That rare instance: When the movie is better than the book.

So have you ever read a book, then watched the movie and found yourself to be surprised that you liked the movie better? Yes, it actually happens. It's rare, but it happens.

Jaws the movie is far better than Jaws the book. In the book, the characters were unlikeable and the story was boring. Nothing happened! It's been years since I read it and I plan to keep it that way.

The movie had characters that were likeable, believable and I could relate to them. Not to mention, one great last hour, with a top notch villain.

I'll have to say Lord of the Rings.jointed

[QUOTE="jointed"]I'll have to say Lord of the Rings.trentman7

[QUOTE="trentman7"][QUOTE="jointed"]I'll have to say Lord of the Rings.Bourbons3

The Shining is a good example.gobo212

[QUOTE="Bourbons3"][QUOTE="trentman7"]This.Cherokee_Jack

[QUOTE="Cherokee_Jack"][QUOTE="Bourbons3"] Agreed.jointed

True, but the main strenght of LOTR is the world he created, which is something movie version failed to replicate. So I'm torn on this one

Green Mile

The Shining

Godfather

A time to kill

The Firm

Dexter

Gone Baby Gone

Fight Club

About a Boy

Psycho

Jaws

Silence of the lambs

Ben Hur

Blade Runner (awfuly torn on this one though :) )

Gone with the Wind

Bond series (the books are utter rubish)

Bourne series

Forest Gump

Interview with the Vampire

The Graduate

[QUOTE="Bourbons3"][QUOTE="trentman7"]This.Cherokee_Jack

The Shawshank Redemptioncomeonthehoops

I agree so much. I tried getting into the book but I just could not.

The thing about the LOTR books is that all of the mountains, valleys, hills, trees, everything seems the same. It's really hard to imagine exactly where you are at.Travo_basic

It has yet to happen to me.Theokhoth

Regarding LotR:

The books were very, very, very descriptive. That was why they became so well-known. Where most authors make a story, Tolkien made a whole world, with its own languages and history and religion and culture. But, like Jointed said, the description nulled the action a good bit.

The movie had more action, but at the expense of cutting out a massive chunk of the journey. So the movies were more fast-paced, and people tend to like that nowadays (most of the greatest literature ever written is slow, really).

So it depends on your preference. I think both movie and book were amazing, but being forced to pick one, I would go with what Tolkien made.

Regarding LotR:

The books were very, very, very descriptive. That was why they became so well-known. Where most authors make a story, Tolkien made a whole world, with its own languages and history and religion and culture. But, like Jointed said, the description nulled the action a good bit.

The movie had more action, but at the expense of cutting out a massive chunk of the journey. So the movies were more fast-paced, and people tend to like that nowadays (most of the greatest literature ever written is slow, really).

So it depends on your preference. I think both movie and book were amazing, but being forced to pick one, I would go with what Tolkien made.

Theokhoth

It has yet to happen to me.Theokhoth

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is definitely my choice...

But shame to all of you who said Fight Club... As great as the movie is, the book is still significantly better...

The films make the world more implicit than in the book. When they walk through a random glade, and see a random statue commemerating some famous incident that happened in the glade, the entire history of the glade isn't explained, and it doesn't have to be.

Qooroo

That's why I can't agree LOTR movies were better than the original novels, they were just diffrent, fixed most problems from original while at the same time loosing their biggest strenght. It's just one of those few cases where the movie ended up too diffrent to decide which version is better (another examples of that would be Prestige and Blade Runner)

How about Last of the Mohicans comes to mind, along with Die Hard.Yagr_Zero

[QUOTE="trentman7"][QUOTE="jointed"]I'll have to say Lord of the Rings.Bourbons3

But shame to all of you who said Fight Club... As great as the movie is, the book is still significantly better...

pyroistheone

[QUOTE="Yagr_Zero"]How about Last of the Mohicans comes to mind, along with Die Hard.Travo_basic

[QUOTE="pyroistheone"]

But shame to all of you who said Fight Club... As great as the movie is, the book is still significantly better...

AdrianWerner

The book much better shows the relationship between Tyler's personalities, and that is the backbone of the story...

The book much better shows the relationship between Tyler's personalities, and that is the backbone of the story...

pyroistheone

Moby Dick, definitely. The book was so intolerably boring that any movie at or above the level of "bearable" would have been far more enjoyable than actually reading the book itself. Herman Melville wrote it as more of an encyclopedia on whaling than anything else.thepwninator

[QUOTE="thepwninator"]Moby Dick, definitely. The book was so intolerably boring that any movie at or above the level of "bearable" would have been far more enjoyable than actually reading the book itself. Herman Melville wrote it as more of an encyclopedia on whaling than anything else.Sajedene

[QUOTE="Sajedene"][QUOTE="thepwninator"]Moby Dick, definitely. The book was so intolerably boring that any movie at or above the level of "bearable" would have been far more enjoyable than actually reading the book itself. Herman Melville wrote it as more of an encyclopedia on whaling than anything else.thepwninator

I wanted to shoot myself at one point when all the book kept talking about was Narwhales and their teeth or whatever -- I even think he repeats himself. How much crap about whales can one write down. Maybe its a sexual thing. Hmmm....

[QUOTE="thepwninator"][QUOTE="Sajedene"] Ahoyhoy! Someone who agrees with me! Seriously... that book was torture. I read it for "fun" thinking that so many people say its one of the greatest books ever written -- but all it was was indeed just an encyclopedia of whales. If we took all that stuff out the book would be so thin but a much more enjoyable read. Sajedene

I wanted to shoot myself at one point when all the book kept talking about was Narwhales and their teeth or whatever -- I even think he repeats himself. How much crap about whales can one write down. Maybe its a sexual thing. Hmmm....

I don't think he repeats himself. I know he repeats himself. In one chapter, he's describing a material that whalers take from within sperm whales that is extremely valuable, and he devotes three entire (long) paragraphs to describing its uses, and each one is simply a rearrangement of the previous one.

And he was a whaler himself, you know, there weren't any women aboard the ships, and homosexuality was extremely frowned upon, so maybe it was a sexual thing :|

Can't think of any.

If i've read the book and movie, I liked the book.

Any other movies i've seen with a book version i never read it.

Blade Runner (awfuly torn on this one though :) )

Bourne series

AdrianWerner

I'm with you on Blade Runner. That movie is beautiful, and the acting was great...just enough to put it over "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", although both are fantstic.

However, I'll disagree with you on the Bourne movies. The actions scenes are ok, but there's no story and the characters are soulless and lifeless.Good action movies, but they're remarkably forgettable. The books are some of the best I've read in that genre, the writing is great, the characters are fully fleshed out...I really can't think of many negatives for the books(at least, the initial trilogy).