You should check them out sometime. The book was on the NYT Bestseller list for almost a year, and the movie basically invented the Summer Blockbuster Event Movie.
Thought Jaws the book was padded. Glad the movie jettisoned the mafia doing legs-bent running around tricks in the background and left the motivation to the community fearing a loss of income which was more relatable. Also glad they ditched Hooper having an affair with the sheriff's wife which was only there to provide an overwrought sex scene. Otherwise it served no purpose.
The Godfather is my go to example of this. The book is ok, kinda schlocky but the characters make it bearable. It was never designed to be any better than a pulp novel about some gangsters. Movie takes everything about it and makes it better, removes a lot of bullshit as well. It’s an amazing improvement by Coppola and Puzo’s script and the actors.
I agree. I remember reading the book and being disappointed with it. The books does have some interesting Back stories about Vito and Luca Brasi but there’s a lot of useless subplots the movie wisely ignored. The book spends at least 100 pages on a subplot involving Sonny’s girlfriend. She gets about 10 seconds of screen time in the movie.
I came here to mention this very book! 😊 I didn't like Hooper in the book (I relished his death and still remember every word of it to this day) and Spielberg was 100% right about changing the ending! When I first read it, I thought I'd missed something and had to reread the last few pages again before coming to the conclusion that the shark must have died from its' wounds. It was so anti-climatic! After a story like this, we *really* needed an "explosive" ending to cap it all off.
I didn't like ANY of the characters from the book and the ending was inexcusable for me. I still rant about it to anyone who will listen. Benchley wrote another book "Beast" about a giant squid that had an ending almost as bad. I know they adapted that, but I haven't seen the movie.
Without Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility and Colin Firth's Pride and Prejudice I would never have understood the humor and wit of Jane Austen's books.
"Forrest Gump" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" were drastically altered for the better. Also, "The Godfather" movie spared us the novel's plot point about Sonny's oversized....um....manhood and Connie's equally oversized maid of honor who is also Sonny's mistress.
Big disagree on Count of Monte Cristo movie being better than the book. The movies (that I've seen anyway) pretty much completely miss the point of the book. They usually give everyone a nice happy ending, which does not happen in the book. I've never seen a movie that even has Haydée in it. I've never seen a movie that captures Edmund's melancholy relationship with Mercédès correctly, they just end up happily ever after for no reason
There is the Russian film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988). The French film with Pierre Niney that premieres this year has Hyadee, as does the miniseries with Sam Claflin that also premieres this year.
Why didn't Dumas make an Edmond and Mercedes ending together? Alexandre Dumas read Homer (Dumas A., Mes Mémoires, Paris, Bouquins, 2003, p. 590)) and The Odyssey influenced the book The Count of Monte Cristo. In Book IV of The Odyssey, Telemachus visits Menelaus who won Helen back after his elopement with Paris. Helen was sorry for what she did, but still Menelaus needed to use drugs to forget his painful memories like Helen's union with Paris. This influenced Alexandre Dumas. Edmond would never be happy with Mercedes and would never forget her marriage to Fernand. This would always make him have painful memories. Their marriage would be deeply unhappy. Haydee does not bring the count the painful memories that Mercedes does. More realistic for him to be happy with Haydée.
Solid arguments for what you prefer, but I do disagree on Dune and LOTR. For me, the appeal of Dune is the feeling of mythic scope. The clear understanding from the beginning that the characters are being driven forward toward a predetermined destiny by massive forces beyond their control, and then to see one by one those larger forces also being overtaken by events. It just keeps piling up and piling up the sense of scope and scale. In the case of LOTR, I love the casting and the adventure, but I miss the many quiet moments that were removed or shortened and I disagree with changes made to some of the characters, particularly Frodo. In the movies, Frodo is a naive young man frequently misled by Gollum, including being convinced by Gollum that he should not trust Sam. In the books, Frodo is a fairly mature man in his 50's who has a consistently clear-eyed understanding of Gollum and actually has a pretty sophisticated and nuanced strategy for keeping Gollum (relatively) under control. And, Frodo does not lose faith in Sam, which means that Frodo is consistently as good a friend to Sam as Sam is to Frodo.
I can't say that the movies are better than the book but regarding Frodo sending Sam away I don't think it's about him being a poor friend or that he's just gullible, I think it's due to one thing I do think the movies did a bit better than the book - the power of the Ring. I think the Ring comes across as more powerful in its direct influence in the movies overall and I think that is the idea behind why Frodo gets fooled by Gollum, that he's being worn down and becoming less of himself, as well as becoming paranoid to lose it. In the book there are a few times where the power of the Ring is undercut by other things that, in the grand scheme of the story, are much less important.
Dune the book is better because in the book the plot is less important than the subtext and big ideas the book is trying to get across. Movies are really good at plot, dialogue and action but not good at all with subtext and ideas. On the surface, Dune is a fairly straightforward revenge story but the reason people are still talking about Dune 50+ years after it was written is because of all those ideas Herbert sprinkled throughout the books. I sometimes pick up Dune and just read the the little blurbs at the beginning of each chapter. They are pure gold and their absence in the movie leaves a big hole.
To anyone who is interested in reading Stardust, make the effort to pick up the graphic novel version illustrated by regular Gaiman collabrator Charles Vess. His art brings SO MUCH of that "missing" charm.
The audience watching a Greek Tragedy would already know how the story ends. Plot, battles and mystery boxes are not what makes Greek Tragedy timeless.
@@gunkulator1 The narrative in Dune *does* say how the story ends early on, though. It's not the plot and battles that makes Dune seem Greek tragedy-inspired; it's the use of fate as a theme, the telegraphing of the ending, and that unique sense of the marriage of inevitability and free choice.
@@anonymouswitness3835 Mostly agree. The fact that the audience already knew the ending to a Greek Tragedy going in is precisely why Dune can be seen as one. We get told early on what the ending is. Once you remove plot as the main driver, you can focus on the things you mention, like fate vs free will. The movie doesn't do this. Indeed it probably can't due to the limitations of the medium.
My personal interpretation about why Dune was written that way is that Herbert is showing the reader how it would feel like to possess the power of prescience. As far as a movie that's better than the book, for me it is Annihilation.
I’ve heard abt the book Annihilation and it’s on my list. I want to read it before I watch the movie. I have heard there is a movie version of the book as well. If I remember correctly I think I saw the title on Netflix
Dune the movie misses so much because we don't get much of Paul's thoughts. The inevitability of prescience and the psychological burden it exacts on Paul makes Paul's victory at the end of the book a pyrrhic victory instead of some great triumph.
One could make the case that Frank spoiling everything in Dune was a way of giving the reader a glimpse of the prescience Paul deals with throughout the series. We know things are going to happen before they happen and yet we are locked to this terrible fate. This terrible purpose. Would love to hear your takes on the next books in the series. You cant just stop at the first book and "get" Dune.
I couldn’t agree more about LOTR and Princess Bride. When I was a young teen, I thought I would read these books because I loved the movies so much… it made me think I didn’t like reading. 😅
Funny as so many people who never had an LOTR movie to watch has read the Hobbit and the LTLOR books many times over. You are comparing apples to oranges by seeing the movies first and trying to compare all the changes Jackson made to the characters to the ones created by Tolkien. I do admit, however, Tom Bomadil gets a bit old.
Lord of the rings has an epic writing like war and peace by Tolstoy and the films have a superficial and shallow style like Percy Jackson. The big problem is that readers today are accustomed to mediocre books and find well-written books like War and Peace boring.
The LOTR movies do a great job telling the story, especially the Frodo and Sam friendship, but they do so at the expense of the greater themes that Tolkien is trying to get across. The rise of mankind and with it the loss of innocence, inevitability of technology and industrialization, and the corresponding fading of the elves makes for a more wistful ending. The protracted and multiple endings of the movies get to be a bit much upon repeat viewing and start to veer into the realm of maudlin. Also, the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen in Appendix A of Return of the King is perhaps the most beautifully written and heartbreaking story in popular fiction. The movies reference it but then discard its ultimate consequences at the end.
I love Chronicles of Narnia but when it comes to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe I always felt that I prefer the movie version a lot more - it really brought out the reality of WW2 which was then soothed by the tangible magic^^
Children of Men. Somebody realised that the end of the book was the start of a much more interesting and engaging story, and chose to make a film of that rather than the novel.
I thought the battle of Helms Deep was written well in The Two Towers. The imagery of the horns sounding deep in the caves as Théoden, Aragorn and the Rohirrim ride out as the Orcs scatter is so vivid. It's stayed with me since the first time I read it.
I felt the same way about the Ents attack on Isenguard. It was fun seeing the Ents brought to life, but the movie just didn't send chills down my spine like the book still does. 😊
Yes, the books worked for me. I thought the battles were epic and evoked great imagery. I imagine it's harder to come up with different imagery than the movies if you saw them first. I think there are several places where the books are better that you might not fully appreciate are even different if you've seen the movies first.
Battles are better for movies and they go on for some time but both Helm's Deep and Pellanor Fields take up no more than one chapter in the books. Also, the movies break book themes for bad reasons for both battles. No, the elves were not at Helm's Deep. How could they be? They would have had to have left weeks before to march that far before Theoden even decided to go there. Worse are the dead in Pellanor fields. The brave sacrifice and ride of the Rohirrim and stalwart defense by the men of Gondor is completely undercut by a bunch of invulnerable video game NPCs. It's Deus Ex Machina of the worst kind. In both cases, the movies are ignoring the overarching theme of the rise of mankind and the fading of the elves and magic from the world. In both battles it was men who finally decided their own fate instead of depending on elves and magical creatures as was their way in the past. Also both scenes are a bit too silly with Legolas - 'nuff said about that.
Thank you! I always tell people that saying the book is better is weird to me, because it's a different medium of telling a story. In most cases, as a casual moviegoer, I prefer the movie to get an idea for whether I would want to dedicate that kind of time to the book. Unless someone with very common interests recommends the book first, but I do not surround myself with many readers, heh. But anyway - You don't have the same constraints with a book that you do as a movie, so naturally, you can tell a complete unabridged story in a book. A lot of times, when a movie is made, characters are cut, subplots are removed, because you just don't have the same amount of screentime as you might have for telling the story in a novel. And yeah, the story could be adapted to a serialized show or miniseries, but that's a much bigger time investment both for the filmmakers and the viewers. Anyway, I love the list. Good choices, though I haven't read most of these yet... Now, I'm not sure if I want to. 😂 But thank you for the heads up, sincerely. I appreciate your insight.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is one of my favourite books and I couldn't understand why everyone loved the film (other than the soundtrack) when you don't get any of what made the book great. Yes, the film is very atmospheric. But it doesn't follow the book well, and you don't get to understand Decker like you do in the book. So I definitely disagree. I'd read the book again, I'll never watch the film again.
