Books Are Better Than Movies

Also a great point.

Clarke was a brilliant man who wrote some good books. Some of those books contained some revolutionary concepts and became famous. But none of his writings were truly great.

Kubrick on the other hand was a genius.

~String

 

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I haven't read the book, but that is one fantastic movie.

 

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I can't think of any other movie that I have ever seen in which the audience is left with no idea what the hell is being depicted on the screen. True, various movies and novels sometimes make use of "artistic ambiguity," but that's usually accomplished by not showing/narrating/whatever some key point. In 2001, on the other hand, the viewer is shown what's going on, but left with no idea what they are supposed to be seeing.

Also, in my opinion the 2001 movie was BADLY in need of editing. Trying to watch the endless scenes of "space stuff" is just excruciatingly boring for me. Yes, I realize that the special effects were very impressive for its time, majesty of space, blah blah blah, but since when does using flashy special effects to fill time in lue of plot advancement qualify as great movie making? I've noticed that many movie snobs have a bit of a blind spot for 2001 in that regard.

 

Unless I found the book so painfully boring I couldn't barely stand to read it (Lord of the Rings), I always find the book to better than the movie. But I think it's better to see a movie first before reading the book in most cases, because that way you can enjoy the movie and judge it based on its own merit while you're watching it, instead of picking it apart the entire time. At least that's what I do when I see the movies of books that I've read.
The only movie I have been nearly completely satisfied with compared to the book is Holes. It told the exact same story and the changes were so minor that there wasn't much left to complain about.
And the lines in A Muppet Christmas Carol were straight of Charles Dickens story, but they added some muppet flare to it of course. But you could watch that movie and write a book report on A Christmas Carol without even reading the book.

 

Kubricks imagination was better (in that particular instance) than most people could conjure up. The only way a book can be better is if we visualize scenes in a better way.

 

But the reverse does not happen - watching the movie first does not cause one to pick apart the book, feel let down.

Unless it's a lousy read, and one would have objected to the writing anyway, without the movie's grounds (Ludlum's stuff, so much improved by intelligent film editing and script rewrites, say).

The book has something, and I think that something is - literally - authority. Movies are apparently good to the extent that they are well written. But the writing of few movies (for various reasons) matches the level found in a great book, and most of the rewriting of a good book into a film script, necessary and otherwise, is likely to be of lesser quality.

So the examples we have of movies that do not disappoint their source book readers - the Bourne Identity, the Shining, 2001, I would throw in Jaws, possibly Blade Runner, possibly A River Runs Through It - share the feature of being significantly altered, largely rewritten in basic features, rather than merely edited or adapted. They were written, these movies, by writers of comparable or greater ability than the book's author, it seems (taking my admiration and strong preference for the book version of A River Runs Through It as a personal idiosyncrasy).

 

Not really. Many times a director will make drastic changes and then the movie is "loosely based" on the book.

With a movie you have the added visual sense since humans are very much visual then they get the added visual stimulation.

In music if someone recited the lyrics is it the same as when the music is behind it?

 

Hahaha. This might be the first completely correct use of "literally" in the history of sciforums.

 

But the book--now that I think of it--has them going to Saturn and the weird ending ends up being Bowman being transported to another galaxy. Not the same in the movie.

I couldn't get past the first 1/3 of LOTR. The novels were just. . . so boring. The Ring Wraiths were especially underwhelming.

~String

 

Try reading it out loud to children. It's set up perfectly - the up and down flow of intensity, the length of the chapters, the pacing and timing of the scene switches, are somehow just about right.

Unless - as was not true of my situation - the kids are video hyper. People tell me that the entire sense of time in children is changing from what it was in the recent past.

 

NEVER!

See: Date Someone With Kids?

~String

 

I found the book to be a lot scarier/creepier.

 

The Saturn/Jupiter thing was due to the fact that they just couldn't figure out a realistic way of doing the Rings.

2001 is unique in that the book and movie were released at the same time and were more or less written at the same time. It was somewhat of a joint project.

 

I like to believe that the reason books tend to be more enjoyable is because that's the writers words. They put themselves into their works, more or less literally. When a director comes along and sees a good book, he will want to make changes to it, such as the plot, or characters, not to enhance the experience, but to attract more people to watch it, to make more money.

Directors ruin the stories for the sake of making more money, writers content is generally better because it's the way they see it in their head, it's the way they want it to be.


Or at least that's what I think.

 

Then why did so many people enjoy the film and come up with ideas about what the film was about? I'll put that film up for clarity against novels such as Ulysses, most of Beckett, The Waves, in fact most modernist classics - we won't even mention Finnegan's wake. I think one of the reasons many people liked the film was precisely because it was not all layed out and interpretation was necessary. The films of Tarkovsky are all like this. Lars von Trier - just watched Anti-christs and if you think 2001 one was tought, look out. Citizen Kane confuses most audiences. Sure, they catch that Rosebud was his sled, but this begs the question. What the hell was important about that, what was this man's life, what was Welles trying to say. The Third Man is also confusing. And note: I am choosing films and books that are famous and generally held in high esteem. There is tons of avante gard films, sci-fi works, paintings, music that all defy structure and clarity and are loved by smaller groups of people. Surrealist film makers, performance art, symbolists.......

I'll just ignore the implicit ad hom in here OK, and not come back with one. Of course this is a taste issue. I am not saying 'you should like this movie', but it seems like you want to say it was simply bad or wrong because of its aesthetics. I think let others like what they like stance makes more sense.

As far as the long sequence, I don't know if you watched in a movie theater, that makes a huge difference. Also the 'for its time' is important. I doubt if the film came out today and I saw it for the first time I would appreciate that sequence as much. I did not see it when it came out, but I saw it a long time a go, in a theater and it was a visual - and sound! - experience which was different from anythign I had every seen.

To me it is OK to have experiences that evoke feelings and do not necessarily advance plot. So I can enjoy Mallick or Tarkovsky and other directors who slow things down and aim at evoking feelings and mystery. I can also enjoy a lack of narrative closure.

If you don't fine.

My tastes run pretty wide. I can enjoy even what most people would call Hollywood trash. I enjoy blockbusters and even, cough cough, romantic comedies - some of them anyway. I can even enjoy watching Bruce Willis blow stuff up and defy age and the laws of physics and nuanced acting for exactly 90 minutes and have a great time. I also like films that are challenging in a different way like 2001. It is not, by far, my favorite Kubrick, but I think it is a very good film.

 

Stephen King did not like it.

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And later made his own version. I loved the sequence where we find out he has been writing the same sentence over and over. Most horror movies would never go for such a visually not gross or explosive scare. But it is very scary. What kind of mind could keep that up. All I have to see is that opening sequence of the car following that lonely road and I get the willies.

 

Is it meant for children or younger audiences? I had to read it in high school and I opted to just make wild guesses on tests instead of actually reading the Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit was pretty enjoyable. I did enjoy the movies for the most part though, probably because I love a good fight scene. As a child I loved a good story, (I didn't really care for being read to) but I realized that reading over stories I once loved as a child now again as an adult, I can't remember why I liked them so much before.