It is a common argument of weather the movies live up to the novel when they are created. This argument usually comes from a reader's personal experience with the novel not coming through in the film experience. The flaw in this argument is that one person cannot possibly expect everything that they imagined to be displayed on the screen because the person in the theatre next to you most likely had a different image of the novel then you did. Film and Novels both shaped our culture at some point of or another, so why would fusing them together be a mistake? It wouldn't be if they weren't placed against each other after the final product. Therefore, I propose that one must analyze film and book separately as different components of the story.
Take the Harry Potter series for example. Now I am a huge Harry Potter fan and if someone were to ask me this question my first instinct, like many others, would be that the books prevail over the movies. But if you look more closely into the question it is almost in valid because the film industry's goal is not to compete with a book. If they were to do that movies these days would be five hours long, and the only movie that can pull that off is Lord of the Rings: Director's Cut.
A films job is to complement a book, entertain an audience, not compete with a 300 page masterpiece with details impossible to obtain in a two hour movie. Movies and books cannot be put together in a competition just like you can't compare a clothing store to an electronics store. What they offer their costumers is so different that no one can say a general clothing store is better when they are referring to their merchandise.
Once you look at this question with this perspective one might understand that movies that they might of considered bad in their eyes because they did not live up to their expectations from the book, if given a second chance and looked at with an un-bias opinion, could be really great movies. My favorite Harry Potter movie is one that I read the book before seeing the film because I judged them on different playing fields. If one lets their own hindsight bias effect the way they perceive movies off of books they will never learn to fully appreciate the amazing value of film.
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