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The book was better than the movie

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The book was better than the movie

Old 11-18-15, 08:41 PM
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The book was better than the movie

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...cid=538twitter

Five Thirty Eight looks at the biggest difference between movie ratings (metacritic) and book ratings (goodreads).

The top 20 "the book was better than the movie:"

1 Addicted (2014)
2 Vampire Academy (2014)
3 The Jackal (1997)
4 Safe Haven (2013)
5 The Last Song (2010)
6 The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
7 Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013)
8 Left Behind (2014)
9 A Walk to Remember (2002)
10 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)
11 Divergent (2014)
12 Unbroken (2014)
13 The Book Thief (2013)
14 Mortdecai (2015)
15 Where the Heart Is (2000)
16 Pay It Forward (2000)
17 The Three Musketeers (2011)
18 Seventh Son (2015)
19 Ender’s Game (2013)
20 The Help (2011)
Spoiler:

and the top 10 "the movie was better than the book:"

1 Up in the Air (2009)
2 Apocalypse Now (1979)
3 Metropolis (1927)
4 Scent of a Woman (1993)
5 Mr. Holmes (2015)
6 Sideways (2005)
7 The Graduate (1967)
8 Taking Lives (2004)
9 Dr. Strangelove (1964)
10 There Will Be Blood (2008)
Old 11-19-15, 02:26 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

It's interesting that the furthest back the dates went for "book better than movie" was 1997, with most of them over 2010, while the furthest back they went for "movie better than book" was 1927.

While I don't necessarily disagree with the results, I wonder if a lot of these ratings are due quite a bit to the overall age groups that use each site. I imagine younger people would use IMDB far more than Goodreads, leading to a higher rating of the young adult adaptations of books, while the older crowd reading the same books on Goodreads would give those novels lower ratings.
Old 11-19-15, 10:21 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

The Jackal movie shouldnt count.
Old 11-19-15, 10:25 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Wow, what happened to that site. It used to be a great political poll aggregator now it's Cracked 2.0?
Old 11-30-15, 11:25 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Christine and The Exorcist should be there.
Old 12-20-15, 09:07 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Godfather was better than the book. Moby Dick is better than all versions including the recent Ron Howard one. Any Austen movie is inferior to the books. The Thrawn trilogy is better than the new Episode 7, though I liked the movie very much.
Old 03-14-16, 10:02 AM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Originally Posted by ArnieCunningham
Christine and The Exorcist should be there.
I think all Stephen King books are better than the movies.
Old 03-16-16, 05:03 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

The movie version of Forrest Gump was much better than the book. The book and the movie have very different tones.
Old 03-16-16, 07:48 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Jurassic Park should be #1.
Old 03-20-16, 11:19 AM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Originally Posted by htfdwhal
I think all Stephen King books are better than the movies.
It's amazing how bad almost all of them are, compared to the books. Good source material, usually good actors attached, poor results.
Old 03-20-16, 12:59 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

King's writing doesn't translate very well to the screen. His best stuff has very dense plotting and packed with more characters than Hollywood likes to introduce in a screenplay. The most successful adaptation is probably The Green Mile, it's a good movie that honors the spirit of his novel. It also happens to be one of his most straightforward plots.
Old 03-21-16, 12:31 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Along Came A Spider - The movie was okay, but it always struck me as a film with an abrupt ending (and there is a lot in the book that did not make its way into the film).

Some folks might also include Kiss The Girls, and although I enjoyed the film it was a book that I enjoyed enough to have read twice (I rarely read books more than once).
Old 03-22-16, 12:49 AM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

I Am Legend is one of my favorite novels of all time. The film fucked it all up.
Old 03-23-16, 01:37 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Originally Posted by Why So Blu?
I Am Legend is one of my favorite novels of all time. The film fucked it all up.
Agreed. Easily one of the best of the last-man-on-Earth genre.
Old 04-10-16, 09:29 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Originally Posted by PhantomStranger
King's writing doesn't translate very well to the screen. His best stuff has very dense plotting and packed with more characters than Hollywood likes to introduce in a screenplay. The most successful adaptation is probably The Green Mile, it's a good movie that honors the spirit of his novel. It also happens to be one of his most straightforward plots.
Agreed on all points. I will say that Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and even Cujo
Spoiler:
because the boy didn't die in the movie and was so heartbreaking in the book I was glad he lived
transferred over well too.
Most of the rest of his movies have been terrible interpretations of his books though. Will give a shout out to the tv versions of Salem's Lot of the late 70s and The Stand of the 80s as decent viewing material.
Old 04-17-16, 05:06 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

A Clockwork Orange.

Movie is masterpiece,but book is something differenet.
Old 04-26-16, 02:43 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Originally Posted by PhantomStranger
King's writing doesn't translate very well to the screen. His best stuff has very dense plotting and packed with more characters than Hollywood likes to introduce in a screenplay. The most successful adaptation is probably The Green Mile, it's a good movie that honors the spirit of his novel. It also happens to be one of his most straightforward plots.
I thought the Shawshank Redemption improved on what was a rather thin novella.

By and large, most books are better than the movie equivalent. Listing them is roughly the equivalent of listing every book.
Old 04-27-16, 05:51 AM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Originally Posted by mwbmis
. . . By and large, most books are better than the movie equivalent. Listing them is roughly the equivalent of listing every book.
Old 05-01-16, 10:08 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Battlefield earth?
Old 05-11-16, 03:38 AM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

"Vampire Academy (2014)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010)
The Book Thief (2013)
Seventh Son (2015)
The Book Thief (2013)" is the best
Old 05-16-16, 10:22 AM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Originally Posted by mwbmis

By and large, most books are better than the movie equivalent. Listing them is roughly the equivalent of listing every book.
So much so that I automatically read the title wrong as "The movie was better than the book". It's generally a foregone conclusion that the book is better. In fact, I have only a handful of movies that are was somewhat equal to the book.
Old 05-17-16, 06:43 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Originally Posted by iggystar
So much so that I automatically read the title wrong as "The movie was better than the book". It's generally a foregone conclusion that the book is better. In fact, I have only a handful of movies that are was somewhat equal to the book.
1 Jaws
2 Kiss Me Deadly
3 . . . um . . .
Old 05-18-16, 12:05 AM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Originally Posted by Nick Danger
1 Jaws
2 Kiss Me Deadly
3 . . . um . . .
Some might argue but I preferred the Godfather films (1 and 2) to the book.
Old 05-18-16, 07:30 AM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

I saw Eragon (the movie) before I read the book, enjoyed the movie tremendously but realized, once I read the book, that the movie cut a lot of corners. They could have made that movie so much more than it was, but the suits probably wanted it wrapped up within a certain time frame so the storyline had to be altered to fit that time frame. I would love to see that series of books turned into a worthy film series, I think it could do well if treated with a modicum of respect for the source material.
Old 09-28-16, 05:16 PM
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Re: The book was better than the movie

Originally Posted by RoyalTea
the top 10 "the movie was better than the book:"

1 Up in the Air (2009)
2 Apocalypse Now (1979)
3 Metropolis (1927)
4 Scent of a Woman (1993)
5 Mr. Holmes (2015)
6 Sideways (2005)
7 The Graduate (1967)
8 Taking Lives (2004)
9 Dr. Strangelove (1964)
10 There Will Be Blood (2008)[/SPOILER]
JAWS should be on this list.

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