Movies That Were Better Than The Book

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Esotera

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Lionsfan said:
Blade Runner. I know it's not a direct book-to-film but the movie just illustrated the scenery and the feel so much better and the characters were better (at least I thought so)
Sacrelige!

Some of the Harry Potter books were pretty terrible. Deathly Hallows Part 1 definitely beats the book, not too sure about the second.
 

warprincenataku

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Harry Potter 7 Part 2 was far better than the book. This is one of the only movies in the series that I liked better than the books.
 

Funkysandwich

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King Toasty said:
Lord of the Rings. I'm going to get hate for this, but the story was just more... I don't know, connected. And Aragorn had a much better motivation- in the book, he wanted to be king basically because it was his birthright, while in the move he did it for his love.

Books were still brilliant, though. I just think the movies were better.
I'm going to say the the first book was much better then the first movie. The first movie dragged on and on and on... The second and and third movies hold up much better when compared to their respective books though. I wouldn't say that they were better, but I think the average person would enjoy them more.
 

Spookimitsu

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The Basilisk series or the film adaptation of the story, I think it's called Shinobi Heart under Blade or something silly and melodramatic. The book reads kind of silly-ish.

here's the book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kouga_Ninja_Scrolls
 

Dom1

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spartan231490 said:
Dom1 said:
Lord Of The Rings - it feels like sacrilege to say it, but there's an awful lot in the books that a good editor would have cut out. We didn't need eleven pages of Elven song, or Tom Bombadil (at all). Peter Jackson cut what needed to be cut and made the whole vision much more compelling.
I disagree on a massive level dude. [...] The return to the shire was epic and important, it showed the fate of Saruman and Wormtongue
I'll agree with you on that much at least - the ending gets a bit tedious, but I guess they couldn't have added another 45 minutes to an already pretty long film. I still say that Bombadil was a tedious arse, and fairly easily replaced by a ten-second scene handing out some swords.

Edit: I meant that the ending of the film gets a bit tedious, because without the destruction of the Shire the last 30 minutes or so is lacking any real conflict.
 

Jamboxdotcom

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Spookimitsu said:
The Basilisk series or the film adaptation of the story, I think it's called Shinobi Heart under Blade or something silly and melodramatic. The book reads kind of silly-ish.

here's the book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kouga_Ninja_Scrolls
Hey, finally one with which i can agree!

I suppose i can agree with the people who are saying that a nuke was a better ending for Watchmen than a psychic bomb, but otherwise the comic was far superior (though i still loved the movie).

Also, i suppose i could agree with the OP, because even though i haven't actually seen the Kick-Ass movie, there's no way it could be worse than the comics. Fuck Mark Millar.
 

Eclectic Dreck

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Dom1 said:
Lord Of The Rings - it feels like sacrilege to say it, but there's an awful lot in the books that a good editor would have cut out. We didn't need eleven pages of Elven song, or Tom Bombadil (at all). Peter Jackson cut what needed to be cut and made the whole vision much more compelling.
SeriousIssues said:
...Fight Club.

I feel bad saying that, but I saw the movie first, then the book was kinda weird in comparison.
Two of my favorite examples of movie better than the book. The Lord of the Rings had a terrible problem with pacing and Tolkien often seemed to struggle with knowing what was important in a scene. Hell, even when asked point blank, he couldn't explain Tom Bombadil.

Fight club is somewhat different. In most respects I would say that the movie was better save one relatively minor point: I never really got why the girl was even remotely important based solely on the movie.
 

Arsen

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Blade Runner. You can't replicate (pun intended) the atmosphere, music, environments, and the beautiful...everything, into a mere novel. Some of the environments still inspire people to this very day.

Stand by Me and arguably the Shining in some respect.
 

