Why the Book Is Always Better
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The irony, of course, is that you talk about it with more brevity and callous disregard for elaboration than the typical movie. Way to shine your intellectual superiority. You sure showed them.ZippyDSMlee said:
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To capture the essence of a story, the details are not necessary. Hell, modeling an entire movie to be just like the book is a fruitless effort that will satisfy no one, and contrary to what the smug purveyors of True Art? will assert, vice-versa applies. No, to truly make a successful adaptation, you need only capture the essence of the film. The rest is all interpretation. But enough big words; let's give an example.
The Dark Knight is arguably one of the better films in adaptation history, and I have a feeling that its impact will be more lasting than Iron Man or 1978 Superman starring Christopher Reeves. Why? Because it doesn't try to be "faithful" to the original story. Instead, it plays with the idea and tries to create something new, keeping only the basic essence of the story. The most famous example of this would be the Joker. The basic idea is that the Joker is an insane guy with a clown face. But as scary as he is, a bright, purple-suited, green-haired swing dancer like him looks absolutely ridiculous in a film as postmodern as The Dark Knight and an audience as jaded as we. So instead, they took the concept and ran with it. He's dirtier, and less composed. His freakish smile is not a smile at all, but horrible scars, and his delighted cackling is replaced with Heath Ledger's sardonic sarcasm. It was an adaptation not for a medium, but for an audience.
That's what an adaptation is supposed to be.
I would posit that any work of art loses something in translation. Shakira sounds better in Spanish. Augustine and Aquinas read better in Latin. The Wizard of Oz is better as a book than a movie or stage production. In whichever medium that work was crafted, there you will find it at its best.
This works in the perverse reverse. A film-to-book translation has produced some awful tripe. While Latin-to-English can be done well enough, I can only imagine what English-to-Latin would be like, and my imagination brings forth a nightmare.
I feel confident in saying that something is always lost in translation in language, medium, or even when somebody retells a story he heard elsewhere.
This works in the perverse reverse. A film-to-book translation has produced some awful tripe. While Latin-to-English can be done well enough, I can only imagine what English-to-Latin would be like, and my imagination brings forth a nightmare.
I feel confident in saying that something is always lost in translation in language, medium, or even when somebody retells a story he heard elsewhere.
I don't think the book is always better, but I think that there are a whole bunch of screenwriters and producers behind them who don't understand that some novels cannot be successfully adapted to film simply by replicating the plot and character development. In some cases, the spirit of the work runs far deeper in the sub-narrative. Case in point: the On the Road movie is going to struggle to really do any justice to Jack Kerouac, because his writing actually created a whole bunch of mimetic effects which gave the novel its charm. So unless they do the entire movie with a voiceover, it's just going to be a story about a neurotic writer following a conman across America, and will give more ammunition to the crowd who refuse to give the Beat Generation any credit for the incredible scope of literary vision they fostered.
See I liked the ambiguous ending simply because it left the narrator with a choice at the end between the two alternate lives he could lead. I also felt more connected to the narrator than I did to him in the film but I can definitely see where you are coming from.cabalistics said:
Both mediums are different, demand different things from an audience and are enoyed in different ways. This article doesn't really seem to be about whether original books are better than their movie counterparts, though. It seems to be more about books being a better artform than movies, period. Which is fine - it's an opinion, well enough supported here - but it doesn't take into account that each book vs movie argument is entirely individual. It's an article that doesn't allow, for example, cases in which the book had severe flaws that the movie could reject. American Psycho, Harry Potter 7a*, Battle Royale, Audition, Carrie (and a few other Stephen King books besides)...all examples of flawed writing that was fixed in the movie adaptations. And none of those are even bad books.
Not that I haven't encountered a few examples of books that lose too much in translation to the big screen. Let the Right One In, for example, has been adapted into two separate movies, both very good pieces of work in their own right (the Swedish one being the better of the two), but neither able to even get close to the original.
ps I feel bad about including Ryu Murakami's Audition in that little list. There's only one bit of writing in the whole book that doesn't work, but it REALLY doesn't work.
