I mentioned something about it last week when I was talking about the Harry Potter books, how things changed from the books to the movies, and how the movies kind of change how you picture the books in your head. In that vein, I thought we'd take today and talk about the age-old question, why is the book always better than the movie?
The simple answer for this is: because it was written as a book, not as a movie. Book authors choose their medium because it was what they thought was best to express the story they wanted told. By choosing books, authors aren't constrained by the limit of sight and sound. Instead they allow the imagination to work and fill out pieces of the space within the story. A book also allows for greater detail, because they don't have to worry about going overbudget building the next ginormous set.
Books also allow for time to get sucked into the story. This happens in movies, I'll admit, but because a good book can rarely be read in 3 hours or less, they provide more of a chance for the reader to develop a relationship with the characters and the book as a whole so that the reader oftentimes feels like they are part of the story, observing it all happen within their mind. Not to say that good movies can't suck you in, I'm just saying that books offer more of an opportunity for this.
The opposite of this original theory also comes true. Novelizations of movies that are created for the sake of cashing in are never as good as the original piece. Just like the author of an original book, the director/creators of a movie chose film because they felt that it had some sort of draw that set it apart from another medium. Neither is necessarily a better way to telling a story, but when a piece of art is created within a specific medium, it tends to thrive best within that home turf. Do you agree?
Books also allow for time to get sucked into the story. This happens in movies, I'll admit, but because a good book can rarely be read in 3 hours or less, they provide more of a chance for the reader to develop a relationship with the characters and the book as a whole so that the reader oftentimes feels like they are part of the story, observing it all happen within their mind. Not to say that good movies can't suck you in, I'm just saying that books offer more of an opportunity for this.
The opposite of this original theory also comes true. Novelizations of movies that are created for the sake of cashing in are never as good as the original piece. Just like the author of an original book, the director/creators of a movie chose film because they felt that it had some sort of draw that set it apart from another medium. Neither is necessarily a better way to telling a story, but when a piece of art is created within a specific medium, it tends to thrive best within that home turf. Do you agree?
2 comments:
yes, i agree
Definitely agree with two exceptions: I thought The Green Mile movie was as good as the book, because the movie looked just like I imagined the story to look. On the flip side, I thought Journey to the Center of the Earth made a better movie than book (the old movie). That book was crazy boring...
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