quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
An interesting question, and at one time I’d have just said, “The book, of course,” without much thought. That would still also be almost always true if the book came first. As mentioned, most books include things that would be difficult to impossible for a movie to depict except by highly contrived means, such as a character’s thoughts. Many of the novels I read have people doing things like performing intricate mechanical tasks that wouldn’t be clear without a written description.

Then there’s the quotation I once read that there’s no such thing as a cup of tea that’s too big or a [good] book that’s too long. I only recently discovered Stephen Hunter as a writer and I’m amazed at how he can keep me engaged in a story that goes and goes. I’ll look at my e-reader page count and realize that despite all the thrills and action and intricate plot that’s gone before, I’m only two-thirds (or less) through the entire thing. Trying to do proper justice to a story like that would require a movie days long, not hours.

On the other hand, movies can provide things no written descriptions alone can. I don’t watch many movies these days, but I still remember my initial impressions of Star Wars, Saving Private Ryan, and Downfall (Hitler’s final days). None of those had particularly complex stories to tell, and the early Star Wars movies in particular were riddled with elements that required more than the usual degree of “willing suspension of disbelief” even for a sci-fi tale, but their visual effects were what made them enjoyable and memorable. No written description of the events and settings even of Downfall could have conveyed the same impressions of what it was like in the bunker as did the movie.

I think I’ve even become a little cautious about seeing/reading the one if I’ve enjoyed the other. A prime example of that was Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. I read the book which had a profound effect on my attitudes about many things when I was a teenager, but I still remember more details about the abominable movie that I saw decades later. I would never, for example, watch a movie based on Heinlein’s Glory Road. I’ve never read any of the Star Wars books and can’t comment about how they compare with the movies, but the movies I’ve seen (not all of them) never left me feeling that I needed to seek and read the books.

So, it depends. Based on my admittedly limited experiences with book/movie comparisons, the book is usually better, but not always.