Movies or TV shows that convinced you to watch/read/play the source material

[random11]

The title kind of says it all: What movies or TV shows that convinced you to watch/read/play the source material?


As for me:
After Watchmen (the movie) I bought the comic.
I'll probably buy and read the Witcher books soon thanks to the TV show.
And while I don't know if it counts since the time gap was huge, when I had an option to start a new comic series, from several recommended options I picked Conan thanks to the 1982 movie (for me, Conan is and always will be Arnold Schwarzenegger)

[Murk]

I can think of surprisingly few movies that made me watch/read/play the source materials. I had expected there to be more.

Stardust was a fun, lighthearted movie, and the book turned out to be the same!
The Hunger Games made me think "This seems like a very good book turned into a very mediocre movie", so I bought the book. Alas, the book was just as mediocre as the movie.
I've tried several times to read Lord of the Rings (failing each time), in part because I enjoyed the movies - but also because it's a literary classic, so I don't think it counts for this thread.

I'm sure I'll be able to think of more. It must be!

EDIT: Oooh, IRobot! Saw the movie on TV with my father who said "Huh, this is nothing like the book", which interested me enough to borrow his copy.

[Seppl]

I too, am surprised that I can think of so few. Maybe that is because I read so much? Chances are that I have already read everything that anyone adapts these days. Therefore, most of the stuff on my list is just older than me and I did not have the time, yet, to read the source when I first saw the adaptation:

• The first trailer I saw for The Lord of the Rings movie(s) made me read the books immediately. Though I was only 80% done with book 3 when the first movie appeared in cinema and had to constantly remind my friends (who had read the whole series long ago) not to spoil the book's finale when we discussed the movie.
• The first season of Game of Thrones made me read all the ASOIAF books and I was done before the second season came out.
• Various Dune media made me check out the book(s). Neither the movie nor the miniseries were particularly good but the look and feel were so strange that my curiosity was peaked.
• The Dawn of War games made me check out some of the books from the WH40k franchise. I was also curious about the original tabletop game and would have played it but as a university student I did not have the money to buy into that. Those figurines must be made of gold, plated with plastic.
• A far fetched one: Madoka Magica made me read Goethe's Faust because I wanted to get all the references.

[comicshorse]

To add to everybody else I was surprised I initially drew a blank. Indeed after some though I only came up with two examples :
The Princess Bride inspired me to see if the novel matched the films quirky tone and I was delighted to discover it did
Casino Royale actually interested me enough to check out the James Bond novel of the same name and then read the rest

[random11]

Forgot "interview with a vampire" that led me to several books from Ann Rice.

Also, Dune and Princess Bride as well, which I just remembered after seeing your posts...

[Manga Shoggoth]

Several, in fact.

The very first was Swallows and Amazons (in 1974 - I was ten at the time...), based on the book of the same name by Arthur Ransome. I actually went straight out and brought the book. Strangely, I never got on with the rest of the books in the series.

The second was Sword in the Stone (Original Disney version), where I got the book fairly soon after.

After that I had The Jungle Book (Original Disney) and The Princess Bride, where there was a significant delay between film and book.

The most awesome (and expensive) was Monkey (1978 Japanese adaptation, dubbed), which got me on to the Whaley abridgement of Journey to the West, and then the 4-volume scholarly adaptation by Anthony Yu. Ironically, I have been through 4 copies of the Whaley abridgement as I keep losing or lending them...

[Grey Watcher]

Funnily enough, I became a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender because of the 2010 movie version, The Last Airbender.

...

OK, OK, I'll explain. The movie was so bad that I had to check out the series just to see what the thing I just saw was supposed to have looked like. Heck, I don't even think I'd heard of the show (or if I did, I didn't remember it at all) before the movie, but I had enough friends on social media talking about how far short the movie fell of the standard set by the show that I just had to check it out.

Also, I'd forgotten about it until reading this thread, but I guess The Hunger Games also qualifies for me.

[Zevox]

I think The Lord of the Rings was one for me, though honestly it's hard for me to recall for sure at this point, my memories of exactly when I first read those are pretty blurry. I do think it was after seeing the first film though.

