125
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by tetris11@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

I've started reading Jumper by NameDoesNotMatter. I would like to formally apologise about all the harsh things I've ever spoken about that film.

Fine, the cast is unlikeable and the action scenes are just fisticuffs in the air, but my god, in comparison to the teenage dreck that is the book, it's a masterpiece. At least they tried to build a credible back story for the main character.

In the book, he literally thinks everyone is out to sexually assault him (and somehow they seem to), he solves his problems by throwing money at it, instead of any actual creativity, and the author desperately tries to portray him as a mature-for-his-age adult, despite the fact that his first reaction to anything is crying followed by petty revenge.

I'm just flicking through the pages, pausing at any plot bits, and then flicking on.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] livus@kbin.social 54 points 7 months ago

50 Shades of Grey.

The film is silly and mediocre but the book is next level terrible.

[-] chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I've never consumed either media of that story. But I thoroughly enjoyed Dan Olson's take.

https://youtu.be/qzk9N7dJBec

[-] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 14 points 7 months ago

Yep. This is probably the best take of showing how the movie's writing process changed the writing for the better, then the books' author put a stop to that.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] SacralPlexus@lemmy.world 44 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

This may be unpopular but I was deeply disappointed in Shawshank Redemption when I read it. The movie is top tier.

Edit: In retrospect this doesn’t really answer your question as you asked about bad movies with a worse book and Shawshank is definitely not a bad film.

[-] KnitWit@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago

Movie is definitely top tier, I also love the novella. Different Seasons is what I point to when people dismiss stephen king. Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and (while not on the level as the other two) Apt Pupil all in the same collection. But to each their own; pretty sure the final story is trash though haha.

[-] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

The story was a novella King wrote in the early 80s for a short story collection, and it was his first real attempt at writing genres outside of horror. He's gotten better at that over the years.

Even so, I wouldn't say it's bad, just that the movie blows it out of the water.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 41 points 7 months ago

Starship Troopers was a far different story in each medium, but I think the movie is much more worthy of your time

[-] ctkatz@lemmy.ml 21 points 7 months ago

would you like to know more?

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 months ago

The movie is great but I'm curious as to why you think its better than the book?

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 29 points 7 months ago

I think the story and messaging of the movie is just amazing. We get to see the decline of Rico into a fascist mouthpiece, the casual disregard for human life and the way society warps us all. What starts out as perceived funny-ha-ha jokes in the opening act (the kid saying "I'll serve too") is retroactively depressing by the end of the film where Herr Commisar NPH shows how trivial the whole war is.

load more comments (18 replies)
[-] Donjuanme@lemmy.world 37 points 7 months ago

Ready player one, though to be fair I didn't finish either version. I feel like percentage-wise I made it further through the movie, but only because the movie is less than 2 hours long. I made it to the 2nd chapter of the 2nd part and couldn't take the masturbatory prose any more. There's no self insertion on one side of the scale, Mary sue-ing in the middle, and ready player one sits on the far side of the scale.

[-] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 22 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I was going to say, Ready Player One is not a great movie, but it does at least have Spielberg at the helm, and while late-career Spielberg is a shadow of his former self, the movie is directed competently and interesting enough visually.

Not least of all because you can actually see and enjoy all the various IP in action, rather than just have them name dropped like in the book. When there's a sea of interesting or recognizable things on screen, that does a lot to help distract from how terrible the plot is.

But even at its worst, the movie is a tolerable popcorn flick. Turn your brain off and enjoy some pop culture references, then forget it all an hour later.

Because the book is just terrible. It's an absolute slog, a lot of the dialogue is embarrassing, the prose is uninspired, it's overloaded with explanations of UIs and unnecessary, long winded ramblings about the various pop culture references. The movie at least has the benefit of just putting a thing on the screen, the book has to describe all of this shit, and it's tediously done.

Which is to say nothing of just how terrible the plot is in general but more than enough people have gone off about that.

Twilight for nerdy boys is the best description I've ever heard of it, but at least Twilight isn't as gratuitously masturbatory.

