When films are adapted from books, more often than not, I tend to find the books a lot more enjoyable. So I have skipped watching a lot of films in the hope of reading the books later.
So what are some great films not adapted from books? Or what are some films that are significantly better than the book they were adapted from?
The story was beat per beat inspired by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Campbell’s metaphorical inmost cave was translated into Luke literally going to a cave in Empire Strikes Back.
Not to take anything away from Lucas’ creativity, of course. But to me it was quite obvious that he read or at least was aware of Joseph Campbell’s theory of stories and that Lucas read Frank Herbert’s Dune
My pet peeve is when people say a story with is hero’s journey is just a rip-off of another hero’s journey. Campbell didn’t invent or discover it, the story structure was used a lot before him and was known as the medicin jurney. He just wrote a book about it
He didn’t invent it, but he did try to flatten every story into this masculine take of a heroic life, some screenwriters took this to heart and then we got Luke in the cave.
Sometimes I go through weeks of intensively reading mangas or go back to the Greek mythologies, Homer, Apuleius, and enjoy how different the story beats in these cultures are compared to, well, my boring person’s American hegemony entertainment.