You may have noticed that not only do I like to read books, but I love to watch movies. Oftentimes, the books I read are in preparation for a much-anticipated theatrical release (such as I did for The Hunger Games). But I wonder what’s better, reading the books or going to see the movies? There are some obvious advantages and disadvantages to both. Below I’ll discuss. Join the conversation.

Perception

Have you ever been reading a book and your mind’s eye starts to paint a picture of what you’re reading about? How the protagonist would look or dress? How a house would be laid out? Or what it must feel like to walk the streets where the main characters live?

Here’s the real question: Has a movie based on a book you read ever shattered that perception? It has me. Let’s take The Hunger Games for instance. In the Hunger Games, because District 12 is located in the Appellations somewhere between Kentucky,Virginia and North Carolina, I always pictured Katniss and her District 12 friends as having an unmistakable southern draw to their speech that can only come from that region of the U.S. Guess what? In the movie that was not the case; everyone pretty much sounded like Midwesterners with the exception of The Capitol population which had a very bad Canadian accent.

An essay on TeenInk.com did a great job of giving us an example of another perception shattering. In Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan, the main character is a 12-year old boy who comes across as being somewhat dull and weak. In the movie however, Percy is portrayed, by Logan Lerman,  as a 16-year old athletic boy, who is not so accidental in nature.

Editing

It took me a week to get through The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It took me 6 months to get through all three of The Lord of the Rings novels by J.R.R. Tolkein. But movies cannot sustain such a timeline. They need to get us in and out in less than 3 hours or we’ll grow restless. Because of that, movies need to edit the timeline and strip away non-essentials events in the book to be made.

Along with editing for time, there are certain things that need to be added to the movie that the book either talks through an internal dialogue or is something that would have been more easily implied in the book, but not translated well on screen. Again I go to The Hunger Games for my example. Why? Because the book is completely from Katniss’ view. Since Katniss had limited interaction with President Snow and the Gamemaker, they didn’t much of an appearance in the book. However, the movie shifted to two perspectives that were playing out simultaneously, the view from Katniss’ eyes and the interaction between Seneca Crane, the Gamemaker, and President Snow. Otherwise, Seneca’s death at the end would have been pointless to us.

Small Disappointments

This phenomenon can go both ways. Sometimes when you read a book, it’s so good that the movie becomes a disappointment. You didn’t expect the actors they chose; you didn’t like the background setting; the costumes seemed ridiculous. I felt this way the first time I saw Twilight with twiggy little Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, who is not my idea of a teen heart-throb by any stretch of the imagination. I vowed to never waste a penny on the BlueRays for this series, but eventually gave in.

Another example would be when you watch a movie and like it so much, you decided to buy the book, only to be disappointed. I felt this way about The Help as you saw in my previous article “When Movies Don’t Match the Book… It’s a Disappointment.” I loved the movie so much that I wanted the book to be just like it, only it wasn’t and that created a bit of disappointment.

Flicks Grow on You

Of course there are those flicks that eventually grow on you after you watch them and begin to accept the actors as representing the main characters. I actually really love the Twilight Series of movies and can’t image any one but with twiggy little Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson playing the lead roles of Bella and Edward.

Another example would be the movie Interview with a Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles based off Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire and The Vampire Lestat. While at first Anne Rice fans were not a big fan of this movie and all the creative liberties of director Neil Jordan, it soon made its way as a cult classic.

Movies Encourage Reading

My last point is to say that movies can actually encourage reading. Just how the release of The Notebook in 2004 opened a new world of Nicholas Sparks fiction for women all over the world, other movies have inspired readers to broaden their horizons and try out a new author or two along the way.

What do you think? Do making movies of popular books deter reading the actual books themselves? Or does it encourage reading?