Angela Fralick Essay Example

Angela Fralick Essay Ever since the beginning of the film industry, books have been made into screenplays. Books that are made into films can be very popular. One reason for the popularity is because fans are familiar with the titles of the books or the author, so they become interested in viewing the authors film. Movies such as The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Torklein, The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum, and The Road to Perdition by Max Allen Collins were all among thousands of well-recognized novels that were best sellers before ever hitting the big screen. (www.library.thinkquest.org) Very high numbers of authors that have decided to record their novel(s) as a movie have been very successful in the box office. Stephen King is possibly the most well known author of horror. Stephen King has produced more than 8 movies that have been based on his books, such as The Shining, Carrie, and It.Although hundreds of movies based on books have been very triumphant, I believe that watching a movie based on a book really alters how the reader conceived the book. From the article Robert R. McCammon Writes About Swan Song(www.robertmccammon.com) Robert R. McCammon, author of my favorite book Swan Song, states, Ive always thought that any kind of film based on a book or short story can be a fascinating experience for the author-not necessarily because the film is good or bad, but because its a reflection of how other people visualize the authors words. I disagree with Robert R. McCammon. I believe that movies made based on books only change the readers views of the book, that illustration of the book should be made by the judgment and imagination of the reader, and that movies based on books are not truly diagramed off of the book because of events being changed or left out, therefore, I have found that I really dislike movies made from booksSwan Song was an extremely interesting book, so from beginning to end, I never wanted to put the book down. To simply summarize this book, it begins r ight before a nuclear world war and spans the hard lives of five survivors after the demolition of the world. One of the five characters was a small girl named Swan, hence the title of the book. After reading this book, I found that the book had been made into a movie. I watched the movie as soon as I could. I was very disappointed to find that many of the parts in the book had been left out of the movie.I believe however interesting the movie is to the author, if the movie turns out bad, the people who read the book and watched the movie may envision the book in a totally different way than they did after only reading the book. Before reading Swan Song, my favorite book was The Tenth Kingdom by Simon Moore. The book was a wonderful fantasy about a young woman from New York City who discovers that her mother is an evil queen from a fantasyland made up of ten kingdoms. When reading the book, I was able to picture in my mind what every place and thing in the book looked like. After wa tching the movie, I was very disappointed by the difference of how I viewed the ten kingdoms and how the director viewed them. The movie totally changed my perspective on the novel, and I never again thought of the book as one of my favorites.Last of all, not only do a plethora of movies leave out some of the events that took place in the book, but also some actually change the events. One instance that I observed the changing of events in a story was in the book White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Within two weeks of publication, Oprah Winfrey, as a selection for her book club, chose White Oleander and it rose to top-five positions on the bestseller lists of newspapers all through the United States (www.rottentomatoes.com) as well as a top-five in my mind as well. White Oleander was released in movie form in 2002. I quickly rented the movie from Blockbuster, watched it, and was mildly disappointed with it as well. The book was far better. Many parts of the book had been left out of the movie for times sake. Being that parts were left out and I knew the parts that should have been in the movie, I felt that the movie was ruined. Although the book received great reviews, the movie received some not-so-good criticism. Todd Anthony of the South Florida Sun Sentinel stated, How this one escaped the Lifetime Network, Ill never know.Ultimately, I feel that movies should not be based off of novels. To put my figures into ratio form, I would say that 2 out of 3 times I am disappointed after watching a movie based off of a book that I read. When books are made into movies, the illustration of a book should be left to the reader so that the way the book was envisioned by them will not be distorted. Also, a lot of times parts are changed or totally left out of the movie that were contained in the book, thus, to me, changing the story altogether. Novels should simply stay novels. Fancy superstars, lights, and props, in my opinion, do not make the words of the book any better th an they were after I read them myself.