I LOVE Alfonso Cuarón’s sci-fi action movie Children of Men. I’ve watched maybe six times and every time, the ending always almost brings me to tears. So when I learned it was adapted from P.D. James’ book of the same name, it was a no-brainer deciding what my next book would be.

After finishing the book, it wasn’t difficult to reach to the conclusion that I enjoyed the movie better.

While James’ book gives a more in-depth look at how human infertility and humanity’s slow death march towards extinction affects the sexual dynamic between men and women and almost demented ways humans try to cope with a world without children or a race of dead men walking, I feel the book dedicates WAY too much time describing the failing of human civilization and the Regrets and guilt of Theo Faron. It’s not even until after 2/3 through the book where it feels like the plot and story are properly paced and stuff of consequence actually begin to happen.

The film’s adaptation by, comparison, feels consistent in its pacing and the world building and woe-is-mes of Theo feel more compact a take up less of the audience’s time.

What books do you feel were worse than its film adaptation and why?

  • throwawaylewdi@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Maybe this doesn’t count here, but I have to toss out Holes by Louis Sachar. Not because the book was bad, quite the opposite really, but the few things the movie add that differ from the book are so good that they push it to be just a hair better

  • super_common_name@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    OH MY GOD! I clicked on this post because I’m so adamant about Children of Men but I thought no one else would say that. And then it turns out the very post is about it!

    The book was so off-kilter. It didn’t at all have a grasp on how people would react to the youngest generation. The film was absolutely perfect.

    I’m so happy I have kindred out there who experienced the same book letdown.

  • breath-of-the-smile@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Some people say Jurassic Park as an answer but I think blowing up dinosaurs with rocket launchers is badass. One of the video games lets you do that.

  • hyperdog4642@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Not my favorite movie but I did think The Frim worked better as a film than Grisham’s book. I thought the book dragged on and on and complicated the law aspects more than necessary.

  • scythianlibrarian@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is just a plodding excuse for the author’s self-insert indulging his fetishes.

  • HeleneSedai@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    1. Julie vs. Julia. Awful book protagonist and the movie made her likeable. Also, Meryl Streep.

    2. The Martian. I read books for the plot, setting, and characters. You set a book on Mars, and there wasn’t one description of the landscape? Zero character development, and with the diary format, zero suspense. Also, tons of math.

    With both, I watched the movie first, which almost never happens, so that may have something to do with it.

  • Mabel_Waddles_BFF@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    The Princess bride (I enjoyed the movie’s justification for breaking the fourth wall more than the endless reasons the author came up with)

    Girl on a train (the movie removes some of the lousy choices of the protagonist and makes her more likeable)

    Not a movie but the first Dexter book was one of the worst books I have ever read.

    How to make an American quilt (movie made it more of a cohesive story).

    Interview with the vampire (probably going to get some hate for this but Louie was so damn whiney in the novel)

  • zls0709@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    No Country for Old Men. The book is good but was obviously written to be adapted to a movie, and the bits the Coen brothers tweaked or cut really streamlined the story.

    As beautiful as McCarthy’s language is in general, it’s not so much at the forefront in this novel, and the cinematography in the movie is breathtaking. Javier Bardem is just so menacing, and reducing the exposition on his character really elevates him to an unfathomable, almost supernatural evil. The movie version of the ending scene with Carla Jean is also way better than the book’s version.

    Overall they took a solid if middling entry in mccarthys bibliography and made a truly incredible film out of it.

  • SprightlyCompanion@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    The Godfather. There’s a whole subplot cut completely out of the movie where Sonny has a fantastically huge penis and the bridesmaid he hooks up with has a correspondingly cavernous vagina. Which she ends up getting tightened with surgery anyway. It’s weird.