I’ve wanted to read Neil Gaiman’s novels for quite some time now–really enjoyed the first edition of Don’t Panic, but have never been able to get past page 30 of one of his novels. But I figured after the great experience I had with Stardust, I’d be able to plow my way through the novel. Honestly, not sure I needed the movie, I was hooked almost right away by the style–I’d probably just picked the wrong books before.
But anyway, I’m a shade under a third of the way through the book and already I’m pretty glad I watched the movie first, because I might’ve gotten pretty darn annoyed with the radical changes already made (although I must say that on the whole, they were necessary to get a well-made movie on the screen–this isn’t a book that allows for an easy adaptation). Still, it’s another case of the book being better than the movie.
Which got me to thinking…which books were worse than their movie adaptations? Surely there’ve been some. Off the top of my head I sorta think that Altman’s M*A*S*H was superior to the novel by Hooker (if only for the fact that it cut out all the Trapper John as Jesus nonsense). Some movies are just about as good as the books/stories they were based on, some are hardly recognizable…that’s practically a cliche to point out. But I know there are some movies that do a better job telling their story than the book did. Just can’t think of any at the moment. Can you?
Micah
I will probably be stoned for this… but at least the ENDING of the Dune film (the Lynch version, not the Alan Smithee one, nor the KTVU version) was better than the book(s). I saw the film before reading the book, and felt that the film followed the book well until the ending. That said… the following books really seemed like a let down, expecting the triumphant ending of the movie but not finding it. I’m sure lots of folks will argue the pt, but the Dune novels beyond the first one, were very hard to read.Now, when are they going to make some films based on Zelazny’s Amber series?