See the Movie over Read the Book...

Count of Monte Cristo (and I had the abridged book! That was crazy long... and I had to look up who the hack was who in Wikipedia-- twice.) =P

V for Vendetta. Seriously. It's like the people who made the movie read the comic and thought, "We could make this SO MUCH MORE COOL." And they did.

Others:

Nobody kill me here, but Harry Potter. I read the first book back when it came out and thought, "This would make a better movie than a book." And then, ta-da, it was a movie! I wouldn't read any more than the first one anyway, so it's either see the movie or nothing.

Also, Lord of the Rings. Usually I like stuff like that, but I just never have been able to get into them. I saw the movies and had my hubby give me the cliff's notes on stuff that didn't make it in.

I would say the Harry Potter books.

Clair Dickson said:

Count of Monte Cristo (and I had the abridged book! That was crazy long... and I had to look up who the hack was who in Wikipedia-- twice.) =P

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I wonder if the problem was, in fact, having the abridged version? I read the whole thing and loved it, no confusion at all.

Clair Dickson said:

Count of Monte Cristo (and I had the abridged book! That was crazy long... and I had to look up who the hack was who in Wikipedia-- twice.) =P

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I'd also think this was a problem with the abridged version... The movie hardly does the book justice at all.

JoNightshade said:

Also, Lord of the Rings. Usually I like stuff like that, but I just never have been able to get into them. I saw the movies and had my hubby give me the cliff's notes on stuff that didn't make it in.

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Watch the movie. Read the books. Both are good.

Same for these:

Fight Club.

Everything Is Illuminated.

Atonement.

The Painted Veil (you can skip the book if you want, though--well written, but I didn't like the ending as much).

Mmm. That's all I can think of for now. Also, Secret Window, because it has Johnny Depp.

People are going to try and stone me but, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. I've seen two film adapations - the big screen with Francis O'Connor and the recent BBC production (2007) and I prefer either to the book. I'm not entirely sure Austen meant for wet noodle Fanny Price to BE the heroine of the novel, which is why I've always found it hard to digest. The films give her a little more umph.

I have never been able to read fantasy, other than mythology, not even as a kid, but I do like fantasy films though. I did try to read LOTR once, but lobbed it after a couple of pages. I absolutely love the LOTR films though.
I haven't read many of the classics either, but do really like films like Wuthering heights .

Quite often I will see a film, love it to bits, and then go hunting for the book, or vice versa. A few examples: Interview with the Vampire. The day of the Jackal. Man on fire. Christine. Ghost story. The Shawshank redemption.

The film 'Jaws' was good when it first came out, but the book was crap in my opinion.


Elodie

I can't really think of a movie that is better than the book, but I can think of movies that are just as good (or different):

The Painted Veil
Atonement
Fight Club
Red Dragon
Silence of the Lambs (okay, I think the movie was better)
JAWS (same here)
Pride & Prejudice
Mystic River
October Sky
Stand by Me (based on Stephen King's The Body)
Shawshank Redemption
the Green Mile

Elodie-Caroline said:

Wuthering heights

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Go read that one. Some of the classics really aren't as great as your high school English teacher would want you to think, but Wuthering Heights is a great one. None of the movie versions really quite do it justice. Much better than Jane Eyre or anything else any of her sisters wrote.

On the word of a good friend and famous (Australian) poet of mine, I tried to read 'Jane Eyre' last year, but I thought the writing was awful! I much preferred Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' to that

kuwisdelu said:

Go read that one. Some of the classics really aren't as great as your high school English teacher would want you to think, but Wuthering Heights is a great one. None of the movie versions really quite do it justice. Much better than Jane Eyre or anything else any of her sisters wrote.

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Stardust.

The book is good, but the movie is better. Specially the ending

The Da Vinci Code.

I read LOTR and have seen the movies and I'm not sure if I can pick which is better. The movies are fantastic. The book is amazing but it got really long for me and I had to really slog through the last third, so I think I'll say I liked the movies better.

Harry Potter is another one...I'm not sure I can pick which was better.

Fight Club, definitely liked the movie better. But it could be that I'm swayed by Edward Norton!

Jaws...I didn't read the book but, come on, the movie is too good. The book can't possibly be better!

Da Vinci Code? Really? The book was decent, the movie was horrible. But I just kept staring that that god-awful hair on Tom Hanks and couldn't concentrate.

Big Fish -- the movie is so much better.

I agree with OP about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I hated that book but Blade Runner is one of my favourite films.

I'm going to throw out M*A*S*H. It was a good book, but the movie (which I watched again last night) is such a wonderful piece of work that it might just be better. Altman rocks.

The Princess Bride. If you thought she was a spoiled brat or worse in the movie she's about 10x worse in the book.

Also I tend to like fantasy movies over fantasy books.

Any classic, really.

Wasn't Apolocypse Now much better than Heart of Darkness?
Isn't Scrooge (1954 with Alistair Sim) better than Dicken's A Christmas Carol (and I say this even though I read A Christmas Carol every Christmas)
Isn't Henry Fonda's Grapes of Wrath better than Steinbeck?
Isn't the movie version of All Quiet on the Western Front better?

(Granted in these cases I might be prejudice because the films are classics in their own right.)

And personally, not classics, but still, I think the Bond films are much better than Ian Fleming. I don't think he's all that great a writer.

maestrowork said:

JAWS (same here)

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Jaws was a book first? Well, waddaya know about that?

As a general rule, I tend to like the books better than the movies. Unless I've never read the book to begin with.


LOTR..I liked the books better. The movie industry completely slaughtered the HP books, I thought.

And Shakespeare uses ten words when one would have done.

For the most part, movies pale in comparison to books.

I disagree with Harry Potter being better as a movie. I found the books a lot more fulfilling than the movies which cut out a lot of subplots for sake of time.

But Lord of the Rings was exceptional as a movie and better than the books (probably my failing because I couldn't get in to them at all).

The Green Mile is better as a movie than the book.

Fight Club: awesome movie...alright book.

Those are a few off the top of my head.

the fellowship of the ring. and it was all because of the shire

Shawshank Redemption

Excalibur over Le Morte D'arthur.
...and Jaws.