Movies that are better than the novels they are based on

[Ferret]

The only one I can think of is...Nope. Can't think of one. Not a sausage. Or movie for that matter.

 

[KenM]

My main beef with the Jurassic Park book/ movie is:

Spoiler

they changed too much from the book to the movie, different people got killed, ect. All they took was the basic plot of the book

 

[Kesh]

2001: A Space Odyssey, and 2010.

Gotta disagree, there. The novels really hit stride with me, while the movies were a little too light. Kubrick's film was certainly good, but left out far too much.

As for the subject... hm. I really don't know of any. In every instance I can think of, the book was better than the film.

 

[Krieg]

My main beef with the Jurassic Park book/ movie is:

Spoiler

they changed too much from the book to the movie, different people got killed, ect. All they took was the basic plot of the book

I can understand the streamlining of characters, but the one thing that has always bothered me is that in the film Hammond is a sweet old man who "did it for the children", in the book he is a right bastard who did it for the children "who's parents can pay for it"!

 

[Dark Jezter]

I can understand the streamlining of characters, but the one thing that has always bothered me is that in the film Hammond is a sweet old man who "did it for the children", in the book he is a right bastard who did it for the children "who's parents can pay for it"!

I was just disappointed that the big game hunter died in the movie (I think his name was Muldoon); he was a very cool character in the book.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

I'll second Fight Club. Good book, but even the author himself (Chuck Palahniuk) thought the film outdid it.

Chuck's follow-up novel, Survivor , was far better than Fight Club... it looks like the movie plans for it are stillborn, however...

 

[Krieg]

I was just disappointed that the big game hunter died in the movie (I think his name was Muldoon); he was a very cool character in the book.

Yeah the fact he was taken completely surprise by the Raptor's tactics when they aren't any different from those employed by many contemporary big predators was a load.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

But that's a bit of a strawman.

Yep.

Some of those changes did have to be made because of the media involved. Others did not, and were made for some other reason.

How's audience expectation grab you?

It's hardly a given that one can relate the success of the movies on the changes made to the books, though. That could very well (and in my opinion for both movies) have more to do with the strength of the original source material that showed through in spite of some of the changes that were made.

In those two cases, LotR was unfilmable as written, IMO, and therefore isn't a good example. We could debate that, but it would get us nowhere, as you will never convince me (several have tried) that LotR could have been directly translated into a palatable film. Jurassic Park, on the other hand, is debatable.

So here are what I see as the issues with the book that, good or bad, end up breaking audience expectation:

1) No romantic interest for the main character. Wasn't even a significant change, anyway.

2) Politically incorrect: two kids. 1 boy, 1 girl. In book, boy solves everything, girl only exists to cause problems. Irritated me in the book, would irritate a movie audience. Fix: Make girl older and marginally useful. Don't understand the problem, personally.

3) Hammond was a right bastard. Can't have your only senior citizen be a jerk who gets eaten by dinosaurs. Not politically correct. Bad change, but I can see why they made it. Besides, the movie focused on the dinosaurs as the villains. A mildly sympathetic human villain would have muddied the waters.

There are others, but I'm really tired and need sleep...

Mmmmmm... sleep...

 

[Krieg]

A mildly sympathetic human villain would have muddied the waters.

You mean kinda like Burke in Aliens?


Of course Creighton's long winded commentary on chaos theory wouldn't have translated well. They handled it nicely (and more importantly succintly) with Goldblum's water drops.

 

[Zulithe]

While not technically based off of (a single) book, I think Spider-Man 2 was better than most Spidey comics written over the last 20 years or so. Especially the ones from the 90s. Clone Saga, anyone? Dozens of poorly written and drawn venom or carnage mini-series?

And I disagree about the LotR movies being better, even though I LOVE the movies. Tolkien is unconventional, definitely doesn't follow the "rules" of writing a good story, but is brilliant and unsurpassed in the craft of fantasy writing IMO.