"The Movie Was Better Than the Book."

[jscoggins]

(This thread was inspired by the posts in the thread for The Fault in Our Stars. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=235944)

We often hear people complaining about how a film adaptation did not live up to the book. ("The book was better.") Usually, they're really complaining about how their favorite parts in the book didn't make it into the final cut of the film rather than evaluating the movie as a movie.

How about the other way around, though? Which movies were better than their source story/novel/poem?

Some would say that Stanley Kubrick frequently made movies that were better than their source materials.

Spartacus (based on the novel by Howard Fast)
Lolita (based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov)
Dr. Strangelove (based on the novel Red Alert by Peter George)
2001: A Space Odyssey (based on the short story The Sentinel. The book was actually adapted from the movie, lol.)
A Clockwork Orange (based on the novel by Anthony Burgess)
Barry Lyndon (based on the novel by William Thackeray)
The Shining (based on the novel by Stephen King)
Full Metal Jacket (based on the novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford)
Eyes Wide Shut (based on the short story Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler)

Nowadays, it's far more common to hear people talk about Kubrick's movies rather than the novels, though that may simply be due to people not ever reading those books. It must be said, though, that Stephen King is not a fan of Kubrick's adaptation of his book, lol.

I think that Divergent and The Hunt for Red October are better than the books.

MikeScott prefers the film version of The Perks of Being a Wallflower to the book. (https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=193)

benbess prefers the film versions of The Wizard of Oz and Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby to the books. (https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=194)

AaronJ prefers the film version of The Hunger Games to the book. (https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=195)

What are some others? (This isn't about your favorite adaptation but about movies that improved upon the books. We can include adaptations of comic books/graphic novels and theatrical plays. Stuff like the Jason Bourne movies and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit don't count, though, because they only keep the character names but are entirely different/new stories altogether.)

[mrrant_33]

I prefer the movie Fight Club over the book.
I'll take the movie Trainspotting over the book.
And of course Clockwork Orange. None of that original ending stuff. The movie ending was PERFECT.
And while I still haven't read it yet, I've only "heard" the movie Jaws was waaay better than the book.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by mrrant_33

And while I still haven't read it yet, I've only "heard" the movie Jaws was waaay better than the book.

I think a lot of 60s/70s movies based on popular beach reading were like that. They took good ideas and made them great. The Godfather is another example.

[spanky87]

Girl Interrupted
Drive

[AaronJ]

Damn straight that "Hunger Games" was better than the book. And I liked the book!

[Rich65]

Jaws was way better than the book.

[Foggy]

Drive is way better than the book it's based on, the books decent, but they really took the story and made it work on screen phenomenally well.

The Prestige is another one. It's an impossible adaptation, the book is essentially just journal extracts, so the fact the film was able to make that compelling in and upon itself is really cool itself, but the fact that the film's twists are explicitly given away within the first three pages of the book and that information is necessary throughout the rest of the novel, that's really good.

And like it's been said already, Fight Club, The Shining and A Clockwork Orange.

[Thomas Irwin]

Originally Posted by spanky87

Girl Interrupted

Never read that book. Loved the memoir Prozac Nation, but not sure how the movie compares.

[Thomas Irwin]

Originally Posted by Rich65

Jaws was way better than the book.

Jaws: The Revenge wasn't any better in paperback.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by Foggy

The Prestige is another one. It's an impossible adaptation, the book is essentially just journal extracts...

So it's written like Dracula? Cool.

[Thomas Irwin]

Haven't read much fiction in decades, but a few I recall:

9 1/2 Weeks: Movie was likely better. (Memoir, not fictional)
The Ages of Lulu: Movie may have a slight edge.
Story of O: Novel is infinitely better than the movie, but I still love the film.
The Stand: Novel is largely better than the mini-series, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

[spanky87]

Postcards from the Edge written by Carrie Fisher.

Mike Nichols directed the film adaptation starring Meryl Streep, and Carrie Fisher also wrote the screenplay but she made it a different thing and improved on her book. The book is too episodic and the character is a bit of a bore on the page. Streep brings her to life on the screen, the episodic structure is exchanged for something more cinematic, and the mother/daughter relationship is better developed in the film as well.

[mrrant_33]

I forgot about Blade Runner over Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

[Thomas Irwin]

Originally Posted by mrrant_33

I forgot about Blade Runner over Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Probably my all-time favorite film. I have had the novel since some time in the '90s, and have yet to read it.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by Thomas Irwin

Probably my all-time favorite film. I have had the novel since some time in the '90s, and have yet to read it.

[cinemaphile]

agree with Fight Club, Blade Runner, and some of the other mentioned.

I would add the first two Die Hard movies:
DIE HARD - based on Roderick Thorpe's "Nothing Lasts Forever" (trivia: did you know it was almost adapted into a movie earlier starring Frank Sinatra?!?!)
DIE HARD 2 - based on "58 Minutes"

[Thomas Irwin]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

The film itself or my neglect of the novel? Trust me, I probably have years of backlog in both literature and movies.

[dallywhitty]

Blade Runner
Crash
Psycho
The Silence of the Lambs
Trainspotting

[Astro Zombie]

I love the Jurassic Park novel, but I think the film improved on the book overall.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

benbess prefers the film versions of The Wizard of Oz and Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby to the books. (https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=194)

As for Oz, dang straight--The book was a mess. (Although the sequels weren't bad.)
Defending Luhrmann's Gatsby, however, may require a little more explanation.

In The Mosquito Coast's book, the inventor dad is a ranting nutcase, but given to Harrison Ford, he's a motivational Steve Jobs on the edge of a cliff.

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was better than the book in places--which wasn't hard to do--but when they tried to do the exact same Hobbit-movie job on Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was fine as it was, it became the Franchise-Killer.

(And speaking of near franchise-killers, oh, I remember reading the book version of Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix...YEESH!!
Whodathunk they coulda ever fixed THAT one so well in the movie?)