Some literature better as only literature | by MADALYNE BIRD
Everybody knows books that become popular best-sellers will most likely become a movie. This is great, right? Your favorite book is hitting the big screen! Time to celebrate! Let’s go hit up the movie theatre!
I beg to differ. For me, turning books into movies can, and usually does, ruin the book. Most of the time, parts of the book are left out so the movie can fit in a nice little 120-minute package and everyone can go home and go about their business. Well, most of the time that little package doesn’t do it for me.
The books are better. That’s my vote and I’m sticking to it. When I read a book, I work up an image in my mind of what the characters look like, how they act, what their world is like.
This is where my problem comes in: movies very rarely live up to the world I’ve created, making me nothing more than a critic when a movie disappoints me.
I also hate it when the movie’s plot is completely different from the book’s plot. Exhibit A: Jodi Picoult’s ‘My Sister’s Keeper.’ I’m sorry but did the screenwriters, Jeremy Leven and Nick Cassavetes, even read the book? Because when I read it, I’m pretty sure the girl who had cancer lived and the parents split up and the older brother liked burning buildings down.
So why do directors and screenwriters change the plot? Because it’s profit-driven. By attaching the name of a well-known book, directors and studios are already cashing in. They have almost instantaneous financial security when the movie hits theaters; ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ made close to $17 million. Book lovers flock to theaters only to be sorely disappointed.
Other movies that don’t exactly fit book plots are the ‘Harry Potter’ movies. Settle down now, Potter fans. What I mean is that the ‘Harry Potter’ movies only cover some of the aspects of the books. I know you can’t fit the whole book into a movie without making it 12 hours long. I get it. But, it’s just an example of how directors leave scenes out. For example, at the end of ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ they leave out almost the whole last chapter. This left me with a void. I liked the movie, but the last scene of the book was my favorite part of the story and it was disappointing that it was cut from the film. I spent the whole time dreaming up how I would feel during that last part of the movie.
How did I feel by the end of the movie? Horrible.
What I’m trying to say is that I love books. I love movies. Separately.
