Book vs Movie

[Ronan]

Let's face it, we've all seen movies about our favorite books. Some movies follow the plot to the letter (with just a few add-ons for the squee! factor) and some change the book so much that it makes hardcore fans of the literature want to vomit from the sheer disappointment.

And then of course there's the book adaptations of movies.

Being me, I was wondering to get some opinions on this. Of the popular adaptations out there, which worked the best? Which didn't?

Example: For me, the Harry Potter movies changed the plot a bit too much. As a movie on its own, it was awesome...but in some of the movies (Order of the Pheonix for example) they left out important elements of the book. I'm not being a prat or anything, I know they have time limits, but I was just bothered.

Anyone else?

 

[AzureNight13]

Eragon is a fine example of a clusterf*ck. The book itself was great. The movie however was a major dissapointment. Whoever directed that movie might as well have not read the book. :/

 

[aoshi]

If u are referring to adaptation of movies from books and vice-versa, I cant really get u there as books make me inactive physically and dont read much books(That dont state facts).

As i prefer above, Movies are more entertaining than books.

 

[DreadnoughtDT]

Pfft. What's more active? Reading a book or sitting on your ass watching a movie? Point is, neither.

I still like books though. They last longer. More bang for your buck.

 

[Ronan]

^Agreed. ^^
@AzureNight13: I couldn't even finish the Eragon movie. That was pretty bad... ._.

 

[Devil Bane]

Depends on the book and the movie adaption behind it.

Though I prefer reading books since for me they are both the book and the live action adaptions.When I read books I can vividly imagine everything that's written down.

 

[Angelo Credo]

Can I pick out one example that is Book vs Series instead?

The Sword of Truth series, the books were absolutely outstanding, brilliant read, up until the last three or so. The series on the other hand? It's like they've just read the blurb of the book and gone from there, essentially murdering the source material.

It's appalling when you take it from that standpoint, though I've taken to considering it an entirely different entity from the books and on its own, it's a half decent show.

 

[aoshi]

Pfft. What's more active? Reading a book or sitting on your ass watching a movie? Point is, neither.

I still like books though. They last longer. More bang for your buck.

I actually do not prefer movies as well but it's more entertaining than books as actual work goes into making movies than to write or type words.

Besides, I would prefer to read books on facts than to read comics. I have not read many books on comics is wat i meant.:$

 

[Ronan]

@Credo: Sure, stuff like that's welcome too. And from what I've read of the Sword of Truth I must say it really is good. Never did see the series though.

Hmmm...I never did see Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in play format, but I did read the book version (tonks=nerd ._.). The movie wasn't half bad, even if they did cut out some good songs.

Getting to hear Alan Rickman sing was a big bonus too.

 

[Dante's Stalker]

@Credo: Who is the author? I'm curious now

Something people tend to overlook a lot is that a lot of movie/TV producers buy the rights to a book/series and create visual entertainment based off the literature front.

Did you catch that?
BASED OFF. This means they can keep the title, but twist the story itself as they deem fit. There was a lot of hoohaa that could have been avoided when fans of the written Vampire Diaries series went up in arms when they changed the selfish blonde bombshell protagonist into a wallow-wallow-pity-me-I'm-cute brunette for the TV series. Same thing happened with Resident Evil - the characters and concept was implemented into the movie, but the plots were completely different to the games.

But anyway. In regards to book vs movie - books are always better. ALWAYS. The Lost World, Jurassic Park? I can't begin to emphasise how disappointed I was sitting through the whole last movie waiting for that chameleon dino to come rushing in and ripping things up. Alas, no chameleon dino - and that was one of the best roles in the book. It would have been brilliant on screen. And Ian Malcolm is a whole lot more attractive in my mind than Jeff Goldblum too.

I have to say this though, the only movie I've ever watched that sticks to the book down to the letter is Twilight. Which is not admirable, at all, since the book sucks ostrich eggs, and the movie doubles that. It's bad enough to make my eyes bleed.

 

[Ronan]

@clair: It's Terry Goodkind if I'm not mistaken. ^^

And the twilight movie made me want to projectile vomit

 

[darkslayer13]

why do so many people hate twilight. i actually liked the book ( i am not one of those people who are obssed with the series. it is not even one of my favorites but it was worth reading) but it didn't really transition to a movie very well.

 

[Ronan]

Well...to put it gently, the Twilight series took one of my favorite mythological creatures and turned it into a sparkly...something. What Meyer attempted to do was create the scientific vampire--a carbon-based being, hence the sparkling and rock hard skin (I think it was carbon-based...can't remember right now ._.). But there were so many flaws in that theory that just drove the OCD Tonks crazy. The characters were lacking in my opinion, but I'm sure with a little effort it could have been...something. Yeah. Something.

 

[Angelo Credo]

@clair: It's Terry Goodkind if I'm not mistaken. ^^

And the twilight movie made me want to projectile vomit

Aye, Terry Goodkind it is. ^^

@Clair:

Yeah I know that it's only based off of, but when you read the books then compare them with the actual series, it's utter tripe in comparison, it's just...With the first series, when you look at it and then the first book, they literally cut out half of the book.

Now, whilst you may think that's normal, they cut out the single most important plot point.
They removed the Mud People, the race of people that contributed the most to the story, contributed the most to character development, backstory, history etc etc, it just disgusted me that they could remove such an integral part of the plot.

 

[Dante's Stalker]

I know exactly what you mean Credo.
They did the same thing with VD (Vampire Diaries). The plot of the books were that the protagonist Elena undergoes a major character development, and basically goes from uber bitch that you just hate, to still a bitch but you like her better because she's got SOME good in her. She's a different protagonist, which is one of the things that attracted me to the series, because you don't get the SB playing the protagonist in every other book. They killed that in the TV adaptation by making her likeable, friendly, and nice. They also changed the Italian vampire brothers into American vampires, which KILLS the actual plot because Italy plays a HUGE part in who the brothers have become through the ages. They've completely left that out in the TV series They even changed the lovely secondary characters who help shape the protagonist into a better person, by merging both as ONE person - which creates one seriously ****ed up character on screen. It's all just so meh. I'm not even going to watch the TV series because it's basically not VD anymore.

@darkslayer: I agree with Tonks. Aside from the fact that I found reading the Twilight books painfully boring, with so little actual prose jumping out at me at unexpected times, that's not even half of it. A lot of really badly written books get published every day. What disgusts me and made me a diehard anti-Twilighter is the fact that Meyer has zombies with abilities running around in her books yet labels them as vampires.

 

[AzureNight13]

why do so many people hate twilight. i actually liked the book ( i am not one of those people who are obssed with the series. it is not even one of my favorites but it was worth reading) but it didn't really transition to a movie very well.

I hate the Twilight books because Meyer can't write for ****. And the movies... made it even worse.

 

[Vergil'sBitch]

WHY...OH WHY ruin Vampires...

 

[Ronan]

I dunno. The writing was pretty sketchy but perhaps if Meyer didn't try to pass those things off as vampires the series might've earned less hatred. BUT....I could be wrong.
@ Credo: They took out the Mud People?! They may as well have taken out Zedd or Darken Rhal! (has only read to Temple of the Winds ^^)
:O
*mind implodes*

 

[Dante's Stalker]

@ Credo: They took out the Mud People?! They may as well have taken out Zedd or Darken Rhal! (has only read to Temple of the Winds ^^)
:O
*mind implodes*

Ack! Those names sound way too familiar? Are you guys talking about Legend of the Seeker?

 

[Ronan]

^That I think is the series based of the Sword of Truth book series thingy.