Movie Adaptations That Are Actually Better Than The Books They’re Based On
You know when you watch a movie that was a book first, how the movie just completely ruins the book? Well, maybe that’s true nine times out of 10. But not always. Because sometimes, movies are actually better than the books that inspired them. These adaptations may not be the best films of all time.
But whether the source material is a classic or trash, some stories are just better on the screen. With a little VFX magic, some poetic cinematography, or a script that expands on the source material, these are the top movies that are better than the book.
Where The Wild Things Are
Now don’t think for one second that I’m disparaging Maurice Sendak’s classic picture book, which is and will always be an absolute treasure. However, Spike Jonze’s adaptation – which he worked with Sendak to bring to the screen – takes the source material and goes way, way beyond.
In addition to being visually breathtaking, the emotionally explicit film is perhaps the best movie ever made about a child’s experience of family and divorce.
The Godfather
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Okay, to be fair, this one is kind of a gimme, right? Francis Ford Coppola took Mario Puzo’s gangster book and turned it into one of cinema’s all-time greatest achievements.
Sure, Puzo came up with the story, but there’s no denying that Coppola is the one who made Corleone into a household name.
The Fellowship Of The Ring
Yes, JRR Tolkein is an undisputed genius, and The Lord Of The Rings is a fantasy masterpiece. But the books were never meant to be broken up, and the first movie in Peter Jackson’s trilogy surpasses the text by thoughtfully scrapping all that Tom Bombadill nonsense and diving into the adventure as quickly as possible.
Get outta here, Old Man Willow – bring on the cave trolls!
A Muppet Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens’s original story is a rather heavy-handed moralistic fable about Victorian wealth inequality and also…ghosts? Most Dickens adaptations hew too closely to their source material to surpass it in quality, but A Muppet Christmas Carol handily pulls that feat off.
The Muppets inject a somewhat dour tale with a heavy dose of joy and real Christmas spirit, creating a movie whose moral lingers with children and adults alike.