It is not uncommon to find a piece of writing that has hit the big screen. From series like “Harry Potter” and “The Hunger Games” , to novels such as “Me Before You” and “The Perks of Being A Wallflower”, books have quite often had movie adaptations since the introduction of motion pictures in the 1890s. But, stemming from this comes the lifelong old debate of which is better: The book or its movie?
Over time, people have continuously thought to take pieces of literature and turn them into fantastic films to be played on the silver screens, but what happens when they leave out giant portions of the text or the plot? The story, of course, changes!
Often, it can be found that a book turned movie differs immensely from what was originally published. Sometimes, major plot points are missing or there may even be an alternative ending to what was originally written. Due to this, it is quite common that if you have read the book of a movie you won’t be too satisfied with what’s shown on screen.
Although popular book series and novels are often brought to the big screen in order to hopefully interest more people in the stories being told, they fairly regularly please book readers who have been fans since day one. There are some exceptions to this of course, but I have found that most of the time the movies just seem to fall flat in comparison. Take “Divergent” for example. In “Divergent”, one of the most memorable and gruesome scenes in the book was when Edward was stabbed in the eye by Peter, yet this scene did not appear in the movie. Another example is in the “Hunger Games” series where a whole character, Madge Undersee, completely disappears and is never mentioned. Now, while these may seem like very minor changes, as the movies still made sense without these scenes and or people, they were not complete in a way. By changing the plot, excluding information, or altering characters, the story that was originally being told isn’t anymore, therefore making a real difference in the viewing of the movie to someone who has read the book.
Following this, another thing that makes a real difference to book readers is how the world that they love is translated on screen. While the minor adjustments made to the text when interpreted onto the screen are very insignificant, the disappointment that follows when nothing is as you pictured it to be can be very great. I mean, sure you get used to it as the movie progresses, but imagine your favorite fictional world coming to life but being the polar opposite of what you had dreamed it to be. This is what happens daily with all book readers whose favorite stories become movies. Not only do we dream of the day our favorite book will become a movie, but we also dream of what it should be like and when it doesn’t hold up, the movie just seems to lose its splendor.
Now, as far as the time limit placed on movies goes, this can lead to a whole other problem. As movies have a maximum time of 2 hours, there is often not a lot of time to portray anything of significance for too long. Due to this, many noteworthy scenes are brushed over when they should have been extended upon. All the while a scene that has no pertinence is given almost 2 minutes longer than any other scene in the movie to make people quite possibly laugh.
As a result of this, and all of the other things listed above, movies quite often fall short of the books. Sure, they are enjoyable to watch if you haven’t read the book or even if you didn’t like the books, but nothing will ever compare to what you dreamed up in regards to the movie. So the next time you head out to the movies remember: nothing will ever measure up to the book.
