Students give verdict to novel based movies
Were books meant to be made into movies?
The outcome of turning a book into a movie can either be made disastrous through butchered portrayals of novel content, tolerable through an overall decent relaying of the story, or inspiring through the smooth and direct transfer of the book from page to screen.
In the last few years, theaters have never seen such high success rates as best-selling book series turned to film flood the big screen. The movies include the Harry Potter series, which began on Nov. 16, 2001 with ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ and ended on July 15, 2012. The Twilight saga hit theaters on Nov. 21, 2008 and will end with ‘Breaking Dawn Part 2’ on Nov. 16, 2012. The Hunger Games trilogy also added to the book-turned-movie trend when ‘The Hunger Games’ was released on March 23, 2012 with three sequels to come.
Whether these films were as successful as their book counterparts as well as whether books should be made into movies, students were certain of their opinions.
“[They should make books into movies] only if they make it exactly like the books and don’t cut anything important out,” freshman Marissa Herrera said. “They always cut things out that they shouldn’t. I heard [in ‘The Hunger Games’] that they only talk about some important parts and leave others out.”
The Hunger Games was not the only book turned into a movie that Herrera expressed disappointment towards.
“Twilight the book was really interesting and really good because it created images, a movie, in my head,” Herrera said. “[But in the movie] things weren’t how I imagined them. Some parts they really messed up and it was upsetting.”
But to junior Miranda Bivens, who has not read the Twilight series, the movie counterparts were good.
“I like what they’re about,” Bivens said. “It’s intriguing.”
In addition to liking the storyline, Bivens also likes how the movies enable you to more vividly visualize the transformation of the werewolves into actual wolves as well as the vampires into inhuman looking and functioning creatures.
According to Herrera and Bivens, reading the book sets the movie counterpart up for failure. But for those who do not read often, the transformation of a book into a movie can make the story visual and new in a pleasing way.