Lionsfan

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Esotera said:
Lionsfan said:
Blade Runner. I know it's not a direct book-to-film but the movie just illustrated the scenery and the feel so much better and the characters were better (at least I thought so)
Sacrelige!
Maybe I'm off, it's been a while since I read the book whereas the just saw the movie the other day
 

Scar05

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There is rarely a time when I find the movies better than the books, but I'm going to have to say Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

Could never get myself to be able to finish LotR - there was just waay too much content to wade through and u never felt like u were getting anywhere anytime soon when reading it.

The books for Harry Potter started off fairly good but towards the last few books I felt that she lost the plot and many story arcs and plot lines were just left or forgotten and felt rather pointless. The movies, on the other hand tied up everything, not great, but much better.
 

InfectedStar

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It's really strange to find a thread like this, ONLY because atleast more then 60% of the time movies just don't do the books justice. I.e. A Series of unfortunate events, Eragon, (oh god do I ever want to say) The Divinci Code, The Shining, and The Time Traveler's Wife.

Those are just some examples...
If you don't get what I just put, I put down movies that WEREN'T as good as the books.
 

ElectroJosh

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I am going with Schindler's List and Forrest Gump. The first was based on a book that wasn't very well written and the second on a terribly written book.

I am surprised about those who thought the Watchman was better than the book. As a movie it felt very cheesy with ridiculous "300 style" action sequences. It lacked the subtlety of the characterisations and the timing made certain elements (like doctor Manhattan's monologue on mars) feel forced and trite rather than interesting. The one thing it did right (changing one particular aspect of the ending by removing the fake alien) didn't not remotely forgive it for all the things it did wrong. What frustrated me the most was that, in the hands of a semi-competent director, it could have been something great.
 

DarthFennec

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God, there's a bunch. So I'll just pick the latest one that came out that I saw.

Potter 7 part 2 was way better than the book. It told the story better, I thought. I really noticed the relatively complex relationships between Harry, Dumbledore, Riddle, Snape, Lily, Draco, etc, in the movie, but none of that seemed very important in the book (even though it's kind of, you know, the driving force of the story). Also, Snape's big final twist thing was really not believable to me in the book, it just didn't seem like something he would do, but watching the movie I really felt it and believed it, so I think it was really well done there. I guess this is mostly due to the fact that Snape's actor is really good at his job.

Dumbledore, as anticipated, has a terrible actor in the movie, but somehow in this one it works to his advantage. It really helps to characterize him as this godlike, unfeeling being, who doesn't care about individual lives or emotions, but does everything for `the greater good' (a term used in the book but not in the movie, as far as I can recall). In the book, this concept of the greater good is not expressed very well by the Dumbledore character, because he does care about Harry, he apologizes to him, and he generally acts like a friendly, loving guy, but in the movie none of that can be expressed through the stone cold, blank expression and the flat, emotionless voice of a horrible actor. I really got the feeling that, in his all-powerful omniscience, Dumbledore had truly forgotten long ago what the fight between love and fear, good and evil, was actually about, and this makes him an interestingly flawed character.

The only misgiving I had about that movie was that Ginny got like zero lines. Ginny's awesome and should get to say something ...
 

Raggedstar

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Just to add on to one that wasn't mentioned yet, I liked The Secret Of NIMH more than the book. I like how the book focused on the rats and the research (which stepped from the more stereotypical lab rat scenario seen in the movie), story was more explained, and the ending was open-ended with the sacrifices and whatnot, but I still like the movie more. F/Brisby was more likable, I like the use of fantasy, Nicodemus gives me chills (not to mention the animation itself), and the ending was more climactic. So what that Jenner is a villain? At least he was a cool villain as consolation. There's no way Bluth with his first full-length feature outside of Disney could've covered everything the book did.

And then otherwise chalk me up for Howl's Moving Castle, Jurassic Park, etc.
 

Camarii

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The Narnia movies, even if lacking, does by far outdo the books for me. I have read all of the books around four times each but they are still... dull. I like the movies better because they had some personality I didn't find in the books.

And Fight Club. Beeing my absolute favorit movie I can't say anything else