Wriging

I have yet to run across ANY movie I've felt was BETTER than the book. There have been some EXCELLENT movies out there based on books but you can't compare a movie to a book mainly because in a movie, you have constraints that aren't normally there in a book.

To me, it's much more fun to let your imagination build the scenes and characters and allow your emotions to suck you into the pages. To me, letting a director dictate to you what you should be experiencing from the story takes a LOT away from it.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. The movie wasn't "better than" the books, just "different than." Maybe you could say that the screenwriters modernized and condensed the storyline to appeal to today's audiences, but I can't agree with the movies being better than the books. The screenwriters also played fast and loose with parts of the plot (notably Aragorn and Arwen and their relationship) for the sake of marketability. I'm not saying that the changes were bad, just not exactly true to what happens in LOTR (the book). The Aragorn/Arwen relationship is fleshed out in the Silmarilion (I think) which is where most of what happens in the movies comes from.

All that being said, the LOTR series is one of my favorites movie-wise, and I watch it frequently. I tend to watch movies that I've seen before while I do other things, like quilting, and when I read I tend to read other authors like Robert Jordan rather than Tolkien. The other "problem" with reading LOTR now that I've seen the movies is that no matter what I envisioned Aragorn looking or sounding like before, Aragorn is always inextricably linked with Viggo now in my head, which is only "okay" because the movie was cast so well.

I hope The Hobbit turns out that well when it hits the box office.

See I have the same issue with the LOOK of the characters, I make a mental image of MY view of the character and then the movie overwrites it and I find it REALLY hard to get back to MY version if not impossible in some cases.

Another thing that ticks me off is when a book is made into a movie, then they come out with a reprint of the novel but about 300 pages SHORTER and pretty much just a print version of the script from the movie. So the uneducated reader comes along and aims for the short "movie" novel and completely skips the longer, more fleshed out original novel.

On a whole, I'm with people when they say books are better than their movie adaptations, but no matter how many times I read Lord of the Rings, the long dreary second book comes to life in the movie.

Lord of the Rings was one of those rare or maybe even the only book adaptation for me where everything was done just right. I didn't even mind the whole Arragorn and Arwen bit because in my head I thought it would have been cool for something to develop there.

That being said, I have seen a lot of bastardizations that make me cringe badly. The recent Golden Compass was the worst I've ever watched. They complete butchered everything, from the characters to even the ending. Chronicles of Narnia wasn't so bad though they left the most important bits off like...the bloodshed. Hopefully the new Narnia movie isn't so bad.

I haven't seen Stardust though, so I can't tell if it was true to the Gaiman's novel. But I hear it's just about right.

It's just too easy to say that books are always superior because we have all the time in the world to dwell and imagine the worlds they were shaped after. For once, I would like a book to have the same kind of near perfection as a movie adaptation as Lord of the Rings had. Given what Hollywood has been producing so far. I probably shouldn't hold my breath.

99.9999% of the time I enjoy a book more than a movie.

But then there's that 00.0001%: The novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption vs. the movie The Shawshank Redemption.

It's one of my favorite movies ever compared to some of the worst garbage I have ever read in my life. Go figure.

I mostly agree with RightOn's first post.

As a side note, because of the Narnia movies its impossible to find the Ransom trilogy books anywhere now...

I liked the production values, most of the casting and the pacing rather well. That said, a lot of things were not done just right at all.

Arwen? Come on. Let's take a super minor character and give her a role so we can cater to the hollywood necessity of a romance. That was a big annoyance, especially since she stole some of Gandalf's show of power. But I could've dealt with that.

I thought Gandalf was a bit castrated in this version. He was well acted, but a lot more could have been done to expound on the mystery, power, and presence that he has in the novels.

Sam was spot on. Frodo was a little weak. Gimli and Legolas shined. Aragorn only came into his own in the third movie... which is somewhat appropriate I suppose, but I felt he was a lot stronger in the two towers book.

What really got to me was the destruction of Faramir's character. In the books, he is the shining redemption of Boromir's folly. When he comes across Frodo and Sam, he does have an inner struggle on weather to let them go or not... but let them go he does. He does not transport them back towards Gondor. He listens to them, and chooses to trust them and their quest, to stay his own needs and concerns where Boromir could not. It is a very honorable and noble scene in the books (and in the british radio series.) Instead in the movies, we have him seem weak and behave exactly like his brother. Instead of following the plot we've got new scenes in an already long movie when other things were omitted! To this I say "what the hell?!" It's bad enough taking a character that redeems another and turning him into a clone, but it was very very self indulgent to do that segue to show some fancy effects for the nazgul?

A lot more could have been done--in the same time and format if they hadn't thrown new subplots into the movies. We could've seen more on the gifts of galadriel and how they came to play after the return to the shire.

I'm glad they were made. I think they were done well, but by no means as good as the books, or as good as they could have been done. I find peter jackson indulgent and pandering, but I'm glad he does what he does. Since the success of the fellowship we've seen a new surge of fantasy fiction movies actually making it to theaters, and having budgets that don't destroy them. This makes me happy.

@carmodyarc,

I agree on the shawshank redemption. I didn't think the short story was bad... just a bit dry. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman had epic performances in the movie and really made it something of a legend.

Here's another spur in the side for the thread.

US and European movie adaptations of novels tend to follow pretty closely. The changes are usually in place for time constraints, occasionally for technology or manageability. The goal of course is to keep to the inherent themes of the stories. In short, you get abridged versions. Sometimes they're very faithful to the originals, sometimes they expand upon shorter works, and sometimes you just wonder what the hell the relationship was between the book and the movie.

