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/lit/ - Literature

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3705358 No.3705358 [Reply] [Original]

Which do you prefer, /lit/? The movie adaptation of It or the original book?

>> No.3705379

I've always preferred books (unless they're post-production novelizations) to films. With books you really conjure the images and connect the story yourself. Movies do all the thinking for you.

>> No.3705444

The problem with the film is that a good deal of the book is told through introspection or just plain emotional descriptions. For example, and I don't know why this stands out to me, there's a scene where all the kids have finally gathered together and the book it's basically described as "no one had to say anything, for all of them there was a click, the final slide of a deadbolt, as if fate had brought them there" or something like that. In the film, of course, you can't get that across without a narrator so one of the kids literally says "It's like us meeting was fate!"

The script in general suffers from bits like that. For example, the ending... outside of the fact that they got rid of It's backstory (or what little backstory It had) they decided to only vaguely sort of imply that they were only seeing It as a spider because that's all their minds could comprehend. In the book, it's clear--this is the closest thing to the body of It that they could see without going insane, but there was another It, the real It, the It that couldn't talk or taunt them, that lived "beyond" and if it got your mind "beyond" you were going to live there forever. Which to me made for some of the creepier imagery in the novel but of course, was not used in the movie.

>> No.3705774

I read the entire book. Happens to be one of my favourites and I feel truly has the Lovecraft that King loves so much about. 10/10 would reread before Halloween.

>> No.3705821

I'm halfway through the book and I like the book better. The only good thing about the movie was tim curry.

>> No.3705865

>>3705358
The only book I've read by Stephen King is Christine, and I resent him for every minute wasted doing so.
Are his other novels not as awful, or should I just write him off as completely overrated?

>> No.3706090

>>3705865
>>3705865
I think his books which are more traditional horror are better than the ones about haunted cars or evil dogs. The Shining, It, Pet Sematary are all pretty great.

>> No.3708163

>>3706090
I agree.

As to the OP, I overwhelmingly preferred the book.

>> No.3708206

>>3705865
A little less than half of his novels are meh to terrible. He's prolific enough that he has several good novels. Genre fiction good, not literary good, but you knew that.

I don't have the image recommendation for his stuff, but let's see.

There's his Post-Modern magic-realism fantasy series, "The Dark Tower" a lot of his stuff touches on that, in that it references his other works, and some of his other works reference it.
It's good, (Well the first 4 novels are great, the 5 is just okay, and being post-modern, the 6 and 7 get kind of...well weird, generally accepted as not as good as the first 4 but opinion varies on whether they're just okay, meh, or terrible, partially depending on your reaction to the twist ending, but also in reaction to the characters' developments) It's made up of Dark Tower 1-7 of course, 4.5 which is called Wind through the keyhole, The Talisman,& Black-house, (Talisman is a stand-alone, but sets up Black House which is heavy related) Insomnia, The eye of the Dragon, and a short story "little sisters of Eluria"

Salem's Lot and the Stand and IT are the next closest, Shining too, and they're all good on their own,

Let's see: Lisey's Story, was fantastic, Needful Things was good, Firestarter, Tommyknockers, The Girl who loved Tom Gordon, and assorted short stories are good, Misery too, and I haven't actually read pet sematary but I hear it was good,

Cell and Under the dome are tossups, some like em, some don't

Cujo, Christine, and Gerald's Game were pretty crap, all the way through,

Then there's the main problem with King, He's great at tension and suspense, and great at getting you inside the characters head, but lousy at endings. about half of his books start strong and end decent, most of which are the "good" ones I mentioned. The other half start strong and end crappy, (like Duma Key) or start moderate, and end crappy. like (in my opinion) Under the Dome. It just deserved a better payoff.

>> No.3708213

>>3708206
Which is a long way of saying "He's worth a try" and if you find that you like his style than more than half of his novels won't disappoint, they will thrill you and they're good light reading. He's prolific enough that having 40% of his stuff be crap still leaves a significant amount of stuff that you can read and enjoy. If you must know whether a novel is going to be one of those "Starts strong, ends crap" before you read it, come back and ask, someone will have read it.
Hope that helped

>> No.3708221

>>3706090
I thought the Shining was fucking awful.And then cringworthy when he started mentioning freud.

>> No.3708228

>you will never be rich and famous enough to write an orgy scene featuring 10 year olds described in vivid detail

>> No.3708243

>>3708228
People who watched the mini-series: "IT? I remember, that's the one with the killer clown that turned into a giant spider.
People who read the book: "IT? I remember, that's the one with the tweenage orgy."

>> No.3709114

>>3708243
Never read the book, is there a screencap or pasta of said orgy?

>> No.3709131

>>3709114
Not that I know of, it wasn't in the minseries, but a copypasta? knowing the internet and its rules? I bet it's somewhere.

>> No.3709139

/lit/ is for discussion of books, not movie-adaptions of books
if you want to talk about the movie, go to >>>/tv/

>> No.3709151

>>3706090
>>3708206
>>3708213

Pretty much agree here, all the books I have read of Kings I have enjoyed, but I have only tried the traditional horror ones,

The Stand
Pet Sematary
IT
Needful things
The Tommyknockers
graveyard shift

>> No.3709207

You're better off fapping to the secret pics you took of your mother showering than reading a shit-tier hack like King.

The memories will last longer.

>> No.3709229

>>3709207

"But Stephen King is Cervantes compared with David Foster Wallace." - Howard Bloom

>> No.3709482

>>3709139
>implying this isn't a book discussion

Get stuffed down a sewer drain

>> No.3709859

What do you think of Joe Hill's stuff?

I was reading Heart Shaped Box and kept thinking to myself - wow, this all feels oddly familiar.

I only found out he was King's son 3/4's the way through.