About Amy Hello, I'm Amy, an aspiring motorsports writer and former blogger. If you dig deeper enough, you find some very old blog posts, as this started as a book blog, but that's really where I got my start in writing: book reviews, hot book topics and as well as the odd personal essay. After leaving university, I left the book blog behind, but continued writing and going in the world of social media, writing film reviews and promoting queer cinema, but after a tragic event in my personal life, I quickly discovered Motorsports. What started as a love for Formula 1, while finally watching the Formula 1 film, Rush, and discovering Formula 1 TikTok, this love soon expanded to everything Formula E, IndyCar, Formula 2, Formula 3, as well as F1 Academy. I soon found the itch to write come back, with the fast-moving news of motorsport, to the drama, the competition, and the journey of drivers trying to find a race seat. I found that it was the people and storie...
For a book reader when we go see a book to movie adaptation, we always go in with one expectation: the book was better. Sometimes I feel like we go in with this notion that the book is always better. For the longest time, I felt that this was the case. The book was always going to far superior from the film, but is this always the case?
Ever since I became a massive YA fan when I was about 14, I definitely believed that the book was always going to be better. I would come out of The Hunger Games films complaining that this character was not in a scene and had been cut and that this scene from the book that I loved was not in the script. It would bother me. I would Retweet and Favourite (remember when that was a thing!) things like "I would watch a Harry Potter film that was 19 hours long" and even now I still might but something changed.
I got into films. I mean I know everyone watches films but I was interested in how they are made. Listening to writers, directors, producers. Listening to these made me see the differences in how films and books are made. That films do tend to be 1.5 to 2 hours long and have to convey the same story as a book of 300 to 500 pages or more. Changes have to be made and that's OK.
With films, the book is always there. Regardless of changes that a film makes the book is always going to stay there. Films are just a different type of media. They are designed to make the book into a good enough screenplay so it sells to a wide amount of people as possible. That's what it is, therefore. So this means that changes are made to condense the story and made it fit on a screen.
So I know I still haven't the question so is the book better? I guess the answer is no. Books are a completely different to films and I think that they should be judged on their own. If the film of a book to movie adaptation is bad because it has a weak screenplay and the acting is bad, then it is a bad film, even a book to film adaptation. I know that comparing them to is so easy to say that if they had done something from the book and put in the film then that may have made it better but I don't think this is the case.
I got into films. I mean I know everyone watches films but I was interested in how they are made. Listening to writers, directors, producers. Listening to these made me see the differences in how films and books are made. That films do tend to be 1.5 to 2 hours long and have to convey the same story as a book of 300 to 500 pages or more. Changes have to be made and that's OK.
With films, the book is always there. Regardless of changes that a film makes the book is always going to stay there. Films are just a different type of media. They are designed to make the book into a good enough screenplay so it sells to a wide amount of people as possible. That's what it is, therefore. So this means that changes are made to condense the story and made it fit on a screen.
So I know I still haven't the question so is the book better? I guess the answer is no. Books are a completely different to films and I think that they should be judged on their own. If the film of a book to movie adaptation is bad because it has a weak screenplay and the acting is bad, then it is a bad film, even a book to film adaptation. I know that comparing them to is so easy to say that if they had done something from the book and put in the film then that may have made it better but I don't think this is the case.
A film could be bad because some of the changes were made from the book but it should still be seen as a different thing. I guess that this whole idea comes from people's opinions because on the flip side a bad book could be seen as a good book to film adaptation. It is ultimately based on people's opinions. Just like this is mine.
I think my take away on the topic is that books and book to film adaptations shouldn't be compared to each other. They are different forms of media and should be treated as standalone things.
See you soon,
I think my take away on the topic is that books and book to film adaptations shouldn't be compared to each other. They are different forms of media and should be treated as standalone things.
This is quite a controversial topic so I would love to hear people's thoughts on this subject in the comments. I don't think that anyone is wrong on the topic and of course everyone's opinions are valid. Let me know what you think!
See you soon,
Amy
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