Book Meme - Day 11

Is there a movie adaptation you prefer to the book it's based on? Why?

It's true: the book is usually better than the movie. I think books are just able to provide a little bit more than movies generally are. They aren't constrained by a 2-3 hour time limit, so they can poke around in the cracks, spend more time with smaller characters, and just generally flesh out the world a bit better. It's true that movies have audio-visual tools that allow them to shorthand some of the stuff that books spend pages and pages on. But I also like being able to take story at my own pace, which movies don't really allow for.

That said, sometimes movies can vastly improve on the story originally told in the book. My go-to example for this is usually V For Vendetta. In the book, Evie is weak and kind of boring and doesn't have a lot of agency. The movie transformed her into a strong, interesting character who drives the plot rather than getting pulled along for the ride, and it really enhanced the story for me.

But there's another, recent example that I think show an even more dramatic improvement. And that's Andy Weir's The Martian.

Everyone loved this book when it came out. It's no surprise that it was quickly made into a huge movie starring Matt Damon. But I had a lot of problems with the book that basically boiled down to the fact that it was self-published. The story was solid, but a lot of the fringe stuff was a mess. Mark Watney is kind of an asshole. The book changes perspectives whenever the author finds it convenient and mostly so he can show off how smart he is with no consideration for the flow or structure of the story. The additional characters are flat. And the book, on the whole, is a bit condescending.

The movie solved all of these problems by virtue of getting some other people in the room. The story is still solid, and the other characters become much more interesting people. Matt Damon's performance brings enough charm to Watney that I wasn't actively rooting for him to die. And the editors removed the jokes that I found the most offensive.

It all goes to show that stories, like anything, are better when there's a team of people working on them. Authors need editors and agents to polish their stories, and Weir didn't really utilize that for his book. The team that worked on the movie was able to identify and correct his mistakes and make the whole story a lot stronger. This is the rare case where I despised the book but ended up loving the movie. All because a few more people were involved.