone book.

I think the 'Silver Bullet' movie was based on Steven King's "Cycle of the Werewolf".

[Forehead]

While I didn't miss the scourging of the shire, I do think that Jackson totally ****ed up the second movie and its ending... not to mention just screwing that one character who took the two back to that city.

One of my biggest complaints about the movies is the Gollum character acting like such a child. Sorry, but that isn't at all how Gollum acted, with his crying and his ****ing. I'm convinced that they made the character that way to appeal to children, he was the Jar Jar Binks equivalent for LOTR.

And yeah, the Scouring of the Shire needed to be in the end of the last film. They could have replaced a few of the end scenes they used, especially the one where the hobbits were dancing on the bed while Gandalf and Aragorn looked on and smiled like pedophiles. Awkward.

[mbws]

Hold on....which one? the one with Jack or the one with the guy from wings?

That guy from Wings really steals the show.

Im not serious at all.

Stephen King Preferred the TV movie over the Kubrick version, because it followed the plot more closely, but Nicholson kicked way more ass than Steven Weber.

[mbws]

2001 was really a book? A picture book? A poem? I'm flabbergasted.

Yeah, it was really a book by

Arthur C. Clarke

[#98QBKiller]

whatever man its a good ass movie haha

at least I havent seen the sex and the city then I would gladfully hand in my man card

:jk:

[kuraitengai]

I was serious... how was it a book? It doesn't make sense to me when I think about what the movie was really about.

well, i read it a while ago and have read a couple hundred books since, so im a bit fuzzy. but it didnt have as big of an intro as the movie did. it started with the monolith and the cavemen. but then jumped to 2001 when a monolith is found on the moon and the signal is traced to another monolith on a moon around saturn. then the rest of the book is about the trip to saturn and the hal-9000.

so like 95% of the book is set on the spaceship with the hal-9000.

there were actually multiple books in the series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Odyssey

2001 was the first, then 2010, 2061, and 3001.

[kuraitengai]

Agreed completely on Bourne. It's really remarkable how much action and suspense they cut out of the book. The book is easily a solid R rating. The movie is a watered down (action and plot) PG-13. Not that the movie wasn't okay. I'm just glad I read the book first.

yeah. the movie has good action, but it shouldnt be remotely related to the book.

i didnt read the books til a few years after the original bourne identity came out (well, the one with matt damon, cuz there was another bourne identity with john malkovich from the mid 90s i think). but when i saw the movie, i was big in film making, and i hated that they deviated so far from the book from the interviews i heard. to the fact that they didnt even read the book before writing the script. then after i switched over to writing novels and actually read the series, i hated it for ruining the intent of the books.

though all the hate was directed at the producers for allowing it to happen.

[DCSaints_fan]

You must be the only person alive who wanted the ending of the movie to be longer.

While I didn't miss the scourging of the shire, I do think that Jackson totally ****ed up the second movie and its ending... not to mention just screwing that one character who took the two back to that city.

The names totally have escaped me, so that probably didn't help at all, but the ending to the second movie blew it.

Are you speaking of Faramir? Yes, I forgot about that part. That was another part that Jackson changed. One of the devices Tolkien frequently used throughout the series was to contrast the actions of two characters of the same 'stock'(so to speak). Faramir, in letting Sam and Frodo go, showed himself to be nearly the complete opposite of his brother Boromir, who tried to take the ring from Frodo which led to the breaking of the fellowship. Another example would be Gandalf being the opposite of Saruman(both of whim were wizards), Aragorn and Denethor(both leaders), Frodo and Gollum(Smeagol) etc.

Including The Scouring of the Shire may have lengthened the movie, but one the real themes of the book is how much an "epic struggle" like a war changes even common men, even for the victors e.g., if i remember the quote right, Frodo says to Sam at the end - "The Shire is saved, but not for me", and thats why he must depart with Bilbo to West at the end.

[pjfootballer]

And Hermione is getting hotter by the movie.

[Larry]

I was serious... how was it a book? It doesn't make sense to me when I think about what the movie was really about.

I've met two kinds of people when it comes to 2001, the film:

a) Those who read the book, and think the film is the greatest film ever made.

