movies that were better than the book?

[mark414]

i was out camping this weekend with some friends and i asked the question, are there any movies out there that were BETTER than the book?

none of us could come up with an answer, and the only one i might be able to think of would be the godfather, but i never read the book so...i don't know.

are there any movies in existence that somehow managed to better than the books they were based on?

[Broken_Hero]

1. hmm...

I would say Harry Potter I...they really didn't leave much out...but again, I think the movie/book are tied!...Not sure, this is a very good question.

[Vidar]

2. "A Color Purple"

From Walker's dedication of the book to her vagina to the final page, the book was barely readable.

[Broken_Hero]

3. I never read it, but the movie

is one of my wife's favorite movies, ever...I swear she watches it twice a month...

[insane_cratic_gal]

8. I LOVE that movie

But I love the book just as much.. I think they are on par with one another. I read a few other Alice Walkers books because of that book

[Vidar]

13. Whoopi & Spielberg both richly deserved oscars for that movie.

[noonwitch]

25. The book was hard to read, but the movie was so well-done

Spielburg was robbed that year. He made that story into a masterpiece about human transformation.

I always cry tears of happiness at the end, when Celie and Nettie are finally reunited. I also love the scene right before that, where the people at the speakeasy follow Shug to church and they join in with the choir. The music inspires Albert to finally do right by Celie and get her sister back for her.

Not all of Speilburg's movies are equal, but "The Color Purple" and "Schindler's List" are his best.

[CanuckAmok]

4. "The Thing", based on the short story "Who Goes There?"

The story is so-so, while the John Carpenter version.... :scared:

[jpgray]

6. No fucking way

:o

I'd say great minds think alike, but I think we can rule half of that out. :D

[RebelOne]

17. Yes, but the original "The Thing" from the 1950s.

In fact, I think it is the best science fiction movie ever made.

[jpgray]

5. The Thing is better than "Who Goes There?"

Both Hawkes and Carpenter improved on it.

[CanuckAmok]

7. "Fight Club" and "Slaughterhouse Five"

Fight Club, ther movie, was way, way better than the book (and I say that as a Chuck Pahlaniak fan).

the movie Slaughterhouse Five probably isn't better than the book, but I think it's just as good, and very faithful to the story.

[mark414]

12. ahh shit why didn't i think of fight club

and i was getting ready to kill you until you clarified yourself re: slaughterhouse five

[electricmonk]

9. The Godfather

The movie is brilliant, the book just your basic pulp novel. The book was ok but I thought there were some pointless subplots thrown in that didn't help the main story at all. Thankfully they were left out of the movie or only briefly mentioned.

[argyl]

45. The book was pretty trashy really. The movie was a great work of art.

I've watched both Godfather I and II many times.Coppolla really spun gold out of straw with his brilliant rendition of the book.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

10. "The African Queen"

I never read the book, but my husband did.......he said it stank!

:hi:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

11. V

hands down.

I read the comic before I saw the movie, but then, I never was a real fan of comics, perhaps I'm biased. :shrug:

[Benfea]

33. Put on your asbestos suit!

Them's fightin' words in comic book fan circles.

The comic book was better up to a certain point, then they stopped making issues for a while, then when it came back it wasn't nearly as good. Dunno why. Also, the comic book was built around criticisms specific to British conservatives of the 1980s, so it probably doesn't mean very much to us here and now.

Despite the complaints from hard core Alan Moore fans, I thought the movie was brilliant.

[Glorfindel]

14. "To Kill a Mockingbird," maybe...

the book was wonderful, but the actors, led by Gregory Peck, brought the characters to luminous life in the movie.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

19. I didn't care much for the movie.

But then, I only saw it in 10th grade English class just after we'd finished with the book. At the time, I was too immature to appreciate it in either format.

Also, I'm one of those readers who likes to visualize, and the Gregory Peck movie couldn't measure up to the one I'd watched in my head.

[Magrittes Pipe]

15. Wild at Heart

[billyskank]

16. Starship Troopers

:rofl:

[jpgray]

21. With all the thespian clout of Casper van Dien and Denise Richards

How could it miss? :rofl:

[martymar64]

32. don't forget Michael Ironside

I could tell you're being sarcastic, but M.I. is a decent actor for the roles he plays.

The bug effects and spaceships were cool, but the acting (with the esception of M.I.) did stink up the tri-State area and the fascist undertones gave me the creeps.

[southpaw]

18. The Shining

Kubrick's movie is a classic... King's book isn't even among his best works, IMO.

[sir_captain]

37. Well look

here's something we actually agree about :-)

[southpaw]

41. Have we disagreed in the past?

If so, you must have been going by a different screen name at the time.

:toast:

[sir_captain]

43. Whoops my bad...

We have never disagreed. Sorry about that! :toast:

[southpaw]

44. No Prob...

:)

[philosophie_en_rose]

20. Left Behind

:rofl:

[jpgray]

22. Alan Thicke should star as God in that

Would take me back to the Growing Pains days...

[CanuckAmok]

24. It's the role he was born to play! n/t

[LostinVA]

23. Howard's End

[liontamer]

26. Secretary

I didn't like the story by Mary Gaitskill, but the movie was incredible

[azmouse]

27. Circle of Friends

The movie had a much better ending than the book by Maeve Binchy.

[displacedtexan]

28. Dr. Zhivago and Practical Magic.

[taterguy]

29. Deliverance

Bad jokes aside, the movie does do a helluva job conveying the beauty and danger of that river.

I also think All the President's Men qualifies since the movie didn't leave out anything important and makes it possible for the average person to understand the scandal without their eyes glazing over

[rbnyc]

30. The Dead Zone

I find SK's style tiresome, and I'm a huge DC fan.

[SOteric]

31. Bladerunner.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is kind of mediocre.

[Exultant Democracy]

35. ding ding, the best example

a very mediocre book was turned into a masterpiece (Ridley Scott's Cut of course.)

[Richard Steele]

42. Yup. A cinematic masterpiece based on a so-so novella.

[Squeech]

34. Who Am I This Time

Little known, and I think it was made for TV-- it's only an hour. It's based on the Vonnegut short story, but fleshes it out superbly. The leads are Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon, and it was directed by Jonathan Demme. It's really quite amazing!

I would also add The Commitments. The book was kinda lame. The movie is terrific, and not only because of the performances, remarkable though they are. The characters are better fleshed out, like the subtle class differences amongst the girl singers, and there are those wonderful quotable lines like "It's better to be an unemployed musician than an unemployed pipefitter!"

On edit: I disagree heartily about both Starship Troopers and Bladerunner, imaginative visuals notwithstanding. (William Gibson has spoken of Bladerunner, how it looked just like the mental image he had of the Neuromancer world.)

[sir_captain]

36. All of Kubrick's movies except for Lolita

[jus_the_facts]

38. JAWS....

....the movie is WAY better than the book....the book wasn't bad...just different.

[southpaw]

40. Yeah...

The affair between Matt Hooper and Ellen Brody seemed contrived, but it did play into the whole 'police man's wife wishing she were country-club material' sub-plot.

but yeah, I agree.

[mitchum]

39. "High Fidelity" and "The Ice Storm"