Fight Club. Even the author preferred some of the changes made for the movie.
The reveal for example.
Been a while since I read the book, and the reveal was similar, but a lot better in the movie
The Stargate movie was good, but SG-1 far surpassed it.
Indeed!
Agreed
Ti'u
Johnny Cash's version of Hurt
Trent Reznor even said it's no longer his (Trent's) song
I don't know what Reznor and Cash's relationship was, but that has to feel so surreal for Reznor. You never see older artists cover newer ones in general, let alone such a legendary country artist cover a young alternative rock artist. If I were Reznor, that would be the thing that lets me die happy.
I’ve heard both versions probably a hundred times each and only hear Johnny Cash’s voice anymore.
Yeah he really brings feeling to this song
I had never heard Trent Reznor's original or Johnny Cash's cover so thank you for mentioning it. What an incredible music video!
And Rusty Cage
Starship Troopers - the book was extremely meh - the movie is excellent (and very relevant to modern day).
Clue - an excellent movie based off a fucking boardgame... ditto for Barbie now as well!
Mage the Acension is a TTRPG love letter to Ars Magicka and it blows it out of the water.
Helldivers 2 is heavily inspired by the movie... And I would say it's better than it.
PS: Mage - The Ascension ♥️
While I like the theme etc. of Helldivers 2, I do wish they went a bit further than that. This kind of satire is best when it forces small bits of unease on the audience, like the ending of Starship Troopers - "it feels fear!", and everyone celebrates. There are bits and pieces surrounding the gameplay loop (e.g. something like "never talk to the enemy, destroy them for democracy", forgot the exact line), but it's rare enough to be easy to ignore.
The Mist
That ending was one of the most brilliant gut-punches in film history. Stephen King himself said he wished he had written it.
Came here looking for this.
The Muppet Christmas Carol
I wasn't sure what the right answer to this question would be until I saw it.
Only version to actually feature a Dickens character that acts as a narrator. It just works better even if the narrator is Gonzo
Controversial, but Lord of the Rings. Tolkien wrote great stories, but his writing style always seemed kind of lackluster.
I encourage you not to view him as an author but as an imaginative creator confined by language.
Also a racist
I can't fault him for any of his depth and character building and poetry and storytelling and descriptive environments it was all very thorough and for the right person wonderful. I think the movies did a giant justice to making his work accessible. There are a lot of people out there that can't manage to make their way through his poetry sections. And you can't not read the poetry sections because there's definitely content in there you need.
I came to this thread expecting to see this, and even with that expectation it makes me sad to see; to me the books are unarguably superior, to a large degree because Tolkien is such an excellent writer. I'd encourage anyone who's bounced off the books a time or two to go back to them and try reading them aloud, even quietly to yourself: even though it's prose, the text has meter and flow almost as strong as poetry. It's undeniably a slow read, but it's just such a beautiful one that the films, fun as they are, don't hold up.
Plus, Jackson's Two Towers is garbage.
It being better when read aloud actually nails what I dislike about it and, far more so, The Hobbit. They read like they were written to be told as tales around a fire, not to be read. So they don't work particularly well as books that you read quietly to yourself (imo, obviously).
Pretty much everyone who’s discussed it agrees The Godfather (film) blows the Puzo novel it adapted away.
Runner up is Adaptation, an adaptation of the novel The Orchid Thief that expands its scope significantly.
The movies made me want to read the book. I still haven't yet though.
I still get chills when I hear "you're nothing to me now, Fredo."
The Godfather book has a lot of great character nuances but it also has a subplot of Sonny's enormous dong being the only thing that could satisfy his wife's bridesmaid's enormous vagina.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), at the time of its release, was based on a short story called The Sentinel by Arthur C Clarke. In that story, the roots of the Tycho Monolith plot segment of 2001 of is sketched out, and then expanded as both a screenplay and a full-length novel.
Oh, and then I guess it inspired Bowie's single, Major Thom
The sequel to Trump screwing Stormy Daniels...Stormy Daniels screwing Trump.
Jimi Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower
In 1995, Dylan described his reaction to hearing Hendrix's version: "It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day."
