Movies

I know what you mean. As a friend of mine put it: the budget of movie has limits, but a book can take as many pages as needed to tell the story. I remember this when watching a movie where I have read the book first.

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Life Is A Movie

Reading vs Watching Movies

Reading is becoming a lost art Bart. Visual learning is more and more dominant. The computer has for many replaced books. Even in the public schools, children are taught computer skills with the intensity once allotted to reading comprehension skills. You have to read to work a computer, yet it’s not the reading skills needed to understand the elements of literary analyses. There is something about the magic of books that absorbs the reader and engages his or her mind to a point that no other medium will reach. It’s sad that this art is changing so rapidly. What will become of it?

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Yearning for Peace, Kindness, Love, Honesty, Loyalty, Sincerity, Compassion, Understanding, Acceptance, Contentment and Truth

Books vs Movies

Yes I'm afraid you may be right, reading is becoming a lost art; just when I am getting into it. I never liked reading in school. I think it was because I felt I was being forced to. Now, in the last 10 years or so I guess I've read over a hundred books and I hate watching a movie if I've already read the book because I know it's gonna lose some of the qualities of the book.
Laurisa said it best in her post above: "As a friend of mine put it: the budget of a movie has limits, but a book can take as many pages as needed to tell the story."

Ironiclly, I thank God for the Harry Potter books, demons and all, because I think they have started more kids reading than any other book in many years.

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Me Too Bart - I use to hate reading

Since around 1992, I have frantically fought to catch up on 30 plus years of lost reading time. I didn’t read literature until I chose a major in English. Now, I am always waiting for what I call The Bachelor of Arts Petrol to show up at my door and take away my English degree.

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Yearning for Peace, Kindness, Love, Honesty, Loyalty, Sincerity, Compassion, Understanding, Acceptance, Contentment and Truth

Books vs Movies

I usually try to read the book before I watch the movie. Most movies I have seen are not nearly as good as the book, but I feel compelled to watch them anyway.

I loved the mini series, The Stand, even after reading the book twice. I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings Trilogy more than the book as I found the book writing style tedious. One of my all time favorite mini series is Lonesome Dove which I saw 3 times before I realized it was based on a book. As a matter of fact, the book characters were enhanced because I had seen the movie. It didn't hurt that the movie followed the book very closely.

Movies do have merrit too..

You know AHMom, I've posted this as a discussion on another site (MyLot) and I learned to view movies in a whole new light. Movies are actually just another medium of entertainment. For instance, one person wrote, "Movies you can watch with other and share the experience with. A book is something that you do alone. Reading is a quiet time." Another keen minded individual wrote, "However, I will almost always prefer to see the movie first, and I advise most people to see movies first. If you read a book, you have expectations about the movie, and will generally be let down. There is no way to fit everything into a movie that appears in most books. Things will be changed due to the constraints of the medium... and poetic license. Reading a book and then seeing a movie generally ruins the movie for people.
However, if you watch the movie first... well it's sort of like a trailer for the book. You get a god taster. You can then throw yourself in deep with the book and get a whole new experience."

So you see, I guess both have their place. I wonder if they'll ever make a movie about it. LOL.

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Books vs Movies

I definitely believe most books are much more vivid and captivating then the movies they inspire. A movie can never express the inner thoughts, passions and anxieties of the characters the way a novel can. I wish it were a prerequisite for children grades 4 thru 12 to read the book before seeing the movie. But of course I'm fantasizing.
Happy reading to all.
Bart :?)

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Books vs Movies

Come to think of it, I guess I don't really have a preference on which I might do first, read the book or watch the movie. I watch so many movies, and I would bet a good many of those movies were based on a book. I prefer to watch/read or read/watch a film that is as closely adapted from the book as possible. I don't mind the minor changes they need to make to allow for time constraints. What I have a hard time with is a movie that appears to be based solely on the book's title with hardly any recognizeable book features. Then, of course, there are the really bad movies based on really bad books .