Books Made into Movies: Which Was Better? (Top Ten Tuesday)

It’s Tuesday again, and you know what that means… another Top Ten Tuesday post.  Today’s Topic is supposed to be “Bingeworthy TV Shows/Movies”, but I’ll be doing a post on “Books That Were Made into Movies:  Which Was Better?” Because I’m sure that you’re not interested in this:

Or this:

And since I usually only watch TV shows during my Russian meetup group, I think I’ll stick to books (the last one, Red Queen, has nothing to do with the Aveyard books).  These are in no particular order.

Divergent coverHow could I write a Top Ten Tuesday post about movies without including DivergentDivergent was the movie that got me into reading YA.  I actually saw the movie trailer before I read the book, and I read the book before I saw the movie.  Despite the fact that I own all the movies in this series and have seen them several times (mostly in Spanish to practice my language skills), I actually don’t think the movie was all that great.  I don’t think Shailene Woodley did an outstanding acting job here, and although Theo James is kinda hot, his acting was just okay as well.  Plus, they get the stupidest details wrong in these movies (eye color, tattoos, location of the safe house in book 1…).  I understand that they changed some of the details for artistic license, but these movies could have been a lot more faithful to the books.  Maybe I’m bothered by it because of the hours and hours and hours of Divergent trivia that I’ve played on QuizUp.

Verdict:  Books were better.

Hunger Games coverThe Hunger Games is another book series that I loved that was made into movies.  I think I watched the first movie before I read the books, but I read the rest of the books before I saw the movies.  This was a series that I read in both English and in Spanish.

I think that they did a great job on the movies here.  They seemed to stay fairly faithful to the books, and the acting was decent as well.  I would have liked the movies even if I hadn’t read the books.

Verdict: Both the books and movies were good.

Little House on the Prairie CoverThe Little House on the Prairie books are classic books.  I don’t know how many times I read the set when I was a kid.  The television show that ran in the 1980s was fairly popular as well.  When my kids were younger, we’d watch the TV show with them, and it’s still pretty good.

However, even though the television show was pretty good, I still think that the books were better.  The TV series had a feel-good message and moral lessons, but it wasn’t enough to beat the books.

Verdict:  Books were better.

Anne of Green Gables coverAnne of Green Gables is another series that I’ve read that they made into movies.  I haven’t watched the Netflix series based on this show, but I did see some movies that they did of this show years ago.  I wasn’t really that impressed (I think that I’ve seen two different versions of this book to screen adaptation).  Even if the movies had been good, they didn’t cover the entire series, and Rilla of Ingleside is actually my favorite book of the entire series, I think.

Verdict:  Books were better.

Forrest Gump is one of my all-time favorite movies.  I just love the story, and the music is wonderful as well.  I’ve seen this movie quite a few times.

The book, on the other hand (pictured here), is not quite as good.  I don’t remember it all that well, but I do remember that it was just okay.  I think I found it on sale, along with its sequel, Gump & Co.  Forrest is not the same guy in the book as he is in the movie, and he’s not as likeable.  Not by a long shot.

Verdict:  Movie was better.

5th Wave CoverLike Divergent, I had never heard of The 5th Wave until I had seen the movie trailer.  I went ahead and read the book before I saw the movie though.  I thought the book was fantastic, and I flew right through it.  This book made my top ten list of favorite books for the year that I read it in (the other books in the trilogy were not as good and didn’t make my favorite books list, however).

I thought the movie was pretty good, however, it really paled in comparison to the book.

Verdict:  Book was better.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight coverI was so excited when I heard that they were going to make Dragons of Autumn Twilight into a movie.  After all, I named my kids after characters in these books!  Alas, instead of making a really cool live-action film like The Lord of the Rings, they ended up making a really terrible cartoon instead.  We were really disappointed.

I’m sure that you’ve heard to never judge a book by its movie, and that is doubly true for this book.  The book series is fantastic!  Unfortunately, I think that the movie that goes along with this book is the worst on the list.

Verdict:  Book was WAY better.