The Princess Bride was a pretty good book but an amazing movie.
One thing that always stuck out to me about the book is the introduction of certain editions. The author writes about himself researching the history of the country the story takes place in and describes it as real, saying he took his son to a museum with Inigo's sword and everything.
I was Googling furiously when I read it because I was so confused. I was astounded that the place (and people) was "real". It took a bit of research to find that the author just does this bit and hasn't let it go since he wrote the book
I'm still so charmed that he tricked me. It made reading the book that much sillier, for me
I had a teacher that worked for the publisher and talked about how they'd have a series of responses for people who wrote in for the part of the book where the author says he wrote his own fanfiction scene and to write in if you wanted it.
Like maybe the first time you write in they'd respond that they couldn't provide it because they were fighting the Morgenstern estate over IP release to provide the material, etc.
So people never would get the pages, but could have gotten a number of different replies furthering the illusion.
I have a similar story from a different medium:
Frank Zappa has an album called Francesco Zappa. On the back of the sleeve, Frank describes finding out about a distant relative who composed and played music during the 18th century. After telling some friends about it, I got to thinking that Frank had invented another character (á la Ruben and the Jets), because that's the kind of thing he would do, and felt very foolish for repeating this information uncritically.
Years later I looked the album up on Wikipedia, and it turns out Francesco Zappa was a real musician in the 18th century (who was not actually directly related to Frank).
He got me twice with one album.
Ill be killed for this but...Lord of the rings. Like, im sorry book purists but even after reading the books twice. Tolkien, is and always will be, THE high fantasy author, the one who basically made things we take for granted today. But the music from Howard Shore. So many scenes like from how fellowship began, to DEEEAAAATTTTHHH to Sam just being the broest bro to ever exist. I dont mind all of the cuts and changes they did, i happily return to the movies all year every year, the books? not so much.
The movies are awesome, but as a bookworm I would rather say they're doing justice to their source material. I'm rereading more than rewatching, but I guess I'm not normal (And no worries, we book purists don't kill people who have actually read the book)
I am an avid reader of books, and not a movie buff, but I stand on this hill with you. The LOTR movies are better than the books.
heres a controversial opinion: The American Office vs the UK Office.
While I respect the original, Gervais' external antics and the much meaner, darker humor just don't create as good a comedy vehicle that enables the viewer to laugh and have fun and enjoy themselves watching the show
The American office is watered down drivel.
Agree to disagree - to me the Uk office was a Gervais vehicle with the Tim/Dawn romance Christmas special episode as a nice bonus and Gareth as an occasional funny victim of his own hubris. Keith and Finchy having a couple of good scenes. Neil, Donna, Rachel, Jennifer, Jamie, Ralph... all very forgettable.
In the US office, as mentioned, I think its a well rounded ensemble comedy where you can feel it's a collab of a writers room and a complicit cast. Everyone has their favorite moments from pretty much any character..
In the early 2000s I probably would've liked the UK office more because I was an edgy teen. 25 years later and after an 8 year run, 200 episodes vs 14 - I feel like I'd much rather turn on the US one if I wanted a laugh.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Pretty sure that movie is what set me on the path to radicalization......
Yeah, that's a good one. Better by a large margin.
The Magicians: The books were good, but the TV show really was in a class all its own. And it did away with using obscure words just because, that was annoying.
Game of Thrones: At this rate, ASOIAF is never getting done, so I'm by default giving it to the show for actually finishing the job.
Good Omens: The first season brought the book to life, but there wasn't source material beyond that. The second season did a great job fleshing out the characters and moving the story forward into the final season.
I’d rather the five released ASOIAF stay as they are, perpetually unfinished than anything close to the hatchet job that was the GoT show ever be released in book. For me, sometimes just finishing isn’t enough. The books > than the show 10,000 times.
Read the magicians after watching the series and it was such a drag. As mentioned in the Amazon ratings the writing style is just tedious to read... The emotional extent of the series was so much deeper in my opinion.
Blade runner. Much better than "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" but it is only loosely based off it.
PS: when reading a book after watching a film, it usually feels like the book is much better, fills in details, separates scenes which a film had mixed together or altogether done away with. E.g. The Shining, LotR, Dune...but for Androids I just felt "what, that's it?"