Otherwise, hm... I really encounter this far more often with video games than with movies or TV, honestly. Partially because I just play a lot more video games than I watch movies or TV, and this has only become more true over time. Fighting games in particular seem to do this to me a lot. A recent example being BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle convincing me to check out RWBY, while a slightly older one being Marvel vs Capcom 3 being the impetus for my checking out the Devil May Cry series. Oh, and Smash Brothers, of course - Marth and Roy were my reason for trying Fire Emblem when they started releasing that outside Japan, Pit's inclusion in Brawl was the main reason I got interested in Kid Icarus: Uprising, Snake being in Brawl got me to try Metal Gear Solid 3, and Simon and Richter Belmont's addition in Ultimate lead to me playing Super Castlevania 4, Rondo of Blood, and Symphony of the Night. Not all of those wound up being entirely my thing - MGS just was not for me, and while I liked the Castlevanias I haven't gone out to hunt down the rest of the franchise since or anything - but by and large they were all fun, and Fire Emblem and Devil May Cry I've become a big fan of.

A bit more indirect since it's not really the source material (which I was already familiar with), but Dragon Ball FighterZ exposing me to people who talked so much about DBZ Abridged got me to go and watch that. Which is great, since it's probably just better than the source material anyway.

Hm, thinking about it, go back far enough and you can trace the little comic reading that I did to watching Superfriends, and later Justice League. Those made me a fan of Green Lantern, so when I heard about how good Geoff Johns' run of that comic was supposed to be, I gave that a try, and wound up reading most of it, as well as picking up a handful of other comic trades while I was following that. Stopped after he moved on to other series though.

[Kitten Champion]

The big one for me was Blade Runner. I reached for the copy of Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep from the library largely because I was flat-out intrigued how it differed from the movie adaptation, and that started me down the path of reading most of Philip K. Dick's collective works.

After seeing and comparing the movie adaptations to their source material, it's an eye-opening experience to see how far his particular style and philosophy is from marketable Hollywood's. I think the only one that kept most of his themes and story was A Scanner Darkly, which was more an art project by Linklater than a real attempt at a profitable movie.

[Dire_Flumph]

A few things, but most recently I hit midway through season 3 of the Expanse

Spoiler

Show

(When the Alien ship rose out of Venus)

After that had to read the books because I just needed to know what happened next.

If games count, by the time I played Assassins of Kings I knew I'd have to read the entire Witcher series of books.

[Tyrant]

It's kind of a mixed bag for me. The movie V for Vendetta got me to read the book. I honestly don't remember if that got me to read Watchmen (since it was also written by Alan Moore) or if it was knowing that the movie was coming out, but either way I read it before I watched the movie. I read Dune (circa 2000) having watched the 80s movie many years earlier. While the movie didn't directly inspire me to read the book, I know that I chose to read the book (as opposed to whatever else I could have read at that particular moment in time) with knowledge of the movie in mind. Starship Troopers was a similar situation. I read it more to see how it was different from the movie than because I thought the movie was good. To be clear though, I think the movie is great. It just didn't inspire me to read the source material.

The 80s G.I.Joe cartoon got me to read the comic book. A crossover with that series got me to read most of Transformers Generation 2, which caused me to be interested in Transformers Beast Wars when it came out. Then there's BattleTech. I saw the cartoon in the 90s when it came out. That lead me to playing MechWarrior 2, which lead to MechWarrior 3 and 4 and buying some of the metal minis (but not playing the tabletop game). A few years later it lead me to wanting to play the MechWarrior Clix game (Clicky Tech as some call it) which ultimately lead me to reading the MW: Dark Age novels and starting to work my way through some of the game materials.

While not a movie or TV show, HeroClix has lead me to look into who a number of the Marvel and DC characters are in the game and has helped maintain my interest in the comics themselves and occasionally lead me to checking out books I wouldn't have otherwise.

Knowing that the Queen of the Damned was on it's way to theaters got me to read Prince Lestat and Queen of the Damned before it came out. Watching the first couple Hunger Games movies got me to read the books. Seeing the first LotR movie got me to try to read the books again. I had started The Fellowship and stopped about 100 pages in. After seeing the first movie I finished that and read the other 2, then the Hobbit, and then the Simarillion. I had meant to read Ender's Game for a while and decided to read it when I heard a movie was on the way.

