"The Book is Always Better Than the Movie"

Anybody else agree with the title? I know I do. It's sort of like a "duh" statement.

I am a big believer, also, in reading the book before watching the movie. So when I learned that my eighth grade English class was going to watch The Help, I may or may not have found an online version and started reading it in class instead of watching the movie.

A lot of book to movie adaptations are pretty good. I remember crying at The Fault in Our Stars movie as much as I did during the book. Paper Towns was also pretty good and funny. The Hunger Games movies were decent and I loved  The Book Thief and If I Stay. Leonardo DiCaprio, among other elements in The Great Gatsby movie, as Jay Gatsby made The Great Gatsby as enjoyable as the book. The Outsiders was a decent adaptation and Divergent (the first one) plus a good handful of the Harry Potter movies are as good as their books too (but not better than).

It's really the bad book to movie adaptations I remember. You know the ones. The ones where you'll gasp and gape at the screen when something completely wrong happens in the movie, something that never happened in the book or something that came out of nowhere and was added in there to appease the audience rather than tell the right story (Allegiant, anybody?).

Also, the sixth Harry Potter movie. Ugh. That was my favorite Harry Potter book, but the most disappointing Harry Potter movie. I think all the Potterheads out there know what I'm talking about. There's at least one movie that doesn't do it for them, and I have to say The Half-Blood Prince didn't live up to the greatness of the book.

Here's another movie that will forever be considered awful in the eyes of the fandom: The Mortal Instruments movie. First of all, what even happened there? I read the book and I knew everything that was going on, but then I watched the movie and it got more confusing as it went on. That's not supposed to happen! The movies are supposed to be simple enough for the crazy people who don't read the book to understand!

Lastly, and most disappointingly, the Percy Jackson movie saga. The books are wonderful, and always will be. It's those movies, though. It's not even that Annabeth's hair isn't blonde in the first one (or that when they badly dyed the actress's hair blonde in the second one) that annoyed the fans: it's how the second movie went down that sent fans in a downward spiral of doom. The second movie didn't even follow the second book, and it tried to combine the last three books into it so the people behind the movie wouldn't have to spend more money making three other movies. How awful is that? If you haven't seen the Percy Jackson movies but have read the book, don't waste your time on these movies. Trust me.

I think where all these movies went wrong (Allegiant, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Mortal Instruments City of Bones and the Percy Jackson movies) is that the screenwriters didn't follow the books as closely as they should have. Now, don't get me wrong, the tiny differences between the books and the movies are what make each of them so great and wonderful to compare, but I don't think screenwriters should stray far from the book, considering they have the book to thank for their screenwriting job.

I believe that if screenwriter's are going to change anything, at least leave the beginnings and the ends alone. For sure, Allegiant--in my opinion--was adapted pretty well until near the end, where the screenwriter completely changed the ending. I was mad, because the book ended the way the book was ended and that was that. By changing the end of movie, the screenwriter, in essence, changed the whole meaning and message of the story and ruined for movie-goers who don't read the books the original story.

I'll address the last two points briefly. My expectations for books versus their movies are different: usually, I expect that the book be better than the movie. I have yet to fall upon an adaptation that is better than the book. Wouldn't it be funny and weirdly coincidental if my adaptation book (The Lovely Bones) has a better movie? Lastly, I don't believe that there are adaptations that have been made into unnecessary films. Every story that has been published has been published for a reason. The story is now shared with the world, and if the people in Hollywood decide to help in the sharing of that story, then that is wonderful. Even if the adaptation is bad, that doesn't mean the movie was unnecessary. Getting the story out there (even if it's the wrong story or a poorly adapted version of the story) is all that matters. Isn't that why people write books in the first place?

*None of the book covers, movie stills or artwork is mine. All rights go to the wonderful artists.*