Read the book or Watch the movie?

Here's a debate that is hard to settle.

You find out a movie that is adapted from a book is coming out. There is major hype around it, I mean, why wouldn't there be? 

Social media is riddled with gimmicks to promote movies and TV shows nowadays. 

There are still a few weeks before the movie comes out, pretty much enough time for you to find the book or short story the movie was adapted from. Would you read the book?

The drawback about reading books is that when they turn into bestsellers and inevitably turned into movies, they ALWAYS disappoint.

Name one instance where a movie was better than the book? 

You'll have to think long and hard and still not be able to come up with an example. 

Name a book that was better than the movie...yeah, plenty of examples coming off right from the tip of the tongue.

That is the power of the written word.

While reading Stephen King's On Writing, his sort of memoir and writing advice, I remember this interesting tidbit about writing.

He talks about how books should be written in a way that lets the reader play it out in their mind.

Our imagination will always be more powerful and significant to us.

Someone else's vision may be similar but it will always seem lacking to what you have imagined when reading a scene in a book.

The book says the character is wearing a yellow shirt and standing by a lake. You know exactly what shade of yellow it is and how blue the water of the lake is. That is how you imagine the story.

Now imagine that scene coming on screen and it is executed differently. The shirt is a mustard yellow. The lake is grayish because it is a cloudy day.

It shouldn't matter but it does. You want the scene to be brought to life the way you intended it to be. 

Suddenly you hate the movie. It is ruined for you. 

That is the power of our imagination.

Which is why when an adaptation comes out the choice is simple: either read the book or watch the movie.

Do both and you will be severely disappointed.