From witches and wizards, to vampires, to elves, dwarves and hobbits, Hollywood has gotten a little less creative in terms of where they get their ideas. Many of today’s most popular film franchises are based on beloved books. Who would have thought that a few books about a dorky kid with glasses and magical powers would become the highest grossing movie series of all time? But for fans of the books, are these kinds of movies really satisfying?
Sophomore Alex Mustafaga doesn’t think so.
“I think they’re terrible, because when you read a book your imagination is way different than what the movie producers actually make,” he said.
While Mustafaga said he enjoys the “Lord of the Rings” films, most of the movies he’s seen based on his favorite books have not been up to par.
‘Harry Potter’ is a big one,” he said. “With the sixth movie [‘Half Blood Prince’], they rushed through a lot of important parts. It was not nearly as intense as the book.”
However, senior Katie Kinkaid disagreed, at least when it comes to Harry Potter.
“I thought the latest Harry Potter movie was excellent,” she said. “The plot was great. Dumbledore’s death and the emotion with it, and Voldemort’s rise to power were captured very well.”
Hot on “Harry Potter’s” trail both in terms of book sales and ticket sales, is Stephenie Meyer’s series of vampire romance novels, “Twilight.” The first film was released last fall to mixed reviews from students, and the second, “New Moon” premiered today.
“The first ‘Twilight’ movie disappointed me,” junior Kim Oakland said. “It seemed so much darker than the book. It wasn’t what I expected. I’m hoping the next one’s better.”
Kinkaid agreed.
“I’m a fan of the ‘Twilight’ series, though the first movie was disappointing,” she said. “I hope ‘New Moon’ is better, but I was just not too impressed with Kirsten Stewart’s acting.”
Kinkaid said innacuracy is her biggest pet peeve when it comes to these movies.
“What annoys me is unnecessary additions or them leaving a ton of stuff out,” she said. “I know they can’t include everything that happens in the books but it’s nice to see major details covered.”
Sophomore Jacob Marion agreed and said that while he enjoyed the movie version of “Watchmen” because of its close attention to detail, he hated “A Series of Unfortunate Events” based on the books by Lemony Snicket, because it disregarded the plot of the books.
“Directors and producers need to keep all of the events the same,” he said. “Not just the major ones, but the minor ones as well.”
Junior Maria Richards, however, said she does not mind when directors take more of a liberty with these movies.
“It’s neat to see the director’s perspective on the book, even if it’s not how I pictured it,” she said.
Richards recently saw the sixth ‘Harry Potter’ film and loved it, even though she said she noticed some of her friends were upset that it did not include everything.
“If you’re going to compare the movie to the book, of course you’re going to think it’s awful,” she said. “You can’t put all the good parts from a book into a movie.”
Author John Green, who is currently adapting his third novel ‘Paper Towns’ for the screen, would probably agree with Richards, judging from his blog post on movies based on books.
“I know that this is an unpopular position, and I’m happy to acknowledge that I might be wrong about it, but ultimately I’m not interested in movies retelling stories,” he said. “Like, when watching the ‘Harry Potter’ movies, I am always bored. I’ve already had a much richer experience imagining these characters doing and saying these same things. What I want from ‘Harry Potter’ movies are vastly different stories told in the same world, with different endings and the like. For instance, I would love it if in the last movie, Harry died.”
Green said that writing screenplays is a lot different than writing novels, considering he does not think that both a movie and book based on the same plot can capture the same idea.
“Nothing I’m writing now says anything about the book; I’m just trying to write something that will be fun and interesting to watch,” he said.