As promised, my first post.
I think the question above is a debate that will take place for a long, long time. People who don’t like to read will always answer ‘why read the book when you can watch the movie? ‘ and book lovers will most likely angrily reply ‘but the book is always better’. I have to agree, the book is always better than the movie, well 99% of the time anyway. (Allegiant, I’m looking at you)
But now comes my question, what if you like both movies and books, which do you prefer to watch or read first? See I’m one of those people who will watch a movie or series without realising there’s a book and then thinking, yes this is amazing I need to read the books now. And I love it. I love reading a book after I’ve seen the movie because somehow it’s always still a little different, I love having an actual mental picture of what the characters in the book should look like according to the movie because it brings the book to life for me (I have a really crappy imagination).
For example, I recently read 13 reasons why, after being hooked on the series and watching it in two days. The book wasn’t very descriptive in terms of what the characters actually looked like or the small details about the actual personalities of the people on the tapes. Actually knowing the characters before reading the book made it so much better for me.
But, I also love it the other way around. Whenever I read a book, no matter if I’ve seen the movie before or no, I will always watch the movie ASAP if it exists. Movies are only allowed to be between an hour and two hours majority of the time. Meaning the stories have been condensed. And of course, on the screen we can’t read a person’s mind where as in the book we can. So watching a movie after reading a book and knowing what is going on in the actors minds, I love that too.
Right now I’m reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel – finally! But I thought that movie was absolutely stunning, the visuals in it were breathtaking.
Are there any books or movies you’ve seen where one form is better than the other, or maybe they’re both equally good? Or do you have your own little routine when it comes to books and movies? Let me know below!
Love Mallory x
July 15, 2017 at 1:30 pm
Great discussion
Welcome to blogging i just followed xx
Both have there advantages i gueds
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July 15, 2017 at 2:00 pm
Thank you 🙂 which one do you prefer the most? X
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July 15, 2017 at 1:33 pm
Generally I like the reading the book before seeing the movie because I like the creativity in coming up with my own visual of the people and places. The one exception I have to this so far is the Lord of the Rings. I watched the movie then the read the book for the first one, then read the book and watched the movie for the second one so I had a good comparison. Definitely loved watching the movie first. But they are my favourite movies.
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July 15, 2017 at 1:56 pm
See I’m really bad at creating visuals myself, I pretty much can’t. So the movies help me with that. I still need to read Lord of the rings, been meaning to for years 😅
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July 15, 2017 at 2:06 pm
I still need to read the third book. Been so long since I read the first two so will have to read them all one time – hehe!
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July 15, 2017 at 4:15 pm
My rule is usually to read the book first before watching anything. I’ve only broken this rule a few times in recent memory. Usually, for me, I end up liking whichever one I saw/read first more, but this isn’t always the case. Great post!
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July 15, 2017 at 4:18 pm
Have to say I generally follow this too. Unless I don’t realise there is a book or watch the movie by chance. Thank you 🙂
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July 18, 2017 at 1:23 am
The Great Gatsby is a notable one for me where the novel and movie are perfect together (the original movie and the new one are both beautiful).
I never really plan to read a book before I see a movie or vice versa, it tends to just happen that I pick up one and then find out about the other. I think if you can keep the two separate in your head you’ll enjoy them both better because you don’t focus on comparing them (especially w HP movies/books!).
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July 18, 2017 at 6:13 am
I tried to read the Great Gatsby but struggled with the language, gonna have to try again. But true I love both the Harry Potter books and movies, just a shame they couldn’t fit everything into the movies from the books 😂
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