I would say no when it comes to books like The Odyssey or Gulliver’s Travels. They are hard to get into, but cinematic depictions have always been entertaining.
I haven’t read it so maybe I’m speaking out of turn here, but I’d wager that The Prestige is better than the book of the same name that it was based on. If not, that’s got to be an all time great book…
2001: A Space Odyssey (though I think screenplay and novel were written at the same time?)
I’m not a huge Harry Potter guy, but I liked The Goblet of Fire movie, so I’d add that as well.
I could probably think of more, given time. There’s a bunch of awful YA novels adopted into slightly less awful movies, but I’ll pass on them. Even though they technically meet OP’s criteria.
Jaws was a better movie. Fight Club was a better movie. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Bladerunner was a better movie (nothing against Philip K. Dick, he’s a great writer)
MMM Jurassic Park was a pretty damn good novel, especially for what, 1992? Groundbreaking idea. Spielberg was the ONLY one that could do this novel justice.
The Goblet of Fire was the WORST movie of the Harry Potter series. The book was far superior. They changed so much in the movie that the only thing that was in the book was literally… The Goblet of Fire.
Ooh, pretty good list but I’m gonna have to agree with @Clearmoon22 and say that while JP is a great film, it’s arguably a poor adaptation of its source material. Now again, it’s a great film, my fave film easily growing up, so this isn’t a hipster/contrarian take.
The novel presents its characters much differently than the film does, with perhaps the biggest example being John Hammond’s portrayal. In the film, he’s a kindly old grandfather who got swept up in his dream, but he’s much more cynical and clueless in the novel. His character deserves the fate that Crichton wrote for him.
As cliche as it sounds, the novel is much darker and more violent. I will never give up hope that one day HBO will decide to re-adapt the story as a television miniseries so that we can see a more accurate presentation of the source material. (it’ll never happen though lol)
For the record, these are the same reasons why Peter Benchley’s Jaws wouldn’t make my list of ‘better than the novel’ adaptations. That one has a much different tone, and has a shocking subplot (Hooper and the wife etc) that the film decided not to tackle. Again like JP, certain characters die in the novel that don’t die in the films, but the reasons the respective authors killed these characters makes sense in context and is fairly well deserved in both cases. Of course they’re both also Spielberg adaptations, so these things are hardly surprising.
This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by RedRanger. Reason: Jaws!
I’d think that an obvious one would be Silence of the Lambs due to Foster and Sir AH’s portrayals of their respective characters. The acting sells the movie. It’s been so long since I’ve done a comparison between the novels and films but I remember the translation being very respectful and accurate. Now Hannibal is another story entirely though..
Yes this, although, I only like it slightly more. The main story part with Wesley, Buttercup, and all, I’d say I like the book better. But the stuff around the story, (because it’s presented as a translation of a classic story) I like the way it was done in the movie better: Columbo reading to Kevin Arnold instead of this translator trying to get people to like his work. Much more endearing.