Adaptions
Books have a disease that cannot be cured. The disease grows every year. It has ruined many books but some books rise above this disease and seem to take on a life of their own. These books are obviously wonderful.
What is this disease?
Well, if you've read the title of the blog, you'll know it's adaptions, as in book-to-movie adaptions. Now, this isn't a horrible, horrible disease. As I've said, sometimes the book manages to rise above the adaption and remain a great book that people read. Other books... fall by the wayside and are forgotten while the adaption lives on usually tainting the modern view of said book beyond repair.
Today I saw an adaption of a book, S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. Now, the book itself is pretty interesting because it was published when S.E. Hinton was fifteen which is an amazing accomplishment. More amazing because very few people write anything worth publishing at fiften let alone something that become a classic forcing generations that follow to read it. I was forced to read The Outsiders in seventh grade. I read it faster than anyone else in my class (practically overnight if I recall properly) and then I watched the movie.
Now, I remember the book and movie being fairly different, but not foam-at-the-mouth different. Just... different. Watching the movie, though, I realized something... I couldn't remember the book or the bits that were different! I had the movie in front of me, playing and I couldn't remember the book.
This... is bad.
Beyond bad.
Because to get the book back, I have to reread it and my list of books to read is reaching critical. I have yet to finish John Dies at the End (which will get a review on this blog). I need to finish House of Leaves. If I don't sit down and read The Giver like a good little girl, I have two people who will continue to harp at me until I do. My grandmother has also given me a new book to read, but if I don't read it, she won't harp; I'll just feel the lasting guilt of it like and itch that can't be scratched. I really want to get around to finishing Trigun. And, to top it all off, I've got several occult books and sociology texts and a book about Joseph Campbel that I want to finish.
I don't have time to read The Outsiders so I can compare it to the movie, but I did have two hours earlier to watch the movie for the first time in years.
And that's why turning books into movies is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good because you can sit and watch a movie adaption in two hours and hopefully remember the book or get something close to the book. It's bad if the movie adaption is a terrible adaption and therefore mutates the book in your mind forever. As most movie adaptions aren't very good, it's more of a bad thing than a good thing.
Savvy?
It's like... Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. I'm not sure why Mansfield Park is one of my favorite books; I think it's because it's watching a girl slowly grow into her own and get what she wants by doing so, but I'm not sure. I do know I've read that book more than I've read most of Jane Austen's books and I rather like it a lot. In my opinion, the movie adaptions just don't cut it. They try to make Fanny a stronger female lead and that doesn't cut it with me. The point for me is that she is weak and she gradually grows a backbone and becomes strong. Not the same kind of strong as other people, but still strong in her own way. You can't grow something you already have. It doesn't work that way!
But, no one wants to pick up a farty old Jane Austen novel when the movie adaption is floating around being a conveniet two or so hours long. They're going to watch the gosh darned movie and then they're going to wonder what's so great about it. It's just like every other romantic story except the heroine marries her cousin which is squicky anyhow.
A Note to Readers: Regency Era was... different from modern times in a lot of ways. Kissing Cousins wasn't a big thing.
Now, sometimes this doesn't happen. Sometimes, someone genuinely cares about the book being adapted. Sometimes we get a Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, but that's rare and people cared a lot less about the Harry Potter books as they were adapted. Anyone else notice the drop in quality as the movies wore on?
Even Lord of the Rings cut out the most fascinating character ever. Tom Bombadil, I salute you!
However, anyone who's ever seen the movie and not even attempted to read the book wouldn't know a thing about poor Tom. That makes me sad.
...On the other hand, to watch all the movies, you have to sit for 9+ butt-numbing hours. That means reading the books might, just might be a better thing to do. I think that bodes well for books, though. If the movies are too lengthy, the books are saved from the disease! Yeay!!!
Too bad someone will come along and try to make a shorter film... Boo!!!
Then there's stuff like The Wizard of Oz which has the MGM musical movie, the movie Return to Oz, the movie The Witches of Oz, Gregory Maguire's Wicked, the musical based on Wicked, an upcoming miniseries adaption of Wicked, an upcoming film adaption of the musical, and I'm pretty sure there was a TV series based on the original book series as well. Wizard of Oz has risen above the disease and somehow made its way into the Hall of Awesome by dint of being old, easily adaptable and in the public domain.
Treasure Island and Peter Pan have somehow managed a similar thing.