* I know it's all personal opinion and whatnot, but you do lose a certain amount of credibility for specifying the first Harry Potter as the better adaptation. It's the weakest movie of the whole bunch.
Not that I haven't encountered a few examples of books that lose too much in translation to the big screen. Let the Right One In, for example, has been adapted into two separate movies, both very good pieces of work in their own right (the Swedish one being the better of the two), but neither able to even get close to the original.
ps I feel bad about including Ryu Murakami's Audition in that little list. There's only one bit of writing in the whole book that doesn't work, but it REALLY doesn't work.
* I know it's all personal opinion and whatnot, but you do lose a certain amount of credibility for specifying the first Harry Potter as the better adaptation. It's the weakest movie of the whole bunch.
Movies can portray action a lot better than books can. A car chase or a fight just isn't as exciting in a book as it is on screen. A description of an explosion cannot compare to the visuals of an explosion.
I've tried to read LotR a few times but have never managed to make it through even the first one. Bilbo Baggin's birthday for example I found a terrible bore to read, whereas in the movie its cut down to a fairly enjoyable 5 minutes.
On the other hand, I find that there are certain books I didn't enjoy because I found them too long were much more enjoyable when adapted for film.Mezmer said:
I've tried to read LotR a few times but have never managed to make it through even the first one. Bilbo Baggin's birthday for example I found a terrible bore to read, whereas in the movie its cut down to a fairly enjoyable 5 minutes.
I find that one of the only instances that the movie is far superior than the book is the tale Forest Gump, the book is ridiculous.
*shakes head* An adaptation seeks to simplify and stream line story and events, to not only make it more palatable to the drool masses but be enjoyed by them, which means more crap it brought out from the gutter or someones hidden drug stash to write up nonsensical filler that dose not need to be in the adaptation regardless be it themes,dailog or changing the focus of the film to the human cast rather than focusing on oh I dunno the stars of the film....TiefBlau said:
/Transformers rant
The Dark knight was good but it is more the exception than the rule of adaptation, one can not remove or change 40-70% of the themes and fiction just to adapt it, if you do you will fail more often than not. Then again a bad film that sells well is not a failing.... its the status quo....
the book isn't BETTER every time.
the movie is simply DIFFERENT every time.
I'm a huge LotR fan and I have to admit while the books are absolutely marvelous and rich and vibrant, I'd prefer to watch the movies.
I always prefer to watch the movie over the book. The movie takes 2 hours, reading the book takes a significantly more amount of time. The films also give you a physical representation of the images. Sometimes you may read the books and be confused as to how certain people, places, things, ideas interconnect. The film clears up those problems for you (if the film is made properly).
I always prefer the film over the books.
"My teacher wanted us to read the JAWS book and she said 'Oh it's an amazing experience.' Let's see... the movie has explosions, a twenty-five foot mechanical shark, guns. The book has... pages. I'm not gonna sit with my back against a tree and become lost in a magical world of wonderland and become gay. I don't want to do that." ~ John Caparulo (comedian)
the movie is simply DIFFERENT every time.
I'm a huge LotR fan and I have to admit while the books are absolutely marvelous and rich and vibrant, I'd prefer to watch the movies.
I always prefer to watch the movie over the book. The movie takes 2 hours, reading the book takes a significantly more amount of time. The films also give you a physical representation of the images. Sometimes you may read the books and be confused as to how certain people, places, things, ideas interconnect. The film clears up those problems for you (if the film is made properly).
I always prefer the film over the books.
"My teacher wanted us to read the JAWS book and she said 'Oh it's an amazing experience.' Let's see... the movie has explosions, a twenty-five foot mechanical shark, guns. The book has... pages. I'm not gonna sit with my back against a tree and become lost in a magical world of wonderland and become gay. I don't want to do that." ~ John Caparulo (comedian)
More story, better details, the characters can look and sound however you want them to and you don't have to worry about bad directing.
