Welcome to the first entry in a series that will seek answers to the age-old question: “what’s better, the book or the movie?” Right away, we are dipping into controversy. Our first post is really book vs. miniseries!
Our contestants are George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones versus season one of the HBO miniseries of the same name.
The book is the winner, but only by the razor’s edge of a Valyrian steel sword.
I finished viewing the entire season one of the miniseries a full six months before reading the book. Each episode begins with a clever animated map that orients the viewer to the key cities, roads and castles. The theme music is majestic with a tinge of mystery. The sets, costuming and actors are top-notch. As I read book one and most of the subsequent volumes in the series, the theme music played in my head, the animated map appeared in my head and I imagined the actors playing the parts.
The miniseries sticks tightly to the book. Both media conform to the changing-scene by-character-point-of-view structure. We bounce from Daenarys to Tyrion to Jon to Sansa to Catelyn either as characters in the book or scenes in the show. Although neither book nor miniseries has commercial breaks, you can fell the natural pauses. Much of the dialog in the miniseries is lifted directly from the book. Tyrion’s acid wit, Littlefinger’s clever smarminess and Joffrey’s insolence all come across loud and clear in the book. As mentioned earlier, my reader mind’s eye simply settled on Peter Dinklage, Sean Bean and Lena Headley and the other fine actors from the miniseries. Plotwise, season one of the miniseries and book one are nearly identical, Each begins with frozen undead in the far north and ends with a miraculous birth in fire.
So, the book and the miniseries are the same structure with the same characters. Then, how does the book have the edge? Well, if each were the same cake, you might say the book has better frosting. The advantage is that a book can convey a character’s inner thoughts and motivation far more clearly than a television show. After reading the book, I understand WHY my favorite character turned out to be a spy and how a woman can find true love with the savage man she was forced to wed. The book also shares flashback memories and dreams that would be cumbersome in the miniseries. These also help us to understand characters more deeply. The final advantage the book has is in its portrayal of the land, its cultures and religions Martin gets to EXPLAIN what can only be glimpsed in the miniseries. And Martin, who wrote for TV in the past, certainly knows how to keep all these details delightfully entertaining.
Link to review of A Game of Thrones on this site
Link to review of A Storm of Swords on this site
Link to essay George RR Martin vs William Shakespeare on this site
Link to everything related to George RR Martin on this site
Posted by Drevil, 1/3/2013