Faithful to the original

A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) I wrote about how I preferred books to films. At the time I said:

It would seem that seeing the movie before reading the book impairs my potential enjoyment of the book, yet reading the book before seeing the movie means that the movie will never live upto my expectations.

I also named The Lord of the Rings films as the exception to my rule. I would now like to add another to that list…

The Princess Bride

Years ago, I came across the film The Princess Bride and immediately loved it, but never considered the story behind it. Well just recently I picked up book and found the film to be incredibly faithful to the book. Obviously a large part of this is that the author – William Goldman – also wrote the screenplay, but even allowing for that very little is left out and what is missing by no means lessens the film. Admittedly my mental images whilst reading the book are heavily influenced by the film, but as with LotR this is because the film is such a good adaptation.