Books into Movies

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Here’s my opinion about books being adapted into movies and TV: I believe that it’s overly done and some of them aren’t even done right.

There are so many movies that were created from books and while some are made beautifully and are even critically acclaimed like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and IT, others are done so bad, that I would even regret watching like Fifty Shades of Grey, After, and 365 Days. The ones that are critically acclaimed almost followed the book from cover to cover, not even missing a scene. However, the movies that received a lot of criticism, I’ve noticed that they have certain scenes excluded from the movies, change some of the scenes, and even add scenes that were not in the book. They rearranged the scenes in a different order. I would know because I’ve read some of the books that were adapted into those movies. At first, I would like them, but after a while, I realized that there were so many changes in the movies that almost strayed away from the books. I can deal with small changes, and even with some scenes that can’t be in the movies due to time and, sometimes, the shock factor, but to make the major changes that don’t make sense is the reason, I find, that those movies receive harsh criticism.

My suggestion for any director and producer to adapt a book into a movie or TV show is to first read the books so that way, they know what scenes need to be in the movies and what scenes don’t have to be in the movie. Next, they should stray away from changing or adding scenes that don’t make any sense. For instance, in the last book of the After series, Hardin meets Nathalie in London, but in the movie they meet in Portugal. In addition, Nathalie was pregnant and engaged to someone in the book. So, why make those changes? Furthermore, there are scenes where Hardin meets up with his agent, and that’s in the movie, not the book. I do understand that they want to see what Hardin was up to while he’s not with Tessa, but the Before book is written for a reason. They could have made the last movie longer by following the book. Each of the movies in the series was too short and not heavy enough, and I really don’t think the people who worked on the movie series really understand the purpose behind the After series, or any book series like 365 Days and Fifty Shades of Grey, although the last movie and book series had their controversies. If anything, they shouldn’t adapt any more books into movies since they haven’t done some of them justice.

The reason those books are adapted into movies is due to the popularity and the sales of the books. I believe that if books were popular enough, they should be made into movies to earn more in sales. However, what people end up doing is make unnecessary changes that make no sense, and it hurts the value of the books. I only notice this when it comes to Romance novels, and they only keep certain scenes that would either shock the audience or make them fall in love with the story even more. The problem that I have with adapting books into movies is that they take away the opportunity for the screenwriters that created awesome scripts, waiting for someone to pick one up and create a movie from the scripts. Instead of adapting popular books into horrible movies, maybe look for a screenwriter that has a script ready.

Remember, there are a plethora of movies that were adapted from books, and there’s so much to list. Even though there are movies that aren’t adapted from books, it has become a standard that people turn books into movies, whether in fiction or nonfiction. Tell me what other movies that were adapted from books you feel shouldn’t have been made and why in the comments down below. Otherwise, share what movies did the book justice when it was released.

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