Why Are The Films Never As Good As The Books?

[Aemilius Paulus]

The fact that the book was changed or even altered completely says nothing about the quality of the movie.

Have you read Monte-Cristo? It was a favourite childhood book of mine (BTW, the Russian version is in two volumes, ~800-900 pages of a regular-sized hardback book - and so far the three English versions I saw are not even a third of that, missing most of the stuff - an yet both claim to be unabridged - how so?? ) HoreTore is completely right, the original book is as pure as a story of revenge can get short of a slasher film.

The Count did not accept Mercedes, his lost love, in the end, even as Ferdinand was dead. He went away with his Greek slavegirl, Gaide, whose amorous advances he never returned in the whole book. There is no romance. The author makes it clear the revenge was all he wanted, and it did not even satisfy him that much in the end.