This year a new French adaptation premieres that already has a teaser and without the shallow ending of the 2002 film. Why didn't Dumas make an Edmond and Mercedes ending together? Alexandre Dumas read Homer (Dumas A., Mes Mémoires, Paris, Bouquins, 2003, p. 590)) and The Odyssey influenced the book The Count of Monte Cristo. In Book IV of The Odyssey, Telemachus visits Menelaus who won Helen back after his elopement with Paris. Helen was sorry for what she did, but still Menelaus needed to use drugs to forget his painful memories like Helen's union with Paris. This influenced Alexandre Dumas. Edmond would never be happy with Mercedes and would never forget her marriage to Fernand. This would always make him have painful memories. Their marriage would be deeply unhappy. Haydee does not bring the count the painful memories that Mercedes does. More realistic for him to be happy with Haydée.
Two movies that were substantial improvements over the novels were Forest Gump and Jaws. Both tightened the focus of the stories and shed distractions to very good effect. I think that Doctor Zhivago probably also benefited from David Lean’s masterful cinematic treatment, though the vast number of years that have passed since both reading the translated novel and seeing that film may have some effect on my assessment. Your take on the Lord of the Rings is understandable and relatable: Peter Jackson and his associates in the work set the cinematic bar so high that even they could not again make the leap. I still protest the character assassination of Faramir, the constantly increasing whimpification of Frodo, and diminution of the Ents’ decision to go to war.
The book is much more realistic. Pasternak relied on himself to write and develop the character. And he, who experienced the Russian revolution, offers a better description than that given by a foreigner.
The count of monte cristo movie left out my favorite part of the book, the count encouraging de villefort's wife into killing his family. Book way better than movie imo
OMG yes you can fault them. Jackson added in thing that never happened and changed characters personalities. The movies may be good, but they are NOT the same as the books.
@@maghurt And Aragorn. It irks me to no end that Jackson made Aragorn some angsty brat who doubted his duty. I also dislike how he just invented things that never happened and gave Arwen far more action than she ever had in the books. Arwen summoning river horses? Please.
@@gusmonster59 I hear you. I know some changes have to be made to adapt books to film, but I feel like there was enough "drama" already. I have no issue with the performances, music or cinematography, the attention to detail is extraordinary. Cheers!
I think the movie soundtracks add a whole lot to the mood(s) of movies. That's why John Williams deserves almost as much credit as the directors. The rollercoaster of moods you experience from Love Actually is, in a large part because of the songs. When Emma Thompson realizes that her husband is cheating and Joni Michell starts playing will make anybody misty eyed.
You make an interesting point about Dune. That Frank did spoil a lot of potential storylines, never occurred to me. As for your slightly blasphemous take on The Count of Monte Cristo, the book was epically long with such a rich complex storyline, that none of the many movies do come close to doing the story justice. As for your take on Lord of the Rings…. pure blasphemy. You’re in my thoughts and prayers 🙏 A great post despite the multiple heresies.
There will be a miniseries that premieres this year with Sam Claflin. There will be 8 episodes. Aina will have a French film that already has a teaser and Haydee appears there.
Dune is written as an in-universe account of Paul Atreides by Princess Irulan. The in-universe audience presumably already knows the broad strokes of what happened and is reading her account for the insights that are not generally well known. In Dune the books it's not so much what happens as it is why it happens and what it all means. This level of subtlety gets completely lost in the movies.
Usually I appreciate the book for giving you MORE than the movie can; yet in this case, I wanted LESS. I did not need to know what Brooks Hatlen did to end up in Shawshank. It kills my empathy for him and undercuts the tragedy of his "institutionalized" condition. The movie is better.
Is there a connection between which medium you got to first? LOTR you saw as a movie before you read it. How about the others? I read The Princess Bride years before the movie came out, and they are both among my favorites. I wonder if the book would have suffered if I'd seen the movie first. Thanks!
I think that does matter a little because I started reading some classic literature and I noticed that the books I saw the MOVIE to FIRST were books I liked a little less or a lot less than the books I READ first THEN I saw the MOVIE. For example; I saw Dracula first (both the one with Bela Legosi and the one with Keanu Reeves) and I liked those two much more than the book. I read the book The Picture of Dorian Gray first and then I watched the movie and I liked the book more. So I think the order in which you viewed the media first does matter (just a wee bit)
I think that does matter a little because I started reading some classic literature and I noticed that the books I saw the MOVIE to FIRST were books I liked a little less or a lot less than the books I READ first THEN I saw the MOVIE. For example; I saw Dracula first (both the one with Bela Legosi and the one with Keanu Reeves) and I liked those two much more than the book. I read the book The Picture of Dorian Gray first and then I watched the movie and I liked the book more. So I think the order in which you viewed the media first does matter (just a wee bit)
Sometimes, but sometimes, not so much. I have read some books after seeing the movies that I thought the movies were so much better, but others, I liked both. Lord of the Rings is one of those where I liked both. The Black Cauldron, in fact, is one where I do think that the books are better, even though I think of the movie fondly.
Lord of the rings has better writing and an epic story on the level of war and peace by Tolstoy. The film has a shallower and more adventurous writing like Percy Jackson. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky shaped my literary taste and I can't stand shallow stories.
I agree with stardust and LotR, the rest I've only seen 1 half of the equation. I'd add Jurassic Park, Vanity Fair, Phantom of the Opera and Alice in Wonderland, tv adaptations I'd also add in Bridgerton and Emma(BBC version)
Mentioned Dune but left out a previous example by Denis, though maybe it doesn’t quite count since it was a short story? “Arrival” is so much better than “Story of Your Life” imho, and mostly because of a single change. Such a spectacular movie. Highly recommend if you haven’t seen it.
Oh noo I was already sort of disappointed by Exhalation by Ted Chiang but I really wanted to give stories of your life a shot because I LOVE Arrival 2016. Best sci-fi movie (and the only sci fi movie I truly like, because it's always bad/nonsense science and not speculative science.) But now I'm scared stories of your life won't that good either 😅
Arrival is masterful and the original author loves it as well, calling it one of the few cases where something is great both as an adaptation and as a movie.
My movies better than the Book; My list--- Ella Enchanted, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Charlie and the chocolate factory(Willy Wonka)1973 , off the top of my head.
My issue with Ferdinand being a best friend is it goes against the (extremely sad) point. The man who had the least to do with the betrayal had the worst punishment while the one who did the worst hot off relatively easy compared to the others. It showed the true horror of revenge. By making Ferdinand a bestie, it made the degree of his revenge understandable.
The two that immediately leapt to mind are The Godfather and The Shining. I’ve never read A Clockwork Orange, but the movie is one of my all time favorites. Also, cat is listening.
Clockwork Orange one of my favorite movies, too, but the book is better. Movie left out the entire last chapter and changed the whole meaning of the book
I like the shining book better, still love the movie but aside from the topiary monsters the story left me very satisfied. I loved the tension and the focus on jacks alcoholism and the honest and uncomfortable look into his thoughts about his family even before he was crazy. Plus dick got to live at the end. I think doctor sleep was a better movie than its book counterpart though.
I had a weakness for Dickens when I was younger, and I'm still fond of him, but I could always understand when my friends declared they hated him. Yes, his style takes getting used to, and yes, he uses FAR more words than he needs to. Yet the cinematic adaptations of his work are quite frequently a joy to watch, and would deserve a spot on this list: Oliver Twist (David Lean, 1948) and Great Expectations (David Lean, 1947) spring to mind immediately. My personal favorite, however, is MGM's A Tale of Two Cities (1936), starring Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, and Walter Catlett. The difference between book and film, as you point out with Stardust and The Princess Bride, is the amount of HEART that goes into the story. When I read the book, I can think, "Well, this is interesting," all the while feeling impatient with yet another of Dickens' colorless young heroines. The movie, on the other hand, tears my heart to pieces every time I watch it, with Colman's sublime portrayal of Sidney Carton at the center of it all.
I've read some Dickens, have seen many adaptations of his work, and some are all time favorite movies for me - Nicholas Nickleby with Charlie Hunnam and David Copperfield with Dev Patel in particular
I love the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol (originally entitled "Scrooge"). The character of Jorkin and his influence on Scrooge are additions that I think Dickens would have approved of.
I agree with you on all movies _except_ Princess Bride. Funnily enough for the reasons you named. I saw the movie first and it had this run-of-the-mill lackluster feel to it. It was only when I read the novel it is bases on that understood the movie. The adaptation is what Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy whould look like if you took out the jokes.
To Have and Have Not. Howard Hawks, William Faulkner, Jules Furthman (plus Bogart and Bacall and so on) make a masterpiece out of Hemingway's worst novel.
Nice! This is video I didn't know (but did know) I needed! Love your analysis. I fully agree--the book is ALWAYS better... except when the movie is better. The Prestige, Wizard of Oz (only because the movie is so magical and beautiful), Somewhere in Time. Also The Devil Wears Prada (although I haven't read the book lol). And yes, it's sacrilege to include LOTR, but the movies add so much character depth, those of us who adore characters over plot can kind of, sort of, feel like... sacrilege. But in all cases, credit must be given to the author for birthing and executing the original idea that inspired someone else to adapt it. 👍 Great video!
You're right, this is blasphemy! 😅 I guess this depends a lot on if you read the book or watch the movie first. I read books first. To me, LOTR movies are really good, but nowhere near the books. They lack the deepness and mystic of the books, for example, when representing elves and their culture. The movies are long, but still they feel compressed. Same about Dune, I love the movies, but again, they lack the depth of the book. The discovery about the relationship between spice and worms is very important in the books but kind of missing in the movies and the guild of navigators almost irrelevant. When reading the books, we are reading from the perspective of a historian, so I think it's ok if things are told in advance. Also goes very well with Paul knowing the future too, trying to avoid by all means its realisation, something that the movies don't picture clearly. The ecology part is quite absent too. I also prefer Statdust the book to the movie. I like the darker tone of the book, the slow worldbuilding and contrast between the town and the other side of the wall, the slow discovery of it. And of course, revisiting Faerie after reading Sandman, that was a high moment for me. The movie is ok, but I don't like its silliness or the way they portrait the star. If Gaiman said the movie was better, maybe he just wanted people to watch it 🤷
Liene, you had me until The Count of Monte Cristo. That's my favorite book of all time and I ended up super disappointed in the 2002 movie 😂. I still recognize it as good on its own terms, though, it just fundamentally differs thematically from the novel. Respect for these brave takes, though!
Would Edmond really prefer Mercedes? Does this reasoning work in practice? He could find a beautiful young woman and leave Mercedes in the past. What would stop him on his travels from meeting a prettier woman and leaving Mercedes in the past? During the filming of the film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988), an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, director Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich fell in love with the actress Nadira Mirzaeva who played Hyadee. And he divorces his wife and marries Nadira. Nothing prevents a man from meeting another woman and leaving his old relationship in the past.
