Stardust Summary (from IMDb): In a countryside town bordering on a magical land, a young man makes a promise to his beloved that he'll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm. Book Review: Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Book to Movie Thoughts:
This review may contain spoilers about the story in order to compare the differences between book and movie.
This is backwards because I saw the movie first and it became and instant favorite to me before I ever considered reading the book. Perhaps it’s because I saw it and loved it first that I prefer the move to the book.
The movie is everything that the book is, but with additional humor and depth. I really liked the book, but it paled in comparison to the movie because it was just the basics of the story. All of the charming and funny things I loved about the movie were absent for the most part in the book.
For example, Robert DeNiro’s role in the movie is probably my favorite part. It was hilarious, but I also found that it added a lot more charm and became important to the questionable chemistry between Tristan and the star. And in the book, there was a captain and they did spend time as a guest, but that was basically it. No being thrown overboard, being dressed up by the captain himself in his quirky way, and none of the dramatic flair that his character had in the movie.
Similarly, Michelle Pfieffer was spectacular in the movie. While her character is much the same in the book, there was something extra that the actress gave to the character that made me enjoy her so much more on screen.
It’s mostly the small things, like the old guard by the wall or the way Tristan found the star by accidentally thinking of it when he was using the Babylon candle to find his mother, but I just prefer those slight changes to the story. The book was great, refreshing, unique, and enjoyable, but the movie was better.
Sometimes, I think much of how people view books vs movies has more to do with which one they are exposed to and love first rather than the medium. I wonder if, had I loved the book first, I would have disliked the changes in the movie.
Bottom Line: The movie is FANTASTIC and I love it more than the book. *Gasp!*
