If you have ever read a popular novel or books series, there is probably a movie that is based off of it. The reason popular novels often become movies is because they already have a fan base, the storyline is already developed and it is extremely easy to market the movie. Sometimes, these attempts to recreate the storyline of the book are major successes, and other times they are huge failures. One thing I do not enjoy about movie portrayals of books are that they can change the way you imagine the book’s characters, because while books leave much to the imagination, movies do not. (Warning: there may be spoilers in the book-movie comparisons).
Twilight: The novels became popular quickly due to the epic love story and supernatural world whose main character is made out to be a ordinary girl put into extraordinary circumstances. Though the storyline may be appealing, I found that Stephenie Meyer’s writing skills to be lacking. In my opinion, it definitely became a big seller because of the storyline, not the skills and technique used to present the story. However, I still found the books enjoyable, that was, until the movies came out. Even though the shirtless werewolves may be nice to look at, it still doesn’t cover up the awkwardness of the interactions and romance between Robert Pattinson (Edward) and Kristen Stewart (Bella). Scenes that were supposed to be serious were sometimes made very humorous because of this awkwardness – even though Pattinson and Stewart are a real-life couple! For example, when Bella discovers she’s pregnant in the fourth movie, her reaction was found extremely funny by the theatre audience. The movies destroyed whatever I found enjoyable in the book and I recommend that if you have not seen the movies yet, don’t bother to see them; stick with the books.
Princess Bride: The book was written and the movie was produced quite a few years ago (book 1973, movie 1987), but I loved both. I liked the fact that the movie and book were so similar that it seemed almost as if the book was used as the script for the movie. What I did not like about the book was the author liked to go on tangents where he would go on for pages and pages describing things like a character’s wardrobe and other pointless details. For this reason and because I had watched the movie many times before reading the book, I like the movie slightly better. I also think the sense of humor of the characters work better viewed in a movie than written in a book. As many people have noticed, the visual effects used in the movie are not that great and it is criticized because of this, but the plot, humor, action, characters and romance are done so well I overlook the poor visual effects.
Lord of the Rings: The books and movies were both AMAZING. The books were extremely well written and no other author has been able to create such a realistic universe. Tolkien’s writing style provided so much detail of the universe in such a way it just flowed with the action and the story. I find many authors unable to do that without sounding dry. The movies changed and left out many things of the books because of the constraint of having to fit each novel into only a few hours, but they did this extremely well. They didn’t stray too far from the books and the choices of actors to portray the characters were very well chosen. I was really happy to find that much of the dialogue and quotes from the book are used in the movie and incorporated into it quite well. One big difference I noticed was how Lord of the Rings ended; while the movies moved straight on from destroying the ring to the land living happily ever after, the books were a lot more realistic where they described the damage inflicted on the land by the war and the measures taken to repair it. The movie producers did well in taking this out of the movies because though it may be interesting in books, on screen it wouldn’t have been. I liked the book better than the movie because of the detail that the book provided that the movie could not, but this is one of the best books to movies adaptations I have seen.
Stardust: In the case of Stardust, I liked the movie much more. The book is very serious, dark and the main characters are harder to connect with. The witch is much more pathetic. There is a lot more action in the movie; the main characters are more lovable and the movie takes a lighter and more humorous spin on the novel. Mainly, I liked the movie better because of the way it ended, which was significantly different than the book. I don’t want to spoil it too much, but let’s just say I like happy endings.
Harry Potter: I definitely liked the books better than the movies but I still found the movies pretty good. There was more action and more description of school life between the action scenes in the book than the movies (especially in the seventh book) and also there are parts in the movies that are confusing unless you have read the books. The only movie I found disappointing was the seventh (part 1 and 2). I didn’t enjoy the first part as much as I thought I would, and I was expecting the big finale of the second part to be more exciting. The movies are very worthwhile to see, unlike the Twilight saga, and they don’t ruin the way I imagine the characters in the books.
Eragon: I loved the book but I hated the movie. I liked the book so much due to the fact that it reminded me a lot of Lord of the Rings and The Dragon riders of Pern, which was probably where the author found a lot of his inspiration. The movie did horrible job of interpreting the book and thus the reason why no second movie was made. The movie might have been okay if I hadn’t read the book but I still wouldn’t have considered it a “good” movie. It was a very poor movie for such a great book.