What do these three things have in common? Well, they all are ostensibly intended from children. They all are fairly old and probably in the public domain at least partially (I think Peter Pan is owned by an orphanage). And they're all things people grow up with and everyone knows that people will go very far for nostalgia. Afterall, why else would people watch those Rankin and Bass Christmas movies every year?
It still doesn't solve my problem. I still can't remember every detail of The Outsiders. I still can't find a good Mansfield Park adaption. People still want to insert a plot into poor Alice in Wonderland (the proof that nostalgia isn't everything). I'm still terrified of the upcoming Great Gatsby adaption and looking forward with the anticipation of a hungry puppy. Nothing changes except that more and more books are receiving movie adaptions. I'd protest, but it's worth keeping them for those very few exceptions to the rule. The adaptions that do succeed at turning the book into an excellent movie that radiates the soul and story of the book.
That's what I want to see. I want to see The Princess Bride. I want to see hundreds of adaptions like that dancing congas around every cinema in the world. I never want to see and Mansfield Park or a Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban or a Man in the Iron Mask EVER AGAIN!!!
It makes me feel filthy and it gives people a bad impression of what the original book was about. I mean, that's why they adapt books to cinema in the first place isn't it? So that people can enjoy the book and it's message in a new medium. Those films listed? They didn't do that. I can get changing a detail or two to be more cinematically correct, but when I'm reading the last Harry Potter book and my mind thinks of how they could do the who Talking the Villain to Death routine in a movie so that there's action and everyone's in the rubble that was once the Great Hall of Hogwarts and it's epic and wonderful ...and then I go to see the movie and it's nothing like that... I get a little miffed. Then I get pissed. Then I never want to see that again.
I mean, the straight book version would have been boring on screen. I'll admit that in a heartbeat. However, the pure action and them... what? Teleporting around and doing a laser light show at eachother with the wands? That's exciting? To who? A five-year-old? I want talking and fighting in a place where there's stakes where throwing a curse wrong might hit your friend. That's more engaging to me. If you don't agree, I'm sorry.
You have bad taste.
And that's not even the worst of it. That's just something that I think everyone can relate to.
Of course, John Dies at the End is getting a movie adaption too.
I'm going to end this post before I get too depressed.
Here's to the good movie adaptions of books!
Sweet Dreams.
What is this disease?
Well, if you've read the title of the blog, you'll know it's adaptions, as in book-to-movie adaptions. Now, this isn't a horrible, horrible disease. As I've said, sometimes the book manages to rise above the adaption and remain a great book that people read. Other books... fall by the wayside and are forgotten while the adaption lives on usually tainting the modern view of said book beyond repair.
Today I saw an adaption of a book, S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. Now, the book itself is pretty interesting because it was published when S.E. Hinton was fifteen which is an amazing accomplishment. More amazing because very few people write anything worth publishing at fiften let alone something that become a classic forcing generations that follow to read it. I was forced to read The Outsiders in seventh grade. I read it faster than anyone else in my class (practically overnight if I recall properly) and then I watched the movie.
Now, I remember the book and movie being fairly different, but not foam-at-the-mouth different. Just... different. Watching the movie, though, I realized something... I couldn't remember the book or the bits that were different! I had the movie in front of me, playing and I couldn't remember the book.
This... is bad.
Beyond bad.
Because to get the book back, I have to reread it and my list of books to read is reaching critical. I have yet to finish John Dies at the End (which will get a review on this blog). I need to finish House of Leaves. If I don't sit down and read The Giver like a good little girl, I have two people who will continue to harp at me until I do. My grandmother has also given me a new book to read, but if I don't read it, she won't harp; I'll just feel the lasting guilt of it like and itch that can't be scratched. I really want to get around to finishing Trigun. And, to top it all off, I've got several occult books and sociology texts and a book about Joseph Campbel that I want to finish.
I don't have time to read The Outsiders so I can compare it to the movie, but I did have two hours earlier to watch the movie for the first time in years.
And that's why turning books into movies is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good because you can sit and watch a movie adaption in two hours and hopefully remember the book or get something close to the book. It's bad if the movie adaption is a terrible adaption and therefore mutates the book in your mind forever. As most movie adaptions aren't very good, it's more of a bad thing than a good thing.
Savvy?
It's like... Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. I'm not sure why Mansfield Park is one of my favorite books; I think it's because it's watching a girl slowly grow into her own and get what she wants by doing so, but I'm not sure. I do know I've read that book more than I've read most of Jane Austen's books and I rather like it a lot. In my opinion, the movie adaptions just don't cut it. They try to make Fanny a stronger female lead and that doesn't cut it with me. The point for me is that she is weak and she gradually grows a backbone and becomes strong. Not the same kind of strong as other people, but still strong in her own way. You can't grow something you already have. It doesn't work that way!
