Movies based on books - a good thing or not?
- Kitkat3
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Re: Movies based on books - a good thing or not?
- DATo
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Regardless of the medium in which it is presented we all bring our own personal life experience to anything we interpret through our senses to art. For this reason most artists, filmmakers, and writers are reluctant to express their own interpretations and force the viewer or reader to form their own impressions, interpretations and conclusions. Personally I hate that. I would actually prefer to know what the creator of the work had in mind. But in regard to transitioning one medium to another, in my opinion when a writer or filmmaker creates a work which is intended to reflect the work of an artist in another medium and their efforts "connect" with the majority of readers or viewers then I would say they have succeeded.
Some books-to-movies which filled this criteria to my satisfaction and currently come to mind are: The Godfather, To Kill A Mockingbird, and The Hunger Games. In each of these films I feel the moviemaking franchise perfectly adapted the book in all its aspects to the movie. Obviously for the sake of economy and viewing time many things must be deleted from the movie version, but in each of the examples I've given above I feel that the movie's interpretation was excellently, if not perfectly, rendered.
Now Kitkat3, here is where i might surprise you - I had actually read the books: The Godfather and To Kill A Mockingbird before I saw the movies and yet the movie characters were absolutely perfect representations of the characters I imagined in my mind when reading the books; conversely, I had seen the movie, The Hunger Games first and yet when I read the book and came to parts which had not been included in the movie I honestly thought (while reading the book) that I had seen these scenes in the movie.
So to sum up - I don't think there are any hard and fast rules regarding movie first or book first, I just think that if the people making the transition to the other medium know their business and are talented enough the transition will be seamless.
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― Steven Wright
- Katherine Smith
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the more time we read the more our expectations grow.
- simon joseph
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But when it comes to context delivery question it is beyond doubt that movies can not convey the context that has been covered by the book I watched Lot of such movies and non of them delivered the book context at least by 70%
I would always recommend a book over a movie when it comes to context delivery and which context delivery is the most important part when I read a book , I will strongly say movies based on novels good business idea but not a realistic way of understanding what the book and the author covered
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LOTR movies are better than the books to me, but the Hobbit was so much better as a book. Harry Potter is amazing either way. One of the books that I read this year was Warm Bodies. The book was great, but the film brought something a little more interesting to the characters. The changes they made were intelligent and turned the story into a wonderfully identifiable visual adaptation.
I don't think there is a definitive answer that I can give, but I enjoyed the topic.
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