The book is better than the movie. That’s a phrase we all know and love to use. And, usually, in a lot of ways, it is the case. However, to dismiss the movie or tv show as a poor adaptation of the book downplays the merits the movie has on its own standing. And that’s not entirely fair to do. This week, I’m going to talk a little bit about why we should all try to judge movie adaptations of books on their own merits.
We’re all used to discussing the movie or tv versions of a beloved series in terms of the books themselves. Often times, fans of a series are completely and utterly disappointed when a movie or tv version comes out, for a variety of different reasons. Different scenes get cut out, casting decisions are made that the fans don’t agree with, and so on and so forth.
A fair amount of people have readily dismissed a movie adaptation of a book they love because it was too far from the books. For example, the movie version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was, at least according to almost all of my friends in high school, the worst of the Harry Potter movies. So many people disliked it. It also happened to be the movie that took the most liberties from the books.
I personally, really liked Order of the Phoenix, both as a movie and as a book. The creative liberties taken in the screenplay, to me, worked really well in the movie.
It is a universal truth that movie or tv adaptations of books are always going to be different than the original books. They have to be. There are all kinds of possibilities allowed for in the books that don’t always translate well to the screen. Things sometimes have to get changed or altered slightly, to make the transition from a written universe to a filmed one.
Take for example, the recent Hunger Games movie. The book is entirely from Katniss’ perspective. You’re in her head the entire time. The movie, however, goes back and forth from Katniss to the Gamemakers, to the people back in District 12. And I honestly think that adds an element to the movie that the books are incapable of having. Seeing multiple perspectives, if done properly, has the opportunity to do a lot for establishing the universe.
Another example of increasing perspective, perhaps in a less popular way (at least, less popular with die hard fans of the book series) would be the TV show “True Blood.” The TV show is able to shift the focus from being purely on Sookie all the time, to being able to show multiple perspectives. A TV show would get really boring, really quickly if it only focused on the same character for the entirety of the series.
Sometimes, filmmakers will change and twist certain plot elements, blend certain characters together, or leave out certain things. The filmmakers of Golden Compass left off the ending of the movie, with the hope of getting enough interest for sequels of the movies (well, we all know how that worked out…). This can be incredibly frustrating to fans, as we expect things to be a certain way. But more often than not, the plot elements that get changed are done so to make things easier on the film, or to fit the filmmaker’s plans for the film. A good example of this would be Peter Jackson’s decisions to leave out Tom Bombadil from the Lord of the Rings movies.
What’s most important when judging a movie version of a book, is to judge it as that–a movie. If you go into the movie expecting it to not be a carbon copy of the book, you’ll be much happier. The Lord of the Rings movies are still incredibly enjoyable, even if they don’t have every single detail from the books. They’re good movies. And that’s really all that should matter.
One should not dismiss or write off a movie adaptation as terrible just because it’s not an exact copy of the book. Instead, evaluate it as a movie. If changes were made, do they make sense with the rest of the film? A movie adaptation can still be enjoyable even if it isn’t the best adaptation in the world. Remember that you have your mental version of the universe in question, and the filmmakers have theirs as well. And it’s perfectly acceptable, and in most cases normal, for their interpretations to not match up with yours.
My boyfriend probably said it best, “Lord of the Rings is J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece. The Lord of the Rings movies are Peter Jackson’s.”
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