Lord of the Rings coverThe Lord of the Rings is a classic book series.  I read it a long time ago, and I don’t remember much about it because I had aspartame poisoning at the time (it really killed my memory), but I remember liking the books.

Of course, I’ve seen all of the movies as well, and they were also great.  They did a wonderful job making these movies, and I wish that they had done such an amazing job on Dragons of Autumn Twilight as they did on these movies.  Before these movies came out, I was never really impressed by fantasy books that had been turned into movies.  But these showed me that they could be done well.

Verdict: Both the books and movies were good.

Ender's Game coverEnder’s Game is another book that I was really excited to see turned into a movie.  I read three of the books in this series in high school and I thought that they were really good, so I had to go see the movie when it came out.

While I thought the movie was good, I thought that there was a lot that was in the book that they ended up having to leave out for the movie.  I know that they have to edit movies for time and all, but I think that all that ended up getting cut out made the movie inferior to the book.

Verdict:  Book was better.

Unbroken coverUnbroken was a great movie.  It had a wonderful message, and it left me crying at the end.  I think I saw the movie on Christmas day, and my dh gave me a copy of the book as a present on the same day, so I saw the movie first.

Even though I thought the movie was really good, there is only so much you can put in a movie.  The guy spent a long time on a life raft, and then he went to a prisoner of war camp.  Then when he went home he had to recover.  It’s difficult to pack into a short movie

Verdict: Book was better.

So that was this week’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic.  Come back next week where I talk about Hidden Gems:  books that were really great, but not everybody knows about yet.

50 comments

    1. The second and third Divergent movies were more like fanfiction than the original books. Although I do like fanfiction.

  1. I haven’t seen many of these! The ones I have seen, I liked The Hunger Games films and books just as much, Divergent I liked the first book and film, but wasn’t keen on the rest, either the books or the films.
    Jo recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday #175My Profile

    1. The Divergent movies strayed so much away from the books it was sad, especially after the first one. There was a really good fanfic written about the Allegiant film though… where Tobias and Tris drew on themselves before they were hit with the memory serum so they would know that they loved each other :-).

  2. I noticed a second Unbroken movie is being made to capture his recovery at home after. I loved the movie. I still need to read the book. I love The Lord of the Rings movies too. They were so well done. The Divergent trailer motivated me to read the book too. 🙂 The Hunger Games was well done, I thought.

    1. It’s too bad that the second and the third books weren’t as good as the first; The Fifth Wave was so good in book form.

  3. I love your take on this topic!

    I thought the first movie of Divergent was actually pretty good. The second one was okay and I never saw the third one. I want to watch it eventually. I do agree, I think the Hunger Games was very well done because it seemed to be pretty close to the books.

    I haven’t seen all of The Lord Of the Rings but from the movies, I did see they were really good. I don’t know if I’ll actually read the books. I do own them, I’m just intimated by them.
    Tina @ As Told By Tina recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday | Bingeworthy ShowsMy Profile

    1. If I think of them as fanfiction, rather than faithful representations of the original, then they’re not so bad. Although I still don’t really care for Shaeline Woodley and Theo James’s performances. It’s too bad it wasn’t finished. I wanted to see if they were going to change the ending, LOL.

  4. Love your take on this week’s topic! I rarely ever think movies can be better than books, but I do agree that The Hunger Games movie franchise did a great job adapting the books and staying as close to the source material as possible! Lately movie adaptations have been doing well in terms of being equally enjoyable to the books. I’m mainly thinking of Love Simon and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before which I’ve recently seen and enjoyed as much as the books 🙂

    1. I’m glad they did such a good job on those. I haven’t seen them or read the books, but I don’t know of anybody who really hated them. If they ever do Legend, I really hope they do that one justice.

  5. I have not actually watched or read too many of these but it was interesting to read the perspective of someone who did.

    I didn’t like Divergent at all, and when I watched the movie it felt just as bland. I liked part of the Hunger Games series (lost interest towards the end) but felt the movies were far superior. Maybe because they were written in a way that makes them more visually appealing? At least in my opinion.

