Books vs Movies

[Kamen_Kaiju]

you know in the Hunger Games....



just kidding.


no I'm not,..I read 'em.

To be fair the books are about violent revolution and were pretty cool. The movies,...not so much, but sorta. More tween love stuff in the movies. That's pretty toned down in the book. More death, less squishy-face sad-cry.

 

[Benjammin]

V, I have the US Libray 3 edition. Well worth it-Dick is a drug- I read him and I want to laugh, cry,sigh.....He is a true mystic. A Scanner Darkly is a great book/film.

And Scanner Darkly is a case where the book and movie are so good, and so similar (if I recall correctly) that I think it's hard to say that the book is so much better. If anything I think the movie is that much better because of the visual style, it really lends itself to what the story is about and whats happening to the characters

 

[Benjammin]

I didn't read much at all as a kid. Hell, I used to make up book reports out of thin air. Shows you how much attention my teachers paid. Now I wish I had sharpened that tool back then, there's so much more I could have taken in, and there's nothing like having new experiences when you're young and psycho like you described :laugh2:, a great experience shaped you so much in those years.

I'm pretty much the same, I read more post-schooling then I ever did in my youth. I partially blame the curriculum for making us read so much crap. I had to discover those books which ultimately got me interested in reading. The Shining was one of those books, I read it when I was 10-11 and it blew my mind. I can't remember if I saw the movie before the book or not, but the movie is shit next to the book (and I like the movie)

I got into an argument with my teacher in 9th grade when we were reading Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare wrote that as a play, it's meant to be watched and listened to, reading the book gave me a headache.

Of all the books I read for school, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy was the best

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I don't understand the criticism that Stephen King books are confusing. They're really not. Other authors almost seem to consider Kings work like junk-food because it's not 'deep'. No offense but if a King book confuses you you're just not paying attention or you're skimming the pages.

I don't either. His plotlines are pretty easy to follow.

I wouldn't call him "junk food" myself. As a writer, I learnt most from King how to build characters. He's simply a master at constructing a full person with a few details and good dialogue.

I think the critical rejection of King's work is due to him writing and selling so many goddamned books. But Model Ts rolled off the assembly line by the thousands, and they were damned good cars. What does a critic know?

I read fiction for entertainment, and King delivers that in spades. Tell me about the fuckin' dog, y'know? It doesn't hurt that he has deeper themes to ponder, once you get past the byline on the title page.

 

[Tim Fezziwig]

Thump is right. Stephen King is in my top 10. He paints pictures and also elicits thoughts. Critics are .....don't get me started. "Genre" writers get bad raps. Elmore Leonard, Chandler, Lovecraft=pulp writers- write lovely prose. Here are two of my most watched adaptations.

 

[Shred Astaire]

Stephen King is #1. That's why all his movie adaptations end up sucking (most anyway....we know the exceptions).

I have read every single one of his books several times. These days I am optimistic about the adaptations but I am still critical once they are out.

He writes about people....and generally, the adaptations are not about people...they are about the plot they decided to go with and the people seem to be secondary.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Elmore Leonard

I've got two of his on the bookshelf waiting their turn in the lineup.

 

[kevinpaul]

Some books should be mandatory reading, like "To kill a mockingbird" a very power book. Harper Lee did have a lot of help from Truman Capote. There is a list of great reads like that. The books / novels that are too much, "War and peace" is boring and long. In this case a movie will work. Now day I only have time for work related reading. I depend on moves to be true to the novel. I try to slip some personal reading in. I keep them in my study but I don't think I will ever get around to reading any of them. Movies involve less lifting.

 

[Digger]

Always the book, excepting The Exorcist & Godfather 1.

Reading the Exorcist before seeing the film had me going "Bloody Hell, if they did "that" with that scene what are they going to do with the next one! So the book enhanced the film for me. With the Godfather if I hadn't read the book forst I would't have had a clue what was going on because of all the mumbling going on!

As for remakes most are at best shallow imitation of the original, forsaking acting for special effects! i don't bother with them at all. Having to resort to remakes shows how bankrupt for ideas the film industry really is.

 

[Frogfur]

I prefer reading stories. Although Lonesome Dove was very accurate.

 

[KSG_Standard]

I'm a book guy.

 

[spitfire]

Books take much longer to read than the 1.5 hours of a typical movie. So they can go into much more detail. And to some degree, the visual am audio stimulation of a movie is sort of a cop out. With a book, a writer has to draw you in and create the world and invoke emotions with just words.

Of course movies are their own art form. So while I think any well written books is more enjoyable than a movie acaptTion, it really is apples to oranges.

While I might spend 8 hours reading a book, I sure as heck don't want to take that long watching a movie.

 

[Benjammin]

While I might spend 8 hours reading a book, I sure as heck don't want to take that long watching a movie.

On the other hand, some mini series are good though IMO (Lonesome Dove, Band of Brothers). I'm not going to sit down and watch several hours of film at one time, but I've never sat down and read a book in one sitting either. With the rise of HBO and Netflix I wouldn't mind seeing some more mini-series type adaptions of books. I never saw the show (or read the book) but I heard the 11.22.63 series was good

 

[EasyAce]

I do think that every film version of the War of the Worlds sucked when compared to the original book. They should do a film version set in the 1890s, somehow that is the key to what makes a planetary invasion so scary. the Jeff Wayne musical adaption is great though

If you (or anyone else) haven't heard the original radio adaptation, you should.

