As a general rule, when a movie is based on a book, the book is almost always better. I don’t know why this is. The dialogue and script are already written but for some reason the directors/script writers always want to put their stamp on the story. Fuck that. If the book is so good that they’re making it into a movie then you shouldn’t be changing the story.
A prime example of this is the Bourne trilogy. I just watched the entire trilogy recently, and kept remembering certain things. First of all, these books by Robert Ludlum were set in the 80′s (they were written in the late 70′s, early 80′s) so they updated the story to account for today’s technology. That’s okay, I get that. But they changed some major things from the books. For one, Marie and Conklin don’t die. Marie is Canadian in the books, not German. Conkin not only doesn’t die, but after he finds out about Bourne’s amnesia, he actually helps him, multiple times on many different missions.
I actually like the Bourne movies better than the books, which is the only exception to the rule that the books are always better. Ludlum wrote a great story, but his writing style is extremely complex and sometimes hard to comprehend.
The worst book-turned-movie (at least of the books I’ve actually read) is Timeline, by Michael Chrichton. Timeline is probably my favorite novel ever, but they screwed the pooch on this one all they way around. Their first problem was putting Paul Walker in the movie. That dude just plain sucks ass. But anyhow, in the book, the teams that go back to the past have biodegradable ear pieces so that they can communicate. If you’ve seen the movie or read the book, you know that Robert De Kere (William DeKere in the movie), the main antagonist, is able to track our heroes using the ear pieces because he’s also from the future and was purposely left in the past because he had become a liability to ITC. This is a very important piece of the plot and the movie doesn’t use it at all. There are other things omitted, but overall the characters are less likeable in the movie than in the book.
I could go on and on, but that would be kind of redundant I guess. Essentially, the book as always better than the movie, except when it isn’t.
Good point! One of the few movies I think that is better than the book is Jurassic Park. I think that the director managed to make the characters much more likeable than in the book.
Have you ever read the book for Underworld? It apparently was a book based on the movie… and it still managed to be better than the movie!
I didn’t know there was one. I’ll have to check it out. Most books based on movies follow the movie verbatim so I don’t normally get them.
I actually like the Jurassic Park book better than the movies, but nothing compares to actually seeing the dinosaurs. They both kick ass.