Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

I believe this thread has been done before, but not very recently, so I figure it's worth another shot.

Anyone read any good books lately that are better than their movie counterparts, or at least a good compliment to them?

I just started reading American Psycho, but I'm only ~40 pages deep and I'm not sure how I like it... The main reason I am reading it is because I heard that the movie was excellent in all regards except for the ending. Things seem well-paced and -written so far, except I'm beginning to find the delineations of every piece of clothing every character is wearing to become a bit tiresome.

Another thing is that I can't help but imagine the entire thing is being narrated by Christian Bale. This isn't really a problem, but I recently came to the realization that I do this whenever I know the author/character, and it turns out to be a BIG problem when I'm reading speeches by the Kennedys.

Word.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

Dune is one that fills in a lot of back story that could not be covered in the movie.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

Orson Scott Card did a novelization of The Abyss which was a lot better than the movie.

I should also point out that Orson Scott Card is a giant weirdo.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

The Beach

Relic

The Count of Monte Cristo

Stung (movie = Owning Mahowny)

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

[ QUOTE ]
Orson Scott Card did a novelization of The Abyss which was a lot better than the movie.

I should also point out that Orson Scott Card is a giant weirdo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I remember reading an interview with him on Salon that was absolutely hilarious. The interviewer was somebody who kept droning on about how Speaker for the Dead and its message of tolerance was her favorite book ever. Then she interviews Card and finds out he's a crazy gay-hating Mormon or something along those lines and her head explodes. I'll see if I can find a link. (EDIT: Hooray Google!) (EDIT AGAIN: Actually, it looks like it was Ender's Game, not its sequel.)

Card is one of those people like Piers Anthony that I simultaneously don't really respect but sure read a lot of back in the day.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

Read The Godfather after seeing the flick. Went fine. And Gone With the Wind. When I was a kid, they used to write book versions of the pilots of t.v. shows a lot, and I would read those. And of things like Dirty Harry. Those were usually decent. Generally though, it doesn't go too well.

One other one that was worth a read was Papillon.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

You ever talk about a movie with someone who read the book? They're always so condescending, "Ah, the book was much better than the movie." "Oh really? What I enjoyed about the movie? No reading. It only took two hours, and then I could take a nap."

http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/events/a...affiganSUN.jpg

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

you mean the book was excellent except for the ending, right?

i don't know how much you get out of american psycho - although for some reason i read it twice

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

American Psycho is the only book I have ever read where I actually had to skip sections because they were too revolting to read. I would read until I was the horrific sex murder mutilations coming, and then skip to the next chapter. Really loved the parts I could bring myself to read though.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

The Great Gatsby/Gone With the Wind

Much better than the movies

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

[ QUOTE ]
American Psycho is the only book I have ever read where I actually had to skip sections because they were too revolting to read. I would read until I was the horrific sex murder mutilations coming, and then skip to the next chapter. Really loved the parts I could bring myself to read though.

[/ QUOTE ]

WTF, spoilers!?

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Orson Scott Card did a novelization of The Abyss which was a lot better than the movie.

I should also point out that Orson Scott Card is a giant weirdo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I remember reading an interview with him on Salon that was absolutely hilarious. The interviewer was somebody who kept droning on about how Speaker for the Dead and its message of tolerance was her favorite book ever. Then she interviews Card and finds out he's a crazy gay-hating Mormon or something along those lines and her head explodes. I'll see if I can find a link. (EDIT: Hooray Google!) (EDIT AGAIN: Actually, it looks like it was Ender's Game, not its sequel.)

Card is one of those people like Piers Anthony that I simultaneously don't really respect but sure read a lot of back in the day.

[/ QUOTE ]
i never realized this about card. kinda sad, though it doesn't change the enjoyment i got from ender's game (it was good but i am not a crazed fanboy or anything).

i must say the interviewer is a pretty horrible journalist and i am surprised the article got published as written. i mean you get information from a guy under a positive pretext, then the interviewee turns out to be not at all what you expected, sure i could see being pretty shocked and commenting on it. but its entirely different to basically attack the guy after the fact, from card's perspective its a total bait and switch. furthermore, its not like he is given a chance for rebuttal or clarification in the article, in fact you read the conclusion of the interview a couple of sentences in, so readers are prejudiced before they even get to the content. he is literally compared to a Klansman before he is even quoted!

this kind of journalism shouldn't hack it at the high school paper level.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

I read Fight Club after the movie. I thought it was worth it. I really enjoyed the book and it was a bit of a different way to get the story across.