Plus usually stuff gets changed. Look at the movie for Holes. The main character in that book was supposed to be a fat sweaty disgusting slob who slowly grew into shape over the course of the movie.
Not Shia BeBeouf...
Plus usually stuff gets changed. Look at the movie for Holes. The main character in that book was supposed to be a fat sweaty disgusting slob who slowly grew into shape over the course of the movie.
Not Shia BeBeouf...
As others have said, it's about the fact that in print, you can make it your own world, and envision it however you want. You also can get deeper into the heads of the characters, and see more of the story
One of my favorite things in the Harry Potter series was the day-to-day in their classes. The movies cut out a LOT of that. Not that I blame them. Movies are time-sensitive and a lot of that kind of "filler" has to get cut.
The only movie I've seen where I'd read the book and found the movie significantly better was Jumanji.
One of my favorite things in the Harry Potter series was the day-to-day in their classes. The movies cut out a LOT of that. Not that I blame them. Movies are time-sensitive and a lot of that kind of "filler" has to get cut.
The only movie I've seen where I'd read the book and found the movie significantly better was Jumanji.
I completely agree with this. The only fair way to judge the film is on its own rights; comparing it to the book just isn't a good way of deciding its quality.Casual Shinji said:
If the film is bad because it changed things from the book, then complaints are fair enough, I suppose. However, if the film is good despite being different from the book, then I simply don't see the issue. The Lord of the Rings films are great films in their own right, and criticising them because they don't accurately transcribe every detail from the books is completely pointless. The same goes for Blade Runner, which, quite frankly, is better than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It changes a lot of plot details, but it keeps most of the book's themes and ideas, and ends up not only being a great film, but being better than the book it's based on. Why complain that it's different?
The article appears to be of the opinion that "adaptation" means the same thing as "transcription", in my opinion. Copying every little detail from the book will almost inevitably make the film feel bogged down and turgid, but more to the point, it completely misses the point of adapting the book in the first place: so that someone else can express their own unique vision of the source material.
List of films that are better than the books (this is not to say the books are necessarily bad by the way) - Fight Club, Lord of the Rings (all of them, ESPECIALLY extended editions), Goodfellas, Forest Gump, and The Godfather. Other adaptations come close, Scott Pilgrim for example (arguable but I loved it).
I'd say most of the time the film version of something doesn't hold a candle to the original but sometimes I think the adaptation can truly out shine and/or become a work of its own. My example for this is the movie Kamikaze Girls [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvTxyok0j2o]. I have read the book and enjoyed it, but the movie outshines it every way possible.
I wouldn't say that one is better than the other. They're two completely different mediums with different constraints.
Books rely on imagination and the use of descriptive words to convey exactly what's going on, and your imagination makes the book that more personal to you.
Movies can only really show you. Everyone watching is seeing the same thing.
They're both great mediums in their own ways.
Also:
Watch Top Gear. Play Minecraft. Get flag.
Books rely on imagination and the use of descriptive words to convey exactly what's going on, and your imagination makes the book that more personal to you.
Movies can only really show you. Everyone watching is seeing the same thing.
They're both great mediums in their own ways.
Also:
Watch Top Gear. Play Minecraft. Get flag.
While I did like the books I can see exactly where you are coming from. There were sections (especially in the first book) where I dreaded reading a certain chapter due to how it was written (Council of Elrond I am looking at you). Sort of have to remember Tolkien was an excellent storyteller but not a great writer (he was a linguist and historian) and he stuck to what he knew. There are characters you see only once and never again (much like a history book) and writing down entire songs in another language drove me nuts lol. (I must admit the songs sound great when ACTUALLY sung however). The movie was a great adaption (I do miss the whole scourging of the shire portion however but I understand that would have made the final movie about 5 hours long instead of 4...).MikailCaboose said:
