Informal on Books and Their Movies
One of the greatest things ever made is the audio book, in my opinion. For my work, I usually only read non-fiction and usually don’t have much other time to spare for fiction. Well, now my wife and I can enjoy an audio book (and we often do) while we get other things accomplished, like cleaning the kitchen. Some of the books I’ve gone through are the Lord of the Rings series, the Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter. I thought it was interesting to compare the book against the movie.
I won’t go into huge detail, but here is a site for specifics on the Lord of the Rings: http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Movie_vs._Book:Major_Differences. The things I look at in particular are how characters are changed. In the book, Sam was extremely faithful, wise, and kind hearted. In the movie, at one point he abandons Frodo, and is often depicted as cruel to Smeagol. (The link above notes that, “Tolkien regarded Sam to be the “chief hero” of the story.”) Now the movie, in my opinion, did make Smeagol a much more interesting character, but it was to the detriment of Sam. Smeagol in the movie became fully reformed until Sam’s cruelty combined with Smeagol’s misunderstanding of when Frodo saved his life ended the reformation. Why did they do this change? My theory is that the screenwriters are a little liberal and wanted to show that everyone wants to be good, but conditions and such make a person seem bad. They may be showing that Smeagol wasn’t really bad, just misunderstood.
Another example Faramir (human and brother of Boromir who was in the Fellowship), who was one of the only people that Frodo and Sam confided their quest in the book, but a controlling man who craved the ring in the movie. I don’t think this was really a liberal thing. But there is a general pattern of taking wisdom away from others and giving the main character more than what he had in the book. I’ll state this again in the Harry Potter series. Maybe it’s that Faramir was an aristocrat, and thus craved power which is what he could get from the ring. I recommend reading the link on him and some other characters.
The Chronicles of Narnia also changed characters, but I think the first movie (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) was a lot better than the second (Prince Caspian). One of the first things I must point out is that these are not Christian movies or books; although CS Lewis wrote many great books on Christianity, these are not. Here is a website for the second book which goes at length describing his own issues with the movie, and has a reference to the critiques of the first: http://www.hyperioninstitute.com/2008/12/book-vs-movie-prince-caspian.html. The second movie, if you have ever seen it, can be summed up thus: the kids are a bunch of spoiled brats. That is such a huge departure from the book, I have no idea why they did it. (Although the link above says, the need for drama in the story.) This change is much like the change to Faramir, and is one of the few exceptions I can think of on others being less wise than the main character that is wiser.
When I read (or rather, hear the book) Harry Potter, I’m nearly screaming at the radio for him being such an idiot, while all the movies make his actions usually within bounds of reason. There are many places on the web that compare one book to a movie, so I won’t go into this as much either. The biggest thing I see on the movie is that the screenwriters are always playing catch-up; when the first movie was made, some of the later books weren’t even written. The latter books often reference characters developed in earlier books, and may have been minor at the time. So sometimes a quick “reintroduction” is added in a movie when it is absolutely necessary, or the story is altered just enough to get by the issue. But the book is also already fairly liberal in thought. I also have wondered if that some of the high drama that happens between the boys is due to the fact that the novel was written by a woman, giving some characteristics of young female relationships to men. (I think this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6iktQ2y1Rs from “My Fair Lady” is more accurate of male relations.) I did think I saw a punch at conservatives in the fifth movie with Dolores Umbridge who was strict as far as tucking in shirts and male and female relations that I just don’t recall from the book. I was also highly disappointed with the treatment of the Weasley twins who ran a complete campaign in the book, where in the movie they only had a spontaneous outburst of a fireworks show. There are more things, but the highlight in these series of books are how wise Harry is compared to the idiot he is in the book.
