Odds are, unless you live under a rock, you’ve noticed that a lot of shows and motion pictures are being based more and more on books. For those who may be wondering, comic books and graphic novels do count as real reading material. This means that, more and more, books and novels are being brought to levels of popularity they might not have reached otherwise. As upcoming movies and series spark our curiosity of the novels they are based on, more people fill their shelves with mainstream works. This isn’t bad under any circumstance, unless you happened to read the book before watching the movie that is.
The beauty of reading novels is how immersive they can be, one moment you’re sitting in bed, the next you’re exploring the vastness of the universe, discovering that you’re a wizard, or flying on a dragon’s back. Novels, regardless of the type, make us experience things more fully because we understand the thoughts and emotions of the characters in them. We see them rise and fall, laugh and cry, we don’t just watch them, we are them. We go everywhere they go, we share their triumphs and defeats. This means that we sometimes become attached to the particular ideas we had of them in our minds.
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When it comes to adaptations, sadly, there are things that, no matter how great the movie, always get left out. There are always details, no matter how perfect the adaptation, that we wish had made it to the screen. That, of course, leads to huge disappointments, frustrations, and sometimes even anger.
But what if you choose to read the book after you’ve seen the movie? I can guarantee you, the experience will be entirely different. When you watch the film adaptation and reach for the book afterwards, you’ll be very excited to discover the myriad things that got left out. While there’s a great chance you’ll picture the actors from the adaptation as the characters in the book, that’s not exactly a deal breaker. Yes, you’ll know the plot of the story, you’ll know the ending, but even so you’ll be delighted to learn more about every characters background, their personalities, and the things that make them unique and important to the story; you might even meet new characters. Your approach will, more likely than not, be more forgiving towards the adaptation. After all, they aren’t ever perfect, right?
Moreover, you’ll be able to pick out all the little details that did make it into the adaptation. You’ll appreciate the hard work put into it just a bit more than you would have otherwise. You might even be grateful that the adaptation helped you discover the book in the first place. That is, if the people in charge of the adaptation don’t absolutely butcher the text-to-screen transition. In which case, I apologize for the heartbreak you must feel over the now massacred story.
Even so how wonderful to watch an adaptation and just know that, anytime you want, you can pick up the source material and enjoy the original story, as it was meant to be enjoyed.
