This thread inspired by the other one about the Hobbit movies. We talk a lot about film adaptations, usually in slightly resigned tones, where we say 'it was good, but not as good as the book.'

But what about those movies that took a written work and did it even BETTER? Clearly, this is totally subjective, but it makes for interesting conversation.

I'll start with my top three:

The Shawshank Redemption (from the novella 'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, by Stephen King). This was, by and large, a very faithful adaptation. But there were a few changes, such as having the same Warden all the way through, and casting Morgan Freeman, that made all the difference in the world. It's a great novella, a great story, but there's something about the sights and sounds and feel of the film that I think makes for a better experience overall.

Jaws (based on the novel 'Jaws' by Peter Benchley). Peter Benchley, despite his 70's success, is/was a talentless hack. His prose is wooden and uninspired. His characters are shallow, one-note wonders. His plots are stale and predictable. But you take the pale grey dishwater that was the novel Jaws, put it in the hands of budding genius Stephen Spielberg, and you get magic. Keeping the shark out of sight, focusing less on the sex lives of the main characters, the addition/revision  of that chilling monologue by Quint, all made the movie a masterpiece, and yards better than the novel.

Field of Dreams (based on the novel 'Shoeless Joe' by W.P. Kinsella). It's a decent book. But it's not really about baseball. Or fathers. Or much of anything else. I found it a meandering, weak-kneed novel, without much to say about anything. And J.D. Salinger is in it! For no good reason! But then they took that messy thing and made a movie about love and loss and nostalgia and hope and innocence and the things that are really important. And yes, baseball, too.

Other contenders could include: the Godfather, Stand by Me, Misery, Mystic River, 127 Hours, the English Patient.

The Mist was much better than the novella by Stephen King. Not saying that the movie was great, but it has one of my favorite, kick to the face endings in cinema history. The ending to the novella is just sort of open and lacks the 'kick to the face' aspect.

I also wouldn't say it was better, since the book and movie were entirely different things, but Starship Troopers was a blast. I still would like to see a movie more faithful to the original tone, but the movie was entertaining in its own way.

The movie Children of Men was absolutely fantastic, and the book was a boring slog that I barely remember anything of.

Jurassic Park captures a sense of wonder and adventure in a much better way than the original book. Crichton's novels sometimes get bogged down by technobabble.

I'll get behind that one for sure. The novel was mostly an excuse to wax pontifical on various scientific discoveries. The movie was about, just as you say, wonder and afventure.

And raptors.

Yes. Every book adaptation can be improved with raptors.

I daresay the Hobbit movies could have used a few raptors, too.

Stephen King actually said he liked the ending of the Mist movie better than his own, so that's saying a lot.  Not my type of ending, but definitely impactful.

I read Crighton's Timeline book, and while I'm not saying the movie was all that great, it changed some things I didn't like in the book, which made me like the movie a little bit more.

I'll third Jurassic Park. The book was forgettable, but the film has stood the test of time as an almost-perfect thriller. Not to mention, it still blows my mind how seamless some of the effects are. Just an amazingly-crafted film, period.

has anyone ever read the Running Man?  I wondered how it stacked up to the movie, since it's another secret King book-movie.

In reply to gladiusdei (msg # 7):

That's a good example of what D.L.Hitomi was talking about in the other thread. The two are so dissimilar that they don't even bear comparison. Other than the title, some of the names, and the base premise (IN THE FUTURE GAME SHOWS ARE REAL!), they are completely different.

I sort of figured that was the case.  Couldn't picture King writing a Schwarzenegger action film book.  And the movie does have the hints of a classic dystopian future novel, which I thought the book might be.  Still a fun movie though.  Some of the best action movie one liners ever.

The Wizard of Oz

Beh-Hur

I find -usually- I prefer the books; even if I watch the movie first.

Having said that, I rarely dislike the movies so much, no matter how much they've changed from the book. LotR is a prime example - despite the fact that if I was looking for a 100% faithful adaptation, there are parts, especially in the latter 2, which are drastically different, I can enjoy them as they are - for the movie.

Having said that, my niece will swear blind that the Twilight movie was better than the books. Having no desire to read or watch either, I'll take her word for it. She didn't like the books, but she found the movie was watchable.

