“The book was better,” is a universal motto book lovers utter as they walk out of any adaptation. Except sometimes I like the movie more. Does that make me a bad bibliophile?
If you’ve listened to Book Hype at all, you’ll know I love to read. Dystopian, science fiction, romance, contemporary, fantasy, you name it, I usually have something positive to say about any kind of book.
That isn’t always true of the adaptations. Harry Potter, as good as those movies are, will never measure up to the books. The Hunger Games movies were fantastic, but there’s still something to be said about reading that story rather than watching it play out on screen over two hours or so.
But what about the movies that are better than the books? It’s a rare occurrence, but sometimes it happens. It’s not an insult to the book or the author; the movie can often find a better way to streamline the story. Plus, if you’re a movie buff, there’s little better than seeing the physical embodiment of your favorite characters on screen. That can be enough to have a film overshadow the novelization of the story.
I can’t promise all of the movies I like better than the book are great choices. Some will probably cause you to leave angry comments at the bottom of this article, but a person’s relationship with a story is personal. It’s influenced by a myriad of factors, like when you read it or how your best friend felt about it or if you had to read it in school. Someone will like a story for one reason while someone else will find another reason to hate it.
The first movie I ever decided I liked better than the book was The Golden Compass. In some circles, this equates to blasphemy, and I wholly accept that. I blame being a kid and falling in love with the polar bear. I read the books in college, but found myself lost and confused. Maybe it’s because I had already watched the film a half dozen times by then and it had already taken up residence in my mind.
I realize for those out there who hold Pullman’s His Dark Materials series at their top favorite books of all time, it is a tragedy to read someone liking the film more. I know the movie does not do it justice, and I’m hoping to reread the series one day soon to see if I still feel the same way about it.
Other movies are easier to explain away. I think The Maze Runner does an excellent job of condensing the story in a way that increases the suspense and the action. In the same way, I love Eragon because I always had a hard time wrapping my head around the high fantasy tale and the movie made it easier to digest. Plus I just really loved the dragons.
Then there are movies like The Mortal Instruments and A Series of Unfortunate Events, where I just didn’t like the books to begin with, but actually enjoyed the movies quite a bit because they got rid of some of the problematic plot points I didn’t enjoy.
Much like The Golden Compass, I also saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Wizard of Oz before I read the books, and by the time I got around to reading them, the films were more important to me than the source material, and often so different that the book felt like the impostor to the movie.
So, yes, sometimes the movie is better than the book, whether it’s because the material is better or because you’re invested in the film more than you’re invested in the novel. It doesn’t make you (or me) a bad bibliophile; it just means you have an opinion that might be a bit unpopular. And if you have listened to Book Hype, then you’ll know I have no problem embracing that notion.