05 Sep 2011 No Comments
Books to Movies: Good Idea or Bad?
I love reading and I love movies so it would seem like a great idea to have more books make the trip from page to screen, but is it good or bad that Hollywood now seems to prefer using the ideas of authors instead of coming up with ideas of their own?
All you have to do is take a look at some of the upcoming film titles to see that books-to-movies is the hottest trend in Hollywood these days.
- The Hunger Games (based on the novel by Suzanne Collins)
- Admission (based on the novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz)
- Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith)
- Odd Thomas (based on the novel by Dean Koontz)
- The Hobbit (based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien)
And of course, we can’t forget the movies that I feel had a strong hand in starting Hollywood’s love affair with books, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Parts 1 and 2.
I know it’s not all Twilight’s fault, though. The Harry Potter series brought J.K. Rowling’s magic to the big screen and The Hobbit was a natural pick for Tinsel Town after the Lord of the Rings trilogy introduced Tolkien to people who would have never considered picking up the books.
Still, can Hollywood magic compare to the power of our own imagination? Stephen King once said, while talking about horror movies, that a movie could never have the raw impact of a book because the monster on the screen always has a zipper in his suit. While I believe that was 100% accurate at the time, CGI now removes that zipper. No matter how close you look, you won’t find any zippers on Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
However, it’s not all about zippers. Fans of The Hunger Games took to the web and voiced their displeasure when they discovered that Jennifer Lawrence had been selected to play Katniss Everdeen. Why? Because Lawrence might be a great actress but she didn’t match the mental image people had of Katniss. The same type of outcry occurred when Robert Pattinson snagged the role of Edward Cullen.
Twilight fans got over their initial resentment of Pattinson as Cullen. Will they do the same for Lawrence as Katniss?
Finally, my biggest concern is about the effect on children. It’s no secret that a lot of kids just don’t like to read. Will it be harder to entice them with a great story since they’ll have the option of waiting for it to hit the theaters or will the movies inspire them to pick up the books? And if they do pick up the book, will Katniss be a character they create with their imagination or will she look a lot like Jennifer Lawrence in their minds?
Personally, I love movies that are based on books because, in my opinion, the two experiences are totally isolated. There were whole subplots removed from the Harry Potter films so the movies were like seeing a different version of the same story. But does everyone feel that way or does one take away some of the magic from the other?
What’s your opinion on books being turned into movies?
