Book to Movie Adaptations- Are They Worth the Watch?
By Jack Fenner
For book lovers, hearing that their favorite novel might become a movie could strike fear into them immediately. Expecting a movie to not be as good as the book it’s based on, has become normal for most. While sometimes true, this is not always the case. Movies can most definitely be better but some make no changes from the novel at all and end up just being kind of…meh. Here are 3 movies for ‘the good,’ ‘the bad,’ and the just ‘meh.’
The Good: No Country for Old Men
For the most part, “No Country for Old Men” stays true to the novel it is based on. With only a few minor changes with the characters, one would be inclined to consider this movie a “meh” adaption if it wasn’t for the fantastically terrifying environment created in this film. This environment applied specifically well to the main antagonist, Anton Chigurh. He is a quiet but menacing hitman who is trying to hunt the main character because he took some money that Anton wanted for himself. The movie does a tremendous job highlighting this menacing nature through its sound design (or lack thereof). This movie also has no soundtrack, so when Anton comes into play and the dead silence follows him, it makes all of his decisions extremely unexpected. While the book was still good, this story was just meant to be shown on the big screen.
The Bad: A Series of Unfortunate Events
Talk about a letdown. I read these books for years over and over again. They were so creative and intriguing and I never put them down. I couldn’t find anything else as engaging as them when I was younger. It was just so different from everything else that it made me hope that Lemony Snicket would ensure I had enough of his books to read for a lifetime. When my parents told me that they made a movie out of them I was elated. I thought much like the books it would draw my attention like nothing else, but boy was I wrong. This movie lacked all the creativity that the books had and it tried to fit 3 of the books (which honestly all had enough to be their own movies) into it. It had also taken out some of the greatest parts from those books and changed up the story so much that it was almost unrecognizable. The books will undoubtedly stay some of my favorite reads but the movie disc should stay collecting dust in the back of the deep dark drawer it’s sitting in.
The “Meh”: The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games is one of the most popular books ever written in my lifetime. Its movie is also extremely popular and entertaining. The main reason this is “meh” is because of how little the movie and book differed from each other. In my opinion, what makes a great film adaption is its ability to take the setting and make it into something that even the creativity of our imaginations couldn’t make. In “The Hunger Games” everything done in the movie felt like just reading the book again. I don’t think either the movie or the book are bad, in fact I think both of them are great, but when I watch a film adaption of a great book I am just hoping for something that will make me look at the book in a different way.
The debate between books and their movies will likely never end. Most of the time there will never be a clear winner so go decide for yourself as there are many other great films and movies waiting to be watched and read.