    I haven’t read Anne of the Green Gables (shocking, I know!) but I find Annie with an E, the TV show, super adorable. Some people say it’s a bit too dark and gloomy compared to the book, but I wouldn’t know any better.

    Anyway, great post! 🙂
    Sophie recently posted…O.W.L.s ReadathonMy Profile

    1. My husband wasn’t a big fan of Divergent the books either. I believe he thought Tris went on about her feelings too much.

    1. It was huge back in the day. I wonder if it had anything to do with all of the horse books I read as a kid, or how all my friends always drew horses back in the third grade? I don’t think drawing horses is a thing any more. My dd was homeschooled up until this year, so I don’t know what normal kids do in elementary school, and my daughter is more into drawing anime.

  6. I agree about the Hunger games (which I just read and watched fairly recently) and I’m so glad I did. I thought the first two Divergent movies were pretty good- I may be in the minority on that- but the books were better. Little House I vaguely remember the TV show and looking back, it seems so nostalgic but wholesome too? And I did red some of the books as a kid, I was fascinated by covered wagons and the whole frontier thing. 🙂

    Dragonlance! I would love to see a big budget, well done movie or TV show made, like Lord of the Rings. How awesome would that be?
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    1. I’d love to see a Dragonlance movie done like Lord of the Rings. They really missed an amazing opportunity when they didn’t do that movie well. The series has like 100 books to it… a movie could have boosted sales of those books like crazy if it had been done well.

  7. Hi Brooke! I basically agree with you on all of your verdicts. I think Tolkein had a ton of details that just plain translated to the screen better than most books do. Movie makers don’t really care about eye color (looks) or locations being accurate. And actually directors have little to do with it as producers hack over that due to money costs… most of these decisions bookworms HATE about adaptions are all about money. Great list though! And I liked reading your reasoning. ❤️

    1. If I remember, the later seasons strayed far away from the books. The later books were so awesome (The Long Winter, etc.). They would have been exciting on the screen. Maybe they wouldn’t have fit into bite-sized TV episodes though.

  8. The only ones I read AND saw the movie of, are Divergent and The Hunger Games.

    When it comes to Divergent.. Well, that movie was doomed from the start. If there’s one actress I dislike with a passion, it’s Shailene Woodley. I simply don’t like her style? I don’t know. I’ve seen her in different stuff and I never, ever like her. Don’t think that’ll ever change.

    As for The Hunger Games.. I really enjoyed those! They definitely lived up to my expectations. 🙂

    1. Hmmm… that’s interesting. I’m not sure if there’s a correlation with me… that would make an interesting experiment. Make a list of books made into movies, note which one I consume first, and then figure out which one I think is better.

    1. I’m not sure I ever liked any fantasy movies before LOTR (even though I liked fantasy books). They’re just so hard to do right.

  9. Oooh great take on this topic! And I actually agree with all of your assessments of the books versus movies (of the ones I have seen and read, at least)! Divergent movies were such a mess hahah. Shailene Woodley was a terrible pick for Tris in general, and Theo James is in his thirties and LOOKS IT. Sure he’s attractive but Four was a teenager! I could rant on all day hah. The Hunger Games were definitely both awesome, which was good because it’s my favorite series ever! And YEP agreed about 5th Wave too. I want to read Unbroken sometime too, that sounds good!
    Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight recently posted…Review & Blog Tour: Sadie by Courtney SummersMy Profile

    1. 🙂 I was so into Divergent that I’ve seen the movie several times (a lot of times I watched it in Spanish to practice) but even then, I never cared for the way that it was done. I was just into the story.

  10. Interesting twist to the topic. I love Forrest Gump and Lord of the Ring movies though I am yet to read the books. Curious about the LotR books because you mentioned that they were good. Great list!

    1. 🙁 That’s the part that sucks about the digital subscription places like Netflix and Amazon prime. They’re always taking stuff off.

      For me, if I get in the mood to watch a movie, it’s usually a specific movie… usually one that’s not available. So I just give up and read a book, LOL.

  11. I thought the first Hunger Games movie was better than the book (but then I wasn’t a fan). But I had a hard time with the second movie so I haven’t watched them all yet.

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