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Monday 9 November 2020

Movies that were better than the books

 I'll be honest, I very rarely find films to be better than the books they adapted, and I have a theory as to why that is. With many adaptations it feels to me like one person read the book and wrote a series of bullet points on it, followed by the screenwriter reading the bullet points and writing a script that covers all of them but doesn't include any of the plot or character development that occurred between them. It would certainly explain why so many film adaptations have events occurring out of the blue instead of emerging organically from the plot and characters, and why in some cases (such as the version of "Persuasion" I saw recently) pivotal plot points are actually swapped round so that they no longer make any sense.

So the only film I could come up with for this was the Daniel Radcliffe adaptation of "The Woman in Black".

I read the book after seeing the film, and I'm not sure if it was technically better, simply because they were two very different animals. Other than the fact that the film contained a woman in black and a rocking chair, there were very few similarities between them. However, the film did include an excellent performance from Daniel Radcliffe and was genuinely scary, which I didn't feel the book was - it's rare that I'm scared by a book.

So have you seen any films that were better than the books?

12 comments:

  1. Not into scary movies, but movies are scarier than the books. The medium is set up for from mood music to lighting.
    https://pmprescott.blogspot.com/2020/11/wc-111120.html

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  2. Normally, I'd agree that movies are scarier than books, but Lisey's Story (the book) still kind of freaks me out. Good post. I did think Daniel Radcliffe was scary in this film.

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    1. I haven't read that one. I'll have to give it a try.

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  3. I'll have to check The Woman in Black out... I feel like I may have seen it, but it's not coming to me. Thanks for the heads up.

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  4. The Woman in Black was a great film! Have you seen the British version of it from the 1980s?

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  5. I have to agree with you on the movie making. I don't watch or read scary books or movies. My overactive imagination becomes a problem. Thanks for sharing. Here's mine. https://www.tenastetler.com/movies-that-were-better-than-the-books-lsrs-blogging-challenge/

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    1. I think I've become immune to scary films lately. I need to find some more good ones.

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  6. My daughter, who is a very discerning "horror" movie buff loved that movie! I didn't actually know it was a book first. This was a tough topic this week! I'm here: http://www.mariannearkins.com/wednesday-weekly-blogging-challenge-movies-that-were-better-than-the-books/

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    1. The book was decent, but very different from the film. I've seen the stage play as well - again a very different creature.

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