A few to consider, Mary Poppins, Sword in the Stone, Hunchback of Notre Dame (even the author rewrote it for a play), and ... The Rocketeer (though that's more a comic). Though, of these I did enjoy Hunchback somewhat more so than the others, but, yeah, I just couldn't get into them. I wholeheartedly agree about Princess Bride. Reading the book almost seemed like a letdown, even though it's not bad. I think Monte Cristo is debatable, simply because I have not read the book in full yet, but I have seen both the adaptation you showed and the Richard Chamberlain adaptation. The Richard Chamberlain adaptation is closer to the book from what I gather and was pretty good. As for Lord of the Rings, I think that's just a preference. Both the books and the movies are top-tier. I too saw the movies before reading the books, but I quite like the books as much as I do the movies, and kind of can see where book fans come from regarding certain changes to beloved characters. That said, I also understand Peter Jackson's reasons for the changes he made and why it fits better for movies. Maybe do a list of movies that didn't do the books justice? If you already have, disregard this, but if not ... well, there might be too many for that. 😅
Hollywood and its clichés of eternal love that doesn't exist. In the book the Count forgets Mercedes and marries a younger woman called Haydee. And this story appears in the film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988). Would Edmond really prefer Mercedes? Does this reasoning work in practice? He could find a beautiful young woman and leave Mercedes in the past. What would stop him on his travels from meeting a prettier woman and leaving Mercedes in the past? During the filming of the film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988), director Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich fell in love with the actress Nadira Mirzaeva who played Haydee. And he divorces his wife and marries Nadira. Nothing prevents a man from meeting another woman and leaving his old relationship in the past Only by the writing of weak Hollywood screenwriters that a man only loves one woman and is incapable of finding a replacement. In real life, everything is different.
You may have convinced me about Dune and LOTR! I haven’t really thought about it until now but I think I feel the same way. LOTR is tough though. I agree with you however I would have really liked to see the scouring of the Shire on screen but I like way PJ ended it with the hobbits returning and the Shire is the same and THEY are completely different. I love how Sam had to travel halfway across the world and back for the better part of a year just to find the courage to talk to a woman who was already interested in him. Love it. I would also add a Stand By Me and Fight Club to this list.
Jaws. Peter Benchley wrote a book that caught people's imagination, but Spielberg made a movie that is one of the best horror suspence adventure thrillers of all time. Screenwriter Carl Gotlieb ironned our many of the clunky plot holes and injected some much needed humour. And especially, they got rid of the Housewives of Amity love triangle. Thank God!
So a lot of folks mentioned Jaws, which is a good start - but both The Shawshank Redemption AND Stand By Me from Stephen King’s different seasons are on this list for me. Either story on the page has some of King’s trademark wit, but these are arguably two of the greatest movies of the 80’s and 90’s. They belong here 😎🤘🏻
@@teleriferchnyfain somewhat true, but for every Carrie, It, or the two aforementioned films, you have to sit through any Children of the Corn film, Maximum Overdrive, Graveyard Shift, or The Mangler to remind yourself of how bad his film adaptations can be 🤣
The French Lieutenant's Woman. Not only is the movie better able to show what the book is aiming to do but I also appreciate the book more after seeing the movie.
I knew Stardust would have to be on this list, and I agree. I think what it's missing is an actual climax. There's no end battle against the witch or anything. They're just like "we're good now" and walk away at the end, while the movie has a fun action battle and happy ending
In my experience, whichever thing you saw or read first is what ends up being better. One notable exception to this for me was The Expanse. I liked the show and the books equally, but I liked each for different reasons.
I haven't seen or read Dune, but I agree with the rest of your list 100%. Confession: I haven't rewatch The Princess Bride since reading the book (and I reread it to be sure I had actually read the real thing...), I'm afraid I won't like it anymore... Speaking of Neil Gaiman, I would say Coraline is also better as a movie than as a book. Nightmare fuel, but so good.
2:34 the Dune books spoiling themselves creates a direct connection between the reader and the protagonist - as in we as readers become prescient. We know what is to happen, but not exactly how, or why. This is the only explanation I can think of for Herbert's insistence on doing this for all the Dune books.
For me it's "The Firm" by John Grisham. The book has this whole section where the good guys and the bad guys are running around in Florida basically accomplishing nothing. The film is much tighter and more focused.
Preach about Dune honestly. I don't actually agree with you on your reasoning but I do about the end result. Dune part 2 goes so much harder than the book does at every point, it keeps the same mood and feeling while injecting some much needed emotion in to it all. I don't know if the Messiah film will be able to surpass the Messiah book though, cuz that one is pretty seriously good.
I completely disagree on Dune. The movie removed all the weird and wacky trippy-ness of the book and tried to compensate with bombastic sound design. I fail to see why everyone is so impressed with it, but I am in a small minority!
@@Uppernorwood976 I thought they were good but very clean, the oddness of the Dune books is seldom there. The entire feeling of a water swirl pulling every faction in the story is also very diluted in the movie. The characters have considerable of agency and that misses the inevitability of it all.
Jaws, Watership Down, Harry Potter (yes, all of them). I would agree with LotR if we were only talking about book/film 1, but film 2 and 3 are too flawed in my opinion. Still good, but absolutely not better than the books. Cheers
I agree with Harry Potter in a way. I only read the books to get information I needed as the last couple of films were confusing. And Ginny is better in the books. But over all, the books drag on and on and on with boring stuff before getting to the last bit of each book where it actually gets exciting. The films fix that.
I see your point with LotR/Dune/MonteCristo, I won't hate you for that 😄 old books are sometimes so slow paced that modern movies compensate for the (inevitable) lack of depth with more immersive and memorable action. Stardust (the book) was such a letdown for me because I saw the movie first and loved it, recently I discovered that Neil Gaiman is aware of this and it made me laugh. As an author myself... it must be a strange feeling for to see a movie that better your work, sad that they had better ideas than you but kinda uplifting that someone elevated your work.😄
Hollywood and its clichés of eternal love that doesn't exist. Would Edmond really prefer Mercedes? Does this reasoning work in practice? He could find a beautiful young woman and leave Mercedes in the past. What would stop him on his travels from meeting a prettier woman and leaving Mercedes in the past? During the filming of the film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988), director Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich fell in love with the actress Nadira Mirzaeva who played Haydee. And he divorces his wife and marries Nadira. Nothing prevents a man from meeting another woman and leaving his old relationship in the past Only by the writing of weak Hollywood screenwriters that a man only loves one woman and is incapable of finding a replacement. In real life, everything is different.
100% agree about LOTR. The Fellowship movie in particular. I definitely liked Dune the books more than the movies but you have a good point about the book I'd never thought about! You know what's gonna happen before it happens. The first movie doesn't really have the "Find the traitor" plot line so I think it really throws off the pacing. The second movie was all-around a better movie but I think they screwed up in playing up the role of the "Missionara Protectiva". I didn't like that the Jihad comes off as being a Bene Gesseritt plot all along because it makes Paul look like a tool. Jihad definitely was NOT planned. The thing that Pauls fate is bound to is beyond anything anyone in the Dune world can possibly understand.
I am 100% with you on LOTR; it was what I immediately thought of when I saw your video title. One example for me is that I absolutely skip the songs in the book. I am not a musical person at all, and I cannot make those songs "sound good" in my head. I can barely read them! Lol. But they are an amazing and essential component to the movie.
My favorite movie is The Prestige. I had no idea it was based on a book, so when I found the book I bought it immediately. Unfortunately, the book is not good. The same general concept is the starting point for both, but the movie creates such a fantastic extrapolation of the concept, while the book does very little with it.
I have a weird relationshiop with Howls Moving Castle. I love the movie for how it represented the love story more than the books. But I also loved the extra context all of the events in the first book. BTW if you love the movie, I definitely think the source material which is the Land of Ingary chronicles are worth reading. The third book is my absolute fav.
Spoilering oneself is something omniscient narrators tend to do. If you have a protagonist who is basically the narrator's alter ego even if it's not a first person narrator, you can avoid this. A great example of this is '1984' where we get to know or conjecture what Winston Smith knows or conjectures, nothing more.
I'm currently reading Dune and I get what you are saying. For me tho, the book i'ts better exactly for that reason. I love to know what i'ts happening before the characters.
I liked Payback more than The Hunter just because it feels better to follow around a non sociopath. Though the book was good and I haven't read all of them yet. The Postman, while I normally love Super soldiers and crazy scifi stuff but the down to earth movie feels like a better fit
I've tried to read the Count of Monte Cristo a bunch of times but I can't for the life of me push past page 200. Booktube has convinced me it's going to change my life...but I think I'm just going to have to let this one go. The film is great though 😅
The 2002 film shows the low intellectual and cultural level of Hollywood film writers. The Russian film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988) Why didn't Dumas make an Edmond and Mercedes ending together? Alexandre Dumas read Homer (Dumas A., Mes Mémoires, Paris, Bouquins, 2003, p. 590)) and The Odyssey influenced the book The Count of Monte Cristo. In Book IV of The Odyssey, Telemachus visits Menelaus who won Helen back after his elopement with Paris. Helen was sorry for what she did, but still Menelaus needed to use drugs to forget his painful memories like Helen's union with Paris. This influenced Alexandre Dumas. Edmond would never be happy with Mercedes and would never forget her marriage to Fernand. This would always make him have painful memories. Their marriage would be deeply unhappy. Haydee does not bring the count the painful memories that Mercedes does. More realistic for him to be happy with Haydée.
Dumas was a great reader of classics, unlike Hollywood screenwriters. That's why his story is more elaborate than the shallow films that Hollywood makes. This year a new French adaptation of the book and an Italian-French miniseries will premiere. It will be good to compare these new adaptations with the shallow and superficial film made by mediocre Hollywood screenwriters.
I’m with ya. I forced myself to finish the book, and I wish I hadn’t. It bored me to tears. I love the Guy Pearce movie version much more. Awesome movie.
I’m currently listening to Dune on Audible. While I’m not sure your reasoning is why I feel the way I do (though you do make a great point), so far I agree that the movies are better than the book. Yes, there are things left out of the movie that are in the book and things that are different in the book than in the movie. But, I don’t think enough is left out or changed too drastically to make that big of a difference. Again, I’m still not all the way finished with the book, but so far, I think the most recent movie adaptation is better than the book.
The haunting of Hill house, turned into the movie haunted, the book wasn't that scary at all, the movie still creeps me out to this day and it's from 1963. The remake BTW was horrible done.
2 that are my go-to: Bedknobs & Broomsticks, and Big Fish. Neither of the books comes close to the magic in their respective movies and not just because it's visual vs. text.
