"The book was better." We've all heard it. The problem with it is, it's not fair. Movies are about two hours of a physical depiction of a story, while a book is 300 pages of intricately intertwined details to tell a story. Movies and books are not the same, therefore movies and books should not be judged based on each other, they should be judged based on what makes each genuinely good in their categories.
Books like "The Hunger Games" and the "Harry Potter" series are known to be well-written novels that have also been made into movies. These movies were judged by the readers as too vague, and not enough detail from the book. Well, guess what? Including every single detail from a book is going to translate into a movie much too long for the attention span of your average person. The movies based on other movies and the art of film in the first place, have outstanding special effects, iconic actors and tell a story in a concise yet captivating way. The movies are good on their own, and this should not be tarnished by the fact that it is not word for word translation. Of course, on the contrary, the movies can end up awful in the film category as well. The movie could have awful acting or a filming style that makes you dizzy, but it should not come from it not being exactly what the book said.
Every published book has millions of eyes scan across each and every page everyday. Each of these people interpret and imagine these stories in different ways. Their imagination carries their mind to a unique place with every page turn. One person makes a book into a movie. If this one person has a different take on a book, how can you expect it to be exactly what your imagination had in store for you as you read. Each person has a different idea of what the characters look like and what the story says, so this is something to keep in mind when watching the movie based on the book.
Based on the book does not mean word for word and page for page of the book, it means based on the book. Instead of saying "the book was better", I challenge you to judge the movie based on the art of film and not on the book.
