Reading Books after You've Seen the Movie

[Tron]

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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.

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WTF, spoilers!?

[threeonefour]

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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.

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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.

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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.

[Case Closed]

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.

[Dids]

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.

[Blarg]

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.

[mbillie1]

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

[coolhandkuhn]

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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.

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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.

[Dudd]

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

[Piece of Cake]

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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."



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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.

[nsdjoe]

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