The LotRs movies were well made, but the books are infinitely better. The movies left out sooooo many critical elements. The most critical missing element was Tom and Goldberry, who are the whole point of the mythology. Had you not seen the movies first you'd most likely have a completely opposite opinion.
@@revpgesqredux As Christopher Tolkien explained, 'The Lord of the Rings is a primarily philosophical work', and JRR himself stated very clearly that his mythology was a "Catholic work. Unconsciously so at first, but intentionally in the revision". I suppose if you understand tLotRs as entertainment only, then you are justified in thinking the movies were better than the books. But if you understand JRR's work for what he clearly intended, then Bombadil AND the Scouring of the Shire are necessary and cannot be avoided. There were many other things in the movie that were misleading and plain wrong. I enjoyed the movies, BTW, although the 'Hobbit' movies were completely unwatchable.
I thought you did great with your list of choices as well as your reasoning. On two of your choices, I agree 100%. A disclaimer at the beginning of your video that this is YOUR opinion should be sufficient to establish that you respect differing views and ask the same of others. That said...thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
Sigh... I first read the novel in Dune in 1986. The first 4 novels have become my "comfort books" that I re-read about once a year. I have read Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse Dune. I have read the out-of-print Dune Encyclopedia authorized by Frank Herbert several times. I managed to slog through the Brian Herbert/Kevin J Anderson atrocities while throwing only one book across the room in disgust. I have read Frank Herbert's short "The Road to Dune", but I haven't read the BH/KJA novel by the same name. I'm not a fan of poetry, so I haven't gotten around to Songs of Muad'Dib. I wasn't aware of the Science of Dune until just now, so that is now on my "to read" list. I haven't sought out any Frank Herbert biographies, as I'm more interested in his creation than I am him. I have watched and listened to the Frank Herbert interviews, but I lean more toward the "death of the author" in literary analysis. While I haven't read many of the sources that Frank Herbert relied on to write Dune, I am aware of them: The Sabres of Paradise, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, etc. I am not an expert on all things Herbert, but I AM MORE than a casual fan. All that being said, I am seeing a lot of people opining on Dune who don't realize their opinions are only as good as knowledge their opinions are based on. 1. You can not truly understand the novel Dune until you've read Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God Emperor of Dune. The remaining novels (Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse Dune, Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune) do finish the story, but they mostly just detail what God Emperor of Dune hinted at. It is best to think of Dune as a prologue to the actual story. 2. I don't think modern readers understand the history of SciFi literature. Young Adult Sci Fi wasn't really a thing until the 1950's, and most YA writers also wrote SciFi for adults. Robert Heinlein is a very good example. Citizen of the Galaxy is my favorite of his "juveniles". But Time Enough for Love is ABSOLUTELY an adult novel that explores the logical outcomes of advanced genetic engineering. The Frank Herbert novels are the result of an author writing novels with complex themes for an adult audience. Unfortunately for SciFi, the 1990's happened. IMO, publishers seemed to prioritize young adult SciFi in an attempt to increase profits. I suspect the thinking went something like "if we publish a single YA novel, then we'll get the YA readers and the adult readers who are desperate for something new". This is important to understand because Frank Herbert wrote using the "third person omniscient point of view." In today's literature, third person omniscient is not very common. Which is unfortunate. Third person omniscient allows an author to detail the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters in a single scene. It also allows the author to add information in a way that doesn't feel like an info dump. Most importantly in the case of the Dune novels, it lets the author tell a complex story of "plans within plans" that doesn't leave the reader confused until the last few pages. 3. IMO, telling a compelling, suspenseful story was not Frank Herbert's goal. His goal was to present ideas and philosophies that challenged the reader's preconceptions. Writing a compelling story was just a task that needed to be completed to reach his goal. 4. If you're looking for a film that's better than the book, read Mary Gaitskill's Bad Behavior, then watch the 2002 film Secretary.
I completely agree about "Dune" and "Stardust", though I haven't read "The Count of Monte Cristo" or "The Princess Bride" but enjoyed the films. I have to hard disagree about "Lord of the Rings", although I understand the perspective of enjoying the films more. I watched the films first too when they came out when I was a teenager, but I really enjoyed the overly detailed passages in the books that others often say they disliked. I don't like that so many things were left out of the films, although of course I understand putting text to screen involves omission of lots of things. My biggest disappointment was missing out on the lengthy bit about Faramir and Eowyn towards the end. There was so much more to Faramir than the films explored, but I can see why this would've been a tangent in the film. I recently read "The Revenant" after discovering it was a book before a film. I saw it on a family member's bookshelf and borrowed it. The film was definitely better, as the last 1/3 or 1/4 is almost completely different and not nearly as tense and climactic as in the film.
The 2002 adaptation of The Count of Monte Crisot is a primitive film. Add a stupid duel at the end, as if anyone was stupid enough to fall for the count's primitive trap. Reminds me of Ridley Scott's weak film Gladiator. In real life, Emperor Commodus doesn't die in a stupid duel and he wouldn't risk a stupid duel. And that stupid ending between the protagonist and his family. In the book, the protagonist preferred a beautiful young woman from the East. These Hollywood romantic clichés don't work in real life. And Dumas' reasoning was right. In the 1988 adaptation of the novel "The prisoner of château D'if", in the role of Haydee, the count's new love, we see the beautiful actress Nadira Mirzaeva. That's how I imagined Hayde when I read the novel. And she really looks like a concubine in her revealing translucent clothes. And you can easily understand the count at once: is it possible to refuse such a woman if she asks for your love? It is known that the director of the film, Georgy Yungvald-Khilkevich, could not resist Nadira, he even left the family and married her. And as Dumas wrote, in real life the beauty of a young oriental woman made a man give up everything for her.
For me it Jaws. In the book obviously there was a lot more going on than the movie. But in the book the shark was really not the star of the book. The book really focused on who the shark was killing the island economy. There was a lot of small town politics, organized crime was involved, along with the past relationship with Hooper and Brody's wife. I guess since i have seen a million time before i read the book i went in kind of bias to the movie. But Jurassic Park is my favorite movie and i saw the movie many times before i read the book, i still think the books are way better than the movies.
Sense and Sensibility - as much as I love Jane Austen, this was her first novel and that kind of shows in the writing. While it keeps in a lot of her wonderful characterizations and witticisms, the book has a lot of throwaway characters who don’t advance the plot and Elinor is (overall) written a bit too perfect. You don’t really see her struggle to maintain her composure and integrity when she’s being pressed on all sides. Emma Thompson’s screenplay really tightens up the plot, accelerating the pace of the action where it starts to drag in the book. She gets rid of the useless characters (Lucy’s sister Nancy for ex) and shows us a bit deeper into both Elinor and Marianne’s characters (much due to terrific performances by both Emma and Kate Winslet). I enjoy it so much more than the book. Sorry to say though, your opinion on LOTR is heresy :( going to pretend you didn’t even say that
The Dune books series could have a running gag to it. The likely reason no one has done a live action or even animated version of all the books is that while the first Dune book started off weird, the books get weirder and weirder as they continue.
Joseph Conrad's A Heart of Darkness was written in 1899 and its quite the read. The paragraph structure leaves a lot to be desired. Apocalypse Now changed enough of the story to truly underline a river of madness and moral degradation in a more relatable setting. Kurtz as a man of imposing size and authority with a sickness of the soul is a mistake, but a genius mistake.. like just about all of the film.
I’m so glad you brought up Stardust. The film is one of my favorites, and the book is just not “it.” Another film that outclasses the book would be How to Train Your Dragon. They are very different from each other, but the film is in a whole other league when compared to the books.
I haven't seen or read Jaws, but I believe you all
You should check them out sometime. The book was on the NYT Bestseller list for almost a year, and the movie basically invented the Summer Blockbuster Event Movie.
I would recommend you check out the movie when you get a chance. It’s a perfect film and well worth your time 👍
I liked the book better.
Thought Jaws the book was padded. Glad the movie jettisoned the mafia doing legs-bent running around tricks in the background and left the motivation to the community fearing a loss of income which was more relatable. Also glad they ditched Hooper having an affair with the sheriff's wife which was only there to provide an overwrought sex scene. Otherwise it served no purpose.
@@Rickkennett143 I read it about thirty years ago, I don't remember a lot of details. I thought it was deeper. The movie was corny by comparison.
Fight Club. Even the author watched the film and admitted he was almost embarrassed by the book afterwards.
Yup
Tyler Durden isn't nearly as memorable a character in the book.
@jarltrippin, Agreed. I couldn't get through it, and found it pretentious beyond belief.
I am Jacks complete lack of surprise
The author of The Godfather said that as well if he knew the movie would be a boy he would have wrote a better book.
The Godfather is my go to example of this. The book is ok, kinda schlocky but the characters make it bearable. It was never designed to be any better than a pulp novel about some gangsters. Movie takes everything about it and makes it better, removes a lot of bullshit as well. It’s an amazing improvement by Coppola and Puzo’s script and the actors.
Yea the writing quality in the book is honestly pretty mid.
I agree. I remember reading the book and being disappointed with it. The books does have some interesting Back stories about Vito and Luca Brasi but there’s a lot of useless subplots the movie wisely ignored. The book spends at least 100 pages on a subplot involving Sonny’s girlfriend. She gets about 10 seconds of screen time in the movie.
You don't think the movie needed a two hour digression on Connie's pelvic floor issues?
I think JAWS might deserve a place on your list. Spielberg tossed out all the junk, and kept only the good parts.
I came here to mention this very book! 😊 I didn't like Hooper in the book (I relished his death and still remember every word of it to this day) and Spielberg was 100% right about changing the ending!
When I first read it, I thought I'd missed something and had to reread the last few pages again before coming to the conclusion that the shark must have died from its' wounds. It was so anti-climatic! After a story like this, we *really* needed an "explosive" ending to cap it all off.
Same here
Hopper and Ellen Brody having an affair is a good example of unnecessary plot points.
I didn't like ANY of the characters from the book and the ending was inexcusable for me. I still rant about it to anyone who will listen. Benchley wrote another book "Beast" about a giant squid that had an ending almost as bad. I know they adapted that, but I haven't seen the movie.
Without Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility and Colin Firth's Pride and Prejudice I would never have understood the humor and wit of Jane Austen's books.
"Forrest Gump" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" were drastically altered for the better. Also, "The Godfather" movie spared us the novel's plot point about Sonny's oversized....um....manhood and Connie's equally oversized maid of honor who is also Sonny's mistress.
Big disagree on Count of Monte Cristo movie being better than the book. The movies (that I've seen anyway) pretty much completely miss the point of the book. They usually give everyone a nice happy ending, which does not happen in the book. I've never seen a movie that even has Haydée in it. I've never seen a movie that captures Edmund's melancholy relationship with Mercédès correctly, they just end up happily ever after for no reason
Ever seen the Richard Chamberlain adaptation? Haydee is in there briefly, but she is there.
