Meme – Book Vs Film

I saw this meme at The Bookworm Chronicles and Lynn’s Book Blog and thought it would be fun to do this meme on my blog as well…because books vs movies, we all have an opinion, right?

I have to provide 5 answers for each category:

  1. Films that I enjoyed better than the book (is that possible??? Yup, realized that I could easily list more than the 5 I mentioned in this post )
  2. Books that I liked better than the film
  3. Books that I can’t decide between because the film did a pretty damned good job of bringing the book to the screen.

Anyway, here are my answers:

Films that I enjoyed better than the book

  1. Twilight and New Moon movies
  2. I know, I know, bad answer :(. I found the books super boring, and watched the movies with zero expectations, so I guess I ended up liking them. I liked the beautiful locations, the music, and the overall moodiness of the movies and I thought they were definitely better than the books. Definitely not good enough for me to catch the later movies though 😉

  3. Gone with the Wind
  4. Brilliant acting, superb sets, direction, and cinematography and who am I kidding, Clark Gable as Rhett Butler made me love the movie far more than the book.

  5. Jaws
  6. Who cares about the book? That mechanical shark and the background score when the shark attacks makes this one of my favorite movies.

  7. The Lord of the Rings series
  8. This is a no-brainer for me. I liked the books but felt they dragged too much. The movies brought the books to life in a fantastic and wonderful way and I love them and re-watch them when they are on TV.

  9. Tie 1: Oliver Twist
  10. I don’t remember the movie much, I watched it as a child and I simply loved it. I think it was a BBC-produced musical and I loved the actors and the music and everything. I went on to read the book later and was completely underwhelmed by it.

  11. Tie 2: Romeo and Juliet
  12. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet was such a wonderful take on Romeo and Juliet. I read the original play when I was a teen and thought it was clichéd and boring. Reread it again a few years back and loved it. But the movie just made my heart beat faster. Starring Leonardo diCaprio and Claire Danes, they brought life to the couple. Also, the music, and the modern-day setup really removed the cobwebs from this play and portrayed the two lovers and their predicament in a completely new, relatable, and modern way.

Books that I liked better than the film

  1. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
  2. I think the book is much better than all the over sexed movie adaptations (eye roll at Tim Burton’s version)

  3. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
  4. I think the movies have messed up this book. I don’t think anyone actually managed to capture the essence of Lizzie Bennet’s character. Although Colin Firth as Darcy was just mmmm…

  5. Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding
  6. Don’t get me wrong. I liked the film and Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant are absolutely brilliant. I can watch reruns again and again, but I like the books a lot more.

  7. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  8. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is my favorite children’s book. I’ve seen one movie version and it was just dull. I did like Tim Burton’s take on Wonderland, but since it’s not based on the actual events in the book, I can’t really count it as a movie adaptation.

  9. Matilda by Roald Dahl
  10. I love this book so much. The movie is nice too but doesn’t come close to the book. Just my opinion, most of the movie reviews were good. I think it’s just that the book holds a very close place to my heart, and I couldn’t swallow the parts where the movie diverged from the book.

Books that I can’t decide between because the film did a pretty damned good job of bringing the book to the screen.

  1. Emma – the Gwyneth Paltrow version and the book by Jane Austen
  2. In my mind, they are both equally good and I love GP as Emma. She did a great job as did all the supporting characters.

  3. To Kill a Mockingbird
  4. Gregory Peck rocked as my favorite fictional character Atticus Finch.

  5. The Sookie Stackhouse books and The True Blood series
  6. I know the series deviated from the books a lot, but I found I enjoyed both the books and the TV episodes equally. This is probably because I wasn’t all that invested in the books, so I didn’t mind about how true the TV series was to the books.

  7. Jurassic Park
  8. I first saw the movie by Steven Spielberg and I absolutely loved it. Many years later, when I read the book by Michael Crichton, I was surprised to find that the book is equally enjoyable. The movie scored because of the actual depictions of the dinosaurs, but the book covered the setup and the characters in greater detail. I enjoyed both versions thoroughly.

  9. The Silence of the Lambs
  10. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris was the first thriller I read and it remains one of my all-time favorite books. The movie was also the first thriller that I was allowed to see, and man…it blew my mind. Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster were fantastic and I still remember entire conversations and scenes from the movie even though I last saw it more than 10 years ago.

11 comments

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  1. lynnsbooks

    Hey
    This is great. I love your choices. Come on Clark Gable as Rhett Butler ‘frankly my dear I DO give a damn!’ Not to mention Viggo as Aragorn – do I have a one track mind or what! Jaws – I have read the book but the soundtrack to that movie is such a classic and totally makes the film – not to mention Robert Shaw!
    Bridget Jones – yeah, the movie was okay, but you sort of missed all the references at the start of each page saying how many calories, etc – which just added a little something more. (BTW don’t think it’s gone unnoticed that you seem to have a couple of films with Colin Firth – a little crush perhaps?)
    I think the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma is my favourite translation of that story to film and I also love the book – so, yep, difficult to choose.
    Lynn 😀

    • Nish

      @Lynn: Heheh, when it comes to Colin Firth, I definitely do like him a lot. I have seen only these two movies and he was great in both 🙂

      Viggo as Aragon, oh, yes, please!

  2. audrina1759

    One book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and hated watching the movie was Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. The Movie didn’t do justice to the book. Same with the Bourne Series.

    • Avada Kedavra

      same here. I hated Angels and Demons movie. Agree that Lord of the rings and Twilight movies are better than the books.

      • Nish

        @Ava: Thank god, you agree with me about Twilight. I don’t understand why the movies get so much flak. The basic story was so blah, and they somehow managed to make it watchable on screen. I thought the directors did a decent job with it.

    • Nish

      @Audrina: I haven’t watched Angels and Demons, but it seems to be universally disliked. I think maybe someone other than Tom Hanks in the lead role could have pulled it off? Or was the entire movie so bad?

      Re: The Bourne Identity, I much preferred the movies to the books. In the book, I found the character of Marie (is that her name?), Bourne’s wife…very annoying, and Bourne himself didn’t have much of a character. But Matt Damon as Bourne was hot!

  3. jessicabookworm

    Some interesting choices Nish! I forgot about To Kill a Mockingbird a wonderful book and film. I also saw a good stage production of it too. I also loved Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet. Excellent film. As much as I love Shakespeare I always think he wrote his plays to be performed not read.

    • Nish

      @Jessica Bookworm: Thanks. I wanted to avoid repeating the choices I already read about in other blogs – although I couldn’t avoid the LOTR repetition.

      I agree with you about Shakespeare. Reading it seems flat, but performances must be very lively, not that I’ve ever seen a live performance, but I almost always enjoy Shakespeare based movies.

      • jessicabookworm

        There are some great film adaptations of Shakespeare’s work. I really enjoyed Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing and Mel Gibson’s Hamlet too.

        • Nish

          @Jessica Bookworm: Yes, the plays really lend well to movie adaptations – especially the tragedies. In the past few years, Othello and Macbeth were made into Hindi (Bollywood) movies, and the director really did a very good job of it, and the adaptations were quite successful commercially too.

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