But, no one wants to pick up a farty old Jane Austen novel when the movie adaption is floating around being a conveniet two or so hours long. They're going to watch the gosh darned movie and then they're going to wonder what's so great about it. It's just like every other romantic story except the heroine marries her cousin which is squicky anyhow.
A Note to Readers: Regency Era was... different from modern times in a lot of ways. Kissing Cousins wasn't a big thing.
Now, sometimes this doesn't happen. Sometimes, someone genuinely cares about the book being adapted. Sometimes we get a Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, but that's rare and people cared a lot less about the Harry Potter books as they were adapted. Anyone else notice the drop in quality as the movies wore on?
Even Lord of the Rings cut out the most fascinating character ever. Tom Bombadil, I salute you!
However, anyone who's ever seen the movie and not even attempted to read the book wouldn't know a thing about poor Tom. That makes me sad.
...On the other hand, to watch all the movies, you have to sit for 9+ butt-numbing hours. That means reading the books might, just might be a better thing to do. I think that bodes well for books, though. If the movies are too lengthy, the books are saved from the disease! Yeay!!!
Too bad someone will come along and try to make a shorter film... Boo!!!
Then there's stuff like The Wizard of Oz which has the MGM musical movie, the movie Return to Oz, the movie The Witches of Oz, Gregory Maguire's Wicked, the musical based on Wicked, an upcoming miniseries adaption of Wicked, an upcoming film adaption of the musical, and I'm pretty sure there was a TV series based on the original book series as well. Wizard of Oz has risen above the disease and somehow made its way into the Hall of Awesome by dint of being old, easily adaptable and in the public domain.
Treasure Island and Peter Pan have somehow managed a similar thing.
What do these three things have in common? Well, they all are ostensibly intended from children. They all are fairly old and probably in the public domain at least partially (I think Peter Pan is owned by an orphanage). And they're all things people grow up with and everyone knows that people will go very far for nostalgia. Afterall, why else would people watch those Rankin and Bass Christmas movies every year?
It still doesn't solve my problem. I still can't remember every detail of The Outsiders. I still can't find a good Mansfield Park adaption. People still want to insert a plot into poor Alice in Wonderland (the proof that nostalgia isn't everything). I'm still terrified of the upcoming Great Gatsby adaption and looking forward with the anticipation of a hungry puppy. Nothing changes except that more and more books are receiving movie adaptions. I'd protest, but it's worth keeping them for those very few exceptions to the rule. The adaptions that do succeed at turning the book into an excellent movie that radiates the soul and story of the book.
That's what I want to see. I want to see The Princess Bride. I want to see hundreds of adaptions like that dancing congas around every cinema in the world. I never want to see and Mansfield Park or a Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban or a Man in the Iron Mask EVER AGAIN!!!
It makes me feel filthy and it gives people a bad impression of what the original book was about. I mean, that's why they adapt books to cinema in the first place isn't it? So that people can enjoy the book and it's message in a new medium. Those films listed? They didn't do that. I can get changing a detail or two to be more cinematically correct, but when I'm reading the last Harry Potter book and my mind thinks of how they could do the who Talking the Villain to Death routine in a movie so that there's action and everyone's in the rubble that was once the Great Hall of Hogwarts and it's epic and wonderful ...and then I go to see the movie and it's nothing like that... I get a little miffed. Then I get pissed. Then I never want to see that again.
I mean, the straight book version would have been boring on screen. I'll admit that in a heartbeat. However, the pure action and them... what? Teleporting around and doing a laser light show at eachother with the wands? That's exciting? To who? A five-year-old? I want talking and fighting in a place where there's stakes where throwing a curse wrong might hit your friend. That's more engaging to me. If you don't agree, I'm sorry.
You have bad taste.
And that's not even the worst of it. That's just something that I think everyone can relate to.
Of course, John Dies at the End is getting a movie adaption too.
I'm going to end this post before I get too depressed.
Here's to the good movie adaptions of books!
Sweet Dreams.
Have u seen the trailer to JDATE yet? It looks like it is actually going to be pretty damn close to the book. I'm super excited!
ReplyDeleteJust watched the trailer to John Dies at the End. Okay... I think we may be getting a good adaption with that one AT LEAST. Here's hoping. It looks awesome no matter what though.
ReplyDelete