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 10 points 7 months ago

The movie is so much better than the book because it drops a lot of cringe that the book has.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Shialac@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

I read the whole book twice. Its bad. The first time was fun because I was just looking for the pop-culture references, but thats the only kinda good thing the book has. The second time I focused more on the story and the characters and its just bad. There are no likeable characters, but you are supposed to like the main protagonist who is an antisocial creep. The setting makes no sense and the plot is just there to move to another place to show off more references stacked onto each other

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] TeryVeneno@lemmy.ml 28 points 7 months ago

Harry Potter, the movies are at least wizards do wizard stuff even if the world is pretty boring to me. The books on the other hand, are just straight up strange and mean. Reading them as kid they just sucked, I have no clue why they are so popular outside of the movies.

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 32 points 7 months ago

Harry Potter has some issues, but for children's fiction it's better than a lot of series.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Kacarott@feddit.de 13 points 7 months ago

What do you mean by strange and mean?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Hugin@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago

It's tv series not a movie but The Three Body Problem. The ideas are poorly thought out ass pulls to setup the weirdly specific situations the wittier wants.

At least the show makes the characters more interesting.

[-] infotainment@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

Agreed, most of the characters in the book are so flat, and only do things because the plot needed them to do that thing.

The Netflix series managed to make the character’s motivations seem more believable which I appreciated.

load more comments (1 replies)

I haven't tried to watch Three Body Problem, because I disliked the book so much. I'm not surprised it's better, but I still probably won't watch it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] fr4nk_j4eger@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

I really had a hard time with the chinese names, especially the ones that sounded similar.

[-] B0rax@feddit.de 7 points 7 months ago

I quite enjoyed the books. Would I then enjoy the show?

[-] ECB@feddit.de 9 points 7 months ago

I loved the books and found the netflix series to be a pretty enjoyable westernization of them.

There were a few changes/choices that were a bit strange or missed the point, but overall it's worth watching

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz 23 points 7 months ago

The lord of the rings!

I love reading....I read a lot. But Tolkien's style just never worked for me, the movies were great.

[-] owenfromcanada@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago

I like Tolkien's style, but I get it. If you're not prepared to hear everything described in excruciating detail, maybe just stick with the Hobbit.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[-] MrBobs@lemmy.one 22 points 7 months ago

Fight Club, book is decent but the film seems a more complete package.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] llamapocalypse@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago

I don't know about worse, but the Eragon books and movie are equally terrible.

[-] Kacarott@feddit.de 12 points 7 months ago

I'm not gonna go claiming that the Eragon books deserve a prize, but I loved them as a kid, and comparing them as equals to that movie is bordering on insanity.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] TheMinions@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

Eragon was my first foray into proper swords and sorcery fantasy after Harry Potter.

Are the books really that bad in your opinion? By no means do they reinvent the wheel, but I enjoyed the magic system and enjoyed the aspect of Dragon + Rider and that relationship we see between the two.

I haven’t read much other Fantasy besides LotR and Stormlight Archive, but I enjoy the Inheritance Cycle.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[-] tetris11@lemmy.ml 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I've started reading Jumper by NameDoesNotMatter. I would like to formally apologise about all the harsh things I've ever spoken about that film.

Fine, the cast is unlikeable and the action scenes are just fisticuffs in the air, but my god, in comparison to the teenage dreck that is the book, it's a masterpiece. At least they tried to build a credible back story for the main character.

In the book, he literally thinks everyone is out to sexually assault him (and somehow they seem to want to), he solves his problems by throwing money at it, instead of any actual creativity, and the author desperately tries to portray him as a mature-for-his-age adult, despite the fact that his first reaction to anything is crying followed by petty revenge.

I'm just flicking through the pages, pausing at any plot bits, and then flicking on.

[-] ours@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

Hunt for Red October. The book is great and for it's time had done amazing insight into modern naval warfare but the movie irons out a bunch of this which are a bit lame.

The Akula that kills itself with its own torpedo simply blows up because it abused its engine and another sunk when the titular sub rams into it.

