Better than the book!
 

I was thinking about how people always claim that, when films are made from novels, the book was better.

It's a rarer case, apparently, when one finds the movie superior to the book.

The question is: Do you find any movies to be better than films that inspired them?

For example: I've always felt that Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula was a really great imagining of the story. In fact, the characters are much deeper and the story a bit more engrossing with its romantic twist and the back story for Drac.

Thoughts?

My pick is also a Coppola movie: The Godfather.

The film does everything right that the book does and provides a perfect soundtrack. What makes the movie better is the fact that it cuts out all the pointless chapters that involve Sonny's mistress (who moves away to Vegas and literally has nothing to do with the main plot once Sonny dies... it really felt like some corny romance novel got shoe-horned in between random chapters).

Also, Goodfellas is better than Wiseguy. This is mainly because they combined the characters of Lenny and Tommy D for Joe Pesci's classic performance as Tommy DeVito.

Lord of the Rings pops in my head. Half of the second book was like a poorly written yaoi fanfiction. Kinda disgusting. Not that the movie was any better at hiding it, but oh well.

Off the top of my head Fight Club is the only one that comes to mind.
I'm sure others will come to me later.

I think that book gets better after seeing the film, where you just see these words, and imagine them being the thoughts of Ed Norton.

But the downside of that (or upside, in my case) is that every other Palahniuk book has this mental image of Ed Norton spouting off the content.

Shawshank Redemption
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Both are way better than the books...

Just to name a few...

-ms

Lord of the Rings, definitely.

The books are many things, but well-written isn't one of them. Overly bloated and meandering, it's like they're half narrative and half dumping ground for Tolkein's assorted musings, relevance be damned. Why the hell was Tom Bombadil in the books?

The kind of thing that really begs for a three-hour spectacle instead.

A movie few have probably read the book for, or even knew it was based on a book: Mrs. Doubtfire.

Mean Girls
Helluva lot more entertaining as a movie than the textbook it was based on...

Shutter Island. What an incredible film.

I Am Legend.

The book was lame
The movie was a bit less lame

Which movie?

I liked all 3. Vincent Price's Last Man on Earth was closer to the book in story, Charlston Heston's Omega Man had the best Neville in my opinion, and Smith's I am Legend was probably my favorite....just because of Will actually....:P

See, I loved I am Legend the book and HATED Will Smith's version. It was such a departure from what made me enjoy the novel.

Yeah, that movie was an insult to the original book. It's a shame, because Will Smith is awesome.

Woah, really? The Hobbit it is a very streamlined book compared to Lord of the Rings.

Sure, it still has Tolkein's penchant for overly elaborate descriptions and a few awkwardly paced bits, but it lacks all the pointless tertiary characters, songs, even more needlessly elaborate descriptions, and abundance of fictional history that clutters up LOTR. It's really cool that you created lineage and songs for every minor character, Tolkein, but they have absolutely no place in what should otherwise be a fairly straight-forward adventure story.

Great historian and linguist? Absolutely. Incredibly creative? No doubt. Good writer? Ehhhh...

Personally, I didn't like The Hobbit much at all. It actually took me a couple tries to get through it. I love LOTR, though. Yeah, the Tom Bombadil thing is a big "WTF?," but after you get through that I didn't find anything about it difficult or boring. I wouldn't even say that the movie is better, but I also wouldn't say that it's worse. The movie in and of itself is a masterpiece of the genre, but I would never watch it as a replacement for reading the book. Each stands well on its own.

I'm sure there's a movie I liked more than the book, but I really can't think of anything right at the moment.

I'm actually teaching The Hobbit today. It's my favorite!

These are some shocking answers! So far two of my favorite books have been preferred as film.

Though I feel that Lord of the Rings was tedious.

Well, Tolkein wasn't trying to write a fast-paced adventure novel, so I don't know why it should be measured as failing to live up to that standard. He was looking to fill a gap in English mythology and history and he met that mark. That's how I think of it anyway.

Or, why the hell wasn't he in the movies? :trazz:

Because I don't want to hear about his wallpaper for forty-five minutes of screen time?

Dexter the series is vastly better than Darkly Dreaming Dexter.

And I'll throw in that Twilight is gotta be better than the book. I havent read it, but the movie was horrendous enough that I'd prefer it to be over in an hour and a half then churn through a whole book.