Books vs adaptations

[T.S Quint]

Having been a big fan of Stephen King's books for a long time, it's very rare to see a movie outshine the book. Shawshank, Stand by Me, Misery and The Green Mile stick pretty closely to the source material, save a few elements that don't matter.
Hard for me to say if they improve on the books though because I loved reading them so much. Same with The Shining.

The problem with movies adapted from King's work is that they are usually low budget affairs. Needful Things and The Dark Half could have been great movies, but for their limitations. There's a lot of stuff that did well in the 80's but doesn't really hold up today - Pet Semetary, Christine, Cujo, Firestarter, Salem's Lot.

Two rather underrated movies of his would be Apt Pupil and The Mist. I enjoyed both of them.
1408 wasn't too bad either.

Dreamcatcher is one of the biggest examples of why you shouldn't always stick close to the source material. It doesn't always translate well to film. Awful movie.

And it's not even worth talking about The Lawnmower Man. That movie bears so little resemblance to the source material that King made them take his name off it.

 

[bileduct]

I'm going to be controversial here:


Lord of the Rings movie series is better than the book.

Not really all that controversial dude.

Both were boring beyond belief but the absence of Tom Bombadil makes the movies clearly superior.

An epic f**king yawn fest of jaw breaking proportions.

 

[Walt Flanigan]

Both were boring beyond belief but the absence of Tom Bombadil makes the movies clearly superior.

Agreed.

 

[T.S Quint]

Not really all that controversial dude.

Both were boring beyond belief but the absence of Tom Bombadil makes the movies clearly superior.

An epic f**king yawn fest of jaw breaking proportions.

I love the movies, but couldn't make it through the books.
There is just no sense of urgency. It all takes place over such a long time. Frodo doesn't even go on his journey for years after finding the ring.

Plus there is just way too much boring detail that means nothing. I don't need to know who Frodo's 6th cousin's best friend's gardener is and how they fit in to the family. Just get on with the f**king story!

And yes, Bombadil was stupid.

 

[Parra]

Jurassic Park springs to mind. A clockwork orange as well. Fight Club as well imo.

Mad props to Peter Jackson for cutting Tom Bambodil out of the LoTR trilogy as well. Still not better than the book mind.

What about movies that make better sense for having read the book. Cloud Atlas is a steaming pile of dung if you do not know the source material, but is far better (not as good as the book still) for having read the book.

I've just watched Cloud Atlas. They did an awesome job. With the way they used the cast maybe it would work without having read the novel first. Glad I did though.

 

[myrrh ken]

I reckon American Psycho movie was better than the book. The book just went on and on - I just found it tedious.

Blade Runner movie was better than the book, although that was very good.

 

[bileduct]

I was pretty disappointed with the movie adaptation of Ender's Game, one of my favourite sci-fi novels.

But then again it had Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman behind it who are utter hacks, so I shouldn't have expected any better.

 

[Rhino_NQ]

A few true crime books that had very disappointing movies that didn't even come close to hitting the mark.

Iceman - the mob hitman Richard kiklinski. The book is chilling from the opening page, the Michael Shannon movie glosses over a lot and doesn't give that dark of a soul enough justice.

Also "captive", about the the guy who kept 3 girls in his house for a decade. The movie is a pick out of the meh pile on Netflix but the book is truly unsettling

 

[T-Boon]

First Blood.
Masterpiece movie. Okay book.

Only thing the book had over the movie was slightly more realistic/complicated characters. Rambo was not a character that could be so easily supported in the book and the sheriff was someone who could be far more easily sympathised with.

 

[T-Boon]

Having been a big fan of Stephen King's books for a long time, it's very rare to see a movie outshine the book. Shawshank, Stand by Me, Misery and The Green Mile stick pretty closely to the source material, save a few elements that don't matter.
Hard for me to say if they improve on the books though because I loved reading them so much. Same with The Shining.

The problem with movies adapted from King's work is that they are usually low budget affairs. Needful Things and The Dark Half could have been great movies, but for their limitations. There's a lot of stuff that did well in the 80's but doesn't really hold up today - Pet Semetary, Christine, Cujo, Firestarter, Salem's Lot.

Two rather underrated movies of his would be Apt Pupil and The Mist. I enjoyed both of them.
1408 wasn't too bad either.

Dreamcatcher is one of the biggest examples of why you shouldn't always stick close to the source material. It doesn't always translate well to film. Awful movie.

And it's not even worth talking about The Lawnmower Man. That movie bears so little resemblance to the source material that King made them take his name off it.

I agree with all of this except I submit that 'Christine' holds up extremely well. Chilling movie.