The truth of the matter is that a lot of PKD and Heinlien era sci-fi was very focused on exploring a single theme - that works well literary but isn't rich enough for TV/Movie - so those works generally got richer and usually were by transitioned by genuine fans that tried to keep the theme and core message.
I feel this is mostly the case with short stories (and a lot of those works were short stories). Where there isn't enough material for a full movie, the writers are free to add more to the story without messing much with the original. DADOES did have enough material but the movie decided to go a different direction while keeping the main theme. I wouldn't say one is better than the other in this case as they're pretty different.
They're almost too different to compare imo, but both the book and the movie are top-tier.
I dunno if you can still find it, but I remember there being a Blade runner TTRPG in the FASA catalog in the '90s
A solid chunk of Philip K Dick's output worked better as movies/TV than as books.
There's definitely something there, but the books feel somewhat unfinished/unpolished. Which makes sense, his books weren't popular in English until after the release of Blade Runner, which coincided with his death. Maybe the popularity of the movie would've given him more time and resources to revise future works.
A Scanner Darkly is the only one where both the book and the movie felt about the same quality.
I would say The Expanse but them not filming the last 3 books skews that. Never had any interest in LoL but Arcane is amazing.
You really think the TV series is better than the books? Don't get me wrong, I think they are both marvellous. I just don't think the series is better. Particularly if you are a book reader. I get how they'd potentially be a bit meaty if you don't normally read much.
I think it’s the first series that’s as good as the books, maybe Outlander is close but has casting issues. Could have been better but was hampered by the cancel, move, then cancel again along with Anvar being a shitbag.
I guess it’s sort of a low bar given things like Witcher and Wheel of Time, but I’d say it’s the one where I see what I read more than the others. Maybe not better but equivalent, which is more than most book->film treatments.
I hate how it just... ends. I complained about it online when I finally finished the show, and the book fans were just like "lol now you have to wait 20 years for the next part!"
3 first seasons were better than the books, especially 3rd one. 4th book was bummer though so i don't even watched the show.
Battlestar Galactica (2003) -Originally a mini-seris to pay homage to the original idea through the lens of current events exploded into to what is my favorite show to ever be on television. Informing so much of what TV sci-fi could be after it.
I’d say the reboot falls apart about 2/3 of the way through. The last cylon reveals felt very Lost/Lindelof where they’d painted themselves into a corner and hadn’t planned out the ending.
I welcome the controversy, but World of Warcraft.
Hoboy, that's an arguement I'm not even remotely willing to approach. So instead I will respect your opinion, fight away the mental imagery of "crow of judgement", and move along. Have a good day.
I hear ya. In its heyday it was something else. It's been bastardized, dumbed down, littered with microtransactions and mass marketed to hell now by a company that bears only the name Blizzard...a rotten husk of its former self that deserves all the hate it gets...but before all that, it brought some great memories and feelings of group achievement that are still irreplaceable to me.
Needs a sequel though
Big time, it's gotten staler than moldy bread.
Even the author agrees Fight Club the movie is better than the book.
Is Interesting that in the Chinese version of Fight Club, its end with a message saying that after the final scene the narrator was arrested and institutionalized and the movement disbanded, making it more faithful to the original ending of the book.
Can't be giving anyone ideas now can we?
I just went through my entire favorite movie and show list and couldn't find a single one. I can only find ones where the adaptation is great, because it limits its focus while still keeping the overall spirit of the original. Or ones that tell a very different story, but manage to do it well.
Dune, all quiet on the western front (1930s one), total recall, it's a wonderful life, blade runner, I claudius.
Total recall (1990) was better than the book it was based on IMO.
It wasn't even a book, more a sketch, a joke even. A lot (most?) of the adaptations of PKD's writing are better than the original. And yet, the core concepts, about the nature of humanity and reality, break through and inspire some truly great work.
The Bourne Identity movie > book
Attack on Titan anime better than the manga. I love them both, but the musical cues, the animation, the voice acting all take the anime way over.
I'm curious - on voice acting do you mean the English or Japanese version?
