Logo

Why do some people prefer watching movies than reading novels even if they are both based on the same source material (book)?

Last Updated: 18.06.2025 02:25

Why do some people prefer watching movies than reading novels even if they are both based on the same source material (book)?

Actually have some literary skill:

There is an actual condition - aphantasia- wherein you lack the ability to imagine/visualise.

Twilight was a fun watch - I suspended my brain and enjoyed the imaginary world.

Has your mother ever walked in on you at an inappropriate time?

Bella in the movies remained the eff shut up, so I could just use both my own imagination and enjoy the director’s vision.

Reading a novel, especially a fictional novel with immense imagery, and enjoying it on par with or more than you'd enjoy a movie requires you to:

I gave up and enjoyed the movies, read the discussions on the original text and enjoyed it immensely.

What is truer than that which is true?

The Grey series was steamy but I was still able to focus on the actual story in the movies.

PC: The Guardian

Even if one has the skill, many people lack the ability to imagine and visualize the scenes portrayed in words, which dampens their novel experience. It's just a bunch of words to them.

Why is my vagina swollen, it’s very itchy. I had sex we used protection, but day after it felt like my insides had a heartbeat as well as itching, the pulsing has went away but it is still itchy and my discharge is yellow, i'm 15, what could it be?

A movie may have taken some creative license and given us a more feel good ending that is more appealing to audiences than the original book storyline.

Netflix and chill is a thing:

Many if not most, are in this category.

What’s something you did a lot as a kid that you don’t miss now that you’re an adult?

Entertainment.

Granted that the examples I might be citing here are as such not great works, but bear with me.

Unless you have a reading habit as such, you cannot read fast and comprehensively enough to not just process the words and sentences, but also to feel the phrase, sentence, paragraph, page or chapter as a whole.

What was your most embarrassing and humiliating bare bottom spanking?

Sometimes the production team of the movie is just better than the author of the novel, correspondingly:

PC: Google

But no one will have any problem in watching a dubbed version of GoT and all the titillating scenes in it are further incentive to brave through it effortlessly. No skill required.

Doctors Find They Can Detect Cancer in Blood Years Before Diagnosis - futurism.com

So what you see on screen is fun, visually entertaining, well put-together as opposed to a novel that may have been tiring, boring and not well placed.

Sometimes, maybe you aren't good at English so you find it hard to read an English book, say, Game of Thrones, in its original format. So you buy a translated version in your mother tongue, say Tamil or Hindi (hypothetically).

PC: Google…my precious!

So I’m getting piano lessons and my teacher wants me to get an upright piano instead of a keyboard. An upright piano is way above my price range, so what do I do? And what’s the difference between an upright piano and a keyboard?

Imagery, sequence, suspense, emotions. Some authors may not be able to bring the story out the way a movie director could.

Many people just survive school and college just preparing their study material and do not have enough aptitude in any language to be able to read and comprehensively understand long texts.

Some translated books are just not good. Ponniyin Selvan is an example.

How do people develop stage 4 cancer without noticing until it’s too late?

There is also the issue of translation and language barrier.

I didn't like the English translated version at all and I am not that good at literary Tamil to read the original.

I don't have the patience to read Shakespeare and visualize the story because of the old lyrical English therein. Not much for poetic/dramatic words.

The administration’s anti-consensus Mars plan will fail - SpaceNews

Let's be frank. What is in fiction for us unless we are forced to study it at school?

PC: Google

If you have to work too hard to get entertained, it may not appeal to you. And for some people, reading is too hard a work and watching a movie is simply easier.

It is common sense that Joe Biden is ruining America and is unfit to be president, but why are the liberals still supporting him when Trump is obviously a much better fit for office?

PC: Google (Romeo and Juliet)

Have the ability to visualize:

PC: Google

Is it true that people who are possessed by demons cannot see them until the demon is cast out? What is the reason for this?

But take one of his plays and make me a movie and I'd love to watch. I loved “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”as a movie more than the play all because of the writing style. I am used to reading proper prose in novels. Not the script of plays. So the movie worked better for me.

In the end, if nothing else, a movie is just a touch and earphones away. A book requires concentration. The lazier option is always more appealing.

Twilight at least was somewhat decently written. The Grey series was not even good writing.

What happens if someone fills up their car at the pump but leaves without paying? How is this situation typically handled?

Because reading is WORK. Period.

The books, however, were insufferable. They were filled with “holy shit” and other moronic mind voices of the protagonist Anna. They effectively drowned out the story and I quit midway of 50 shades darker

Turns out, the translation is not the slang you speak in real life but is a formal proper language and you suck at that as well.

What are some ways to drive women crazy while many men don't know?

How many of you found the Twilight franchise and 50 shades of Grey trilogy at least somewhat entertaining as movies? I did!

Outdated language but easily understandable presentation in cinema:

Her orgasmic thoughts were thankfully absent in the movie so the movie was way better. Still bad enough that I just watched the first and passed the rest.

A story is just a sequence of events but storytelling involves a lot more. With words alone, it's already a handicap, but even there, not all authors are created the same.

The novels? I picked up Eclipse, and a few sentences showing the various ruminations of Bella were enough to make me hate her already. I didn't attempt to read.

Or the movie script may have taken the source material and derived its own form of storytelling, which may prove to be more interesting than the novel’s storytelling style.

This is often a mindset. It can be acquired and often comes naturally to those who have a reading habit as such, but there are a number of people who do try and are unable to carry this conversion out effectively - maybe something to do with the creative/imaginative centres of the brain.

Very hard to do the above very enjoyable couple/group/friends activity with books.

There are some books that just…suck!

You'll not work to get something you can get by just paying for a Netflix subscription.

Many people do not have a comprehensive vocabulary in any language required to sail through a literary work in it, leave alone the one which their material of interest is printed in. Not all of us will patiently read with a dictionary by our sides.

So a novel may be less enjoyable for them.

PC: Google