[Dienekes]

Hmm, of the media I'm interested in, I tend to have either read the book first or have already had it on my reading list when the film is announced. The only real example I can think of contrary to this is the Godfather. Godfather 1 and 2 being two of my favorite movies. After reading the book... well Godfather 1 and 2 remain two of my favorite movies. The book is not one of my favorite books, to put it lightly.

[Yora]

I plan to read The Last Unicorn one day.

[Narkis]

I'm more of a book reader so it's far more usual for a book to get me interested in a movie than vice-versa. Still, there were a few exceptions:

The Ducktales, X-Men, Batman and Batman Beyond cartoons got me interested in comic books as a kid.
Blade Runner and, to a lesser extent, Minority Report got me reading Philip ****, whose books were... a trip.
I vaguely knew Lovecraft was a thing, but the film "Dagon" was what finally convinced me to read the books.
And I actually watched the movies "Fahrenheit 451" and "1984 before I read the books.

[DavidSh]

Movies like The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, The Big Sleep, and Murder, My Sweet convinced me to read the original novels by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and, in some cases, the original short stories that were extended into the novels.

Not quite a case of the original question, but I went and watched some of the original Disney animated feature films after playing Kindom Hearts.

And yes, go and read The Last Unicorn. The movie was fairly faithful as such things go.

[Peelee]

DBZ got me to watch Dragon Ball, which is significantly better.

[Lord Torath]

Stardust was one I watched that made me want to read the book. Overall, I liked the movie better.

Blood and Chocolate. I think I read the book first, and then saw the movie. I wasn't overly impressed with either of them, really.

Dune. I watched the early 80s film (TV version) and loved it (yes, the version with Sting). Finally read the first book in... 1994? 1995? I really enjoyed it, but didn't read any of the later books.

Most of the time I read the book first, and then see the movie.

[Rynjin]

A bit more indirect since it's not really the source material (which I was already familiar with), but Dragon Ball FighterZ exposing me to people who talked so much about DBZ Abridged got me to go and watch that. Which is great, since it's probably just better than the source material anyway.

I'd urge you to give DBZ (Kai, if you're a first time viewer, so you can skip all the filler. Not all of it is fun) an actual shot. I've been rewatching it through for the first time in about a decade recently and it does still hold up quite well.

The talk about the Abridged series being "better" is a lot of guff, IMO. The Abridged series is great, but it is simply DIFFERENT, not better. The only objectively better scene than Kai I'd say is Gohan's transformation; for some reason they chose the worst of both worlds and played the regular "****'s about to get real" music instead of either Unmei no Hi or Gohan's Anger, and it really takes the bite out of the scene.

The series is something a lot of fans haven't watched in a very long time, I think, because watching it again...a lot of the complaints people have about the series don't really hold water, especially the nitpickier bits. Hell, a lot of the smug "So why didn't they do X?" questions are answered in the series immediately after somebody in the main cast brings up doing exactly what people think they should have done.

Watching it with fresh-ish eyes I think would be a good experience. Especially since as an Abridged only watcher, you never got to experience the Buu saga (and never will).

[Zevox]

I'd urge you to give DBZ (Kai, if you're a first time viewer, so you can skip all the filler. Not all of it is fun) an actual shot. I've been rewatching it through for the first time in about a decade recently and it does still hold up quite well.

The talk about the Abridged series being "better" is a lot of guff, IMO. The Abridged series is great, but it is simply DIFFERENT, not better. The only objectively better scene than Kai I'd say is Gohan's transformation; for some reason they chose the worst of both worlds and played the regular "****'s about to get real" music instead of either Unmei no Hi or Gohan's Anger, and it really takes the bite out of the scene.

The series is something a lot of fans haven't watched in a very long time, I think, because watching it again...a lot of the complaints people have about the series don't really hold water, especially the nitpickier bits. Hell, a lot of the smug "So why didn't they do X?" questions are answered in the series immediately after somebody in the main cast brings up doing exactly what people think they should have done.

Watching it with fresh-ish eyes I think would be a good experience. Especially since as an Abridged only watcher, you never got to experience the Buu saga (and never will).

