Young Writers Society

I haven't read lots of books. Most of them I didn't like. But I've liked enough of them, which would give me the right to write! Sometimes, books are made into movies. And sometimes, it seems like the movies ruin the books. Movies and books are totally different. If a movie is based on a book, don't think that the movie has the same story line. Nor it has the same characters! Because like I said, a movie definitely ruins a book.
One of my favorite books is "Ella Enchanted" . Written by Gail Carson Levine. The book was published in 1997 and a movie was produced in 2004. Although I love the movie, it is probably the most obvious example I've seen. It is an example of a book being turned into a movie, and the movie being extremely different. In the movie, there are new characters that weren't in the book. Moreover, some characters were portrayed completely different than in the book. In addition to the important details which have been left out and the new plot which has been added.Talk about the movie being different than it's book!
Never produce a film based on a book! If you're going to change events, then why bother not giving the movie it's own title?!! There are many other movies that can make books look bad. Some people are just fed up from being totally into a book and it's story then suddenly finding it has been ruined by some movie! Well Of course there are some books which are represented well by it's movies, but there are some which aren't! That leaves us to just wonder. Will producers follow the book's story or make extreme changes?!

I fear I may have to disagree with you.

I suppose you are correct with Ella Enchanted, but the fact is that that movie didn't have all that great of reviews because of the fact it was hardly anything like the book. Simply speaking, it was a bit Disney-ized to make for a better motion picture. It would be a rather boring movie if not.

So, what I'm going to say is that generally speaking, all movies created from books follow along the same story line with the same characters. Simply speaking, its a condensed version so added characters are only introduced to speed time, if anything else. And yes, this may be annoying if you've read the said books but there is no point throwing the baby out with the bath water on this one. There have been great movies based off of books such as The Shawshank Redemption or Interview with the Vampire. In fact, most movies are based off of books.

That being said, a motion picture version of a book can't be exact and won't be exact simply because it would not make all that much sense. Dialogue in books may seem lifelike while you read it but when it boils down to it, its the farthest thing from lifelike.

And the last point I want to make concerns you statement that you have the right to write. Everyone, no matter the person, has a right to write whether and avid reader or not. Reading can help but it is not the only clause to write. For instance, I start writing after I finished reading Airborn in my Grade 7 year. It had been the first novel I ever completely read through on my own as I was horrible at such things as language arts and vocabulary. As of now, I'm an avid reader and have read quite a could classics to boot including some lovely pieces of epic poetry.

So, I suppose it generally boils down to perspective. Writing because you love reading or writing because you have a story to tell.

~Walker

Never say never is all I have to say. The most recent film adaptations of Lord of the Rings were pretty darned great, even though they deviated from the books. And while those deviations really irk a lot of fans of the books, there are always reasons for them, and in the case of the Lord of the Rings movies, the reasons were pretty solid. Books and movies are different forms of media, so they need to be judged accordingly. It's impossible to make a movie exactly like a book, but if the movie overall holds true to the original book's themes, tone, or intentions, then I'd say the movie is just a different perspective on the same story.

I do have to agree with you that if a movie isn't going to hold true to the original books, the movie should not be made. For instance, I can't stand Miyazaki's version of Howl's Moving Castle because, while it started out true to the story, it went off into some crazy direction that just didn't fit with the themes and characters of the original book.

So yeah. Rather than generalize that no movies should be made from books, it'd be better to just say that all movies that have no intention of staying true to the original should not be made.