Been ages since I last blogged, but it's a pretty busy summer so far. Anyway, I watched Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters last night (Nathan Fillion. Eeeeep!) and once more I'm confronted with an issue I feel strongly about time and again.
Movie adaptations of novels.
Whyyyyyyyyyy?!
They more often than not disappoint the original fans. Yes, you heard me. Original fans. You know, the people who've read and fallen in love with the characters long before Hollywood sunk their talons and converted said characters into money churning figures.
Harry potter. Twilight. His dark materials. Hunger games. Da vinci code. Percy jackson. Narnia chronicles. Eragon. My sisters keeper. The whole chunk of Nicholas Sparks' works.
Most of them sucked. (Only exception in my personal opinion, was the lotr trilogy. Ive read the books, and I think the movie did pretty well.) Some even turned me off, rendering me incapable of loving the characters due to the actors' portrayal, casting choice, director's style, or most commonly, the mainstream fans that hopped on board last minute that just give the rest of us a bad rep. Twihards I'm looking at you.
Why do authors allow screen adaptations of their books?
After all the hard work and effort you put in, tweaking storylines and characters, you're just willing to trade them in for a 2D, shallow version of themselves? Because surely, things get changed and cut out when they're transferred from paper to the silver screen.
Back stories are left out, hell, some characters don't even make the cut. How do the people watching the movie without prior knowledge of the book, appreciate the little nuances and decisions that don't get explained onscreen?
This particularly irked me as the Percy Jackson movie finished yesterday. Even if you can ignore the fact that they allude Luke gets eaten by the cyclops, they failed to mention that it was Luke's plan all along for the fleece to get to thalia's tree so that she would have been "ejected" by the tree, thus making Percy not the only person the prophecy could allude to. It was a friggin genius plan. An evil genius' plan. And Hollywood failed to mention that.
Besides, more often than not, the looks of the characters are best left to our own imagination. Blondes become brunettes. Hotties become constipated sparkly things. (yes, I really hate the twilight franchise now)
Is the money and pay really so well that authors are willing to compromise the quality of their work to get a larger audience? And at what cost?
Of the hundreds of thousands of people that watch the movies, only a handful will actually end up reading the book. How they can *not* want to read the book is beyond me. And yet I see it time and again with my siblings and friends, so to each their own I guess.
But no.
I can't let it go.
I don't have a problem with people who read the books after hollywood made it popular, be it during the whole promoting hype for the movie phase or after they've watched the movie. I personally prefer and try to finish the book(s) before the movie comes out. But whatever.
What I CANNOT stand, are fans who "loveeeee" the franchise (because honestly, and rather sadly, everything's reduced to a franchise nowadays) and yet don't know the canon details. The little quirks and backstories that make the characters so characteristically *them*. They don't know about the hardships that the characters have gone through. They don't understand why sometimes a character is forced to make a certain decision. It's not OOC. you just don't understand why it makes them *in-character*.
And you don't deserve to enjoy it. You're not worthy of the story. There. I've said it.
Okay,okay, don't come after me brandishing swords or brooms. I admit that im getting a little ahead of myself. I just haven't written in quite some time and it all just come out in a rambling blubber. So just indulge me this once. And if you hate my opinion so much, just ignore it. I'm pretty sure I'll stumble onto this post and laugh at myself and the thoughts I've had anyway.
Cheers.
Movie adaptations of novels.
Whyyyyyyyyyy?!
They more often than not disappoint the original fans. Yes, you heard me. Original fans. You know, the people who've read and fallen in love with the characters long before Hollywood sunk their talons and converted said characters into money churning figures.
Harry potter. Twilight. His dark materials. Hunger games. Da vinci code. Percy jackson. Narnia chronicles. Eragon. My sisters keeper. The whole chunk of Nicholas Sparks' works.
Most of them sucked. (Only exception in my personal opinion, was the lotr trilogy. Ive read the books, and I think the movie did pretty well.) Some even turned me off, rendering me incapable of loving the characters due to the actors' portrayal, casting choice, director's style, or most commonly, the mainstream fans that hopped on board last minute that just give the rest of us a bad rep. Twihards I'm looking at you.
Why do authors allow screen adaptations of their books?
After all the hard work and effort you put in, tweaking storylines and characters, you're just willing to trade them in for a 2D, shallow version of themselves? Because surely, things get changed and cut out when they're transferred from paper to the silver screen.
Back stories are left out, hell, some characters don't even make the cut. How do the people watching the movie without prior knowledge of the book, appreciate the little nuances and decisions that don't get explained onscreen?
This particularly irked me as the Percy Jackson movie finished yesterday. Even if you can ignore the fact that they allude Luke gets eaten by the cyclops, they failed to mention that it was Luke's plan all along for the fleece to get to thalia's tree so that she would have been "ejected" by the tree, thus making Percy not the only person the prophecy could allude to. It was a friggin genius plan. An evil genius' plan. And Hollywood failed to mention that.
Besides, more often than not, the looks of the characters are best left to our own imagination. Blondes become brunettes. Hotties become constipated sparkly things. (yes, I really hate the twilight franchise now)
Is the money and pay really so well that authors are willing to compromise the quality of their work to get a larger audience? And at what cost?
Of the hundreds of thousands of people that watch the movies, only a handful will actually end up reading the book. How they can *not* want to read the book is beyond me. And yet I see it time and again with my siblings and friends, so to each their own I guess.
But no.
I can't let it go.
I don't have a problem with people who read the books after hollywood made it popular, be it during the whole promoting hype for the movie phase or after they've watched the movie. I personally prefer and try to finish the book(s) before the movie comes out. But whatever.
What I CANNOT stand, are fans who "loveeeee" the franchise (because honestly, and rather sadly, everything's reduced to a franchise nowadays) and yet don't know the canon details. The little quirks and backstories that make the characters so characteristically *them*. They don't know about the hardships that the characters have gone through. They don't understand why sometimes a character is forced to make a certain decision. It's not OOC. you just don't understand why it makes them *in-character*.
And you don't deserve to enjoy it. You're not worthy of the story. There. I've said it.
Okay,okay, don't come after me brandishing swords or brooms. I admit that im getting a little ahead of myself. I just haven't written in quite some time and it all just come out in a rambling blubber. So just indulge me this once. And if you hate my opinion so much, just ignore it. I'm pretty sure I'll stumble onto this post and laugh at myself and the thoughts I've had anyway.
Cheers.
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