I'm going to start with the movie and say that it is a wonderful movie, certainly one of my favorites. It has all the necessary components for a good fantasy movie; might, magic, a hero and heroine, and a wonderfully wicked villainess, and in the end Good triumphs over Evil. The movie follows the basic story in the book, with some moderate changes until about the last third of the story. Then it diverges quite a bit, and I have to say they did it to give the movie a proper Hollywood Happy Ending.
I enjoyed the book as well, and I had fun noting all the things that had been changed for the movie. I'm getting better about being able to read a book, then watch the movie and enjoying the changes (to an extent) instead of feeling insulted by the producers and directors for messing up the story.
That being said though, this is one of those rare times when I actually liked the movie better than the book. Even rarer, the reason I liked the movie better was because of the Hollywood Happy Ending. I've only read two books so far by Neil Gaimen, Stardust being the second. The first was Coraline which I read after seeing the movie based on that book. Based on just these two books, I've concluded that Neil Gaimen likes to write unconventional endings. In my opinion, they are slightly anticlimactic. The endings are good because they are unique; not what you're expecting, but at the same time, they just aren't quite as satisfying.
There are still more books on the list by Neil Gaimen, including Neverwhere, and American Gods, so I will withhold final judgement about his writing style until I have finished at least those two titles. In the meantime, the next book I picked to read is Contact by Carl Sagan, which also has a movie based on it (I'm beginning to see a trend). Watch for the review later this month.
That being said though, this is one of those rare times when I actually liked the movie better than the book. Even rarer, the reason I liked the movie better was because of the Hollywood Happy Ending. I've only read two books so far by Neil Gaimen, Stardust being the second. The first was Coraline which I read after seeing the movie based on that book. Based on just these two books, I've concluded that Neil Gaimen likes to write unconventional endings. In my opinion, they are slightly anticlimactic. The endings are good because they are unique; not what you're expecting, but at the same time, they just aren't quite as satisfying.
There are still more books on the list by Neil Gaimen, including Neverwhere, and American Gods, so I will withhold final judgement about his writing style until I have finished at least those two titles. In the meantime, the next book I picked to read is Contact by Carl Sagan, which also has a movie based on it (I'm beginning to see a trend). Watch for the review later this month.
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