Talk to Me Tuesday is a brand new weekly meme where we will discuss anything (and everything) literary-related in an open forum of honesty. Questions for the next week will be posted one week prior to the post on the Features page. If you'd like to participate in this weekly feature, head on over to I Swim for Oceans and check out her page and put your link up in the Mr. Linky box!
This weeks topic is: How do you feel about book-to-film adaptations?
This one is tricky. There are some adaptations I loved and others I hated. Examples of the ones I loved are Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter. Now, let me tell you what I liked about them. For the most part, they didn't change the plot or events to something different out of the book to try and surprise movie goers. One thing that drives me nuts is when they feel the need to change it up so those who've read the books can be surprised too. Problem? People who read probably loved the book the way it was. Sure, we know everything can't be included because some movies would end up being 6, 7 or 8 hours long. Harry Potter did have some changes, but minor ones that I didn't catch until I reread the series. Lord of the Rings was just about by the book. Fabulous adaptations! Or, atleast I thought so.
Now, let me take you through some adaptations I didn't like. Eragon (Inheritance Cycle), The Golden Compass (His Dark Material Trilogy), True Blood (not a movie, but still adapted to a tv show). What I didn't like about these three was the changes that were made. In Eragon, the changes were so huge there was no way to do the second book into a movie. Plus, who would want to when they botched it up so bad? Golden Compass was just a horrible movie and the books weren't any better. Take a flat story and turning into a movie isn't going to make the story any better. True Blood? Okay, so a lot of people love this show. I, on the other hand, hated all the different twists they put into it and the changes. I loved the books. I would have loved to have seen it put into a tv show where they were actually based off of what actually happened in the books.
Sometimes I think people think adaptations are the new cool thing. That they can do them quickly, without really doing the work and they will have a box office hit. When done right and the time is taken to show the quality of the production, you can get an amazing story that goes from paper to the big screen. There is nothing finer than seeing a book come to life in such a way. But most of the time that isn't what happens. Cutting it down too much, changes, and of course the budget (sometimes you can't get a big budget to do a grand show, I know) can take a story that might have been a good adaptation and completely destroy it instead.
5 comments:
I totally agree with you, some book to movie adaptations are good, but for the most part it is never up to par. Sometimes because of budget or time constraints they cut scenes that in the book were the turning point for the character and without it in the movie it takes the story in a different direction.
There is so much that goes into a book, there is no way they can capture everything in the way a reader would want.
Great answer, Aimee! I'm so divided on this topic, you know? I love movies, but I hate when these movies butcher my favourite books...plus, I often read books and see them like movies in my head, so when the actual film differs, I get unreasonably angry! :)
I know! I get angry when they don't match up too. Like the actor/actress is all wrong or it's not playing out right... But when they do get it right, it's amazing!
You know what I think happens is they take a big hit book, like Harry Potter, which is no small book and then try to squish all that happened in a year into two hours. It can't be done. I didn't like the first two movies. But they've been better.
The Percy Jackson Movie, they even changed locations of fights and so much. Why? It was a perfectly good book. Annabeth didn't even have the right color of hair. And Percy wasn't supposed to know who his father was. Oh, I could go on at that movie. It took all the mystery and fun out of it. I don't think it made many kids go out to read the books. That one really got to me!
Heather
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