Who watches the Watchmen?
Even if you’re not a fan of graphic novels (think really long comic books), you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. It is easily one of the greatest triumphs of the medium, right up there with Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. With my obligatory plug out of the way, I wanted to point out that a Watchmen movie happens to be arriving in theatres this Friday! I’m quite excited.
My question to you all is: have you ever seen a movie (based on a book) that was better than the book? Or vice versa, a book made out of a movie that was better than the flim?
I know I have read books based on movies but the fact that I can’t think of an example suggests that neither was memorable.
Movies based on books are never as good as the book. Period. The Harry Potter movies are closest that I’ve seen. But given a choice I’ll read the book.
Mr. T
3 Mar 09 at 2:07 am
Yes, and a great example is Lord of the Rings. Great movies, good books. I actually prefer the movie because it cuts out a lot of the random stuff that frankly no one needed to know. (Okay, Tom Bombadil is the man, but totally irrelevant to the main story line!)
I do prefer reading a book to a movie though because I think that movies always end up like the Sparknotes of books. They are limited in what they can convey due to time constraints. The beauty of books is that they don’t have that.
Oh, and I agree with Mr. T. The Harry Snotter books are better than the movies.
Katherine
3 Mar 09 at 9:14 am