As I said, I am already familiar with the source material - meaning, I have seen Dragon Ball Z. And parts of the original Dragon Ball, for that matter (the earlier bits, up through the tournament where Roshi disguised himself to participate so Goku wouldn't easily win, IIRC). It's been a while, and I didn't quite make it to the end of the Buu Saga back when I was watching originally, but I have seen it, and so am speaking from experience when I say that I think Abridged is better.

Also, I did start to re-watch it for a little bit a couple of years back, on a site where I found the first ten episodes were available for free. Which, well, did not leave me wanting to buy the rest to re-watch things in full. It felt like the majority of those episodes, including almost all of the very first episode, were filler. Abridged covered basically everything important from them in its first three or four episodes, which are only about 8 minutes each, compared to the actual show being the length of typical TV show episodes at 20-ish each. It was kind of pathetic, honestly.

Also, supposedly Abridged is doing the Buu saga. No clue how long that'll take, but they announced that at the end of the Cell saga, and to my knowledge at least haven't walked that back (though I don't really follow their channel, admittedly).

[Thufir]

I'd be interested in reading The Princess Bride based on having seen the film, but I haven't actually done so.

V for Vendetta I'm pretty sure I saw the film first then read it afterwards.

Watership Down.

[Lord Raziere]

Also, I did start to re-watch it for a little bit a couple of years back, on a site where I found the first ten episodes were available for free. Which, well, did not leave me wanting to buy the rest to re-watch things in full. It felt like the majority of those episodes, including almost all of the very first episode, were filler. Abridged covered basically everything important from them in its first three or four episodes, which are only about 8 minutes each, compared to the actual show being the length of typical TV show episodes at 20-ish each. It was kind of pathetic, honestly.

Also, supposedly Abridged is doing the Buu saga. No clue how long that'll take, but they announced that at the end of the Cell saga, and to my knowledge at least haven't walked that back (though I don't really follow their channel, admittedly).

They plan on like releasing the Buu Saga as a season kind of thing much like they do with FF7 machinabridged, because the irony of watching DBZA before that is that you'll get 8-10 minutes of distilled important awesome with all the flack cut out, only to wait forever for the next episode to come out because one loved the last one so much.
their update schedule is on "its done when its done" time for anything that isn't a stream or a lets play. but when you get the itch to rewatch it? it just flows from one episode to the next so well that you don't realize that like hours has passed when you finish because even abridged, DBZA is like, twelve hours or something like that to archive binge. (about 10 minutes, every six episodes is an hour, but there is some episodes that is longer in places) imagine how long DBZ Kai is compared to that? 159-167 episodes? about 20 minutes long? so about....divide by three...approx. 53 hours? so.....choice between Kai which takes two days to watch, or Abridged which takes about a half a day.

so yeah, quality is subjective, but time spent is not. all depends on whether you want to take that extra 1 and half days to go over it again.

[Rynjin]

They plan on like releasing the Buu Saga as a season kind of thing much like they do with FF7 machinabridged, because the irony of watching DBZA before that is that you'll get 8-10 minutes of distilled important awesome with all the flack cut out, only to wait forever for the next episode to come out because one loved the last one so much.
their update schedule is on "its done when its done" time for anything that isn't a stream or a lets play. but when you get the itch to rewatch it? it just flows from one episode to the next so well that you don't realize that like hours has passed when you finish because even abridged, DBZA is like, twelve hours or something like that to archive binge. (about 10 minutes, every six episodes is an hour, but there is some episodes that is longer in places) imagine how long DBZ Kai is compared to that? 159-167 episodes? about 20 minutes long? so about....divide by three...approx. 53 hours? so.....choice between Kai which takes two days to watch, or Abridged which takes about a half a day.

so yeah, quality is subjective, but time spent is not. all depends on whether you want to take that extra 1 and half days to go over it again.

They kind of walked this back recently though. Patreon Q&A Video for reference.

TL;DW: If they do Buu (which is a BIG if at this point) it will be in the style of their Dragon ShortZ videos, not as the Abridged series has been made before now. They're completely burnt out on it because it makes no money and is an active risk to their entire operation, and they had to completely scrap the Bojack Abridged movie because they were pretty much at each others' throats over it in frustration about not being able to make it work.

[Zevox]

They kind of walked this back recently though. Patreon Q&A Video for reference.

