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Lethologica's picture

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So, the question is, why aren't movie adaptions as 'good' as books? I think the answer may be that we, as the viewers, have too many expectations. After reading a book, and finding out that it's been made into a movie, we expect that movie to be that book, or at least something similar to it. It bothers us when the movie does not follow the same exact plot, when it focuses of something different, or when the characters behave differently or don't meet our expectations of how they should look. It seems to me that we tend to not even consider that the movie shouldn't be the same as the book; maybe it is the same story, but the media is different, and so different things are possible and different sources are available. As mentioned earlier in the thread, films cannot do what books can: that's true, to an extent. However, it is also true that books can't always do what movies can. Both medias have their own strengths and weaknesses, their own things that they are good at. I think that if we, as the viewers of an adapted movie, could only accept that the movie is not simply a reincarnation of the book, but an entity in its own right, we might enjoy some of those movies better. That's not to say that all of those movies will be well done and worth watching, but that some of those movies, when taken out from under the shadows of their predecessors, can very well be good movies in their own right.

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