Strongly recommend that everybody join Group A.

[TheLongshot]

Howl's Moving Castle

Course, Miyazaki tends to make any story better.

Jason

[HighOnHendrix]

Jurassic Park

I think I'm one of the three people who have not seen that movie. Just never got around to it. I will one day, I guess.

[HighOnHendrix]

well, i read it a while ago and have read a couple hundred books since, so im a bit fuzzy. but it didnt have as big of an intro as the movie did. it started with the monolith and the cavemen. but then jumped to 2001 when a monolith is found on the moon and the signal is traced to another monolith on a moon around saturn. then the rest of the book is about the trip to saturn and the hal-9000.

so like 95% of the book is set on the spaceship with the hal-9000.

there were actually multiple books in the series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Odyssey

2001 was the first, then 2010, 2061, and 3001.

It was Jupiter. Understandable mistake.

[HighOnHendrix]

I've met two kinds of people when it comes to 2001, the film:

a) Those who read the book, and think the film is the greatest film ever made.

Strongly recommend that everybody join Group A.

You're so right. My wife is in Group B; I love her anyways.

[Larry]

It was Jupiter. Understandable mistake.

Actually, in the book, the second monolith was on Iapetus, a moon of Saturn.

Clarke picked that location because, at the time, the only thing that was known about Iapetus was that it's albedo (the amount of light it reflected) was vastly higher on one side than on the other. Clarke described it, when Bowman saw it, as resembling a billiard ball: A uniform dark, but with a perfectly round, sharp edged, circle of almost white on one side. The monolith was in the center of the white circle.

Clarke wanted the two monoliths to be located in places where humans couldn't get at them until they'd developed sufficient technology to get there. But such that, once they got there, they would be easy to find. (Because the builders wanted them to be found.)

Kubrick decided that the special effects of trying to show Saturn, and the time spent explaining why they had to go to Jupiter to get to Saturn, were too complicated and made the film too long. So in the film, the monolith was in orbit around Jupiter.

[Larry]

You're so right. My wife is in Group B; I love her anyways.

Actually, once people join Group A, I begin trying to talk them into reading Clarke's Childhood's End. In many ways it's a similar story, but I think it's quite a bit better. I consider it the best book I've ever read.

[PeterMP]

To me a lot of the Grisham movies were better than the books. The Firm sticks out in my mind.

[Larry]

To me a lot of the Grisham movies were better than the books. The Firm sticks out in my mind.

I've read a few of his, but not many.

[Raub]

Childhood's End is a great freaking book.

I'm going to go to the other end of the spectrum. Worst movie adaptation of a book.....EVER!!!!

Starship Troopers. The cast and crew of that movie should all be lined up and shot...repeatedly.

[Larry]

Childhood's End is a great freaking book.

I'm going to go to the other end of the spectrum. Worst movie adaptation of a book.....EVER!!!!

Starship Troopers. The cast and crew of that movie should all be lined up and shot...repeatedly.

I expected to hate Starship Troopers. But I thought they did a pretty good job with it.

I expected that the movie would be a lot of CGI effects about how gosh-wow powered combat armor was, while completely ignoring the actual important themes of the book. (The book is about growing up and responsibility.)

Instead, they ignored the combat armor, and really paid attention to the characters and morals. IMO, they left a lot out. (You pretty much have to, when you go from a book to a screen). But they did a much better job than I expected.

[JasonCampbell177]

I wish someone would do a movie on the book "The Stranger"

That would be interesting

I had to read that book for summer reading this year, I would be interested to see what they would do with it in a movie.

[Raub]

I expected to hate Starship Troopers. But I thought they did a pretty good job with it.

I expected that the movie would be a lot of CGI effects about how gosh-wow powered combat armor was, while completely ignoring the actual important themes of the book. (The book is about growing up and responsibility.)

Instead, they ignored the combat armor, and really paid attention to the characters and morals. IMO, they left a lot out. (You pretty much have to, when you go from a book to a screen). But they did a much better job than I expected.

I have to respectfully call you ****ing crazy.

That movie blows. Have you re-read the book since watching the movie?