Most people after seeing a movie adaptation of a book will say 'the book was better', but is the movie ever better than the book on which it is based? I think that sometimes, yes it is.

I'll get things started by offering a couple of examples of movies being better.

Benchleys Jaws is an enjoyable enough read, but he includes an annoying romantic subplot where Hooper has an affair with Chief Brody's wife, also at the end the shark just, well dies of natural causes and sinks, verdict - Movie better than Book.

Stephen Kings novella - The Mist has some great characterisation and atmosphere, and the set up of a disparate group holed up in a small supermarket while an ominous mist swirls out side is great, but can you remember how it ends? Me neither, but I will never forget how the movie ends, verdict - Movie better than Book.

I know they are different mediums and you can't really compare, but this is just for fun - so can you think of any movies that leave the book in the dust?

Kris

Brokeback Mountain - movie definitely better than the book (or should that be short story? I don't think it's very long).

The Mist has some great characterisation and atmosphere, and the set up of a disparate group holed up in a small supermarket while an ominous mist swirls out side is great, but can you remember how it ends?

Sure. I read it over 15 years ago and I can remember how it ends perfectly. But I won't ruin it! I guess it's subjective.

It's interesting. We were discussing this in the bar last night - how graphic novels don't actually translate that well into movies and how the only man to get it right is Chris Nolan with The Dark Knight. We decided it was all about nuance. Reading a book is a very private affair, whereas watching a film is often a shared experience. I think that accounts for something. Not all comic book movies are bad, but they lose something.

The other way around is tricky. I can't think of one, to be honest. A book allows my imagination to breathe and my imagination is so good it will cover a multitude of sins. Much as I love them, a film does my imagining for me...

Ah! Harry bloody Potter, there you go. Order of the Phoenix. A tedious novel if ever there was one, but not a bad film, as it happens!

JB

Ah! Harry bloody Potter, there you go. Order of the Phoenix. A tedious novel if ever there was one, but not a bad film, as it happens!

I am inclined to agree with you, except the scene where the twins sweep out of the school, which is a gem in the novel - right down to the bog they leave in the corridor which requires a boat to traverse.

I enjoyed the first three books the most, but then they started getting stodgy and self-indulgent, I thought. I thought Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix could both have been half the length they were. I've not read the last two, but I supoose I will at some point.

JB

Definitely Brokeback Mountain. Oh, dear, where was I?

I've been trying to think of some. Stephen King's 'Misery' directed by Rob Reiner and starring Kathy Bates? The book was good, but the film slightly better, I thought. Kubrick's 'The Shining'? I can't remember the author, but it was a short story. Most things with scenery work better on film, I think. It's mainly costume dramas, like Jane Austen and Dickens adaptations, that I've read as books and films tend to simplify ideas emotions but make up for it with visuals. 'Brokeback Mountain' was a longish short story, too. Maybe that's a clue - scenery, costumes and a short story expanded - with a good director, and actors, of course.


Sheila

Think you may be onto something with your scenery comment Sheila.

I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, but got so bogged down with some of the discriptive passages I never completed the books.

And JB, yep I agree, it's all subjective - good point about cinema being a shared experience, and a book private, that's certainly a big factor in how somebody responds to a story.

Kris

Cranford!

Definitely better than the book - but they made the TV series by adding material from another by the same author, so maybe it doesn't count.

Sheila

In my opinion, I can't see how anyone could think Kubrick's The Shining was better than the Stephen King novel. So much was lost there - like more or less the entire point of the book! But it is subjective, so of course you're entitled to your view. Misery was watered down, I thought, but how about Shawshank Redemption? Decent short story, excellent film.

I take your point about LOTR. I thought that was probably the best adaptation of a fantasy novel I've ever seen, especially Fellowship. The book does have very long descriptive passages, and I suppose it depends on one's love of Tolkien how one reponds to them. I remember when I first read it when I was eleven or twelve, I expected a 'bumper sized' Hobbit and was really disappointed until the Black Riders came along...

JB

Yes, I think director's often put on their own slant. I remember analysing the film once for some essay I had to write and deciding it was all connected with guilt about attempted genocide of native Americans - there was a lot of imagery to suggest that, not not to mention the fact that the Hotel (name escapes me, but it was a clue, too) was built on a Red Indian graveyard . Was the book more about the horrors of writers' block?. I can't remember, but I do remember the scene with him typing the same phrase over and over - that and attacking Shelley Duvall with an axe. Which I wanted to do myself by then

The first 'Alien' started as a short story, I think,the one with the title 'Do Androis dreaming of electric sheep?' but it may have been another I'm thinking of - where Ian Holmes is decapitated but his head keeps talking. Maybe the writers deliberately choose short stories because of they are relatively unknown.

I liked the film of 'Watership Down' but the book seemed quite stuffy and dull. 'Rob Roy' might qualify, but that comes under costume drama and probably very few people read Walter Scott these days. How many people have read 'Little Dorrit' and can claim to make the comparison? Like 'Frankenstein' in its many versions, or 'Dracula', ditto. A-Level students really struggle with that. Can you really say the books are better when people don't read them anymore? Jane Austen,anyone?

I liked the film 'Beowulf', although it made me laugh in parts, especially Ray Winstone saying 'I will rid you of your monster' in a South London accent, and Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother. It would have been silly to to rush round telling people how much better the poem was, though.

I just don't think you can make that kind of evaluation because the filmmaker doesn't set out to replicate the book.The nearest you'd get is those old versions of Shakespeare where they set the camera up to film the staged play. Even then, it wouldn't be the same as reading it.

I can't see why the graphic novels don't translate - I'd have thought they'd be ideal.

Sheila

The first 'Alien' started as a short story, I think,the one with the title 'Do Androis dreaming of electric sheep?' but it may have been another I'm thinking of - where Ian Holmes is decapitated but his head keeps talking. Maybe the writers deliberately choose short stories because of they are relatively unknown.

'Alien' was an Alan Dean Foster novel - I have a feeling he was a screen writer, and may have done the script for the film. His books were good, but yuo can't really do better than an alien bursting through someone's chest, or the alien spacecraft, so i would put the adaption better than the book.

'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' by Philip K. Dick was made into the film 'Blade Runner' starring Harrison Ford, which has been chopped and changed about in various directors cuts and director's final cut, but, to be honest, the first film version with the voice-over was the best, and superior to the book (- the ending was a little different in the book).


- NaomiM

Thanks for putting me right on that, Naomi.I remember seeing the title on the credits and thinking what a good one it was.

'Slumdog Millionaire' has got to be a fiar contender for being as good as the book. It's based on a prize winning story called Q & A by Vikas Swarup. He says he thinks Danny Boyle has made an excellent job of filming it, but I can't tell because I haven't read it.

I think 'The Railway Children' (film) was better than the book, too. Also, 'Walkabout', but that was another one with lots of scenery. '

'Lord of the Flies' stuck pretty close to the book, and was a successful adaptation, in the 1963 b/w version. All the Thomas Hardy novels adapt well, such as 'Far from The Madding Crowd'and 'Tess of the Durbervilles'.

'Brief Encounter' was enjoyed by a lot more people as a movie than as a play, but Noel Coward's script played a big part. 'Casablanca' is ranked as one of the greatest films but the original story needed a lot of work from scriptwriters.

Sheila

I heard they were going to make Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? into a movie in its own right. Blade Runner resembles the book, but misses its central point by miles.

JB

Just hearing about the death of John Updike, I thought of 'Couples'. Great, one might say seminal, book, but mediocre film. I don't think any of his others stories were made into films.

Sheila