Are movies based on books or novels usually inferior than the book itself ??

as what i observe movies which are based from novels never really captures what is originally written in the books. Just like the case of the latest harry Potter movies, many avid fan of J.K. Rowling who read the books like my nieces. She comment that the story from the movies is really different when you read the books. You will understand truly the exact happening if you read the Harry Potter series..Some events that occur in the books is not really capture in the movies. So far you could better when reading the books than merely watching the movies which are being shorten hence lessening the essence of the real story...

You just cannot generalize this.There are a lot of great movies that have done justice to the books on which they got adopted.Here is the list of my favorites adaptations. Alice in Wonderland A Clockwork Orange Doctor Zhivago Empire of the Sun The English Patient The Godfather Goldfinger Goodfellas The Hound of the Baskervilles Jaws The Jungle Book LA Confidential One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Pride and Prejudice Rebecca Schindler's List To Kill a Mockingbird

Hi Suparno, Most times they were just inferior but there are some great pieces of work as well while adaptation of novels. You must have seen Slum dog Millionaire, it was great piece and you also should watch Devdas which is in hindi.

There is a lot of skepticism on this topic. Based on opinions alone it's hard to say, "simply because there are obviously so many opinions on this topic." However, the statistic is generally that people prefer a book over a movie. I believe this may be because when you get so used to something one way it then becomes hard to see it in another light, you know what I mean?

i am completely agreed with you.......sometimes a novel...which was a worth watching get bored when we see it in my movie.....like the Chetan Bhagats movie called night in call center which was remake in name of "hello" stared salman khan...it was complete trash...... i have not seen any good adaptation........till date....have u seen

I can't say well. But it depends on various publics, some says yes, some no. I can't site several examples but Harry Potter movie is not the one which is inferior than the books/novels. It was superb. All the ones till date.

Most of the time, I have noticed that the movie version of novels are inferior in so far as the stories are concerned considering that it entails a large budget to depict everything what is written. So usually movies ended up with some parts of the story being cut. I think novels are better considering that you will be able to read and understand the whole story without cuts. The only advantage to movies is that it is more enjoyable and you get to finish it in just an hour or so.

I am quite fortunate as I am not big reader of novels so when I see a movie adaptation I have nothing to judge it against. But it is often the case that the adaptation is rarely as good as the written prose. I can think off immediately John Grishams "Runaway Jury" which was a good book but terrible movie which changed so much of the original storyline that it did not relate to the book that closely. On the other hand the adpatation of John Grisham's "A Time To Kill" was as good as the book. Can you see a common theme as to the books I read, lol. But then take "The Pursuit of Happyness" now this was based on just one small part of the book by Chris Gardner. The movie was in fact very good and helped bring that part of the book to life, even though it didn't remain true to the actual events detailed in the book.

Quite frankly when some talks about books being better than the movie, they always talk about Harry Potter. I guess people forgot how The Lord of the Rings was a great movie. There are many other movies and TV shows which were adapted from novels. Most of the episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents were from novels. Alfred Hitchcock's famous movie 'Psycho' was based on novel by 'Robert Bloch'. Other movies are 'The Notebook', 'Charlotte's web' 'Forrest Gump', 'A Beautiful Mind' etc. Here is the list http://www.themovieblog.com/2008/11/the-movie-blogs-top-100-movies-based-on-books Movies don't turn out good if the people making the movie are not good or they are not able to understand how the writer made the book interesting.

Hi suparnodatta, it takes a pretty amazing film to ever measure up to the original book as they usually mess around with the plot so much when it worked perfectly well in the first place. The only ones that seem to work well are the ones which stick to the book and are well cast, such as Gone with the Wind and Schindler's List.

I must say most of the movies are quite inferior to their original novels. But one movie that did justice, or even did better than the novel was 'The Godfather'.It is in my opinion, the best movie ever made. It was the perfect movie(if there was one) in every aspect.I hope your will also agree.

Generally, I prefer the book, because you get more of a sense of how the writer's mind works. However, many of the film adaptations of classic novels such as Wuthering Heights, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are excellent, and hopefully encourage people who have never read the books to go away and read them.

Yes i agree to you. What we see on screen is someone else's perception of the book. When we read the actual book we ourselves are directing the movie in our minds.