One flew over the cuckoos nest...

Film is excellent with some fine acting, a brilliant script and great production value. The book is just impossible to read, I got about 20 pages in and gave up due to the headaches the language gave me!

Same applies to Trainspotting...

Edit - I will also throw Blade Runner into the mix. Excellent film, but Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep is a dull dull book.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:38, Thu 11 Dec 2014.

Honestly I find a couple of the Harry Potter movies did a better job than the books did. Mostly the books won out, but Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows were much better as movies. Mostly because I find them the worst books in the series, but the actors manage to sell me on the story in a way the books do not.

Meanwhile, Half Blood Prince is one of the strongest books IMO, but the movie was meh. Go figure.

In reply to gladiusdei (msg # 9):

Yeah, the original wasn't much of an action story...more of a commentary on society's acceptance of horrific stuff in the name of entertainment, I think.  I haven't read it in years (decades, even), but I remember being tremendously disappointed that the movie was NOTHING like the short story.  As 80's action movies go, it wasn't bad...it really did have some great quotable lines in it, and there were a few of the characters that I really enjoyed (and, hey, I've gotta hand it to any movie that's going to make Mick Fleetwood a hero of the rebellion...)

But in terms of an overall story?  I'd love it if someone actually made the short story into a film, rather than just borrowing a hint of a premise and some character names.

I can't think of many films that I enjoyed more than the books they were based on, which haven't already been named here (and most of those, I never got around to reading the book...sounds like I haven't missed much).

I do have to say that I really enjoyed Ender's Game...there were a lot of parts of the book that got skipped over, but I can see why they skipped what they did, and why they tweaked the overall plotline they ways they did.  There's some stuff that just couldn't be done in the film without bogging it down to the point where only die-hard Ender fans would sit through it.  I'd like to see someone do a mini-series so they could take the time to tell the whole story...but for taking such an extensive novel and turning it into a two-hour(-ish) movie, I think they handled it well.

Yeah, I agree about ender's game.  and on a side note, that actor would make a great robin, if they ever decided to make him the young kid he was for decades in the comics.

I'll put in LA Confidential. Although the book is great Ellroy, it was unfilmable as written. The filmmakers took the skeleton, pared it down to its essentials and its strongest characters, and made one of the best noir police stories ever. The Jack Vincennes character (especially his end) was particularly well treated.

To see what could have happened instead, take a look at the movie made from Ellroy's The Black Dahlia.

Misery

Sense and Sensibility

Interview with a Vampire

Forest Gump

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Great pick, Gaffer. And I totally agree. And a great example of a film taking something and making it very different in order to keep the spirit of the thing alive.

I'll drop a couple more:

Brokeback Mountain (based on the short story 'Brokeback Mountain' by Annie Proulx). I love Ang Lee and I can't stand Annie Proulx, so maybe I was an easy sell. In purely narrative terms,  the two cleave pretty close. But there's something about the power of film to show pages of dialogue in a single look, pages of description in a single perfect shot, and show the passage of time in quick-cuts. Add to that the visuals, the music, and suddenly the movie is the story that the story should have been. I read the story and went meh. The film made me weep. Twice.

Silence of the Lambs (based on the novel 'Silence of the Lambs' by Thomas Harris). Harris is a decent thriller-writer who made one really compelling villain. Jonathan Demme (and Ted Tally, who wrote the screenplay), on the other hand, is an artist. He had the sense to realize that Clarice and Lector were the real story, and Buffalo Bill merely the means by which that story is told. And whoever dug up Anthony Hopkins (who was next door to a has-been when he was cast) deserves a Lifetime Achievement Award. One of only three films to win the 'Big Five' Oscars, it's a masterpiece crafted from a forgettable bestseller.

Starship Troopers, depending on how you feel about militarizing society. It's like the Colbert Report take on the source material. This article explains it better than I can:

http://www.theatlantic.com/ent...-movies-ever/281236/

In reply to Gaffer (msg # 16):

Ah, good choice with LA Confidential. For me, it's almost like the Starship Troopers adaptation: something quite different from the book, but good in its own right.

And you're right. The book as written was unfilmable. Especially with that spine-chillingly nasty serial killer/cartoonist sub plot.