The book does tend to be better. In the cases of Unbroken, Harry Potter and Hunger Games, and Lord of the Rings. The books were just incredible. The movies were great, and I love them, but it's so fun reading through the books!
I thought Gone with the Wind did a nice job of streamlining things - A lot of people don't know that Scarlett O'Hara had a boy ( Wade ) other than just the fateful 'Bonnie Blue.' I didn't bother watching Harriet the Spy - I just couldn't see Rosie O'Donnell as Ole Golly. And a movie I thought was better than the book was The Night Digger with Patricia Neal. A creepy old 70's thriller ( Roald Dahl did the screenplay ) the book Nest in a Falling Tree wasn't nearly as good.
The main thing I always dislike about books made into films are that they dismiss some really really fun stuff. Mainly this is replaced with romance or the like. or the ending in the LOTR books. I watched the films before I read the book. And after reading the book I couldn't understand why they didn't implement the ending of the books in the films. Trying to say it without spoiling, so sorry if it's unclear .
Fuck off the book is always better. They're different. The mediums have strengths and weaknesses. Books can do what movies can't, and movies can do what books can't. Fight Club the movie is far better than the book. The Beach movie is far better than the book. Then there's Die Hard (Nothing Lasts Forever), Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), Shrek, The Shining, The Book Thief (mainly because that book is garbage), The Princess Bride, Minority Report, The Godfather, Schindler's List, Master and Commander, 2001, Full Metal Jacket (The Short-timers), Reqiuem for a Dream (even though the book is good, the movie is outstanding), To Kill a Mockingbird (again, a fine book but a magical movie), We need to Talk about Kevin, ... I could go on.
The Percy Jackson book/movie is an example of being different. The books were great. But the movie is 100% different. If I hadn't been such a big fan of the books, I might have actually enjoyed the movies. They weren't bad movies. Just different. But... I may never say this about another book again, but the Divergent movie was waaayy better than the book. They changed some things in the movie that I think made it so much better. For example, in the book, Tris knows she can trick her training simulation, so she does. I can't remember why exactly. But in the movie, she's not SUPPOSED to trick the simulations because it'll make her stand out as Divergent. Four teaches her how a Dauntless would do it, so she'd look Dauntless and not Divergent. The way the movie handled it makes way more sense than the way the book handled it. On another note.. The movie lost it's appeal after I watched Insurgent. It was just... bad. lol
What about Jurassic Park? Both the book and the movie are outstanding, but I'd have to say the movie is slightly better. Not by much, but still.
Because movies can cue emotional responses in a way books never can, by using music. And what film is more famous for it's suspense building music!
Some popular film theorists would argue that there can only be one good and one bad version of any story. If the film is great, the book is probably not a classic and if the book is great, the movie version is often not worth watching. A often used example of this is Moby Dick, classic book, but no one has ever made a successful movie adaptation. The point is that a story usually only fits one medium. When a book and the movie adaptation are both good, it's usually because the movie has been changed a lot. I.e. Stephen King's vs Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining - great book, great film, but that's mainly because Kubrick in the adaptation process changed the story to fit his medium. What he produced was something that was so different from King's book that King didn't want him to publish it.
They aren't to my taste, so I won't render an opinion. My point is that just about everyone who likes Harry Potter in one form also likes him in the other. It makes me wonder what those popular film theorists would say. Perhaps it's the exception that proves the rule?
I think most rules have exceptions and Harry Potter might be one of them, absolutely. But even though I've read all the books and seen all the movies I wouldn't say either is great (Daniel Radcliffe in particular is atrocious the older he gets..). So, neither being great, you could perhaps say that Harry Potter doesn't 'qualify' for the theory. But in all honesty, I haven't studied adaptations in depth, I only happened to read an article about it in the film theorist's 'Holy Bible' (Also know as "Film Theory and Criticism" by editors Braudy and Cohen if you're interested). Technically I didn't say it was MY theory either
I thought John Huston's Moby Dick, with Gregory Peck, was pretty good, though it loses much as compared to the novel.
The book is always better, because when you read it you imagine everything in your own way. and when you watch a movie after the book, 99% are it will NOT coincide with what you "watched" in your imagination whole reading
When you read a book, yes, you do have to imagine everything in your own way. I agree with that. But that's not necessarily a valid argument for a book always being better than a film. Some author's spend hardly any time at all explaining what the surroundings look like (i.e. Jan Guillou); sometimes the reader can't imagine the surroundings the author tries to explain (being able to imagine in your mind what an author explains is seen by many as a mark of a creative person, and not everyone is creative...), and sometimes a filmmaker's vision of the surroundings, characters and setting is superior to whatever you imagined in your mind. I.e. although I'm not a big fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, one thing Peter Jackson certainly got right was the panoramic shots of the vast and beautiful New Zealand landscape, the design of some of the cities and the look of some of the characters. He created images that were far more beautiful than the ones I had in my head when reading the book (even though I like to consider myself a creative person). Great filmmaker's can also create beautiful images that the 'ordinary' human being (in lack of a better term) can't because film makers are artists too. I.e. Stanley Kubrick is often hailed for the images he creates. Some, myself included, will say that you can freeze a Kubrick movie almost at any point and you'll see a photo that you would want to hang on your wall. Or at least study for a few hours. Kubrick was a great artist who created beautiful and compelling images and I think I can say with confidence that a lot of people who read let's say The Shining won't be able to create the same brilliant images that the mind of Stanley Kubrick did in the movie.