The titular sub is later returned to the USSR.

The movie changes those and a few other things for a more exciting and satisfying outcome.

Hey now, I read Jumper as a teenager and it was one of my favorite books... Admittedly, adult me has never gone back and read it so maybe you're right, but I have read the sequels and I thought they were okay. The fourth one has Danny and Millie's daughter teleporting into Low Earth Orbit and using a bunch of real life space and satellite communications technology, which was cool because I consult in that industry and so it was like "Hey! I know what she's doing and that would work!" or even "I have a client who's working on something just like that!"


It doesn't fit the prompt because they're actually both really good, but the movie Contact is better than the book. Carl Sagan wrote in a very rambley, wordy way (kinda like how he talked). He spends like two and a half pages describing Palmer Joss's tattoos or Ellie Arroway's hair. So much of the stuff in it is so cool, but it's very hard to read. I've tried three or four times in my life, and I've ended up skipping around and just reading random parts of the story.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Bilbo_Haggins@lemm.ee 12 points 7 months ago

Jaws doesn't quite fit the prompt but although it's a good movie, the book is essentially a sub-par beach read. And there was no USS Indianapolis monologue in the book.

[-] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 12 points 7 months ago

Stuart Little was the weirdest book you could possibly read, the movie managed to make it actually make sense while both were meh.

[-] kylie_kraft@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

the Sookie Stackhouse novels vs. True Blood. the show got dumb but the books go off in so many more ridiculous directions. I quit watching the show after 3 seasons because the repetitive sex/violence juxtaposition got to be boring, but I still have to recognize that the show writers at least had restraint. also, Charlaine Harris writes like my foot

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Kacarott@feddit.de 10 points 7 months ago

I'm gonna mention "How to train your dragon". I actually preferred the books, but they are very different and I know many people who much prefer the movie.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Species8472@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

The Da Vinci Code. The film and book were both utter, contemptible garbage.

[-] Rinna@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago

Howl's Moving Castle. Not that I didn't enjoy the book, I just preferred the movie more.

[-] tetris11@lemmy.ml 6 points 7 months ago

Same. I remember the book being actually kind of unimpressive and wondering "Really, this is what inspired that amazing movie?"

[-] saigot@lemmy.ca 8 points 7 months ago

The classic would be fight club, I think even the author has said they enjoyed some of the symbolism that was added.

[-] spittingimage@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Babylon AD (the book is called Babylon Babies). I thought it was bad editing that made the end of the movie confusing. No. Turns out they took the actual ending of the book, toned it the fuck down and filmed it.

Not sure they could have filmed the part where the hyper-evolved babies take their comatose mother's consciousness, stuff it in an experimental space station and launch it towards the galaxy at 10% of light speed.

[-] MxRemy@lemmy.one 7 points 7 months ago

This is a show and not a movie, but definitely The Magicians. The show is pretty incredible, and more or less abandons everything wrong with the original. The books mostly spend way too many pages following all the MC's petty grievances, and he's like a massive incel.

[-] shuzuko@midwest.social 6 points 7 months ago

Oh, interesting! I may have to give the series a shot, then - I pretty much hate-read the books, hoping at first that he would get better and then later hoping that someone would just fucking kill him lol

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] BottleOfAlkahest@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

The name of the rose. The movies...fine, I guess. The books at least 300 pages too long and frequently segues into long-winded discussion of the political minutiae of the warring monastic orders during the reign of Pope John XXII.

If you want to read about the time period you'll be annoyed by the murder mystery shoehorned into your dry long winded historical fiction. If you wanted a murder mystery set in a historical setting then you'll be annoyed by the history lesson being shoved down your throat like a dehydrated fig newton.

[-] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 9 points 7 months ago

I really liked the book. I thought it was clever to use the murder mystery to explore the world of the abbey. The minutiae was the point of the book for me.

[-] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Hunt for Red October though film wasn't bad at all, but the book was mediocre, boring and offputting.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
125 points (100.0% liked)

Asklemmy

43855 readers
1338 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS