Reading is better than watching movies

I have been wanting to read Cixin Liu for a long time. I knew of the three body problem, but some other book kept interesting me more.

Then came Netflix’s announcement that they were working on an adaptation. I was intrigued once more. But once more I could not get to it.

This book is extremely popular at the library. There is a long waitlist. I had to cancel the reservation a couple of times.

Then I watched ‘three body problem’ on Netflix last year. I enjoyed it and was intrigued once more to read it. This time I kept the reservation open for long. Finally I got the book this month and started reading it.

I am enjoying it very much.

Also, I’m realising I prefer the written medium more than the movies.

The first time I had this feeling was when I was reading Harry Potter. I had watched the movies first. And I felt no need to read the books, because it’s all stories after all. I felt like I knew the story beforehand. There was no point.

But when I read it, I realised there are things that the movies never got around to. As an example I never understood the whole thing about the deathly hallows in the movie. But it was very clear when I read the books.

Books have time. That’s the difference. Books have time to delve into things. To give things time. Movies have a limited runtime, a canvas to work on. Books truly are limitless.

And that makes a difference.