I am not going to lie to you; I have seen a multitude of movies and have read a great number of books. This includes books that have been made into movies and the age old question of which is better.
I think this completely depends on both the person and which one you partake in first. Some people absolutely hate reading, thus, movies are for them. Others like to live in the world created by reading, which can be amazing as reading is probably the best way to work your imagination as an adult.
As adults we usually don't venture into the world of make believe very often, except when it comes to books. Abstract concepts are written down and your mind is able to turn words into something so much more. This, I believe, is the reason for people disliking films when they read books first. They become caught up in a world that is developed through taking in words and seeing it come to life.
Characters, the setting, absolutely everything is imagined and this world created by our minds is always different than another's. Though the words are the same one person reading will see something another reader does not in the words written. This is why when a book is put to the big screen people often find flaws with them, find that it is never as good, and are generally disappointed in the final results.
The same goes for watching the movies first. The world of the movie will invade this imaginary world created in your mind. You will tend to see the actors as the characters, the surroundings established as the setting, and become annoyed with how long the book seems to be taking. Movies continuously have parts or characters cut out of them because they must only take up so much time. Books can be a thousand pages long and take days to get through; but, nobody minds if this happens because you can easily set a book down and pick it up later.
I personally found this to be true as I ended up watching the Millennium series originally a set of three books written by Steig Larsson. I, however, did not know it was a book series first. I like to read the books first if ever possible. This time it didn't happen as I was looking for a movie to watch and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" sounded quite interesting. It was a fabulous movie that even had me cheering for Lisbeth Salander, one of the main characters. I found out there were two more movies and proceeded to watch those as well. They were phenomenal! Though I should mention they were the original movies with English subtitles, Hollywood has yet to produce the final two films.
I then found out this trilogy was not just a set of movies, but of books. I attempted to read them, well attempted to read the first one. There were too many characters, too much description, and it seemed to drag on forever. I've never actually given up on a book before; but, because I had seen the movies first I couldn't read the books. I do think I would have enjoyed them otherwise.
There are movies made from books that are able to hold their own. I sit writing this as I watch, "The Hunger Games." I read all three books one after the other in a very short amount of time. They are original, easy to read, and speak to human nature as well as politics. Just as you can take "Animal Farm" and analyze it in comparison with totalitarianism you can take "The Hunger Games" and analyze human behaviour, could the world possibly turn into a version similar? Especially with the obsession over reality TV lately.
This particular movie was almost exactly as I had seen it in my head as I read the book. A few characters were missing and things were altered slightly to fit within a time frame of just over two hours playing time; however, it was done very well. I'm thoroughly looking forward to the others being made into movies, yet, am a little annoyed the third book will be split into two parts. They did this same thing with the Twilight series, a horrible reproduction onto the big screen, splitting the last book into two movies as a "money grab" in my opinion. This same thing was done with the Harry Potter books when they were put into movies.
In the end each is able to stand on its own if you let them. I would definitely suggest reading the book before seeing the movie; yet, the movie should be thought of in different terms as it will never be exactly the same as the book, it can't be.
Next up, The Hobbit! J.R.R. Tolkien's literary work has finished production and will be out in November. Hopefully it is able to live up to Tolkien's fantastical piece of literature.