Mercury Theater of the Air, "War of the Worlds" (CBS; 30 October 1938). Orson Welles, Dan Seymour, Paul Stewart, Kenny Delmar, Ray Collins, others. Writer: Howard Koch, adapting
the H.G. Wells novel.

 

[Bill Hicklin temp]

I think on the whole that second-rate potboilers make better movies than literary masterpieces. A film has to be condensed and simplified; there's only two or three hours and you can only work in broad brushstrokes. Two cases come immediately to mind: Gone With The Wind and The Godfather as books are schlock, but became all-time great film adaptations.

On the other hand, a dense, complex novel simply can't be potted into 120 or so hours of visuals or dialogue, which is why there never has been a better than mediocre film of Moby Dick, The Brothers Karamazov or Dune (or <dodging brickbats> The Lord of the Rings).

 

[Caleb]

yeah but there's stuff in the book (like Luca Brasi throwing the baby in the incinerator) that's sooooo much more disturbing than the movie.

True, yet I think that the Godfather screenplay did a near perfect job of trimming the fat from the book. I mean, I've never sat and watched that movie thinking, "Man, I could sure use a whole lot of details about the great Johnny Fontane's personal life. And why the hell isn't there a scene or two devoted to Sonny's penis?" The book spent a lot of ink on both subjects.

 

[Caleb]

On the other hand, some mini series are good though IMO (Lonesome Dove, Band of Brothers) I heard the 11.22.63 series was good

It was ok. No too surprisingly, I thought the book was better. The kid who played Oswald was phenomenal, Christ he even sounded just like him. Josh Duhamel, who I only know as one of those rom com dudes, was extremely menacing and completely believable as one of the villains. His agent should try to get him some serious bad guy roles. I think James Franco was kind of a miscast. That's not a knock on him, I enjoy some of his work, I just think a complete unknown would have been a great fit as the character is supposed to be a pretty anonymous and unremarkable everyman. I just kept seeing James Franco, but I guess that's my problem.

 

[Benjammin]

True, yet I think that the Godfather screenplay did a near perfect job of trimming the fat from the book. I mean, I've never sat and watched that movie thinking, "Man, I could sure use a whole lot of details about the great Johnny Fontane's personal life. And why the hell isn't there a scene or two devoted to Sonny's penis?" The book spent a lot of ink on both subjects.

the part with the vaginal reconstructive surgery was interesting

But, yeah I agree, I think the movie is so incredibly well done, that it really does outrank the book. Especially when you consider parts 1 & 2, there is alot of epic story there and lots of character development. Though I think you do need to lump parts 1 & 2 together to give it the full weight.

For my money, the young Vito sequences are some of the best film making period. Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro are the only 2 actors who have won Oscars for portraying the same character. De Niro is the only actor who's stepped into an Oscar winning role, and won an Oscar for it. I guess I'm biased because De Niro is probably my favorite actor, but damn if that isn't some of kind of feat.

As I mentioned in my OP, the only thing in the book that I wish we had seen on screen, is the gang war from the 30s where Sonny stepped up and made his bones. I read that Coppola and Puzo had talked about making that into a 4th movie, but apparently it hasn't happened yet.

 

[Bill Hicklin temp]

The one thing which prevented GFII from reaching perfection was their inability to sign Richard Castellano to reprise Peter Clemenza, as intended; instead they had to invent Frankie Pentangeli to fill that role. Had it been Clemenza in the 50s parts of II, coerced into killing himself at the end - Vito's oldest friend from the (Bruno Kirby) flashback sections, Michel's mentor from GFI, it would have been so incredible.

Also, Diane Keaton over-acted.

 

[E1WOOD5150]

If I have to watch a show or movie and cant turn on captions/subtitles I don't want to watch it. So even when watching the movie I still want to be reading.

When I sit down to sht I'll grab the shampoo bottle if I have to.

"Rinse, repeat if necessary? fascinating." ..I'm always reading something.

and the cool thing about liking computer books and manuals? If they're a couple years old you can get them for pennies. A $50. book that's a few years old you can buy used for like $3. It's awesome! (not all of them, but a lot of them)

I'm a lot like that. I will read most anything. When I was younger, I would read the back of the cereal box while having breakfast. Or, I would pull a random letter from the early 60's Encyclopedia Brittanica's from my Mom's youth, and read something...anything.

As for movies or books being better, I have usually much preferred the book to the movie. The Godfather (and The Godfather part 2) and Jaws were great books made into great movies. The Hunt for Red October is a good book made into a great movie, although some of the backstory could have made the movie even better, IMO. Raise The Titanic was a great book made into a terrible movie. The worst offender was Dan Jenkins' book Semi-Tough. What a hilarious book!!! Some of the moments in that book had me rolling on the floor laughing. A bit racist, just because of the language, but hilarious nonetheless. And what a bait and switch the movie turned out to be. Some stupid 70's crap about self-help, with Burt Convy as the guru. Horrible, horrible movie. But read the book. You WILL laugh out loud, especially at Bubba's attempt at romance on his honeymoon.

I have gotten away from reading books, per se, although I did re-read Slash's autobiography while on vacation last month. I read magazines more than anything, just because I can usually read an article while I poop. I've learned a helluva lot about musclecars and amps and guitars over the years while perched upon the throne.