Totally random thought that popped into my mind last night: Why do we have so many "books-to-movie" adaptations but no "movies-into-books" cases? Here's an all too familiar scenario: Very well written novel that gets rave reviews gets a movie adaption in which the movie completely butchers the novel. (Admittedly, this is not 100% true--The Hunger Games and Ender's Game turned out to be awesome!)
Now think about this: what if authors took on the job of movie makers and attempted to turn a beloved movie (like "Remember the Titans" or "Titanic") into a novel? Would the book be as good as the movie or will the movie critics be all over the authors for messing up the plot, characters, etc? As a book nerd and a friend to many other book nerds, I've seen and participated in my own fair share of complaining about bad movie adaptions, but are we being too harsh? If the movie makers and authors had to swap roles, would the authors be up to the task of turning script into paragraphs?
The answer, in my opinion, is yes. Think of all the possibilities! Movie makers have to fit their entire story into a 2 hour-ish time frame. But writers...the sky is the limit. Okay, so maybe nobody wants to read a 800 page adaptation of "Titanic", but authors definitely have more wiggle room to work with. Also, authors also have the ability to give a more in depth sketch of movie characters when writing about them. You know how you read a book, watch the movie, and realize the movie left out a complete scene or character? Well, an author could add a complete scene or character to enhance the book adaptation for its respective movie. Granted, perhaps by doing so several die-hard movie goers will become enraged and accuse the author of "changing the plot/story of the movie!"
On the other hand, there are certain aspects of a movie that simply can't be captured in words (remember, a picture is worth a thousand words!) With improving cinematic visuals and technologies, a good movie can totally immerse the audience within the story. And the soundtracks can really make or break a movie! You can't really have a soundtrack to a book, could you? (Now I'm imagining futuristic books that have tiny speaker embedded into them and will play the music/tracks that correspond to whatever page you are reading!)
So what are your thoughts? Do you think turning movies into books will ever catch on?
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