"The movie was better."

I read the book version of Practical Magic a bit ago, and while I thought it was a good book, I like the movie better.

I also second Hunger Games, LoTR, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and especially the first Willy Wonka movie, and in no small part because Charlie actually did something to earn the factory in the end.

edited 10th Nov '15 12:49:03 PM by SkeletalPumpkin

I agree on Lord of the Rings being a better story in the films, but I do wish they had done better with Gimli and Legolas. In the book, Gimli was a more proud and dignified character, while Legolas was closer to the light-hearted comic relief. But for some reason, the films reversed this, and not in a particularly good way.

Like I said, the films are good, but that part rankled me slightly.

Here's one that hasn't been mentioned: Disney's Aladdin.

Honestly, I think the Disney version is a much better version of the story if only because they made the characters much more interesting (though to be fair to the original story it was a folktale, it didn't really need to have developed characters). Not to mention the Genie who was vastly superior (and not just because of who voiced him).

I also like the change of having the main villain become the giant snake and not just send it after Aladdin like in other incarnations.

Dunno if comparing a folk tale to an animated Disney feature film is valid.

Not to mention that the Disney Aladdin is an In Name Only adaptation. In the fairy tale there are two genies, the first of which is is in a ring given to Aladdin by the magician. Neither genie is limited to three wishes, a trope which I don't think occurs anywhere in the Arabian Nights. The magician who wants the lamp is a separate character from the sultan's vizier who is jealous of Aladdin. There are no animal sidekicks. And the evil wizard has an evil brother who, in order to get revenge for his brother the magician, murders an old holy woman and takes her identity.

So, you know, Darker and Edgier. And way different.

It's valid. I've seen other adaptations stray much farther than the Disney version.

Also if we want to be less anal you could just think about the movie compared to the original story.

The original film version of MASH is pretty good, while the book..... it's one of those stories where you really have to put yourself in a certain mindset (especially if you're more familiar with the anvilicious tone of the TV series). For one thing, Trapper is a low-down irredeemable creep in the novel, a far cry from the Trapper we know in the TV series.

About Jurassic Park, I've actually looked at the film differently after I read the original novel. I do agree there's some unnecessary science jargon in the first half, but once the park goes to pot, I found the book VERY suspenseful, even more so than the films.

Jumanji the movie is more fun to watch than the children's book it was based off of, which had a fairly piddly ending, as opposed to the film where you never really knew if things were going to ever turn out right for the characters.

And, while I hate Thumbelina by Don Bluth, it is a better telling of the story than what Hans Christian Anderson wrote (for one thing the mole character is less pervy in the Bluth film).

The same. I also think its internal logic of "life finds a way" holds up better in the book, where as in the film it's "life finds a way... if a disgruntled hacker lets it happen."

edited 12th Nov '15 9:07:00 PM by Tuckerscreator

Have there been any stories in which a vizier hasn't been a power-mad puppy murderer?

Because honestly, that's a hyper-cliche at this point.

Funny enough, the book had a lot more action sequences than the movie, some of them reserved for Lost World. I personally preferred the movie John Hammond to the book, a man with a Disney-esque sense of wonder highlights the tragedy of the event instead of just adding another number to the body count. The method of Hammond's death was also transplanted to Lost World.

edited 12th Nov '15 9:11:47 PM by KJMackley

In the story of the fisherman and the genie, the genie mentions that, at one point during his time trapped inside a jar, he vowed that he would grant three wishes to whoever freed him. However, by the time the fisherman found him, the genie had grown bitter and changed his vow to striking dead whoever freed him. So sort of an Unbuilt Trope.

I have to disagree concerning Thumbelina. For one, the main character in the story is a way better heroine. One who wouldn't have been too stupid to ask the swallow to carry her home if she had encountered her earlier. And two, the core message of the story is more or less missing in the movie. There the prince cities all the others who wanted to marry Thumbelina to him and they all make their claim to her. And he says: "Well, you all have forgotten a very important thing. You have forgotten to ASK the bride." Most epic telling-off ever.

A vizier who wasn't a power-mad Evil Chancellor, you say?

The Framing Device to the Arabian Nights, actually. The vizier is Scherezade's father.

True, but at the same time he changed the chronology from how Tolkien had it. He put the events after Frodo and Sam left Faramir in the right place, but in the books the time spent with Faramir happened after Saruman was defeated, while in the movies it happened before his defeat.

Since I am usually a book purist, I tend to like the LOTR books better because the movies did make quite a few changes.

edited 15th Nov '15 11:44:31 AM by shiro_okami

I like both the books and movies in their own ways, but I do think that there are some things the original books actually did better than the movies, with it's characterizations of Aragorn and Faramir counting among them. And as has been said, Gimli and Legolas were also more likable and dignified characters (particularly in Gimli's case,) in the books as well.

edited 15th Nov '15 11:58:23 AM by kkhohoho

Gimli and Legolas were really just Those Two Guys in the book, both standing in for their race more than anything. Gimli had great pride in the works of his people and was one of the more hotheaded members of the fellowship, but also had a few comedic jabs in there too. Legolas was lighthearted, but this played into a practice nonchalance that was the basic point of Tolkien's Elves. As Sam said in the book, "so old and young, so gay and sad, as it were." The movie simply flanderized Gimli's comedy relief aspects and the Elves in that world were stoics at BEST, or aloof assholes (Jackson's portrayal of Elrond and Thranduil) at worst.

