March 15, 2010 3:19am 284 online Daily: True or false: You can get tonsilitis even if you've had all of your tonsils removed. Click here to answer
Home Articles Forums Blogs Chat Win Stuff Games Pics Advice Writing Tests Listings More...
Movies & Film
The BOOK is Better than the Movie
posted March 10, 2009 10:03 PM by j_jammer
tagged under: book is better than the movie, movie, phrase, review, book
The book is better than the movie. The BOOK is better than the movie. The book is BETTER than the movie. The book IS better than the movie. The book is better THAN the movie. The book is better than the MOVIE!

How many different ways can it be said without it at all being irritating? NONE. When there is an adaptation from book to movie there are die hard fans who have sex with their books every night who throw tantrums when the story isn’t translated to screen as they see fit and these are the people that use this phrase as if it holds water.

Is it really necessary to state that the source material for the movie is better than the movie itself? Does it not go without saying? Yes it does. The only way it would be necessary to use book, than, better and movie in the same sentence is when it’s in reverse and the movie is better than the book. Because that is when it turns into a unique situation and it should be mentioned.

It seems to me that those that do make mention of the book being better than the movie are the people that are cynical more so than not. They were the people that went in with lots of doubt and are the people that love the book and would never give into the movie being a great adaptation because after they say anything good they follow up with ‘but’. And the ‘but’ is followed by a string of words that make one question why this person decided to even mention something good about the movie when they just slammed it six feet under in the same sentence?

Yes the book is better. Yes the book is better about 95% of the time. When something happens with alarming regularity it is first not alarming, for that was sarcasm, and second it’s so frequent that people expect it when they hear something is an adaptation. So those that love to read will pick up, if so compelled to do so, the book and read it without being told by one who has read it. Those that have read it need not use the well worn words that represent the dead horse in the well known phrase ‘beating a dead horse’.

In conclusion the next time you feel compelled to utter one of the most worthless phrase in the English language: The book is better than the movie; stop. Do not speak those words and do not give such an opinion for a movie review. Answer the question should you be asked, but giving the answer without being asked is like telling your IQ without being asked. It’s kind of high horse-ish. It’s really I’m better than you for I read the book instead of just seeing the movie. I know more than you do about the movie because I read the book…and so on and so on. Bite your tongue. It will save you from being intellectually insulting towards those that may just want your view on the movie not the book/movie comparison.

The book was what….?

Comments

SeraphOphan2 said:
My friend and i were actually discussing this subject earlier. To readers the book will always be better than the movie. Not because we read the book first and don't like the idea of someone adapting a piece of literature we've grown to love or anything like that. When you think about it a movie couldn't possibly amount to a book in anyway after all most books are around 100-600 pages giving the author almost infinite space to express their vision while the director of a movie only has 2-3 hours to express theirs it's simply not possible to sum it all up in that short amount of time. And when you think about it most of us don't like movie adaptations because they didn't fit our idea of what the places, events, or characters were like.A perfect example of a terrible adaptation would have to be Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The lightning Thief. Trust me if you've read the book and watched the movie you'll know what i'm talking about. However despite all of that there are some good Movie adaptations. Lord of the Rings is a perfect example Peter Jackson did a magnificient job adapting that trilogy. So i guess in the end it just comes down to you whether or not a book is better than a movie or not.
posted February 28, 2010 11:30 PM
Racehottie said:
What I like about books is that you can imagine the characters universe in your mind and get really creative. What tends to happen with movies, obviously they have to omit things, but what you imagined is not the same as whats on screen. There is an amount of disappointment when its not what you hoped for the film.

I
posted February 18, 2010 10:46 AM
Guest Glenadel said:
I disagree! I believe that a movie can be better than the book. Or rather the telling of that story is better as a movie than the book is. Here is a good post on this exact subject. http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/002626.html
you can agree or disagree all you want bit the fact of the matter is, it's all in the eyes of the beholder.
posted January 27, 2010 02:24 AM
Fruffles said:
A movies that was better than the book (and i did read the book) was My Sisters Keeper. The book murdered the main girl and i hated that - it killed her just when everything was settling and it was horrible =(
posted January 6, 2010 01:04 AM
Guest Anticitizen_Two said:
You know what's even more annoying than pointing out the obvious and saying the book is better than the movie? A person who has only seen the movie claiming that they know what the book is like. I am a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings (the book, of course) but almost everyone I know has never read the book but they have seen the movie, and they're constantly talking about how Peter Jackson "did a great job making an adaptation" with the movies. How can they know he made a good adaptation of the book if they've never even picked it up? And worse, they actually try to compare books vs. movies when they've never read the book? And I try pointing out that Gimli was turned into comic relief and Arwen was way too important and Tom Bombadil got completely eliminated and that a good part of the story(the scouring of the Shire) got left out in place of crappy made up scenes of Aragorn flirting with Eowyn, but they always stand by that Jackson adapted them well as if they could actually even know if he did or not...

/rant
posted December 7, 2009 04:57 PM
Guest Randomguycommenting said:
Yes, the books are better. I'm astonished, though, that so many will rush to mention Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Twilight, but I have yet to see any mention of the adaptations for American Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, Fight Club, or The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I mean no disrespect to those who are fans of the aforementioned books. I am a fan of LOTR and Harry Potter, but when will the focus of the discussion move beyond what is big, hip, and popular, to what can better prove the point?
posted November 29, 2009 10:48 PM
Guest Ludmila said:
I agrre with bigboxshops that this do not happened always cause i watched so series(not movie but...). Book had very much superfluous story lines and it was't intresting .it was boring. Do you agree that it happened sometimes?
posted November 22, 2009 07:48 AM
Guest Camryn said:
The book will always be better - it has more detail. Harry Potter & LOTR cannot possibly be crammed into two hours and contain everything. And as for Twilight - a bad book can only be made into a bad movie. The best adaptions are where the author writes or co-writes the screenplay. Eg Looking for Alibrandi (an Australian book turned movie, 1999)
posted October 28, 2009 07:56 AM
Guest Chloe said:
It is without question that the book IS better than the movie. Not only with Twilight but with all other books that were made into films the book is always better! No movie writer could possibly write a scene for a movie with as much detail as that section of the book. Twilight is filled with amazing descriptions, scenery, and detail and although the movie was good the book was unbelievable and very well written. Something about a movie based on a book is never right, there is always a part left out that was described with amazing detail in the book, and walking out of the theater thats what stands out, not the movie itself. Although Kristen Stewart is beautiful, and Rob Pattenson is well, very hot, you do not get the same feel watching a movie as you do reading.
posted October 20, 2009 09:04 PM
ailes_dange said:
sprinkles4life: Current example - TWILIGHT. the movie was SO BAD compared to the book. no offence, the movie was decent all in all, but the book- so much better.
posted September 17, 2009 10:34 PM

Leave a Comment

Your Name: 
Your E-mail 
 
Your e-mail address will NOT be published.
Comment: 
To help us prevent spam, please enter the words you see in the box below:

Share This Post

Digg this!submit to redditshare on delicious share on facebookmixx it up!Stumble It!

E-mail This Post

Click here to e-mail this post to friends
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author(s) alone. They do not represent the views or opinions of Student.com, The Student Center, Inc., or its partners and affiliates.