What makes a good film adaptation of a book? With book to film adaptations, do you prefer to see movies or shows? What are your favorite adaptations? Your least favorites? What upcoming ones are you most excited for?
Book adaptions, they can be a hit or a miss, and I am always very anxious when I see a book is being converted to a movie or a series. Let’s just go through a few of them:
The Hunger Games era is what I call this one, it was when The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner and Twilight were converted to movies. It was a big happening in the world, the movies were very popular and the books too! I’ve been a reader from the moment I could read, and that was pretty early, so I read the books before seeing the movies. And I liked it. I liked how they could pick important book events and just make a story. What I did teach myself to do, was see the movies as a different story to the books. A book has a lot of pages, and a film only has so many screen time, they have to fit the story in there some way, right? So, I did fall in love again with Katniss and cried about Rue, just as hard as I did when I read the books. Because I could relive the story once more.
Since the popularity of the previous named books, companies tried to get on with this success. They tried Vampire Academy for example (and tried again). I loved the movie, but I feel like the movie was marketed all wrong. People didn’t want another twilight, and VA was not, but they did market the movie that way. So we will never have the rest of the books in the way of the movie. Another great title is City of Bones. I loved the movie, but after the first they did not continue. They did, however, put both books into a series. It felt a bit different, because different actors and different elements, but all in all I loved it.
The problem with series is that we, as viewers, always want more. We love some series so much that the eposides need to keep coming. Even if the books aren’t written yet. So series take a spin of their own. This is the part where it’s important to let go of the books and just see them as a different story. The Vampire Diaries is a very good example of this one. Just to give you an inside view: In the book, Elena doesn’t have a brother but a sister. Jeremy is never there. In the series, he is a big part of the story. I must be honest, when I started the show, I did not know there were books. When I found out, I immediately started reading too, but the show wasn’t finished yet so it confused me a lot. Don’t read a book series about the same characters as in the books. It will confuse you and make sure you put one of them down.
Book to movie or book to series adaptions haven’t been that popular now. There will be a series based on A Good Girls Guide to Murder, and ACOTAR. Also, Fourth Wing has been picked up. Am I scared? YES. Will I watch these series and movies the moment they are there? ALSO YES. Will I judge? HELL YEAH.
Comments