Books as Movies | Literary Escapism
Filed Under (Books) by myjaxon on 04-06-2008
Books as Movies | Literary Escapism
I just finished Twilight and with all the hype that the movie version is getting, I’m starting to get a little worried about the movie. The novel was really good, so good that I went out bought the second novel, that I’m afraid that the movie won’t be as good. I’m a fan of the Harry Potter books and not all of those movies have been good to date. The third one (Prisoner of Azahban) was horrendous in my opinion. They left out or changed so much that it seemed like I spent the movie trying to figure out what they left out then enjoying it. Don’t get me wrong, the characters were great, but they butchered the novel. Could this happen with Twilight?
I think the problem with making books into movies is that fans tend to get a specific….vision of the book in their head and the film industry can’t compete with it. There’s no way to take everyone’s idea of who looks like what and all of the events and still make it an entertaining movie. Or at least something that will make money. Plus, there is definitely a difference between reading a scene and watching it play out. You can never get as descriptive in a movie as one can in a book. Everything doesn’t always match up in my opinion. Again, it goes back to that idea that everyone imagines the book differently.
So what does everyone else think? Are there movie versions of books that are good or have they completely flopped? Why do you think it’s hard to translate a book into film?
Tonight I took a drive to Ann Arbor and saw Laurell K Hamilton. My husband, Ian and I all went down there and waited for three hours so she would sign my two books. You heard right, she is so popular, that they started handing out wrist bands at 9am this morning and they alternated colors instead of doing numbers. Ever 50 bands, they changed colors. When I got there at 5pm (she was due to start at 6pm), they were on their third set of colors and I heard there was a total of 5 colors given out. That means there were over 250 people who drove out in rainy weather (did I mention we were getting hit with rain all afternoon and evening), who took the time to wait in line, to see her. I have to say, I knew she was going to have a bit more of a crowd than Kim Harrison, but I definitely wasn’t expecting this kind of showing. I really shouldn’t be surprised, but I think Jesse was. After two hours of waiting aroudn with me (and Ian running around the store), they decided to use the portable DVD player for the first time and watched the Muppets out in the car.
Laurell was actually really open when it came to answering questions. She took questions for about 20 minutes before she started signing books, but about 2 hours in, she ended up having to ice her arm because it was starting to crap. Instead of waiting around with nothing to do, she took more questions and these were kind of interesting. I didn’t get there in time to catch the first Q&A session, but the second one was good. I ended up meeting someone there who was filming it and she said she would email me the video clips, do we’ll see if I can get them. I haven’t been able to find my camera cord, but once I do (and get the pics from my cousin), I’ll add them to the post.
