Bookish delights :: 2 :: Never Judge a Book by its Movie

This is so true. Books > Movies... almost always.

I can only think of maybe two movies that were actually better than the books: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was the ONLY Harry Potter book that I had to put down to take breaks from because I could not stand Harry in that book AT ALL. Blame it on the adolescent angst, but he was just so surly and mean all the time. Plus, he was constantly snapping at Hermione and Ron, who were the only people that were loyal to him. THAT pissed me off. It probably didn't help that it was also the longest book of the series, so there was a lot of mean, angry at the world Harry to put up with. Okay, okay... I know Harry was going through a lot at that time and ***SPOILER ALERT*** Cedric Diggory just died at the end of hte previous book., but still... it was a little too much for me. I liked the movie better than the book because they really kept all of that adolescent angst to a minimum.

I didn't read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was a kid. The first time I read it was in my children's literature class in college and even then I didn't completely finish it. *bows head in shame* It wasn't that I didn't like the story, I had a hard time with the language. The reason I loved the movie was the cinematography. Everything in the movie was so beautiful and majestic. It was definitely magical and it made me enjoy the story a lot more.

All in all, I am a huge, HUGE fan of the book versus the movie. There is something about being able to make your own mental pictures that no matter how great the movie, they just can't seem to capture everything the way I want it to be. Plus, once I watch the movie, it almost erases my own mind-movie and I can't ever picture them back the way I did pre-movie. For example, Bella will always look like melancholy Kristen Stewart in my head from now on (which is such a bummer, btw). Plus, a movie will never fully include all the little details that make it a complete story because of time limitations. Thus, movies generally tend to be a huge letdown, especially for me.

There might be a few instances where I like the movie just as much as the book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was extremely good and stayed true to the book), but very rarely does a movie win out over a book for me.


Are you generally a fan of the book or the movie? What movies do you like more than the book?

image courtesy of: Zazzle (You can purchase this tote and other totes with bookish saying at Zazzle because one can never have enough tote bags.)