Some movies that I think far outshine the books they're based on:
1) 2010. Arthur C. Clarke had great ideas, but he had a hard time putting them on paper; for one thing, he seemed to have a shaky grasp of how human beings actually talk to each other, which to me is a huge failing for someone who wants to write fiction. Also, in the book, rather than constructing a scaffold to hold the Discovery and the Leonov together, they use miles of carbon-fiber tape. Yes, they fucking taped two gigantic spaceships together. Can you imagine how retarded that would look in real life? Not to mention the sheer logistical problems with carting a ginormous roll of tape all the way to Jupiter; at least in the movie you could imagine the crews gathering up all the scrap metal they could and doing a hasty weld job. Also, the Cold War subplot was a fantastic bit of writing that the novel lacked.
2) The Green Mile. The movie was basically what the book(s) would have been if they'd stripped out about 30 pages of the usual Stephen King claptrap. Tighter story, more believable dialogue, and just all around better.
3) Just about any movie based on a Michael Crichton novel. See entry 1.
4) Blade Runner. I'll just say it: Philip K. Dick was a fucking horrible writer, and it's no wonder that almost none of his material ever survives when the time comes to make a movie. His characters are like sock puppets, and his plots don't flow so much as lurch.
Keep in mind that these are just my opinions. Also, I don't believe that the movie is always or even usually better; the first Hitchhiker's novel was superior in every way to the movie, for instance, and the less said about Romeo + Juliet, the better. But I want to hear about other cases where the movie did right what the novel failed to do, for whatever reason. So: Opinions. Go.
1) 2010. Arthur C. Clarke had great ideas, but he had a hard time putting them on paper; for one thing, he seemed to have a shaky grasp of how human beings actually talk to each other, which to me is a huge failing for someone who wants to write fiction. Also, in the book, rather than constructing a scaffold to hold the Discovery and the Leonov together, they use miles of carbon-fiber tape. Yes, they fucking taped two gigantic spaceships together. Can you imagine how retarded that would look in real life? Not to mention the sheer logistical problems with carting a ginormous roll of tape all the way to Jupiter; at least in the movie you could imagine the crews gathering up all the scrap metal they could and doing a hasty weld job. Also, the Cold War subplot was a fantastic bit of writing that the novel lacked.
2) The Green Mile. The movie was basically what the book(s) would have been if they'd stripped out about 30 pages of the usual Stephen King claptrap. Tighter story, more believable dialogue, and just all around better.
3) Just about any movie based on a Michael Crichton novel. See entry 1.
4) Blade Runner. I'll just say it: Philip K. Dick was a fucking horrible writer, and it's no wonder that almost none of his material ever survives when the time comes to make a movie. His characters are like sock puppets, and his plots don't flow so much as lurch.
Keep in mind that these are just my opinions. Also, I don't believe that the movie is always or even usually better; the first Hitchhiker's novel was superior in every way to the movie, for instance, and the less said about Romeo + Juliet, the better. But I want to hear about other cases where the movie did right what the novel failed to do, for whatever reason. So: Opinions. Go.
