Why Book Can Be So Much Better Than Their Movies

Movie adaptations of books and the books are quite different from one another. Movies and books are two entirely different mediums. Most people believe that books are better than movies. Especially when they read the book before many movies are simply a disappointment. How a director dares to bring the content of a book to the big screen, that’s his creativity. However, any movie always leaves some part of the book out due to many critical aspects of film making. There are many things that cannot be shown in the movies that make books often better than movies.

It seems that the film industry has decided to exploit each and every one of the literary works that have reaped great profits, such as Harry Potter, Hunger Games, The Lord of the Rings, among many others. Also, MovieMaker have relied on novels, and many of them are indeed great works of art. However, bringing a book to the big screen has certain aspects that a movie can’t show us, confirming why books are better than movies.

Why Are Books Good?

• Accurate Depiction of Characters’ Thoughts and Feelings

A book is better able to depict how the characters in the story are thinking or feeling in a particular scene. Each actor who plays any character brings a bit of their ‘individuality’ to the movie, which deviates from the original thoughts and feelings of the character in question.

For instance, Marvel comics include a series of vignettes in which its characters think or feel. It helps us in understanding the thoughts and feelings of the person behind the mask, but they are almost impossible to bring to life on the big screen.

Even monologues help, but in general, they slow down the action a lot. Since a movie is more dynamic than a book, one can’t usually afford to include these luxuries.

• Omniscient Storytellers

A book can be narrated from the multiple viewpoints be that of protagonist, antagonist or the narrator. However, the movie usually follows the protagonist’s perspective unless another one is created specifically to show the perspective of the antagonist. For instance, The Dark Knight (2019) follows the acts of the infamous villain of the Batman movies as much as the ones of the Dark Knight. The batman comics have both the Batman’s and the Joker’s point of views told at the same time. Books offer you details, features, and explanations that you may never find in the movies. That is even more true, because the limited runtime of movies often make the trimming down of the plot necessary.

• Side plots

A long movie might have one or two side plots, while many books actually enrich their worlds with a number of them. Entire chapters of Lord of the Rings dedicated to minor characters and unforgotten are the exploits of the side characters of George R.R. Martin. Many of those had to be cut from the TV show, also it ran for eight seasons.

• The Imagination

The book is better than the movie because it keeps open the possibility to imagine everything to your liking. It is normal for an author to leave part of the setting or situation to the reader’s imagination, and that is the true richness of a book. The same content read by different people can result in totally different imaginations. This is impossible in a movie. The scenes, settings and the characters are all imposed on the viewer in a movie.

Though it is an eternal debate why are books good compared to movies, the magic is in being able to live the experience of both options and one’s own preference. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.