Books & movies based on books
I don’t usually read a book and watch the movie based on the book. I find that whichever one comes second will be pretty ho hum — so I just pick one or the other.
I made a couple of exceptions recently for books on Sci-Fi Lists. I read Jurassic Park and Interview With the Vampire even though I’ve seen both of those movies more than once. My experience was different with the two books.
I expected to enjoy Jurassic Park — I’m a big fan of dinosaurs and I really like the movie. But the book was pretty ho hum — it’s very similar to the movie. I felt, though, that I would have liked it a lot if I’d read it without seeing the movie. As for other Michael Crichton books, I’m planning on reading Sphere one of these days — I think enough time has passed since I’ve seen that movie and it didn’t have a big impact on me.
With Interview With the Vampire, I had some hope that it would be great because I very much enjoyed Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour and its sequels. Interview was similar to the movie too, but for some reason I got more out of it. Maybe enough time has passed since I saw the movie, or maybe the book just has more to offer. I haven’t been reading many sequels lately, but I expect to read more of Anne Rice’s vampire books sometime.
The numbers…
- {4.5/5} Jurassic Park (movie)
- {3.5/5} Jurassic Park (book)
- {4.5/5} Interview With the Vampire (movie)
- {4.5/5} Interview With the Vampire (book)