May 22, 2008

BTT: Books vs. Movies

Books and films both tell stories, but what we want from a book can be different from what we want from a movie. Is this true for you? If so, what’s the difference between a book and a movie?


I love movies. I love what can be done in a visual medium in seconds what can take pages of print to do. I want movies to entertain, to transport me to another time or place, and sometimes to be thought-provoking. I do like action movies: I like to see things blow up or crash into each other. I do prefer a plot to go along with it.

I do like seeing movies that have been adapted from books, as long as they have tried to stay faithful to the original. I do like to see "based on the book..." at the beginning of a movie, because it makes it more likely there will be a coherent plot. Books adapted from movies, on the other hand, are generally unreadable. I think "Star Wars" and the first Star Trek movie are the exceptions to this. What works on screen can seem wooden or fake on the page.

2 comments:

Brian D. said...

I like both mediums for what they are and I like them for their differences. Sausage and pepperoni are different, but they're both good pizza.

I don't expect a movie based on a book to be just like a book. Movies would be at least 6 hours long if they were.

But I must disagree with you about Star Trek: TMP making a good book. It wasn't a good movie (quite wooden IMHO) nor was it a good book. The Wrath of Khan and The Search For Spock on the other hand were great reads based off the movies. The source material was much richer.

janiejane said...

ST: TMP was an adequate movie, and an adequate book. I guess I wasn't clear in the original post. Fortunately the movie was good enough to allow them to make Wrath of Khan, my favorite ST movie ever, and I agree the book version of that was pretty good. I don't remember reading Search for Spock, but I probably have the book around somewhere.