There is the Russian film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988).
The French film with Pierre Niney that premieres this year has Hyadee, as does the miniseries with Sam Claflin that also premieres this year.
Why didn't Dumas make an Edmond and Mercedes ending together?
Alexandre Dumas read Homer (Dumas A., Mes Mémoires, Paris, Bouquins, 2003, p. 590)) and The Odyssey influenced the book The Count of Monte Cristo. In Book IV of The Odyssey, Telemachus visits Menelaus who won Helen back after his elopement with Paris. Helen was sorry for what she did, but still Menelaus needed to use drugs to forget his painful memories like Helen's union with Paris. This influenced Alexandre Dumas. Edmond would never be happy with Mercedes and would never forget her marriage to Fernand. This would always make him have painful memories. Their marriage would be deeply unhappy.
Haydee does not bring the count the painful memories that Mercedes does. More realistic for him to be happy with Haydée.
When I saw the thumbnail, LOTR, Princess Bride, Snow falling on Cedars, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? sprung to mind.
Solid arguments for what you prefer, but I do disagree on Dune and LOTR. For me, the appeal of Dune is the feeling of mythic scope. The clear understanding from the beginning that the characters are being driven forward toward a predetermined destiny by massive forces beyond their control, and then to see one by one those larger forces also being overtaken by events. It just keeps piling up and piling up the sense of scope and scale. In the case of LOTR, I love the casting and the adventure, but I miss the many quiet moments that were removed or shortened and I disagree with changes made to some of the characters, particularly Frodo. In the movies, Frodo is a naive young man frequently misled by Gollum, including being convinced by Gollum that he should not trust Sam. In the books, Frodo is a fairly mature man in his 50's who has a consistently clear-eyed understanding of Gollum and actually has a pretty sophisticated and nuanced strategy for keeping Gollum (relatively) under control. And, Frodo does not lose faith in Sam, which means that Frodo is consistently as good a friend to Sam as Sam is to Frodo.
I can't say that the movies are better than the book but regarding Frodo sending Sam away I don't think it's about him being a poor friend or that he's just gullible, I think it's due to one thing I do think the movies did a bit better than the book - the power of the Ring. I think the Ring comes across as more powerful in its direct influence in the movies overall and I think that is the idea behind why Frodo gets fooled by Gollum, that he's being worn down and becoming less of himself, as well as becoming paranoid to lose it. In the book there are a few times where the power of the Ring is undercut by other things that, in the grand scheme of the story, are much less important.
I feel the same way. Dune and Lord of the rings are better in book version than movie version.But I love move versions to.
Dune the book is better because in the book the plot is less important than the subtext and big ideas the book is trying to get across. Movies are really good at plot, dialogue and action but not good at all with subtext and ideas. On the surface, Dune is a fairly straightforward revenge story but the reason people are still talking about Dune 50+ years after it was written is because of all those ideas Herbert sprinkled throughout the books. I sometimes pick up Dune and just read the the little blurbs at the beginning of each chapter. They are pure gold and their absence in the movie leaves a big hole.
To anyone who is interested in reading Stardust, make the effort to pick up the graphic novel version illustrated by regular Gaiman collabrator Charles Vess. His art brings SO MUCH of that "missing" charm.
Dune as a Greek tragedy is actually a very interesting thought.
Dune always was a tragedy. It's surprising to me that people don't seem to get that.
I think Dune takes a lot of inspiration from Greek tragedy. Fate is a theme, and the fatal flaw of humanity.
The audience watching a Greek Tragedy would already know how the story ends. Plot, battles and mystery boxes are not what makes Greek Tragedy timeless.
@@gunkulator1 The narrative in Dune *does* say how the story ends early on, though. It's not the plot and battles that makes Dune seem Greek tragedy-inspired; it's the use of fate as a theme, the telegraphing of the ending, and that unique sense of the marriage of inevitability and free choice.
@@anonymouswitness3835 Mostly agree. The fact that the audience already knew the ending to a Greek Tragedy going in is precisely why Dune can be seen as one. We get told early on what the ending is. Once you remove plot as the main driver, you can focus on the things you mention, like fate vs free will. The movie doesn't do this. Indeed it probably can't due to the limitations of the medium.
My personal interpretation about why Dune was written that way is that Herbert is showing the reader how it would feel like to possess the power of prescience.
As far as a movie that's better than the book, for me it is Annihilation.
Yes, the helplessness the reader feels at knowing what's going to happen is the same as Paul's inability to stop what's to come
I’ve heard abt the book Annihilation and it’s on my list. I want to read it before I watch the movie. I have heard there is a movie version of the book as well. If I remember correctly I think I saw the title on Netflix
Dune the movie misses so much because we don't get much of Paul's thoughts. The inevitability of prescience and the psychological burden it exacts on Paul makes Paul's victory at the end of the book a pyrrhic victory instead of some great triumph.
Forrest Gump the book is horrendous. Not sure if the movie has aged well, but it still has to be waaaaaay better than the book.
Same
The Mist {EDITED}..in fact Stephen King has stated that he wished he wrote the movie ending instead of his own in the book
You mean The Mist. The Fog was a John Carpenter movie.
@@vladtepid1 Yup..thanks for the correction
Yeah The Mist movie’s ending was perfect. So brutal and bleak, you finish the movie thinking what the fuck just happened
One could make the case that Frank spoiling everything in Dune was a way of giving the reader a glimpse of the prescience Paul deals with throughout the series.
We know things are going to happen before they happen and yet we are locked to this terrible fate. This terrible purpose.
Would love to hear your takes on the next books in the series. You cant just stop at the first book and "get" Dune.
I couldn’t agree more about LOTR and Princess Bride. When I was a young teen, I thought I would read these books because I loved the movies so much… it made me think I didn’t like reading. 😅
totally agree - couldn't even finish them
Funny as so many people who never had an LOTR movie to watch has read the Hobbit and the LTLOR books many times over. You are comparing apples to oranges by seeing the movies first and trying to compare all the changes Jackson made to the characters to the ones created by Tolkien. I do admit, however, Tom Bomadil gets a bit old.
Lord of the rings has an epic writing like war and peace by Tolstoy and the films have a superficial and shallow style like Percy Jackson.
The big problem is that readers today are accustomed to mediocre books and find well-written books like War and Peace boring.
The LOTR movies do a great job telling the story, especially the Frodo and Sam friendship, but they do so at the expense of the greater themes that Tolkien is trying to get across. The rise of mankind and with it the loss of innocence, inevitability of technology and industrialization, and the corresponding fading of the elves makes for a more wistful ending. The protracted and multiple endings of the movies get to be a bit much upon repeat viewing and start to veer into the realm of maudlin. Also, the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen in Appendix A of Return of the King is perhaps the most beautifully written and heartbreaking story in popular fiction. The movies reference it but then discard its ultimate consequences at the end.
I love Chronicles of Narnia but when it comes to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe I always felt that I prefer the movie version a lot more - it really brought out the reality of WW2 which was then soothed by the tangible magic^^
Children of Men. Somebody realised that the end of the book was the start of a much more interesting and engaging story, and chose to make a film of that rather than the novel.
I thought the battle of Helms Deep was written well in The Two Towers. The imagery of the horns sounding deep in the caves as Théoden, Aragorn and the Rohirrim ride out as the Orcs scatter is so vivid. It's stayed with me since the first time I read it.
I felt the same way about the Ents attack on Isenguard. It was fun seeing the Ents brought to life, but the movie just didn't send chills down my spine like the book still does. 😊
Yes, the books worked for me. I thought the battles were epic and evoked great imagery. I imagine it's harder to come up with different imagery than the movies if you saw them first. I think there are several places where the books are better that you might not fully appreciate are even different if you've seen the movies first.
And yet that's the point where I nope-out. 3x and I've never gotten past it. Taste is such an interesting thing.
Battles are better for movies and they go on for some time but both Helm's Deep and Pellanor Fields take up no more than one chapter in the books. Also, the movies break book themes for bad reasons for both battles. No, the elves were not at Helm's Deep. How could they be? They would have had to have left weeks before to march that far before Theoden even decided to go there. Worse are the dead in Pellanor fields. The brave sacrifice and ride of the Rohirrim and stalwart defense by the men of Gondor is completely undercut by a bunch of invulnerable video game NPCs. It's Deus Ex Machina of the worst kind. In both cases, the movies are ignoring the overarching theme of the rise of mankind and the fading of the elves and magic from the world. In both battles it was men who finally decided their own fate instead of depending on elves and magical creatures as was their way in the past. Also both scenes are a bit too silly with Legolas - 'nuff said about that.
Thank you! I always tell people that saying the book is better is weird to me, because it's a different medium of telling a story. In most cases, as a casual moviegoer, I prefer the movie to get an idea for whether I would want to dedicate that kind of time to the book. Unless someone with very common interests recommends the book first, but I do not surround myself with many readers, heh.
But anyway - You don't have the same constraints with a book that you do as a movie, so naturally, you can tell a complete unabridged story in a book. A lot of times, when a movie is made, characters are cut, subplots are removed, because you just don't have the same amount of screentime as you might have for telling the story in a novel. And yeah, the story could be adapted to a serialized show or miniseries, but that's a much bigger time investment both for the filmmakers and the viewers.
Anyway, I love the list. Good choices, though I haven't read most of these yet... Now, I'm not sure if I want to. 😂
But thank you for the heads up, sincerely. I appreciate your insight.
The LOTR movies are so beautiful too.
"Girl, Interrupted" and "Blade Runner" definitely both improved upon their source material.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is one of my favourite books and I couldn't understand why everyone loved the film (other than the soundtrack) when you don't get any of what made the book great. Yes, the film is very atmospheric. But it doesn't follow the book well, and you don't get to understand Decker like you do in the book. So I definitely disagree. I'd read the book again, I'll never watch the film again.
Yep. Though specifically for Dune, I'd like to read a version of the series written in a close 3rd person. God, that would be amazing.
I haven’t read the Count of Monte Cristo. But the movie is one of my all time favorites.
That is probably my favorite book. The book is better. The movie left out my favorite part of the book (a huge storyline). You should read it.
@@samjohnson7869 I been rereading this book at least once a year, for more than several years now
This year a new French adaptation premieres that already has a teaser and without the shallow ending of the 2002 film.
Why didn't Dumas make an Edmond and Mercedes ending together?