I am thinking of reading all of the Harry Potter books but I already know the ending of everything.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

The book "The Princess Bride" is really awesome relative to the movie, which I adore. Lots of awsome tangents and more depth. Really fun read.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

That reminds me how good William Goldman can be. Marathon Man was a very good read, as well as a good movie. In some ways the book was better.

Ira Levin is also a guy whose books are well worth reading after you've seen the movie -- Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, The Boys from Brazil.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (the book) is way better than the movie, and the movie was pretty good IMO.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

[ QUOTE ]
I believe this thread has been done before, but not very recently, so I figure it's worth another shot.

Anyone read any good books lately that are better than their movie counterparts, or at least a good compliment to them?

I just started reading American Psycho, but I'm only ~40 pages deep and I'm not sure how I like it... The main reason I am reading it is because I heard that the movie was excellent in all regards except for the ending. Things seem well-paced and -written so far, except I'm beginning to find the delineations of every piece of clothing every character is wearing to become a bit tiresome.

Another thing is that I can't help but imagine the entire thing is being narrated by Christian Bale. This isn't really a problem, but I recently came to the realization that I do this whenever I know the author/character, and it turns out to be a BIG problem when I'm reading speeches by the Kennedys.

Word.

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought American Psycho was a horrible movie relative to the book, but I read the book first, so I don't know what your impression will be of the book given that you've already gotten the cliffs notes from the movie.

Other books that I thought outshined their movie counterparts (again, I read the book before seeing the movies, so my experience is going to be different from those who saw the movies first):

High Fidelity (N. Hornby)
About a Boy (N. Hornby)
Fever Pitch* (N. Hornby)
Fight Club (C. Palahniuk)
Less Than Zero (B. E. Ellis)
Rules of Attraction (B. E. Ellis)


Then again, I'm one of those people who always claim the book is better than the movie, so maybe my opinion shoud be taken with a grain of salt.

* - never saw the movie version, but from those I know who have, they've said the book is much better.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Orson Scott Card did a novelization of The Abyss which was a lot better than the movie.

I should also point out that Orson Scott Card is a giant weirdo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I remember reading an interview with him on Salon that was absolutely hilarious. The interviewer was somebody who kept droning on about how Speaker for the Dead and its message of tolerance was her favorite book ever. Then she interviews Card and finds out he's a crazy gay-hating Mormon or something along those lines and her head explodes. I'll see if I can find a link. (EDIT: Hooray Google!) (EDIT AGAIN: Actually, it looks like it was Ender's Game, not its sequel.)

Card is one of those people like Piers Anthony that I simultaneously don't really respect but sure read a lot of back in the day.

[/ QUOTE ]
i never realized this about card. kinda sad, though it doesn't change the enjoyment i got from ender's game (it was good but i am not a crazed fanboy or anything).

i must say the interviewer is a pretty horrible journalist and i am surprised the article got published as written. i mean you get information from a guy under a positive pretext, then the interviewee turns out to be not at all what you expected, sure i could see being pretty shocked and commenting on it. but its entirely different to basically attack the guy after the fact, from card's perspective its a total bait and switch. furthermore, its not like he is given a chance for rebuttal or clarification in the article, in fact you read the conclusion of the interview a couple of sentences in, so readers are prejudiced before they even get to the content. he is literally compared to a Klansman before he is even quoted!

this kind of journalism shouldn't hack it at the high school paper level.

[/ QUOTE ]

The "journalist" is an idiot. It pains me that there are people like her that think so highly of themselves while being such insufferable fools.

To get back on topic, one series that I read after the movies was the Jason Bourne series, and besides the name, they have nothing in common, and I prefer the movies. Maybe as a Cold War, post-Vietnam type of series they were relevant and made sense, but nowadays, a CIA trained fake assassin tasked with bringing down real communist assassin doesn't seem as plausible as the CIA being forced to track down a rogue agent.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

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You ever talk about a movie with someone who read the book? They're always so condescending, "Ah, the book was much better than the movie." "Oh really? What I enjoyed about the movie? No reading. It only took two hours, and then I could take a nap."

http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/events/a...affiganSUN.jpg

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"Hot Pocketttttt"

Btw - read Watership Down - the animated movie doesn't do it justice - it is trippy though. Well no, it's not the movie that's trippy, but perhaps it is the way I perceived it that was indeed trippy. Either way rip mitch.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

Just read "A Simple Plan" and have to say I like the movie better...

