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Thread: do you read a title because a movie based on it is coming out soon?

  1. #16
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    Well I watched Van Helsing and then read the novelisation... but that's not really the same thing!
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  2. #17
    The Great Damn of Boston. JediFonger's Avatar
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    regarding book/movie, there have been very few cases where the movie is almost like an improvement upon th original book. in chuck's audio commentary on fight club DVD he said several times to jim uhls (screenwriter) why chuck himself did not think of that.

    imho fight club is better than the book because the book is kind of loose, without much of a 'narrative'. the movie brought the themes home and there were parts in there that needed to be in movie-form to truly understand, like the film-splice thing. it's one thing to read it but to see it is awesome.

    of course for this particular work, both the movie AND the book worked out marvelously. the other work that i found to be very synonymous with one another is 2001, cause kubrick+clarke worked on the story together. i thought both cannot exist one without the other.

    as for other works of art like lotr compared to the movies, i really luv the book so much more. i mean think about it, the movie was only 1/2 the stories in the book!!!! they could have made 6 movies each 3 hours long. the only prob is the long expositions of character-character scenes. for example in House of Elrond chapter the speeches made there would make the audience woozy... but then i luv that kind of performance, it's very shakespearean.
    to the edge of eternity and depth of infinity, stupidity knows no bound.

  3. #18
    Labyrinthine THX-1138's Avatar
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    yeah i did
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  4. #19
    Two Gun Kid Idril's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by THX-1138 View Post
    the prefume
    Oh, was that any good? I just read a review of that movie and it sounds really intriguing.

    I do try to read the book before the movie although I have no doubt I would enjoy the movie better if I did it the other way around, movies never live up to the books.
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  5. #20
    love to read... Bookworm Cris's Avatar
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    I usually read a book after watching the movie; I almost always prefer the book to the film.

    Exceptions:
    LOTR (film as good as the book, each one told the same story in its own way, both great)
    Forrest Gump (the book is interesting, but the film is a totally different story, more emotionally told; a great movie, to me it´s better than the book)
    Wuthering Heights (version with Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes; the movie captured the dark atmosphere of the book, and the actors are fantastic; besides, the script is true to the book)
    "Itīs our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
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  6. #21
    Call Me Bubbles :) LPRox015's Avatar
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    No, I usually read the book then find out a movie based on it is coming out. And more than a few times I have been disappointed by the movies. They change them too much and ruin the storyline and plot.

    LPRox015 ~ Linkin Park Roxxxx!

  7. #22
    Registered User bounty's Avatar
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    on the off chance I might be able to resurrect an old thread....

    I read the girl with the dragon tattoo many years ago. recently, I watched the girl in the spider web and liked it well enough where I thought I would dive into the series more formally. I read the second book the girl who played with fire and watched the movie of the first book. I have the 2nd and 3rd movies en route via interlibrary loan and after I watch the 3rd movie, the girl who kicked the hornet's nest im going to read the book.

    i could possibly hunt up a book and read it before the movie version comes out, but my preference is to read it afterwards. i think a few folks above indicated that also.

    its seems like a lot of times i'll watch a movie and because of the movie, i find out there is a book, and then i'll hope to find it.

    as an aside, sometimes the movie is better than the book.
    Last edited by bounty; 02-09-2023 at 08:32 AM.

  8. #23
    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    I was going to answer before, bounty, but had to change my browser again.

    With me it is generally the other way round. I got interested in several movies because I had read the book. Usually I prefer th book but sometimes the film is better.

    I liked The Barn Burning by Murakami but I found the movie very slow.
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

  9. #24
    Registered User bounty's Avatar
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    I think if you read the book first, and then watch the movie afterwards, there seems to be a lot of room to complain. oh they left this out! oh they changed that! oh I don't like the actor they picked to play so and so (looking at tom cruise as jack reacher, and willam Dafoe as jack clark in one of the tom Clancy movies).

    but if you read the book after the movie, the differences seem to just take on a more neutral academic perspective, and rather than complain about them, you just identify and take note of them. plus, as someone said above, the movie sometimes help with visualizing the characters in the book.

    a few famous "the movies were better" than the books come to mind:forrest gump, the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. the princess bride and the fault in our stars. all good reads, all great movies.

    I imagine somewhere, someones made moby dick into a movie, and without even seeing it im going to guess the movies better than the book because the book was terrible!!

    that said, the "true story" that inspired the book, in the heart of the sea: the tragedy of the whaleship Essex by Stanley Philbrick was both good reading and good watching. ironically enough, the author put out a small book called why read moby dick.

  10. #25
    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    Yes thatīs true. If you read the book first you have a kind of movie of the story in your head. If you see the movie first the book sort of completes the film.

    I liked Moby Dick. I didnīt think before I would like a entire novel, and a doorstopper at that, about a whale hunt. But it gotme by itīs intensity.
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

  11. #26
    Registered User bounty's Avatar
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    I read the girl with the dragon tattoo many years ago, and just recently watched the movie. the gap between the two was so large I didn't remember the book well enough to complain in the least about the movie. recently I read the second book, and I just finished watching the second movie. im partway through the third movie now, and im about to start the third book today. its fun to compare them. I think what you said is a nice way to put it---the book completes the film.

    one thing of interest is that the first movie was done in English. the second and third were done in Swedish. I wonder why, especially (at least I think so) given how popular the first movie was. so im watching with English dubbing and I think somethings lost in the mix.

    another thing of interest, related to this thread, is in reference to what I guess id call "primacy." I think Lisbeth salander is a fascinating and incredibly sympathetic character. there is a different actress playing her in the second and third movies than in the first one. I liked the first one a lot. its taking the second one awhile to grow on me. how much of my preference for the first one is due to her being first, as opposed to my liking that particular casting better.

    it makes me wonder if sometimes we like the book better, because it came first.

    ack danik! laughs....I remember that if one wanted to read a treatise on whaling, then maybe the book would have been an okay read but I went into it looking for high adventure on the high seas and that didn't occur until the very end, after too many pages of your doorstop being built up. I think moby himself didn't appear until something like 95% of the book had been completed. what the heck?

  12. #27
    running amok Sancho's Avatar
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    Arrg! I liked Moby Dick for the old timey sailor lingo.

    You know, I do sometimes read a book that’s about to show up in the theater, not because I’m particularly tuned in to what’s happening in LaLa Land, but because I like to browse bookstores, and bookstores tend to promote the titles of books that are about to come out as a movie, and put those books on the table at the front of the store. Three that immediately come to mind are: The Good Lord Bird, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, and The Gunslinger. I haven’t seen any of the associated movies.
    Uhhhh...

  13. #28
    Registered User bounty's Avatar
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    I have noticed that just before a new release is about to hit the theaters, earlier versions in the series will start to show up on tv.

    it makes sense bookstores would do a similar thing.

  14. #29
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    dag nab double posting!

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