Tom Bombadil is definitely filler, since he was a canon immigrant, a story Tolkien made up to tell his kids when they were young. As a non-sequitor, he serves a purpose in broadening the world. Worlds where everything that differentiates them from reality is centered around the plot tend to be narrow. Folks like Bombadil, or the seemingly aware mountain of Caradhras, show a glimpse of a wider world.

It's like the lineup of bounty hunters in The Empire Strikes Back. Do we need to see anybody but Boba Fett? No. But it's cool that you have a line of rough customers, showing that there's a whole world of stuff out there that we never get to see.

I can understand that, but aside from Boba Fett, the bounty hunters are basically just window dressing, not even saying anything. They help to establish the scope of the Empire's influence (these guys look like tough customers, and Vader's got them all looking for the Falcon), and give a good way to introduce Fett into the story in order to follow up on the Jabba the Hutt subplot, but that's it - their scene is over and done with in about a minute or so.

Whereas Tom Bombadil brings the plot of the book to a complete halt. I don't mind showing glimpses of a wider world, but I prefer for there to be stuff that's actually important happening when we're seeing them. Add in that Tom doesn't show up again, and doesn't really add anything that deepens our understanding of Middle Earth (if you can think of a way he does, then by all means say so), it just comes off as a waste of time.

edited 15th Nov '15 9:17:41 PM by KarkatTheDalek

See, I see things like that as perfectly fine. There's this whole cult of hatred for "filler" these days that I really don't understand. It was a break in the action, sure, but not a pointless one. It sat them down and gave them a chance to examine their options.

You could argue that Bombadill is like a Red Herring solution to the whole plot, since they mention in Elrond's Council that they could give the One Ring to Tom, but Elrond pretty quickly shuts down that idea with "No, he would just lose it" - the implication being that Tom losing it would just result in another Smeagol/Deagol situation.

But yeah, he is basically filler, as I don't even think he's ever mentioned in any of Tolkien's background material - or not in any significant sense. He's sort of just an idle Physical God which is pretty pointless when you have literal angels like Gandalf walking around who are far from idle and actually have clear and direct connections to the lore of the world. Bombadil is just this island of pointless mystery - so even the argument of him being a glimpse into the larger scheme of the world doesn't hold up considering how irrelevant he is even in terms of that larger scheme of things.

But anyway. Movies. I think that the Eragon movie, for however bad it was, improved on certain aspects of things from the books. The Ra'zac being shadow mummy things were a lot cooler than the weird bird-people they were in the books. And Durza had a lot more presence, because in the book I remember him being fairly Out of Focus despite being The Heavy of the first book.

Filler works better for books than it does for movies, because books are slower than movies. A book you can go at your own pace, divide by chapter, and get details from an omniscient narrator. A movie you have to invest in all in one sitting, can't first go back to "reread" a missed detail, and you don't know when the "chapter breaks" will be. So one's mind in a movie usually demands that the time be better spent.

Tom Bombadil and the bounty hunters in The Empire Strikes Back aren't very comparable. Those other bounty hunters are onscreen for, what, a minute? The Bombadil chapters of LOTR last forever and nothing happens.

Years ago when my sister and I were teenagers I tried to get her to read LOTR. She told me that she gave up somewhere during the Tom Bombadil part.

Anyway, a filmmaker can't be too slavishly faithful to the book. That's why the first Harry Potter movie wasn't any good.

There's only one Bombadil chapter. The other two chapters of that little arc in the books do have things to do with the rest of the book in a roundabout way. The Old Forest foreshadows the Ents, while the Barrow Downs delve into the dark past of the North and the necromantic powers of the Witch King.

I suppose the problem is that I'm overall not very fond of the parts of the book between the Shire and Bree anyway. I'm not exactly sorry that the movie skipped them.

I don't mind filler - it's just that I prefer it when those parts don't happen in the middle of all the interesting stuff. I suppose Tolkien's writing style may have been a problem as well. Maybe. Not entirely sure.

My dad enjoyed the movie of Life of Pi a lot more than the book, i think because of the adventure element not meshing well with he book's ending implying that everyone on board was human and all the awful things that happened were done to humans.

I really liked movie Beowulf. It added more depth to the character and made him more believable, sincle flawed and believable characters weren't a concern in 500AD.

Jaws. The book is flat out terrible and spends more time on Brody's wife committing adultery with Hooper than the actual shark. Every single person in it is so thoroughly unlikable you end up cheering for the fish.

Contrast the film which cut the adultery plot, put the shark front and centre, and actually made you care about most of the cast.