Alexandre Dumas read Homer (Dumas A., Mes Mémoires, Paris, Bouquins, 2003, p. 590)) and The Odyssey influenced the book The Count of Monte Cristo. In Book IV of The Odyssey, Telemachus visits Menelaus who won Helen back after his elopement with Paris. Helen was sorry for what she did, but still Menelaus needed to use drugs to forget his painful memories like Helen's union with Paris. This influenced Alexandre Dumas. Edmond would never be happy with Mercedes and would never forget her marriage to Fernand. This would always make him have painful memories. Their marriage would be deeply unhappy.
Haydee does not bring the count the painful memories that Mercedes does. More realistic for him to be happy with Haydée.
TV show rather than movie, but I like The Magicians TV series waaaayyyy better than the book.
Two movies that were substantial improvements over the novels were Forest Gump and Jaws. Both tightened the focus of the stories and shed distractions to very good effect.
I think that Doctor Zhivago probably also benefited from David Lean’s masterful cinematic treatment, though the vast number of years that have passed since both reading the translated novel and seeing that film may have some effect on my assessment.
Your take on the Lord of the Rings is understandable and relatable: Peter Jackson and his associates in the work set the cinematic bar so high that even they could not again make the leap. I still protest the character assassination of Faramir, the constantly increasing whimpification of Frodo, and diminution of the Ents’ decision to go to war.
The book is much more realistic. Pasternak relied on himself to write and develop the character.
And he, who experienced the Russian revolution, offers a better description than that given by a foreigner.
The count of monte cristo movie left out my favorite part of the book, the count encouraging de villefort's wife into killing his family. Book way better than movie imo
The 1979 miniseries has the story of the poisonings.
9:14 Oh, hell no! The book is my favorite classic ever! The early 2000s movie was very good, but other than the ending, the book crushes it.
Omg - you cannot falt LofR movies - every time I cross the Hutt river I think about the wraith chase being destroyed by river horses.
I love the movies but I can fault two main things and those are the character assassinations of Sam and Faramir.
OMG yes you can fault them. Jackson added in thing that never happened and changed characters personalities. The movies may be good, but they are NOT the same as the books.
@@maghurt And Aragorn. It irks me to no end that Jackson made Aragorn some angsty brat who doubted his duty. I also dislike how he just invented things that never happened and gave Arwen far more action than she ever had in the books. Arwen summoning river horses? Please.
@@gusmonster59 I hear you. I know some changes have to be made to adapt books to film, but I feel like there was enough "drama" already. I have no issue with the performances, music or cinematography, the attention to detail is extraordinary. Cheers!
Lol - the whole point of the movies is to entertain the masses .Of course they take liberties - non of it is real life. And there's room for all.
I think the movie soundtracks add a whole lot to the mood(s) of movies. That's why John Williams deserves almost as much credit as the directors. The rollercoaster of moods you experience from Love Actually is, in a large part because of the songs. When Emma Thompson realizes that her husband is cheating and Joni Michell starts playing will make anybody misty eyed.
You make an interesting point about Dune. That Frank did spoil a lot of potential storylines, never occurred to me. As for your slightly blasphemous take on The Count of Monte Cristo, the book was epically long with such a rich complex storyline, that none of the many movies do come close to doing the story justice. As for your take on Lord of the Rings…. pure blasphemy. You’re in my thoughts and prayers 🙏 A great post despite the multiple heresies.
I agree wit h you about LOTR-Blasphemy indeed.
There will be a miniseries that premieres this year with Sam Claflin. There will be 8 episodes.
Aina will have a French film that already has a teaser and Haydee appears there.
Dune is written as an in-universe account of Paul Atreides by Princess Irulan. The in-universe audience presumably already knows the broad strokes of what happened and is reading her account for the insights that are not generally well known. In Dune the books it's not so much what happens as it is why it happens and what it all means. This level of subtlety gets completely lost in the movies.
The Shawshank Redemption
I liked the book ending more. It was the original movie ending but audience testing said they needed verifiable closure.
Usually I appreciate the book for giving you MORE than the movie can; yet in this case, I wanted LESS. I did not need to know what Brooks Hatlen did to end up in Shawshank. It kills my empathy for him and undercuts the tragedy of his "institutionalized" condition. The movie is better.
Or anything by Stephen King for that matter. The movie is always better.
Is there a connection between which medium you got to first? LOTR you saw as a movie before you read it. How about the others? I read The Princess Bride years before the movie came out, and they are both among my favorites. I wonder if the book would have suffered if I'd seen the movie first. Thanks!
I think that does matter a little because I started reading some classic literature and I noticed that the books I saw the MOVIE to FIRST were books I liked a little less or a lot less than the books I READ first THEN I saw the MOVIE.
For example; I saw Dracula first (both the one with Bela Legosi and the one with Keanu Reeves) and I liked those two much more than the book. I read the book The Picture of Dorian Gray first and then I watched the movie and I liked the book more.
So I think the order in which you viewed the media first does matter (just a wee bit)
I think that does matter a little because I started reading some classic literature and I noticed that the books I saw the MOVIE to FIRST were books I liked a little less or a lot less than the books I READ first THEN I saw the MOVIE.
For example; I saw Dracula first (both the one with Bela Legosi and the one with Keanu Reeves) and I liked those two much more than the book. I read the book The Picture of Dorian Gray first and then I watched the movie and I liked the book more.
So I think the order in which you viewed the media first does matter (just a wee bit)
Sometimes, but sometimes, not so much. I have read some books after seeing the movies that I thought the movies were so much better, but others, I liked both. Lord of the Rings is one of those where I liked both. The Black Cauldron, in fact, is one where I do think that the books are better, even though I think of the movie fondly.
Lord of the rings has better writing and an epic story on the level of war and peace by Tolstoy.
The film has a shallower and more adventurous writing like Percy Jackson.
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky shaped my literary taste and I can't stand shallow stories.
@@roman1183 I have the books but haven’t read em yet so who knows I might like the books more than the films idk yet
I agree with stardust and LotR, the rest I've only seen 1 half of the equation. I'd add Jurassic Park, Vanity Fair, Phantom of the Opera and Alice in Wonderland, tv adaptations I'd also add in Bridgerton and Emma(BBC version)
Marathon Man, Jaws, Trainspotting, Night Of The Hunter, A Clockwork Orange, 2001, The Searchers
Mentioned Dune but left out a previous example by Denis, though maybe it doesn’t quite count since it was a short story? “Arrival” is so much better than “Story of Your Life” imho, and mostly because of a single change. Such a spectacular movie. Highly recommend if you haven’t seen it.
Oh noo I was already sort of disappointed by Exhalation by Ted Chiang but I really wanted to give stories of your life a shot because I LOVE Arrival 2016. Best sci-fi movie (and the only sci fi movie I truly like, because it's always bad/nonsense science and not speculative science.)
But now I'm scared stories of your life won't that good either 😅
I've never read the novel it's based on, but Arrival is one of my all time favorite SF movies. 👌
Arrival is masterful and the original author loves it as well, calling it one of the few cases where something is great both as an adaptation and as a movie.
Short stories are books, they're simply not novels.
My movies better than the Book; My list--- Ella Enchanted, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Charlie and the chocolate factory(Willy Wonka)1973 , off the top of my head.
My issue with Ferdinand being a best friend is it goes against the (extremely sad) point. The man who had the least to do with the betrayal had the worst punishment while the one who did the worst hot off relatively easy compared to the others.
It showed the true horror of revenge. By making Ferdinand a bestie, it made the degree of his revenge understandable.
As if someone needs to be friends to conspire.
In the Odyssey, Penelope's suitors were not friends with Ulysses for him to take revenge on them.
The Godfather
Forrest Gump
The two that immediately leapt to mind are The Godfather and The Shining. I’ve never read A Clockwork Orange, but the movie is one of my all time favorites.
Also, cat is listening.
Clockwork Orange one of my favorite movies, too, but the book is better. Movie left out the entire last chapter and changed the whole meaning of the book
I like the shining book better, still love the movie but aside from the topiary monsters the story left me very satisfied. I loved the tension and the focus on jacks alcoholism and the honest and uncomfortable look into his thoughts about his family even before he was crazy. Plus dick got to live at the end. I think doctor sleep was a better movie than its book counterpart though.
Book is better... but both are amazing.
I had a weakness for Dickens when I was younger, and I'm still fond of him, but I could always understand when my friends declared they hated him. Yes, his style takes getting used to, and yes, he uses FAR more words than he needs to. Yet the cinematic adaptations of his work are quite frequently a joy to watch, and would deserve a spot on this list: Oliver Twist (David Lean, 1948) and Great Expectations (David Lean, 1947) spring to mind immediately. My personal favorite, however, is MGM's A Tale of Two Cities (1936), starring Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, and Walter Catlett. The difference between book and film, as you point out with Stardust and The Princess Bride, is the amount of HEART that goes into the story. When I read the book, I can think, "Well, this is interesting," all the while feeling impatient with yet another of Dickens' colorless young heroines. The movie, on the other hand, tears my heart to pieces every time I watch it, with Colman's sublime portrayal of Sidney Carton at the center of it all.
I've read some Dickens, have seen many adaptations of his work, and some are all time favorite movies for me - Nicholas Nickleby with Charlie Hunnam and David Copperfield with Dev Patel in particular
I love the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol (originally entitled "Scrooge"). The character of Jorkin and his influence on Scrooge are additions that I think Dickens would have approved of.
I agree with you on all movies _except_ Princess Bride. Funnily enough for the reasons you named. I saw the movie first and it had this run-of-the-mill lackluster feel to it. It was only when I read the novel it is bases on that understood the movie. The adaptation is what Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy whould look like if you took out the jokes.
Mine was The Devil Wears Prada. Although I liked the book, I think the characters and storytelling was vastly improved by the movie
See How Many People You Can Inspire To Write Dissertations Telling You You’re Wrong challenge 😂🤣
You can always win that challenge it seems 💀😆 hahaha
challenge accepted, always 😂
James Bond movies
Bunny Lake is Missing
True Grit.
3. The John Wayne movie
2. Charles Portis's original novel
1. The Coen Brothers movie
To Have and Have Not.
Howard Hawks, William Faulkner, Jules Furthman (plus Bogart and Bacall and so on) make a masterpiece out of Hemingway's worst novel.
Dune is the best selling sci fi book of all time for a reason. Just saying 😜
Nice! This is video I didn't know (but did know) I needed! Love your analysis. I fully agree--the book is ALWAYS better... except when the movie is better. The Prestige, Wizard of Oz (only because the movie is so magical and beautiful), Somewhere in Time. Also The Devil Wears Prada (although I haven't read the book lol). And yes, it's sacrilege to include LOTR, but the movies add so much character depth, those of us who adore characters over plot can kind of, sort of, feel like... sacrilege.
But in all cases, credit must be given to the author for birthing and executing the original idea that inspired someone else to adapt it. 👍
Great video!
Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep is a better movie than the book.
Much more gritty.
You're right, this is blasphemy! 😅
I guess this depends a lot on if you read the book or watch the movie first. I read books first.