TL;DW: If they do Buu (which is a BIG if at this point) it will be in the style of their Dragon ShortZ videos, not as the Abridged series has been made before now. They're completely burnt out on it because it makes no money and is an active risk to their entire operation, and they had to completely scrap the Bojack Abridged movie because they were pretty much at each others' throats over it in frustration about not being able to make it work.

Huh. That's disappointing. But oh well, they've gotta do what they've gotta do if this is how they're making their living.

[J-H]

I saw Jurassic Park before reading the book.
Of course, I was about 10 when it came out in theaters.

I saw the BattleTech TV show, then got into the toys, then later (by a year or three?) MechWarrior 2, and from thence to the novels, then MW3/4, MWO, HBS BT, and actively keeping up with new fanfiction in the setting.

[Rodin]

The series is something a lot of fans haven't watched in a very long time, I think, because watching it again...a lot of the complaints people have about the series don't really hold water, especially the nitpickier bits. Hell, a lot of the smug "So why didn't they do X?" questions are answered in the series immediately after somebody in the main cast brings up doing exactly what people think they should have done.

Watching it with fresh-ish eyes I think would be a good experience. Especially since as an Abridged only watcher, you never got to experience the Buu saga (and never will).

I've tried to re-watch on a couple of occasions, and I've been put off by a couple things...well, three things if you count the general unavailability of it on streaming services I have access to.

The first is the music. I grew up on the Bruce Faulconer music. Watching it without that is downright unsettling. It ruins any nostalgia value I might have from watching it.

The second is how slow it is. This isn't just about filler, it's about the pacing of the actual fights. The best thing Abridged does is to cut down and speed up the action sequences to make them feel punchy.

Let's compare to My Hero Academia. The entire Stain arc from when his name is first mentioned to his defeat is ~5 episodes. Only 2 of those episodes are spent in combat. The climax of the first season takes 4 episodes from start to finish, with the big showy fight (All Might vs. Nomu) taking just a single episode from start to finish.

The fight between Goku and Freeza lasts 20 episodes. And that's JUST Goku v. Freeza. If you add in the other fighters that packs another 10 episodes onto it. If you add in all the episodes where Freeza is the main villain (a.ka. the Namek saga), that number doubles.

Goku and Gohan vs Cell? 15 episodes. Not counting all the silliness with Mr. Satan.

DBZ Kai is better about this, but the Goku v. Freeza fight still takes up 13 episodes. Goku and Gohan vs. Cell takes 9.

---

Basically, all of the fights last far longer than they deserve to. There's not enough actually happening in these episodes to justify spending a cour and a half on a single fight. This is especially painful on a re-watch when you know it all amounts to nothing.

[Khedrac]

Going back a lot of years: Noggin the Nog (old kids' TV show where the local library had more of the books than I ever saw on TV) and Neverwhere (both ones where the TV came first).
More recently Ready Player One and Edge of Tomorrow (a.k.a. "Live, Die, Repeat" though the book is "All You Need is Kill").

In most cases I have either already read the book, or the book is not my sort of fiction despite the TV series or film being so!

[Lord Torath]

I saw Jurassic Park before reading the book.
Of course, I was about 10 when it came out in theaters.

I saw the BattleTech TV show, then got into the toys, then later (by a year or three?) MechWarrior 2, and from thence to the novels, then MW3/4, MWO, HBS BT, and actively keeping up with new fanfiction in the setting.

I forgot about Jurassic Park. Yes, that movie inspired me to read the book.

So, regarding Battletech, anyone ever catch Robot Jox? It's a deeply terrible fighting-robots movie. Kinda fun to laugh at, though.

[J-H]

Rented both of them from Blockbuster and enjoyed them as a kid. Stop-motion robots!
Looking back, they were pretty lame.

[Tyndmyr]

John Dies At the End. Watched the movie first, and it was fun, but was told the book was better, so goin' through it now.

[Lord Torath]

Rented both of them from Blockbuster and enjoyed them as a kid. Stop-motion robots!
Looking back, they were pretty lame.

I watched Robot Jox with my friends in High School. We cracked up over a lot of the lines. "We can live! We can BOTH live!" My friend who'd seen it already got upset (mildly, not really mad or anything - "Shut up, dude!") when I correctly identified the traitor after his second appearance. Me thinks the man doth protest too much!

I didn't even know there was a Battletech movie.