An interesting question came in my inbox the other day – I (along with a bazillion or so of my best friends) am on the email list of Kh. Frederica Mathewes-Green , and she posed the question “What movies are better than the book that they are based on?” The reason for her question was her review of Prince Caspian (which I haven’t seen yet).*

My reflexive answer was that there wasn’t one, but after a lot of thought, I came up with the gentle Iron Giant, one of the X -Man’s favorite movies as a child. When I found it was based on a book, we went out and purchased it, and were sorely disappointed. The movie was way better. I replied to Kh. Frederica with my response and was geekily excited when she mentioned my submission in her revision of the article.

Her list was:

1. Gone With the Wind.
2. The Godfather.
3. The Wizard of Oz .
4. The Princess Bride.
5. Jaws.
6. Forrest Gump.
7. Blade Runner.
8. The Lord of the Rings trilogy .
. 9. The Harry Potter series.
10. Adaptation.

The only books on the list I’ve read are the Harry Potter
series and Jaws. I have Gone with the Wind on my to-read pile, but must admit I’ve never seen the movie. I’ve also been a Lord of the Rings flunky, never quite making it out of the first couple of chapters of the first book (but I love The Hobbit)

It’s an intriguing question, and I suspect that Kh. Frederica will revisit it more than once. I’m curious, if the question landed in your inbox, what would your answer have been?

*I do look forward to seeing Prince Caspian. I must admit, other than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe I never read the Narnia books until adulthood, so my exposure to Prince Caspian was in the past few years, and as part of a uni-volume read of the books, so any deficiencies in the story were alleviated by the fact that I plowed through to the next one immediately afterwards.