The big screen is filled with a slew of adaptations. From the end of the Harry Potter legacy to the beginning of The Hunger Games, movie theaters are a hangout spot not just for teens looking for a time-killer, but also for many hit book series.
Unfortunately, some fans of amazing book series have been let down by their not-so-amazing movie adaptations. Personally, I’m surprised at how many times New York Times Best Sellers have had disappointing counterparts in theaters.
For example, though the Twilight saga’s movies seemed to have done very well in the box office, based off of viewers’ opinion, they really didn’t capture the full essence of the novels.
But really, how many book series have been turned into quality movie adaptations? Not many. The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, the classics, were two series where the movies were closest to being up to par. When looking at ticket sales and at viewers’ opinions, those two classics were beloved across the board.
As time has progressed and technology has advanced, it’s fair to say that movies have become worse. Effects just seem to look less convincing. No matter how elaborate the movie tricks may seem, somehow a story about a little kid who was born to save the world, as in Avatar: The Last Airbender, did not live up to its television series counterpart.
Several years ago, in Dec. 2006, a movie based on the book Eragon by Christopher Paolini graced the screens, but scarred the hearts of fans worldwide.
“The director [Stefan Fangmeier] left no room for a sequel,” said freshman Mary Svirydava.
There is hope yet, since there are ideas for improving the movie versions of book series.
“He should’ve [changed] the actors and [followed] the book more,” claims Svirydava.
Sophomore Ana Petricel, a self-proclaimed die-hard fan of the Percy Jackson series written by Rick Riordan, felt that the book series was much better than the movie. She claimed the differences were ridiculous.
“The movie would have done exponentially better if the director [Christopher Columbus, of the first two Harry Potter films] spent more time focusing on the acting and the plot rather than the special effects,” said Petricel.
Unfortunately, the issue of casting beloved characters is a difficult one to fix, since readers may have different impressions of what the characters should look like. Thankfully, there are other ways to adjust poorly-made films.
A Harry Potter fanatic, Freshman Hannah Sachs, believes that each movie should be longer to fit in necessary detail. She believes that the director should have split the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, into two parts in order to achieve this.
Extensive? Yes. Costly? Absolutely. Packed with details? Oh, yeah.
Since the epic series, Hunger Games, written by Suzanne Collins is hitting theaters in March, hold onto your seat because we don’t yet know how well the book has been converted into a movie script. Only time will tell!
