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May 3, 2010
Marcy Shieh
The book is always better than the movie. With that cruel mindset, devoted readers will never give the movie its fair chance. Movies can be visual and mindless. Books are a little more cerebral.
Of course, people tend to forget that some of the most revered films ever made, Gone with the Wind, The Godfather, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, just to name a few, were adapted from novels.
Harry Potter started the fantasy series to film phenomenon by grossing billions in the international box-office. While passionate fans may complain about the lack of details or how the two to three hour time frame does not cover enough of J.K. Rowling’s captivating, magical universe, the films are, at the very least, quite entertaining. However, the soon-to-be-released two-part adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a desperate idea. Yes, the fans got their wish: This will be the most detailed adaptation of a Harry Potter book.
Speaking of lightning rod teen phenomenons, there is also the Twilight series. The films are loyal to the novels, though some fans claim that the scenes are not exactly as they imagined it to be. Each film-maker has his own vision and are determined to fulfill their own visions.
“The movies are too jumpy and I think the character development is better in the books,” senior Kelly Mcginnis said.
Yet teenagers are curious people who have all the time in the world to spend their Friday nights watching something that they predict will suck.
Not surprisingly, recent adult fiction has had their struggles in movie land as well.
The Da Vinci Code, the controversial New York Times Bestseller, is the kind of film that cannot be conventionally adapted onto screen without being a didactic mess, despite its box-office success. Ron Howard is too much of a straight-edge director to ever make The Da Vinci Code the suspenseful screen roller coaster that it deserves to be. That simple fact does not stop the film from being boring.
Nicholas Sparks has undeniably entered the forefront of modern cinema. Sparks’ films seem to attract great talents, yet no matter how pretty the faces and beaches are, they end up being obnoxiously sentimental. Some argue that the books are more detailed and less shallow than the glossy movies.
“When you’re reading [the Sparks books], you can kind of hold back the urge to assume or predict because you’re actually waiting for it to happen. With the movies, it just happens,” senior Shobana Anbazhagan said.
Anbazhagan is surely not alone. She speaks for millions of bookworms who yearn for the build-up and surprise on screen, despite the fact that they already know how it ends.