To me, LOTR movies are really good, but nowhere near the books. They lack the deepness and mystic of the books, for example, when representing elves and their culture. The movies are long, but still they feel compressed.
Same about Dune, I love the movies, but again, they lack the depth of the book. The discovery about the relationship between spice and worms is very important in the books but kind of missing in the movies and the guild of navigators almost irrelevant. When reading the books, we are reading from the perspective of a historian, so I think it's ok if things are told in advance. Also goes very well with Paul knowing the future too, trying to avoid by all means its realisation, something that the movies don't picture clearly. The ecology part is quite absent too.
I also prefer Statdust the book to the movie. I like the darker tone of the book, the slow worldbuilding and contrast between the town and the other side of the wall, the slow discovery of it. And of course, revisiting Faerie after reading Sandman, that was a high moment for me. The movie is ok, but I don't like its silliness or the way they portrait the star. If Gaiman said the movie was better, maybe he just wanted people to watch it 🤷
Liene, you had me until The Count of Monte Cristo. That's my favorite book of all time and I ended up super disappointed in the 2002 movie 😂. I still recognize it as good on its own terms, though, it just fundamentally differs thematically from the novel. Respect for these brave takes, though!
Would Edmond really prefer Mercedes? Does this reasoning work in practice? He could find a beautiful young woman and leave Mercedes in the past.
What would stop him on his travels from meeting a prettier woman and leaving Mercedes in the past?
During the filming of the film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988), an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, director Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich fell in love with the actress Nadira Mirzaeva who played Hyadee. And he divorces his wife and marries Nadira.
Nothing prevents a man from meeting another woman and leaving his old relationship in the past.
A few to consider, Mary Poppins, Sword in the Stone, Hunchback of Notre Dame (even the author rewrote it for a play), and ... The Rocketeer (though that's more a comic). Though, of these I did enjoy Hunchback somewhat more so than the others, but, yeah, I just couldn't get into them.
I wholeheartedly agree about Princess Bride. Reading the book almost seemed like a letdown, even though it's not bad.
I think Monte Cristo is debatable, simply because I have not read the book in full yet, but I have seen both the adaptation you showed and the Richard Chamberlain adaptation. The Richard Chamberlain adaptation is closer to the book from what I gather and was pretty good.
As for Lord of the Rings, I think that's just a preference. Both the books and the movies are top-tier. I too saw the movies before reading the books, but I quite like the books as much as I do the movies, and kind of can see where book fans come from regarding certain changes to beloved characters. That said, I also understand Peter Jackson's reasons for the changes he made and why it fits better for movies.
Maybe do a list of movies that didn't do the books justice? If you already have, disregard this, but if not ... well, there might be too many for that. 😅
Hollywood and its clichés of eternal love that doesn't exist.
In the book the Count forgets Mercedes and marries a younger woman called Haydee. And this story appears in the film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988).
Would Edmond really prefer Mercedes? Does this reasoning work in practice? He could find a beautiful young woman and leave Mercedes in the past.
What would stop him on his travels from meeting a prettier woman and leaving Mercedes in the past?
During the filming of the film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988), director Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich fell in love with the actress Nadira Mirzaeva who played Haydee. And he divorces his wife and marries Nadira.
Nothing prevents a man from meeting another woman and leaving his old relationship in the past
Only by the writing of weak Hollywood screenwriters that a man only loves one woman and is incapable of finding a replacement. In real life, everything is different.
You may have convinced me about Dune and LOTR! I haven’t really thought about it until now but I think I feel the same way. LOTR is tough though. I agree with you however I would have really liked to see the scouring of the Shire on screen but I like way PJ ended it with the hobbits returning and the Shire is the same and THEY are completely different.
I love how Sam had to travel halfway across the world and back for the better part of a year just to find the courage to talk to a woman who was already interested in him. Love it.
I would also add a Stand By Me and Fight Club to this list.
Jaws. Peter Benchley wrote a book that caught people's imagination, but Spielberg made a movie that is one of the best horror suspence adventure thrillers of all time. Screenwriter Carl Gotlieb ironned our many of the clunky plot holes and injected some much needed humour. And especially, they got rid of the Housewives of Amity love triangle. Thank God!
So a lot of folks mentioned Jaws, which is a good start - but both The Shawshank Redemption AND Stand By Me from Stephen King’s different seasons are on this list for me. Either story on the page has some of King’s trademark wit, but these are arguably two of the greatest movies of the 80’s and 90’s. They belong here 😎🤘🏻
Most film adaptations of Stephen King’s works are better as films.
@@teleriferchnyfain somewhat true, but for every Carrie, It, or the two aforementioned films, you have to sit through any Children of the Corn film, Maximum Overdrive, Graveyard Shift, or The Mangler to remind yourself of how bad his film adaptations can be 🤣
@@superred5 I did say most....
The French Lieutenant's Woman. Not only is the movie better able to show what the book is aiming to do but I also appreciate the book more after seeing the movie.
Good one. Ending of the book was like a cheap rip of Clue.
I knew Stardust would have to be on this list, and I agree. I think what it's missing is an actual climax. There's no end battle against the witch or anything. They're just like "we're good now" and walk away at the end, while the movie has a fun action battle and happy ending
In my experience, whichever thing you saw or read first is what ends up being better.
One notable exception to this for me was The Expanse. I liked the show and the books equally, but I liked each for different reasons.
I haven't seen or read Dune, but I agree with the rest of your list 100%.
Confession: I haven't rewatch The Princess Bride since reading the book (and I reread it to be sure I had actually read the real thing...), I'm afraid I won't like it anymore...
Speaking of Neil Gaiman, I would say Coraline is also better as a movie than as a book. Nightmare fuel, but so good.
Fun Fact: Both Daredevil and Jigsaw(from Punisher). Are in Stardust ( Charlie Cox and Ben Barns)
2:34 the Dune books spoiling themselves creates a direct connection between the reader and the protagonist - as in we as readers become prescient. We know what is to happen, but not exactly how, or why.
This is the only explanation I can think of for Herbert's insistence on doing this for all the Dune books.
For me it's "The Firm" by John Grisham. The book has this whole section where the good guys and the bad guys are running around in Florida basically accomplishing nothing. The film is much tighter and more focused.
Same. I liked the movie much more than the novel.
Preach about Dune honestly. I don't actually agree with you on your reasoning but I do about the end result. Dune part 2 goes so much harder than the book does at every point, it keeps the same mood and feeling while injecting some much needed emotion in to it all. I don't know if the Messiah film will be able to surpass the Messiah book though, cuz that one is pretty seriously good.
I completely disagree on Dune. The movie removed all the weird and wacky trippy-ness of the book and tried to compensate with bombastic sound design.
I fail to see why everyone is so impressed with it, but I am in a small minority!
@@Uppernorwood976 I thought they were good but very clean, the oddness of the Dune books is seldom there.
The entire feeling of a water swirl pulling every faction in the story is also very diluted in the movie. The characters have considerable of agency and that misses the inevitability of it all.
Jaws, Watership Down, Harry Potter (yes, all of them).
I would agree with LotR if we were only talking about book/film 1, but film 2 and 3 are too flawed in my opinion. Still good, but absolutely not better than the books.
Cheers
I agree with Harry Potter in a way. I only read the books to get information I needed as the last couple of films were confusing. And Ginny is better in the books. But over all, the books drag on and on and on with boring stuff before getting to the last bit of each book where it actually gets exciting. The films fix that.
I see your point with LotR/Dune/MonteCristo, I won't hate you for that 😄 old books are sometimes so slow paced that modern movies compensate for the (inevitable) lack of depth with more immersive and memorable action. Stardust (the book) was such a letdown for me because I saw the movie first and loved it, recently I discovered that Neil Gaiman is aware of this and it made me laugh. As an author myself... it must be a strange feeling for to see a movie that better your work, sad that they had better ideas than you but kinda uplifting that someone elevated your work.😄
Totally agree about dune and the count of monte Cristo
Hollywood and its clichés of eternal love that doesn't exist.
Would Edmond really prefer Mercedes? Does this reasoning work in practice? He could find a beautiful young woman and leave Mercedes in the past.
What would stop him on his travels from meeting a prettier woman and leaving Mercedes in the past?
During the filming of the film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988), director Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich fell in love with the actress Nadira Mirzaeva who played Haydee. And he divorces his wife and marries Nadira.
Nothing prevents a man from meeting another woman and leaving his old relationship in the past
Only by the writing of weak Hollywood screenwriters that a man only loves one woman and is incapable of finding a replacement. In real life, everything is different.
Predestination by Heinlen is a good pick. Loved the short story, but the movie blew my socks off. It's sooooo underrated imo
I forgot i sub'b here, host you should do autobooks on your fav books ?
45 seconds in and already a wildly unforgivable take. Respect.
I know I'm late, but my go to is always Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
100% agree about LOTR. The Fellowship movie in particular. I definitely liked Dune the books more than the movies but you have a good point about the book I'd never thought about! You know what's gonna happen before it happens. The first movie doesn't really have the "Find the traitor" plot line so I think it really throws off the pacing. The second movie was all-around a better movie but I think they screwed up in playing up the role of the "Missionara Protectiva". I didn't like that the Jihad comes off as being a Bene Gesseritt plot all along because it makes Paul look like a tool. Jihad definitely was NOT planned. The thing that Pauls fate is bound to is beyond anything anyone in the Dune world can possibly understand.
I am 100% with you on LOTR; it was what I immediately thought of when I saw your video title.
One example for me is that I absolutely skip the songs in the book. I am not a musical person at all, and I cannot make those songs "sound good" in my head. I can barely read them! Lol. But they are an amazing and essential component to the movie.
My favorite movie is The Prestige. I had no idea it was based on a book, so when I found the book I bought it immediately. Unfortunately, the book is not good. The same general concept is the starting point for both, but the movie creates such a fantastic extrapolation of the concept, while the book does very little with it.
I have a weird relationshiop with Howls Moving Castle. I love the movie for how it represented the love story more than the books. But I also loved the extra context all of the events in the first book.
BTW if you love the movie, I definitely think the source material which is the Land of Ingary chronicles are worth reading. The third book is my absolute fav.
13:00 Bernard Cornwell, Love his battles
Spoilering oneself is something omniscient narrators tend to do.
If you have a protagonist who is basically the narrator's alter ego even if it's not a first person narrator, you can avoid this.
A great example of this is '1984' where we get to know or conjecture what Winston Smith knows or conjectures, nothing more.
The Manchurian Candidate (the first one). You have to watch it to see how great it is!
I'm currently reading Dune and I get what you are saying. For me tho, the book i'ts better exactly for that reason. I love to know what i'ts happening before the characters.
