Have movies ruined "books" in your view?

[Mutant 77]

Just asking. No mean to harm.

Do you think people are reading so little and buying few books because they are into movies more?

Maybe the cinematic experience just teached people to be more "attached" to visuals rather than imagining?

 

[Lighthouse]

I think it has much more to do with the time commitment.

 

[NealKenneth]

No, I don't think they've had much impact on each other. People seem to generally go for quality, whether that means books, movie, television shows etc.

 

[Iceman]

Not really, for me anyway. I kind of like cross-media productions. I like when a film is made out of a great book that I've read. I think with books becoming digital they have become a lot more convenient on the go (although I also still love reading paperbacks and hardbacks when time allows).

 

[NHawk19]

Normally for me it's the other way around. Movies can only fit so much in. Books aren't limited.

This became a big issue for me when the potter films were coming out. If I read the book before the movie I didn't get as much enjoyment from the movie. But if I saw the movie then read the book it wasn't as bad. Because in every case the book was better.

 

[Brother Jack]

No, of course not. They're different mediums. I love prose because of its simplicity. You just have the words, the language. Nothing but that and your imagination. With film you have the conglomerate of talents that goes into it and the relatively truncated nature of of its storytelling. With a movie you can sit down and (hopefully) get a complete story in two hours. A book will take you dozens of hours. So saying one is better than the other doesn't make any sense to me. They're different. They operate in different ways.

 

[tzarinna]

I find myself seeking the book that movies are based on, and there's a lot. My to-read-list is long.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

Not really, no.
Edit : but some books can ruin movies.

 

[Fallen Angel]

I'm going to say yes to an extent. Kids especially these days' aren't interested in reading.

My aunt was librarian and she's noticed this trend since the late 90's (Her Opinion).

 

[spiderman2]

For me movies are always better then books but that is because I don't like reading like at all for a few reasons.

1. I don't have much of a imagination.
2. I have always had like a learning disability so I don't read that while.
3. My memory is not that good.
4. This kind of goes with 2 and 3 but I don't remember what I read at like all. I can read something and it is almost like I never read it has i just don't retain what i read.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I'm not even sure OP knows what he means posing this question. It's no wonder the replies are all over the place.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

Are you asking about a specific book/movie? Like did The Hobbit movies ruin the books? Or are you just asking in general? I love to read and I've found that some movies have enhanced books for me. For example I hate reading sci-fi but I can read the novelization of SW because the movie has already given me something to imagine in my head.

 

[ComicChick]

ive read more books this year than i've seen movies

 

[Reek]

I don't remember what I read at like all.

 

[guitarsingerguy]

Not at all. My fiancee and I read all the time. I have yet to find a movie superior to it's book counterpart, but I completely understand the time constraint issue.

 

[ComicChick]

Not at all. My fiancee and I read all the time. I have yet to find a movie superior to it's book counterpart, but I completely understand the time constraint issue.

in terms to how close there are to being literal off the page adaptations, The Green Mile and The Book Thief are two of the closest I've ever read and saw on screen.

As for a movie Superior to its book, I'd really have to think about it. But The Book Thief is an amazing movie if you take it as a separate entity from the book due to what is omitted.

 

[guitarsingerguy]

in terms to how close there are to being literal off the page adaptations, The Green Mile and The Book Thief are two of the closest I've ever read and saw on screen.

As for a movie Superior to its book, I'd really have to think about it. But The Book Thief is an amazing movie if you take it as a separate entity from the book due to what is omitted.

I've never read The Book Thief, but The Green Mile is a fabulous adaptation. Darabont is one of the few people that can adapt a King novel successfully. In fact, I consider him the ONLY person to ever really pull it off. I think I'll change my mind with the new IT though. The Dark Tower I'm just super skeptical about.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

Both the book version and movie version of The Shining are very good and neither negatively impacts the other. Even the differing endings I feel work for both stories.

 

[spiderman2]

lol but really if I read a book I remember so little of it that its almost like I never even read the book in the first place. That is why I always had a hard time with school.

 

[st barbara]

I find that seeing movies of books that I didn't know about has often sent me looking for the books after seeing the movie, whether I like the movie or not.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

There an interesting phenomenon going on in this thread. Few are actually responding to the OP's actual wording of his question and just riffing on a vague assertion they see in the thread title.

Which so far in my experience with these sort of places, shows how easily these conversations can go off the rails.

 

[Fallen Angel]

So what is the boy asking old man?

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

So what is the boy asking old man?

I'm not sure he knows quite what he means. Vaguely I think he's saying that fewer people "read" and more watch movies. Which... more people are literate in more languages than ever before, so if he is being literal he's off base. People read. If he means books as in the actual object are being affected... Okay, sure. But there are actually more way to publish books/novels/whatever than ever before, AGAIN. And more people taking advantage of that both as authors and consumers.

There's then the usual over the top language with the word "ruin" that adds to both the vagueness but also has heavy negative overtones and implications which don't make sense. How does watching a good movie "ruin" books? Did the advent of DVDs "ruin" VHS tapes? Maybe, I guess, but I think in the colloquial sense of the word the way most Americans use it... I don't get how movies "ruin" literature.

Then you have the other posters who because I think they don' get the question, as I don't, have tried to feel their way to giving an answer which seems to come down to thinking this is a question about adaptations and their quality in comparison to the books they are based on.

I'm just saying it's interesting to see how garbled attempts at communication and the exchange of ideas can happen on the Net.