58 Movies That Are Better Than The Books They Were Based On

"The book was almost unreadable."

 

MrSlipperyFist replied: "The book is written without a particular protagonist in mind, and reads like it's being observed by a fly on the wall for the most part. I enjoyed the book as an observation piece - like a documentary, perhaps - while the movie was, well, a movie. They're both excellent, in my opinion. The same subject matter, the same events, same "feel", but is presented differently because of the mediums and the perspective, i.e. the movie is largely through the eyes of Schindler, Stern, Goeth, and occasionally other characters for brief times; whereas the book is almost through the eyes of someone who both is and isn't there if that makes sense."

" It was one of my favorite movie as a kid, I didn’t even know it was a book until I was in college. Now, the book is amazing, and the movie is extremely true to the book, more so than any other book-to-screen movie I’ve ever seen. BUT, the book is not intended for little children, and the cartoon movie adaption is completely fine for little kids. I love that I can introduce my toddler girls to some of my favorite literature so early on, and they absolutely love it."

"Boring slog of a book, epic period-piece action movie."

 

Hedwigbug comments: "Thank you! I read the book because I loved the movie and it was brutal. I told this to my AMERICAN LITERATURE PROFESSOR and she said, 'oh you poor thing. Nobody likes that book.'"

"They rearranged a lot, pulled things from multiple books for 1 movie, and made it so the main character actually has some growth. In the books, he remains the same unchanged sociopath who learns nothing."

"The movie explores the wondrous world of the father's outrageous stories, but the book lacks all that lavish imagery. Instead, it's just a bitter retelling from a spoiled child who thought his daddy didn't love him enough."

"The movie did a fine job portraying how insane he was. There were passages in the book that almost made me put it down and stop reading it, just too much. Pure shock value."

"Actually seeing the garden was amazing, and the acting was incredible."

 

GenXSabbaticle comments: "It really matters which one. The 1993 film with Kate Mabry is a MASTERPIECE of resonant imagery and storytelling. I used it to teach archetypal analysis and quest stories to high-school seniors for years. Then I finally read the book and I was like, 'Where is all the awesome STUFF?? This is so shallow!'"

"The novel was good but the movie perfected the tone and quite honestly I thought Deckard was written better for the film."

res30stupid replied: "Yeah. The replicants in the books were just bastards (Rachel murders one of the few surviving animals to get back at Deckard) and the setting was just weird, with cults forming around animals. The film helps by humanizing the replicants and cutting the animal worship out."

"Mainly because the visuals were amazing and it made the story so much better to be able to see everything."

 

starcraftre replied: "The Martian is one of my favorite sci-fi books, and one of my favorite sci-fi movies. For completely different reasons. The movie got everything just right and picked the perfect actor for Watney."

" The book was OK but it was definitely a children's book. The movie was absolutely beautiful. Alfonso Cuaron is an amazing director."

"I like the book, but the film is phenomenal."

 

FrysItchyButt comments: "This is immediately what came to mind for me. I don’t need chapters about Sonny’s massive dong and Bridesmaid’s wide set cervix."

"The book was based around three detectives with different motives and it was really good but it involving like thirty different conspiracies and ended in a massive prison escape that didn’t have to do that much with the rest of the plot. The movie took that, simplified the villainous conspiracy, kept the same awesome characters, and made it a very worthwhile experience. The one thing I wish they put in was Ed’s backstory during WWII, it made his character way more fascinating."

"The book was so goddamn bleak that it probably wouldn’t have been adapted otherwise."

 

TheOrangeNights replied: "Taika Watiti stated that he never even finished the book, and stopped reading halfway. Which is why the movie only shows a short part of the book and ends so differently."

"There is some indigenous spirit walking in the middle of it that makes no sense with the rest of the storyline of a poor white trash girl having a baby in Wal-Mart. They cut all that out for the movie and the movie works much better in terms of plot."

"There's a lot more character put into all the people in Whoville and Jim Carrey killls it as Horton, the story is accomplished in an effective way that still retains the moral and overall feel of the original, and the movie is allowed to flesh out the world in a way that Dr. Seuss didn't. To those of you who say "But it's so short and would've been really hard to mess up improving on a book like that!" I submit any of the other adaptations of Dr. Seuss' work made in the last 25 years."

"The movie is nothing like the book. Which I think is a good thing. The movie was fun and had a ton of action. The book to me was dull and hard to finish. I felt like half the book was just covering his military training. This was one of the first times I thought the movie was far better than the book."

"It was incredibly drawn out at times and they were right to cut a lot of it out of the movie. The author also feels the need to describe the hell out of everything and it gets tedious to read."

"The movie was a beautiful study of silences. In the book, you experienced every thought going through a 17-year-old boy's head. It was manic. In the movie, you had to rely on Chalamet's performance to understand what was going on in his head."

"And you may be asking yourself, 'But, isn't that movie not very good?' And you'd be correct! It's not. The comic that it's based on, however, is god-awful. The movie changes so much about the book that it's hardly the same story, but it removes the weirdo rape fantasies present throughout the comic that seem more like punchlines than character-building. It's a great concept squandered by Mark Millar's juvenile, edge lord writing."

"I'm not sure why since it's been well over a decade since I read the LOTR books, but I found reading through them to be a chore. As opposed to the movies, which in my opinion, are some of the greatest films ever made."