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    Do you prefer to read or watch Sci-Fi/Fantasy?

    Any preference? Or is it dependent on your mood and/or what's currently available.

    I have to admit that I prefer to read any day, although often if the 'Sci' is too real for me in a book, I put it down and reach for the TV remote.
    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

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    #2
    I prefer to read it because then I can project my own visual images of what I think the places and people described in the books really look like. I love a good original Sci-Fi or fantasy movie but if they make a movie based on a book I really love then I'll usually skip the movie because it's almost always a huge disapointment. Case in point. Dune. It was a pretty good movie and I probably would have loved it if I hadn't read the book but the book was so much better.

    It was, is, and always will be GREEN

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      #3
      I prefer reading, mainly because few of my fav. stories have been made into films yet, and when they are they are nearly unrecognisable. A case in point is "Running Man". The book is dark and disturbing, and involves a man playing a game show for money, and who eventually dies. The film, however has Arnie in and is, IMO, junk.

      Likewise I love the James Bond books but, apart from a few of the earlier ones, can't be bothered with the films.

      I think a lot of the problem is that film makers have to try to fit several hours of story into a couple hours of film, and they either rip the guts out of the book (Dune or Battlefield Earth) or they completely re-write the story until it bears no resemblance to the book.

      Sorry to go into a rant about this, but the entire suject has bugged me for years!
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        #4
        Up until very recently I've never ever found any way of reconciling what I've read with what I see on the screen (James Bond being a really god case in point). I avoided LOTR because of that, it being my favourite novel and all, but eventually curiosity got the better of me.

        I deal with that by seeing them as two separate things (that, and the fact that the Aragorn and Gandalf they cast are the spitting image of the Aragorn & Gandalf who live in my head)

        But in general, I'd rather stick pins in my eyeballs than watch the dramatisation of a novel.
        In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

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          #5
          i guess it really depends. stargate and xfiles books are generally disappointing but peter david trek books tend to be better than the shows. asimov books are definately books that i could not see as a movie...and lotr well...they have hot guys >.<
          My flickr photography.

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            #6
            I generally prefer to read- mainly because there is far more intelligent sci-fi/ fantasy in print than has been created for either the large or small screens.

            For watching, I prefer material that was NOT originally a book. The adaptations are rarely done well. Peter Jackson's LotR was the first acceptable adaptation of those books. I'd like to see if he could do as good a job with other classic novels of the genre.

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              #7
              I like to watch

              Mostly because I am such a VFX geek, I love those nice looking spaceships in B5!

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                #8
                I prefer reading, but mainly because there is more available to read than to watch. The trouble with the majority of sf/fantasy is it is expensive to make a good believable film from a book, and for some reason film makers always feel the need to change the story. Eg Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep was barely recognisable in Blade Runner - and the film completely missed the point of the book. Soylent Green was almost a parody of Make Room, Make Room, and who could follow 2001 A Space Odyssey without having read the book.

                I enjoy original SF on TV and Film though - ie stories that were made into film before the book was written - eg Star Wars, Stargate, Farscape etc.
                Chook

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                  #9
                  I really enjoy reading books because my imagination is wonderful Plus there is so much more that can happen because there is no SFX budget to worry about, nor is there a time limit of 2 - 3 hrs.

                  For what ever reason I never got around to reading Dune until after I saw the SciFi version. After I read the books I got the movies and watched them again and my reaction this time was one of disapointment.

                  I really liked the LOTR movies but it's been years since I read the books.

                  So I do enjoy a good movie, but I prefer a good book most of the time.
                  ~BCM =)

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                    #10
                    I like to watch, then read the Sci-fi/Fantasy books. Watching the original Star Trek series got me started reading the ST novels, oh way, way, way back.

                    I'm glad I saw the LOTR movies, then read the books. The movies were fantastic, and then reading the books after, made the stories even better, as events and characters were described in more details that were not in the movies.

                    Just finished reading The Silmarillion - am totally confused at first read with the gadzillion characters and geneologies of Gods, Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits and Men. Have re-read many of the chapters again, and it's getting better the second time around.

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                      #11
                      sometimes sci-fil movies and shows can get a tad disappointing, filled with nothing but pointless effects and cheesy characters...then again that happens for books too...but you can read the cheesy books for free and build up on vocab. whereas you have to pay the electrical bills for the tv or money for a movie ticket (cough cough nemesis...what a sad ending >.<). plus i want to see people just try to make asimov books into movies...just try. the beauty in the foundation series isn't just the "scifi" but it's the writing style and the imagery...the ability to think of what everything looks like while reading...>.<
                      My flickr photography.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Major Clanger
                        Any preference? Or is it dependent on your mood and/or what's currently available.

                        I have to admit that I prefer to read any day, although often if the 'Sci' is too real for me in a book, I put it down and reach for the TV remote.
                        I prefer to watch - its the eye candy - vfx and cast. However, if and I say IF, there is no available sci-fi to watch I'll read it - books, fan fic, etc. I've stopped with the reading thing, it makes me fall behind in all other things not sci-fi such as work.
                        Aadizookaan

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                          #13
                          I like both watching and reading. These days I do tend to watch more because it is much faster than reading and I don't have much spare time. But I DO still love reading and will do it as time permits. As long as I get my fill of Sci-fi/Fantasy in some way I am good to go!

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                            #14
                            I like to read sci-fi/fan, but find it very difficult to get good recommendations. Not that the books recommended (or reviewed) aren't good, it's just that I think appeal in sci-fi/fan is very, very personalized...a lot more than in other genres. I love sci-fi/fan movies and prefer ones that are NOT based on novels, but LOTR has got to be one of the best film adaptations I've seen since Silence of the Lambs. If the story in a movie is so-so, I generally enjoy the production and the effects...or shooting the plot holes.

                            It isn't really a read-or-watch scenario...more like read some things and watch others. I believe the written word is so much more expressive than the visual media and the mind is capable of fleshing out a personalized version of the story that may not be explicity written. You just can't get all that is in a written story onto the screen and then the screen is put in the position of having to live up to those personalized expectations. However, since visual representations are so strong, they can "ruin" the mind's eye. (i.e., I will watch the feature version of Cat in the Hat when monkeys fly out of my...oh nevermind.)

                            Speaking of Asimov, I, Robot is coming out this summer and I fear yet another disappointment.
                            Urgo: I wanna live, I wanna experience the universe and I wanna eat pie!
                            O'Neill: Who doesn't?
                            - Urgo, Stargate: SG-1, Episode 3.16

                            "Let's be real here. It should be fun. We're not saving lives, we're entertaining them."
                            - RDA, Stargate SG-1: The Lowdown



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                              #15
                              Originally posted by Shipperahoy
                              I prefer to read it because then I can project my own visual images of what I think the places and people described in the books really look like. I love a good original Sci-Fi or fantasy movie but if they make a movie based on a book I really love then I'll usually skip the movie because it's almost always a huge disapointment. Case in point. Dune. It was a pretty good movie and I probably would have loved it if I hadn't read the book but the book was so much better.
                              I agree about Dune. At least the version released in the theater. Because they had to cut it to just a little over two hours, there was way too much stuff left out. In fact, if you hadn't read the book beforehand, you were left wondering about a lot of things, as hubs was. I was able to find a book that explained a lot of the background for him, then we went to see it again and it made more sense. It was much better when the Director's cut came out. It was the full length version that was originally filmed, and explained so much more. It's a shame they couldn't have released that one in the theaters.
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