I never understood the point of novelizations, myself. They can not and should not be confused with novels on which movies are based. In my experience, the old saying "The book is always better" usually only applies to original works. Novelizations, on the other hand, are based on screenplays. The screenplay--the movie--is the original work here, and novelizations generally offer little more depth than it what's on screen because they are based on a limited visual and concept to start with. Original novels have no such limitation, and it is up to the filmmaker adapting it to try to capture a small part of the vast imagery the reader taps into. 

Years ago, when I worked at a bookstore, people used to come in and buy an original novel saying that they wanted to read it before the film version of it came out in case the film spoiled it. A very laudable attitude to take, for if the movie sucked and you saw it first, it would probably turn a person off of ever wanting to read the novel ...or at the very least taint what would otherwise be an open mind. Then there'd be other customers who would come in before seeing a film like, say, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and say the same thing. Most of them were under the impression that books always come first. I'd have to explain that in this case, no, the movie is the original work here and if they read the novelization first they're really only spoiling their experience of the film. Then there'd be others who would come in to buy the book after they saw the film thinking that it would help explain some of the plot holes and somehow make the movie "better" for them. All I can say is that if a novelization is better than the movie it's based on, that film must really be "challenged."