I love it when books are turned into films. When stories that have only come to life on the page get the chance to come to life on the screen, I’m sure an angel gets its wings.
Whenever I hear a book that I love is being made into a movie, though, I immediately get anxious as to what the end result will be. Will the characters be the same? What if the writers take liberties with the plot? Will the book’s themes remain intact?
Recently the movie trailer for one of my favorite books came out. I stayed up ‘til Midnight with our very own Jill Williamson to watch it (I was giddy and she was nearly drooling on her keyboard).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrJQDPpIK6I]
After watching the trailer I got really excited to see the movie. If left me with a sense of wonder and adventure, which is exactly what the book left me with. The only thing that put a damper on my enthusiasm was the addition of the two older Pevensie children at the end, because they weren’t in the book. I’ll reserve my opinions, though.
We’ll find out if the movie is faithful to the book on December 10th, when The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is released in theaters nationwide in 2-D and 3-D.
What do you think of books being turned into movies? Do you usually like the outcome? Let me know in the comments!
I like it when books are turned into movies. I don’t like it when the writers go to town and completely change the plot. It seems the only reason they turn a book into a movie sometimes is to put a popular title on a movie vaugely similar to the book.
But when a movie stays loyal to the book, I enjoy it. I love seeing the characters come to life on the screen, the universes of the stories created in a visual image for immense crowds. it’s just when the movies are nowhere near the books that I’m dissapointed.
I agree! I thought the trailer looked awesome. I hate to admit it, but I haven’t read any of the Narnia books. (Cringing and ducking) But I’ve enjoyed the movies.
I love to see books turned into movies. It gives me hope that my book might be a movie some day! (Ha)
Seriously, some of my favorite books-turned-movies are The Princess Bride, Because of Winn-Dixie, Little Women (love the version with Winona Ryder), National Velvet (I actually was never able to get into that book, but the movie is AWESOME!)
Out of the books, I feared the most for this one becoming a movie. Because like the ones before it, there’s no big battle scene for a grand climax. As a matter of fact, the book doesn’t really have a traditional climax. Lots of cool things happen on the trip, but then it just sort of ends with reaching the “end” and the three returning to their time/land.
I noticed in the trailer that once again, they are going to bring the White Witch back to play in this somehow, even though she doesn’t appear in the book (that I recall). It looks cool and I’ll be excited to see it, but I hope they don’t really change the plot simply to add in a big climax that doesn’t exist in the book. But they’ll need to do something like that, I think, to satisfy the average movie goer.
I love books turned into movies! It’s great when they stay true to the book’s plot line. Sometimes, the movie is even better. (Not often, but once in a while.)
With all the special effects now, movies really can create those worlds we love to live in.
Don’t feel bad, Melanie! I started reading the Magician’s Nephew, but it didn’t grab me. Yet, the Chronicles movies…oh my. Love them!
My favorite book to movie is Lord of the Rings. I even play the video game. I am pretty good at the second one-The Two Towers-the first video game is kinda cheesy, and the third is waaaaay too hard for me! But the second? AWESOME!
I’ve loved the Chronicles movies so far. I even enjoyed the BBC versions from years ago. Our family watched them together and then discussed what was different about the books vs. the movies.
We were pleasantly surprised that the Peter Jackson LOTR set were so close to the original books.
We were quite disappointed in the Eragon movie – it just fell flat. Didn’t mention Roran’s wife or anything, and the whole second book was wrapped around her plight and Roran going to rescue her. And the plight of their original hometown.
I realize epic books can’t have everything from them dropped into a movie or they’d take days to watch. But that move left little room for a sequel movie.
Usually, if we watch a movie and then read the book, we’re happy both ways – the movie is good, and the book is better. If we read the book first, it’s usually a disappointment – the movie never seems to quite live up to the imagination the author fires.
The Eragon movie was a good example of what not to do in pulling a book into a movie. They would have done themselves a big favor to have produced a longer movie and added more in from the book. The problem was, aside from Eragon and Brom, there wasn’t much character development time for anyone else. And there was so much that never even made it to screen that the movie fell flat big time. The CGI and the action was about the only well done parts of it, but you need more than that to make a stand-out movie.
i like it wen the book are converted into movies. Especially, wen the books filled wid fantasy n adventure and magic are filmed its just amazing. Only, the thing that bothers me is wen the plots from the books are changed in the film.