Low-resolution picture of Slaughterhouse-Five movie poster.

An example of a movie that was better than the book?

You often hear the complaint that the book is better than the movie. It shouldn't be surprising that this is often the case, especially if you have read the book first. Why?

• A book proceeds at the pace of the reader and can ramble on as long as the author likes. A theatrically released movie has its limits, although an average moviegoer's endurance and stamina has increased considerably over the years. In the past fifty years, the average length of a movie has increased from 90 minutes to three days.
• A book is not limited by an operational budget. A writer puts it in words and the readers' imagination takes care of the rest. If the reader's imagination isn't up to the task, the bored reader will watch the movie. A movie is limited by a budget, time, and technology to render the written word.
• A book operates in both the external (the actions of the characters) and internal (what characters are thinking, including what is motivating them to act the way they do) worlds. It is more difficult to portray the internal world in movies, which depend on voice-overs or symbolic or metaphorical imagery that communicates internal emotion but not thought. Aside from A Clockwork Orange, voice-overs don't cut it. This will change when movies are transmitted directly into your brain.

With the rise of minimalism and super-realism, you would think that these issues would be addressed and you would get movies that were at least as good as books. The Road received positive reviews when compared to the book, but when compared to the book, the highest praise it received was "honorable adaptation."

What movies were better than the book? I don't know if No Country for Old Men exceeded the source material. (I haven't read the book.) Judging by the Cormac McCarthy book that I have read, All the Pretty Horses, I am pretty sure that the film didn't cut out any extended interior monologues. It did get much better reviews than The Road. Does it make it better than the book?

I liked Bladerunner quite a lot. However, as a result of several rewrites, it diverged so substantially from the source material, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip Dick; I am not sure you can compare the two. I had initially seen the movie and liked it and then read the book and liked it as well. I suppose I would give the book an edge for being more cerebral and restrained. The movie does skirt a fine line between filmmaking bravado and overblown self-seriousness.

Slaughterhouse-Five was another case where I had seen the movie and then read the book. This is the one instance where I felt that the move was substantially better than the book. I felt an emotional connection to the scattered time-hopping events of the movie that I did not feel when I read the book. I suppose I can trace it to two reasons: Bach and Dede Allen.