I notice that in Japanese and Korean film (both live action and animation.) it is a lot more common to get a retelling of the story. You see it all the time in manga and anime, but it carries over to more mainstream entertainment as well. You may have a novel, and then have a movie that has the same characters with a similar theme... but the details are very different. Some people liken it to an alternate universe version of the story. Some would say it's inspired by as opposed to based on. Both styles have a lot of value.

Probably one of the biggest reasons the LotR movies turned out so well is because they tracked down the two artists that worked most closely with Tolkien and had pretty well defined the visual feel of the world through paintings that most people saw, then had them do concept work for the movies.

That and WETA is just insane (and working on an Evangelion live action movie, go figure).

(and working on an Evangelion live action movie, go figure).

I've heard rumors of this for years. Is it true?

Though it takes nearly 11 hours (654 minutes) to chunk through them, the extended editions (and only them) of Lord of the Rings are better than the books.

Yes, I can't believe I forgot the Shawshank Redemption. That was a masterpiece of a movie, more so than the book.

As for anime and manga, I can speak for that a bit more. There are a lot of anime that have been converted from manga and for the most part, it's the anime that's turned away most from the manga that has received a lot criticisms mainly because it's not true to the story rather than being in an alternate universe.

The main example would be the original Hellsing anime which was supposed to be based off the manga. The problem was, the manga was never really completed during that time so they had a bastardized version of it which while keeping only the elements of the main character, butchered everything else. It was weak and people who read the manga hated it. Now that the manga is nearly complete, they are remaking Hellsing as an OVA which is supposed to be more true to the manga. Good times for all.

Another good albeit annoying example is Naruto. It follows the manga almost to the letter. And since the manga is this long draggy thing. So is the anime. I mean 4-5 episodes for a fight scene that takes 5 minutes or one we can skip in the manga. Not so much a good time for all.

Animes that follow the manga DOES bring out the best of it. It does make it superior to the manga because in animation it's easy to already fictionalize what's animated. As long as they don't touch the plot and the characters, nothing wrong with a little tweak here and there.

Live action shows though do follow the books they were based on a bit closer, but most of the shows that books were based on are love stories (especially in Korea and Hong Kong), while I'm not a fan of them, they have a HUGE following in Asia. Their secret, they follow the book and they do it quite well (even though they have the same 5 minute scene that takes one whole episode to go through).

And yes, they are working on an Evangelion live action movie. It's supposed to be out in 2009. So I heard.

I've been hearing the evangelion rumor and seeing fake mockups of the evas since at least 2003.

There was some (supposedly) real concept art done by WETA that's been out for two years or so now, but I haven't heard or seen anything beyond that.

Arwen? Come on. Let's take a super minor character and give her a role so we can cater to the hollywood necessity of a romance. That was a big annoyance, especially since she stole some of Gandalf's show of power. But I could've dealt with that.

I agree with this. I was also saddened by the omission of Tom Bombadil.

I can't think of a single movie, this included, that I enjoyed moreso than the book.

"Lord of the Rings had the movie being better than the book. We all have to admit that."

Speak for yourself, and don't speak for me. I will never admit to that, and as far as I'm concerned the book was far superior to the movie. :)

Fight Club the movie I enjoyed a teeeensy bit more than Fight Club the book. Similar, but different... and I liked the movie's direction/interpretation more. Chuck Palahniuk was even quoted to say he liked the movie more than his own book.

Also, Princess Bride the book and Princess Bride the movie were pretty much on par (i.e. equal, not better, not worse) Both are excellent. :D

I'm going to high five LorriM on that last comment. +25 points!

Thank you, RightOn/James.

Some people I know have read the LOTR books and tell me that it was as good as not reading them as the movies serve the purpose much more than the lengthy 1000 page drivel. I feel like strangling them...

No movie, as yet(which I have watched), has been better than the accompanying book. Same goes true for LOTR. Though I admit that this is one of the best jobs of filming such a grand story. Omissions were unavoidable due to the epicness of Middle Earth but I do watch the movies every now and then to get the emotions while looking at the massive battles and show of raw power by our heroes.

In a nutshell, I'll prefer Tolkien's written word over Peter Jackson's direction any day.

But in the world of anime and manga, the scenario is a bit different. Firstly, looking at Deathnote, the anime almost completely overwhelms the manga. The background music and animation style does full justice to the story because this story relies completely on atmosphere. And the anime adds, beautifully, the required dramatic overtones to the plotline.

At the same time there is One Piece. As with any epic the anime stays true to the plot and is at par with the manga. While the fight scenes give off a greater impact in the anime the emotional scenes are portrayed more clearly in the manga. Also One Piece does the best job at fillers. Much better than the other two epics in the "Holy Trinity of Shonen", them being Bleach and Naruto.

@Kamigoroshi
They had to slow down the pace of Naruto to avoid fillers. I think they have learned their lesson about the fillers.
And it may have been cool for something to develop between Arwen and Aragorn but you must see the viewpoint of JRR Tolkien. The reason he wrote Lord of the Rings was that he wanted to bring a romantic myth to the western world. And 'romance' not between two people, but a romance of heroism, hope and adventure. The basic premise of LOTR itself does not leave much room for details of the love story. Then there is Silmarillion which portrays beautifully the love story of Beren and Luthien. Also the pace of the so called dreary second book(actually called volume) is easily compensated by the third volume.

LOTR, according to me is about a "world" and how actions and lives of individuals affect it. Beautiful book accompanied by a valuable visualization in form of movies. Not the other way round.

Unless a movie is going to be 20 hours long, I doubt they could ever cram that much detail into a 3 hour window.

Novel wins always.

stormyone: How many pages do you think it'd take to describe the amount of detail shown in pretty much any single minute of a blockbuster movie these days?