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Yes
All of them.
With books, the only bar to the pictures in your head is your imagination. With films, it's the filmmaker's.
Stephen King wrote that when you go into a movie, you always come out obscurely disappointed because the pictures didn't live up to your imagination.
If the screen shows a 200ft Godzilla, you come out thinking, "I was expecting a 300ft Godzilla."
If the sequel shows the spawn of Godzilla as a 300ft monster, you come out thinking, "Oh, I was expecting a 400ft monster."
The only thing that can live up to your imagination is your imagination. There are no budget constraints, or technology constraints. You want a 1000ft monster - and you can have it.
Books are definitely better than films, overall. :)
Depends on who's writing the book or making the movie.
If there exists both for the same story and the book is older than the movie, then in most cases yes, the book is doing a better job. Though reading takes more effort and time, so I often deliberate whether it's worth delaying the movie and reading the book first. If I'm only interested in some entertainment, I skip the book. After all reading in advance means spoiling the movie most of the times, because it's only seldom able to keep up with expectations. The best you can get out of a story is loving the book and appreciating the movie later.
I completely skip merchandising books, because they usually lack quality, thus aren't worth my time. Life's too short for them with all the other good books out there.
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Emob78: Depends on who's writing the book or making the movie.
Shyamalan writes the book and Dan Brown directs the movie.
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Emob78: Depends on who's writing the book or making the movie.
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realkman666: Shyamalan writes the book and Dan Brown directs the movie.
And thus... no one understands either one.
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realkman666: Yes, but cooking > movies.
eating>cooking
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realkman666: Yes, but cooking > movies.
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snickershoessonic: eating>cooking
Not in the army.

Or prison. :P
It depends on the book. In most cases I'd say emphatically "Yes!".

In the case of Stephen King however, whose writing style is banal, campy, hacky, mid-west-America-style, I like the movies based on his books far more in nearly all cases.
Usually yes, books are better because movies have to cramp the entire story into 2 hours where you need weeks do digest in a book.

Then again, there are some movies that are better than the books it is based off, like Lord of the Ring.
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Firebrand9: In the case of Stephen King however, whose writing style is banal, campy, hacky, mid-west-America-style, I like the movies based on his books far more in nearly all cases.
I've read only two steven king books, and enjoy only one movie... The books are FireStarter, and The Dead Zone. The movie was the Shawshank Redemption. All good, but i can't say it's the same vise-versa mostly based on date. FireStarter as the movie was rather bad in my opinion, The Dead Zone as a series on TV wasn't bad but lost interest something like 4 seasons in. Shawshank Redemption was a really short story that was heavily expanded on during filming.

And rarely are films vs books 1:1. The Lord of the Rings movies tend to hold more detail regarding elvish language looks and sounds, while cutting out huge chunks of the books and skewing the story. If memory serves me right Frodo didn't go off on his expedition for something like 70 years.

Then minor issues like when actors die, making further movies in a series/sequels either they write in crap or ignore that it changed and hope no one else noticed either (The Oracle from The Matrix comes to mind).
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Firebrand9: In the case of Stephen King however, whose writing style is banal, campy, hacky, mid-west-America-style, I like the movies based on his books far more in nearly all cases.
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rtcvb32: I've read only two steven king books, and enjoy only one movie... The books are FireStarter, and The Dead Zone. The movie was the Shawshank Redemption. All good, but i can't say it's the same vise-versa mostly based on date. FireStarter as the movie was rather bad in my opinion, The Dead Zone as a series on TV wasn't bad but lost interest something like 4 seasons in. Shawshank Redemption was a really short story that was heavily expanded on during filming.

And rarely are films vs books 1:1. The Lord of the Rings movies tend to hold more detail regarding elvish language looks and sounds, while cutting out huge chunks of the books and skewing the story. If memory serves me right Frodo didn't go off on his expedition for something like 70 years.

Then minor issues like when actors die, making further movies in a series/sequels either they write in crap or ignore that it changed and hope no one else noticed either (The Oracle from The Matrix comes to mind).
Try to read The Green Mile, it's a great book. :)
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Firebrand9: It depends on the book. In most cases I'd say emphatically "Yes!".

In the case of Stephen King however, whose writing style is banal, campy, hacky, mid-west-America-style, I like the movies based on his books far more in nearly all cases.
I'm not sure what you actually mean.
Post edited January 12, 2015 by omega64
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omega64: Try to read The Green Mile, it's a great book. :)
Ahh yes, the other Steven king movie i watched... I thought it was quite good personally, but haven't read the book. Probably won't...
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omega64: Try to read The Green Mile, it's a great book. :)
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rtcvb32: Ahh yes, the other Steven king movie i watched... I thought it was quite good personally, but haven't read the book. Probably won't...
I've watched the movie but didn't really like it. It may not be my cup of tea.
Felt like quite a few plot threads were missing.