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

I always liked Jurassic Park way better than the original movie. The book is darker and more complex, and creates a more detailed story than the movie can possibly cover in a couple of hours.

In fact, I would say this applies to pretty much all of the Michael Crichton books turned into films.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

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The book "The Princess Bride" is really awesome relative to the movie, which I adore. Lots of awsome tangents and more depth. Really fun read.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? I haven't read it in ages, but I seem to remember the movie being almost exactly faithful to the book.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

[ QUOTE ]


To get back on topic, one series that I read after the movies was the Jason Bourne series, and besides the name, they have nothing in common, and I prefer the movies. Maybe as a Cold War, post-Vietnam type of series they were relevant and made sense, but nowadays, a CIA trained fake assassin tasked with bringing down real communist assassin doesn't seem as plausible as the CIA being forced to track down a rogue agent.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Bourne books are so much worse than the movies. I ran into a guy on the subway, and we were both reading The Bourne Supremacy. We talked about it, and I remarked on how different the book and the movie were. He said, "Yeah, it's a shame they have to dumb down complex plots like this for the movies." I was too polite to say, "WTF, are you retarded, this book blows?" so I just stared at him speechlessly.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

"Hot Pocketttttt"

Lord I hated this bit. Actually I ended up hating most of that standup, even though I like Gaffigan a lot.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

[ QUOTE ]

i must say the interviewer is a pretty horrible journalist and i am surprised the article got published as written. i mean you get information from a guy under a positive pretext, then the interviewee turns out to be not at all what you expected, sure i could see being pretty shocked and commenting on it. but its entirely different to basically attack the guy after the fact, from card's perspective its a total bait and switch. furthermore, its not like he is given a chance for rebuttal or clarification in the article, in fact you read the conclusion of the interview a couple of sentences in, so readers are prejudiced before they even get to the content. he is literally compared to a Klansman before he is even quoted!

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I went back and read it after I posted the link and it was quite a bit different than I remembered. I guess it's been a few years.

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Tron the book >>> Tron the movie.

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Just read "A Simple Plan" and have to say I like the movie better...

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So much of this movie was in the performances that it would take some really good writing to do the interactions as well.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

[ QUOTE ]
I always liked Jurassic Park way better than the original movie. The book is darker and more complex, and creates a more detailed story than the movie can possibly cover in a couple of hours.

In fact, I would say this applies to pretty much all of the Michael Crichton books turned into films.

[/ QUOTE ]

Andromeda Strain, same. Very slow paced movie with bland characters. The book was pretty cool.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

I read Trainspotting after seeing the movie. I didn't finish it, the book is written in a think scottish accent and it wore me out. It might be like a Scot trying to read Huck Finn or something.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

This thread is a bit of a change-up, as it's a generally accepted fact that books are almost always better than the movies based on them. The Godfather is one obvious exception (book is a beach read, movie is a masterpiece).

Back in the 90's I read the novelization of "Fallen" with Denzel Washington. The movie has one of the biggest payoff twist-endings ever, but I wanted to see how they would translate it to book form, due to the nature of the twist. The guy did an alright job with it.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

"Interview With The Vampire" is a great novel, the movie was actually decent but nowhere near the book. The second movie from the series was called "Queen of the Damned" and sucked ass compared to the two novels it covered. I don't know if there have been any other movies based on Anne Rice's work since then but I recommend reading her stuff if you're into that genre.

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Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (the book) is way better than the movie, and the movie was pretty good IMO.

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One of the few movies that I've seen that I can honestly say I despised. Haven't read the book.

Re: Reading Books after You\'ve Seen the Movie
 

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"Interview With The Vampire" is a great novel, the movie was actually decent but nowhere near the book. The second movie from the series was called "Queen of the Damned" and sucked ass compared to the two novels it covered. I don't know if there have been any other movies based on Anne Rice's work since then but I recommend reading her stuff if you're into that genre.

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Book was pretty miserable in comparison to Interview with the Vampire. The Interview movie was a great example of a movie being crap in comparison to the book.

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That was confusing.

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I have a very high respect for Orson Scott Card. I couldn't be more diametrically oppossed to his religous views, but he writes about religion in his fiction very, very well.

I've read a lot of his column "uncle orson reviews everything", and while he and I have different tastes in lots of things, he articulates what he does and does not like about things so concisely that I often know if I'll like something from his review.

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No love for Philip K Dick?

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talented mr ripley.

the entire series is excellent.