English
Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Isn't it just a fork?
Freebsd
Haven't read the comics, but everyone says that The Boys tv show is way better
Seasons 1 and 2, I'd agree. Season 3 was just bad.
That's a bit harsh. The first ¾ of season 3 are really good, even if they did drop the ball at the end.
I should watch it then. I think the comics are brilliant.
Buffy
"The Manchurian Candidate" isn't a great book.
Gotta disagree, the book is extremely entertaining, and has an element of satire that's missing from the movie. I agree that the movie is one of the best ever made tho, and I'm not sure which one I like better, because it's so well done.
Invincible. The comics are great, but I think the show dramatically improves a couple characters
They Live.
The Thing but not The Thing From Another World.
Most things based on the work of PKD.
A lot of Lovecraft adaptations have to be a bit loose (because his stories tend not to lend themselves to films and he wasn't a good person) and are all the better for it - Re-animator, From Beyond, The Color Out of Space, Dagon, etc. plus quite a few fan films.
Flash Gordon film.
The first two Blade films - they struggle to make great Blade comics.
The Legion TV series.
I think the TV series of Station Eleven is better than the book. Not that the book is bad at all, but the show is something else.
The lead actress from "Halt and Catch Fire" is so fucking unlikeable and infuriating that the show was ruined for me.
I actually disagree on this one. The show made such bizarre choices and had unrealistic scenarios, it took me out of the story. I actually read the book because I was watching the series and was so confused by some of the story beats that I was convinced the book would explain the reasoning behind them.
Ended up just being mad at the series for not following the book more closely. The changes to the Prophet are just wild - taking a pedophile and making him a protagonist is just a poor choice, from my perspective... Even if you write out the pedophilia why you gotta make him have an army of kids?
Yea I found this jarring. The show starts with him having a legion suicide bomber kids and wants us to sympathize with him by the end of the season.
The Ten Commandments
Yorkshire puddings.
Now, now!
Manhunter (1986)
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, baby.
A Very Brady Sequel.
Foundation. The books are okay. But the show has better character, escpecially the empire side. Great visual, and more griping plot
The Empire Story Arc is great, the visual are awesome. Everything else is much worse, and the whole plot with hologram Seldon makes it a clown and loses its mysticism. Let's see if The Mule arc is good enough to compensate now awful the Salvor Hardin is.
Love the series but they are hard to compare with each other because the series have almost nothing to do with the books.
Stalker. The movie, not necessarily the games.
Roadside picnic is a fantastic book that feels thrilling for a scifi story. There's everything you could hope for, from deep philosophical questions to fictional technology that's described in a way that fascinates but doesn't attempt to over-explain; there's political implications to the geopolitics of the time that the authors consider. And at the center, an anti-hero who just wants to get his wish fulfilled and get out of this place, who's willing to make a deal with the devil for it.
To take all that and reimagine it as a long trialogue in an eerily deserted nature reserve/post-apocalyptic wasteland that touches upon all sorts of deep philosophy—from the divine to whether we can truly know ourselves; the struggle between logic and creativity; the vast ineffability of the natural world, not so much as Man vs. Nature conflict but as a reminder of how large and apathetic the natural world is to humanity—while maintaining a strained atmosphere of invisible threats that we never see. I could draw parallels to Dante's Inferno and Sartre's No Exit.
Stalker ending spoiler
Then for the protagonists to leave empty-handed after it all, too afraid to find out who they truly are deep down.
chef's kiss
It is one of the most aesthetically beautiful films I've ever seen, and does something I wish more filmmakers would do: focus on atmosphere rather than plot and action. It sounds boring, but it was a transformative work of art.
It's dark, it's broody, it's strangely serene. I love it so much.
There are some covers of songs I like much more than the originals, a lot are Bob Dylan but also:
Neverwhere was a TV show before it was a book, I like the book more.
If covers are allowed... I will always love you by Whitney Houston was so good people outside the US forgot/didn't knew it was a cover.
Lord of the Rings. I’ve read the books before watching the movies (I saw them first like 3 years ago) and the books are just… walking… And they walked…. Walked…. They walked… so much walking…. still walking…. And then walking…
