This is one of the things that bothers me the most about Hollywood. They take all of these awesome, amazing, wonderful books and make them into terrible, cringe-worthy movies. Sometimes the movies are so off, I don't even know how they got away with saying it's based off the books. And this has been happening a lot lately. More and more books are being picked up for movie deals. City of Bones, Vampire Academy, Divergent, Percy Jackson, and The Hunger Games just to name a few.
Some, like the Hunger Games, actually turn out quite good. They stick to the plot of the book, have awesome actors and actresses, and stay true to the lovely world the author has spent months/years building.
But other are not so great (I'm looking at your Percy Jackson movies).
While watching the Percy Jackson movie for the first time, I was struck by the absolute wrongness of it. Not only did it stray far from the plot, the script was fairly terrible as well and the characters were not even remotely similar to how they are in the books. The actors weren't bad (I mean, they had Logan Lerman for crying out loud) but they were just given a very awkwardly written script and a story that did not embody the awesomeness that is the books.
And I get it. You can't fit every little thing that happens in a book into a movie. That movie would end up being a million hours long. But you can at least stick to the plot and add in the major points that happen in the book. Make the fans happy and they will make you happy by making your movie a big hit. These books already have a huge built in fan base when they start and if you ruin the movies for the fans, those movies are gonna crash and burn!
So next time, Hollywood, read the books. Or else...
What do you think about this? What's the worse book to movie adaption you've ever seen?
Oh I agree about Percy Jackson! The movies was just ... wow. In the worst way! And The Great Gatsby movie was also a huge fail. Even Leo couldn't save that mess.
ReplyDeleteThing is, there is a way to do adaptations right - I mean HELLO HARRY POTTER! I just hope future movies like TFiOS stay true to the book and don't disappoint. I still hold up hope that Hollywood might get it right!
- Allie @ Little Birdie Books
Right?!?! Some movies are seriously kicking butt while others are going straight to the gutter. It's so frustrating, too because they can so easily be a hit if they kept close to what happened in the books and how the books were!
DeleteHahahahahaa How funny :)
ReplyDeleteYou are so right, every book I love that have been made, or it's about to be made, into a movie have an awful movie. Either they alter the plot or the characters are nothing like the book.
I loved The Hunger Games but I didn't like the movie that much :)
Great post!!!
Ruty@Reading...Dreaming
Thank you!
DeleteIt's so frustrating. I'm really hoping the upcoming books like Vampire Academy and Divergent and TFiOS do better as movies!!
Lol! I used to think that too after I watched Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider; I was furious they deviated from the book! And what abouth that horrible Twilight scene in the woods that is nowhere in the book? We should march in protest.
ReplyDeleteThat we should!! Ugh, I didn't even want to go into Twilight in this post. So many cringes while watching that!! Though I'll admit, I totally loved the twist at the end of the last movie.
DeleteI so agree with this. The latest example for me was the Wolverine movie- basing the movie on a well known storyline but changing everything. Hello?? I was thinking of doing a post on this so glad you did. :) And Percy Jackson... good grief.
ReplyDeleteRight?!! You're absolutely correct: it's not even books that movies aren't doing justice to, it's popular story lines in general. It's so obnoxious!! I feel like the directors/producers need to love the stories as much as we do to do a decent job in the movies.
DeleteThank you!
UGH yes! I remember that I was SO looking forward to the Percy Jackson movies because 1. Logan Lerman and 2. I LOVED the books! Then I watched it and realized that it was nothing like the series at all. I don't know why some directors and producers even venture into thinking that if they make their own versions of the book, readers will come to love theirs even better. Well, here's the thing: NO. I'm a reader, and as far as I'm concerned, I watched the movie to see the book I read come to life, the way I read it. So yeah, I'm kind of apprehensive to watch Sea of Monsters. The Hunger Games is actually pretty good, and thank god, and the Harry potter movies were (and still are) my favorites, though the City of bones one, I can't really say, because I never read the book in the first place. I am really hoping that Divergent delivers, because Veronica Roth actually helped make it, so I'm thinking it MUST be similar to the books in some way. So yeah! Great post :D My rant over XD
ReplyDeleteYES!! So many yeses. I haven't seen CoB yet and frankly, I'm quite scared to. I've heard it's really good and I've heard it's not so good. Hopefully it's amazing! And yes, I really want to see Divergent succeed. It has a lot of potential to be amazing.
DeletePERCY JACKSON. FINALLY. No one else seemed to be as bothered about the film adaptions as I was, until I read this, and I totally agree! Against my better judgement, I watched Sea of Monsters with some friends a couple of weeks ago and while it wasn't as terrible as the first one (really, The Lightning Thief was a horror story I probably won't be able to forget), it was still bad. SO disappointed.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, there still are some great movies that stuck to the plot (like THG and HP), so I guess we should focus more on the good stuff of Hollywood, and not the bad, huh? I just can't help but feel a little apprehensive of the amount of YA book-to-movie adaptions that are coming out soon, though. Those directors better not mess things up!
Great post, Ashtyn! Loved your GIFs. :D
Thank you!!
DeleteI still haven't worked up the courage to see The Sea of Monsters yet. After how they ruined the first one, I'm so done with that series. It's so terrible. It had the potential to be amazing.
Lately, I've been trying to see the movies and books as different things. I like to see it as 'based on' instead of 'book-to-movie-filming'. It's the same with HP. The movies are NOTHING compared to the books, but I still like them :p I just try to see them as separate things. It doesn't work all the time, haha, but it makes it a bit easier to enjoy it.
ReplyDelete