Add Bourne Identity to the list. The book was so hard to read
I liked Payback more than The Hunter just because it feels better to follow around a non sociopath. Though the book was good and I haven't read all of them yet.
The Postman, while I normally love Super soldiers and crazy scifi stuff but the down to earth movie feels like a better fit
I've tried to read the Count of Monte Cristo a bunch of times but I can't for the life of me push past page 200. Booktube has convinced me it's going to change my life...but I think I'm just going to have to let this one go. The film is great though 😅
The 2002 film shows the low intellectual and cultural level of Hollywood film writers.
The Russian film The Prisoner of Château d'If (1988)
Why didn't Dumas make an Edmond and Mercedes ending together?
Alexandre Dumas read Homer (Dumas A., Mes Mémoires, Paris, Bouquins, 2003, p. 590)) and The Odyssey influenced the book The Count of Monte Cristo. In Book IV of The Odyssey, Telemachus visits Menelaus who won Helen back after his elopement with Paris. Helen was sorry for what she did, but still Menelaus needed to use drugs to forget his painful memories like Helen's union with Paris. This influenced Alexandre Dumas. Edmond would never be happy with Mercedes and would never forget her marriage to Fernand. This would always make him have painful memories. Their marriage would be deeply unhappy.
Haydee does not bring the count the painful memories that Mercedes does. More realistic for him to be happy with Haydée.
Dumas was a great reader of classics, unlike Hollywood screenwriters. That's why his story is more elaborate than the shallow films that Hollywood makes.
This year a new French adaptation of the book and an Italian-French miniseries will premiere. It will be good to compare these new adaptations with the shallow and superficial film made by mediocre Hollywood screenwriters.
I’m with ya. I forced myself to finish the book, and I wish I hadn’t. It bored me to tears. I love the Guy Pearce movie version much more. Awesome movie.
I’m currently listening to Dune on Audible. While I’m not sure your reasoning is why I feel the way I do (though you do make a great point), so far I agree that the movies are better than the book.
Yes, there are things left out of the movie that are in the book and things that are different in the book than in the movie. But, I don’t think enough is left out or changed too drastically to make that big of a difference.
Again, I’m still not all the way finished with the book, but so far, I think the most recent movie adaptation is better than the book.
The haunting of Hill house, turned into the movie haunted, the book wasn't that scary at all, the movie still creeps me out to this day and it's from 1963. The remake BTW was horrible done.
2 that are my go-to: Bedknobs & Broomsticks, and Big Fish. Neither of the books comes close to the magic in their respective movies and not just because it's visual vs. text.
I agree on all these takes. All of those movies are a joy to watch.
The LotRs movies were well made, but the books are infinitely better. The movies left out sooooo many critical elements. The most critical missing element was Tom and Goldberry, who are the whole point of the mythology. Had you not seen the movies first you'd most likely have a completely opposite opinion.
So, the Scouring of the Shire would add more to the movies than the Bombadilious stuff
@@revpgesqredux As Christopher Tolkien explained, 'The Lord of the Rings is a primarily philosophical work', and JRR himself stated very clearly that his mythology was a "Catholic work. Unconsciously so at first, but intentionally in the revision". I suppose if you understand tLotRs as entertainment only, then you are justified in thinking the movies were better than the books. But if you understand JRR's work for what he clearly intended, then Bombadil AND the Scouring of the Shire are necessary and cannot be avoided. There were many other things in the movie that were misleading and plain wrong. I enjoyed the movies, BTW, although the 'Hobbit' movies were completely unwatchable.
I thought you did great with your list of choices as well as your reasoning. On two of your choices, I agree 100%. A disclaimer at the beginning of your video that this is YOUR opinion should be sufficient to establish that you respect differing views and ask the same of others. That said...thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
Sigh...
I first read the novel in Dune in 1986. The first 4 novels have become my "comfort books" that I re-read about once a year. I have read Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse Dune. I have read the out-of-print Dune Encyclopedia authorized by Frank Herbert several times.
I managed to slog through the Brian Herbert/Kevin J Anderson atrocities while throwing only one book across the room in disgust.
I have read Frank Herbert's short "The Road to Dune", but I haven't read the BH/KJA novel by the same name.
I'm not a fan of poetry, so I haven't gotten around to Songs of Muad'Dib. I wasn't aware of the Science of Dune until just now, so that is now on my "to read" list.
I haven't sought out any Frank Herbert biographies, as I'm more interested in his creation than I am him. I have watched and listened to the Frank Herbert interviews, but I lean more toward the "death of the author" in literary analysis.
While I haven't read many of the sources that Frank Herbert relied on to write Dune, I am aware of them: The Sabres of Paradise, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, etc.
I am not an expert on all things Herbert, but I AM MORE than a casual fan.
All that being said, I am seeing a lot of people opining on Dune who don't realize their opinions are only as good as knowledge their opinions are based on.
1. You can not truly understand the novel Dune until you've read Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God Emperor of Dune. The remaining novels (Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse Dune, Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune) do finish the story, but they mostly just detail what God Emperor of Dune hinted at. It is best to think of Dune as a prologue to the actual story.
2. I don't think modern readers understand the history of SciFi literature. Young Adult Sci Fi wasn't really a thing until the 1950's, and most YA writers also wrote SciFi for adults. Robert Heinlein is a very good example. Citizen of the Galaxy is my favorite of his "juveniles". But Time Enough for Love is ABSOLUTELY an adult novel that explores the logical outcomes of advanced genetic engineering.
The Frank Herbert novels are the result of an author writing novels with complex themes for an adult audience.
Unfortunately for SciFi, the 1990's happened. IMO, publishers seemed to prioritize young adult SciFi in an attempt to increase profits. I suspect the thinking went something like "if we publish a single YA novel, then we'll get the YA readers and the adult readers who are desperate for something new".
This is important to understand because Frank Herbert wrote using the "third person omniscient point of view." In today's literature, third person omniscient is not very common. Which is unfortunate. Third person omniscient allows an author to detail the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters in a single scene. It also allows the author to add information in a way that doesn't feel like an info dump. Most importantly in the case of the Dune novels, it lets the author tell a complex story of "plans within plans" that doesn't leave the reader confused until the last few pages.
3. IMO, telling a compelling, suspenseful story was not Frank Herbert's goal. His goal was to present ideas and philosophies that challenged the reader's preconceptions. Writing a compelling story was just a task that needed to be completed to reach his goal.
4. If you're looking for a film that's better than the book, read Mary Gaitskill's Bad Behavior, then watch the 2002 film Secretary.
I completely agree about "Dune" and "Stardust", though I haven't read "The Count of Monte Cristo" or "The Princess Bride" but enjoyed the films.
I have to hard disagree about "Lord of the Rings", although I understand the perspective of enjoying the films more. I watched the films first too when they came out when I was a teenager, but I really enjoyed the overly detailed passages in the books that others often say they disliked. I don't like that so many things were left out of the films, although of course I understand putting text to screen involves omission of lots of things. My biggest disappointment was missing out on the lengthy bit about Faramir and Eowyn towards the end. There was so much more to Faramir than the films explored, but I can see why this would've been a tangent in the film.
I recently read "The Revenant" after discovering it was a book before a film. I saw it on a family member's bookshelf and borrowed it. The film was definitely better, as the last 1/3 or 1/4 is almost completely different and not nearly as tense and climactic as in the film.
The 2002 adaptation of The Count of Monte Crisot is a primitive film.
Add a stupid duel at the end, as if anyone was stupid enough to fall for the count's primitive trap.
Reminds me of Ridley Scott's weak film Gladiator. In real life, Emperor Commodus doesn't die in a stupid duel and he wouldn't risk a stupid duel.
And that stupid ending between the protagonist and his family. In the book, the protagonist preferred a beautiful young woman from the East.
These Hollywood romantic clichés don't work in real life.
And Dumas' reasoning was right.
In the 1988 adaptation of the novel "The prisoner of château D'if", in the role of Haydee, the count's new love, we see the beautiful actress Nadira Mirzaeva.
That's how I imagined Hayde when I read the novel. And she really looks like a concubine in her revealing translucent clothes. And you can easily understand the count at once: is it possible to refuse such a woman if she asks for your love? It is known that the director of the film, Georgy Yungvald-Khilkevich, could not resist Nadira, he even left the family and married her.
And as Dumas wrote, in real life the beauty of a young oriental woman made a man give up everything for her.
For me it Jaws. In the book obviously there was a lot more going on than the movie. But in the book the shark was really not the star of the book. The book really focused on who the shark was killing the island economy. There was a lot of small town politics, organized crime was involved, along with the past relationship with Hooper and Brody's wife. I guess since i have seen a million time before i read the book i went in kind of bias to the movie. But Jurassic Park is my favorite movie and i saw the movie many times before i read the book, i still think the books are way better than the movies.
100% agree with you on the count of monte cristo
Out here agreeing with our 1000000% across the board for all the books vs movies!!
Others are London Boulevard (a completely different story), No Country for Old Men, Kubrick’s version of The Shining.
Stardust was a comic first (amazing art by Charles Vess), adapted into a text only novel and later the film. I'm thinking that may explain it.
Sense and Sensibility - as much as I love Jane Austen, this was her first novel and that kind of shows in the writing. While it keeps in a lot of her wonderful characterizations and witticisms, the book has a lot of throwaway characters who don’t advance the plot and Elinor is (overall) written a bit too perfect. You don’t really see her struggle to maintain her composure and integrity when she’s being pressed on all sides. Emma Thompson’s screenplay really tightens up the plot, accelerating the pace of the action where it starts to drag in the book. She gets rid of the useless characters (Lucy’s sister Nancy for ex) and shows us a bit deeper into both Elinor and Marianne’s characters (much due to terrific performances by both Emma and Kate Winslet). I enjoy it so much more than the book.
Sorry to say though, your opinion on LOTR is heresy :( going to pretend you didn’t even say that
The Dune books series could have a running gag to it. The likely reason no one has done a live action or even animated version of all the books is that while the first Dune book started off weird, the books get weirder and weirder as they continue.
Joseph Conrad's A Heart of Darkness was written in 1899 and its quite the read. The paragraph structure leaves a lot to be desired. Apocalypse Now changed enough of the story to truly underline a river of madness and moral degradation in a more relatable setting. Kurtz as a man of imposing size and authority with a sickness of the soul is a mistake, but a genius mistake.. like just about all of the film.
I agreed with every single thing you said in this video. Subscribed!
I’m so glad you brought up Stardust. The film is one of my favorites, and the book is just not “it.” Another film that outclasses the book would be How to Train Your Dragon. They are very different from each other, but the film is in a whole other league when compared to the books.
I had no idea How to Train Your Dragon was a book!
@@LienesLibrary Yes, it’s a 12 book children’s series. Very silly lighthearted fun (and fart jokes). Far different tone from the films!