Discussion for any and all points rated to movies which were better than the book. It isn't often
>One flew over the cuckoo's nest
>shutter Island
>The prestige
I think the flat writing in these is a reason why and the visual improvement by the directors on boring visual storytelling improves the already good stories
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the Shining
the Night Flier
kesey isn't a flat writer, but i agree the movie is better
This was my first from him
I like the chief stuff. But he wasted pages and pages of..
He went to the car and we all felt good and he passed around a bottle of beer and then and then and then
It was flat as he'll
Only he chief freaking out parts are actually interesting writing
Have you guys ever read Sometimes a Great Notion? I would be curious to hear some thoughts on it.
Every movie based on a novel Stanley Kubrick ever filmed.
American psycho.
movie is great but i wouldn't say it's better. Book fricking slaps.
as for the thread - Solaris by Tarkowski
The book is exponentially better than the movie. I can completely understand why you'd think that though, the movie is certainly easier to appreciate.
"I am annoyed at myself for killing the wrong kind of asian."
Book seems better to me for these kinds of lines. Plus him running into Louis in the clothing store is one of the most funny fricking scenes in the whole book.
American psycho.
I just finished American Psycho today and that was one of my first thoughts.
The book was great but for every great scene that wasn’t in the movie there were three shitty ones. Also I get why he was constantly naming the brands of clothes people were wearing but it got tedious.
I wish they included the scene where his brother made him feel like a little b***h at Dorsia in the movie, that was top tier.
Wrong. The book is far better.
Deliverance the movie, however, is better than James Dickey's novel.
Rififi (1955). The book is awful, a real piece of garbage. The movie is one of my favorites, tho.
The Thin Man. The movie is an absolute blast, with a fun and loving high society couple solving a weird gothic murder, constantly one upping each other with funny banter. The book is a slightly better than average pulp detective novel with some funny lines here and there. Honestly it's a miracle they adapted it into something as charming as the film.
I liked the Hunger Game movies a lot better than the books, which were a chore to get through with the constant "my Peeetah" whining.
Also that flame thrower trap in the besieged city, that was pure kino.
The Grapes of Wrath
Surprised not to see pic related get mentioned yet
>it's a Johnny Fontane chapter
This. Half the book is about Sonny's mistress and her weird sex hangups and bizarre gynecological problems. Puzo was a weirdo lol
anything by stephen king
Last of the mohicans
My yet unpublished novel is much better than the movie they will inevitably make of it after publication and after my untimely death at my own hands.
tarkovsky's adaptations if lem's noveld
>OFOTCN
>Movie was better than the novel
Not even remotely true.
>movies which were better than the book
Loads of good-or-better movies come from not-great books. For example:
— Kind Hearts and Coronets
Comes from an obscure little book called Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal. The book is darker and more sour, a bit like a Victorian Room At The Top (ruthless outsider is determined to conquer high-class English society). The film made it lighter and funnier.
— Psycho
This was originally a thriller by a guy called Robert Bloch, published in 1959. I think it was basically cashing in on the Ed Gein sensation. I had a look and it's not very good.
— Goodfellas
Pileggi's book 'Wiseguy' is just the nuts and bolts of the story. It hasn't got any of the style & humour that makes the film great.
— The African Queen
The book isn't terrible but I don't think it's great. It's told in a really flat style. C. S. Forester used to be pretty popular but I don't think he's read much now.
— Solaris
Lem is clever and sterile. What makes the film good isn't in the book at all.
— First Blood
It's a workmanlike thriller but no more. [In the book, Rambo dies. They originally filmed it like that but test audiences didn't like it, IIRC.]
It's rare for a good book to make an even better film. You mention One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest but this guy
is right. The book is much better. (Same with Silence of the Lambs, which was the first film since OFOTCN to win the "big five" Oscars. The book is better, mostly because the film dumbed down Lecter's dialogue so much.)
Some decent books that made even better films:
— Seven Pillars of Wisdom —> Lawrence of Arabia
— Master & Commander
[Even though the film loses much of the Maturin character]
— The Luck of Barry Lyndon —> Barry Lyndon
— The Talented Mr. Ripley
[The film sticks very closely to the book, but it's simply better as a film]
— Deliverance
[John Boorman & Burt Reynolds are both usually annoying but here they don't mess about, for once.]
The Ritual
BOW DOWN
The movie of James Clavell's King Rat is much, much better than the movie. The title character comes across as completely unsympathetic in the novel, but George Segal's performance humanizes him in ways the book just fails to.
The best example if comparing the endings. The book, if you don't know, is about American and British GIs in a Japanese prison camp during WW2. Corporal King, the title character, becomes the most powerful man in camp by manipulating their captors and the other prisoners, and is a total power-tripping dick. Then they get liberated and King Rat's reign ends.
In the book, it just kind of ends. He gets on a truck and returns to his sad, pathetic pre-war life of utter unimportance.
In the movie, the ending is exactly the same, but the defeat, guilt and loss in Segal's eyes really make you feel for him and you really understand how this was the only time in this guy's life he was important and mattered, and it's just so much more powerful.
Roadside Picnic
Jurassic Park
It's a good book but a much better movie
the movie sucks
Lord of the rings the two towers is better than the book version. Fellowship and return of the king were better books
Last of The Mohicans