Archive for November, 2008
Why I Hate The Twilight Movie.
The Twilight movie came out recently.
I am not planning to see the Twilight movie. I avert my eyes and block my ears if I happen to see an advertisement for the Twilight movie. When people blog about it, I scroll past pictures of the Twilight movie. In fact, I treat it much the same as I do the Harry Potter movies: I ignore it.
I would be far happier if J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer hadn’t sold out1.
I don’t hate movies, not at all. I love movies. It’s just that, as far as I’m concerned, there are no good book-to-movie adaptations, if one has read the book being adapted. I have never seen a movie that does a book justice. Even if a book is (technically) not fantastic, if it captures the imagination and carries a plot well, the movie version will not even come close to portraying a book’s brilliance.
And yet, people flock to the cinemas. They pay to have their fantasy world, so carefully constructed in their head, torn to pieces by the often-conflicting image on the big screen. Why? I have no idea. Books are open to interpretation; a good book will have several possible readings. There is no possible way for a movie crew to take all of those views into account when making a movie.
That doesn’t explain why Harry Potter (he of the messy black hair and green eyes) was played by Daniel Radcliffe (he of the neat brown hair and blue eyes) in The Philosopher’s Stone2. It does, however, explain why the images on Twilight posters don’t match the images I have in my head of Bella and Edward3.
It also explains why I enjoyed The Chronicles of Narnia and A Series of Unfortunate Events so much. I’ve never read either of them, so I had no image in my head of what the characters should look like. In fact, aside from the basic plot, I had no idea what to expect from either of them. If I were to read the books now, I imagine that the experience would be enriched by the movie visuals.
Unfortunately, it never works in reverse.
I don’t need to see the Twilight movie to know that I won’t enjoy it. Nothing in this world can match the view of Twilight that I see when I read the books; the posters I’ve (unfortunately) seen have proven that. Likewise, I won’t be dashing out to see Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, or Angus, Thongs and Perfect4 Snogging. I’m sure that people - most likely, people who haven’t read the books - will enjoy them, but I won’t be one of those people.
The best thing5 about book-to-movie adaptations is that they provide a whole new wave of enthusiasm for the actual book, meaning that people like Britt finally come to the dark side and read the book6 they’ve been boycotting for silly reasons like stereotypes and standards7.
Perhaps now is a good time to confess that I read a little too much young adult fiction.
- Why yes, as a matter of fact, I do believe that they sold out. Do you have any idea how much the film rights to a successful novel are worth? That aside, why else would they have done it? Neither of them write screenplays, so there’s no burning desire to see their characters or their stories on the big screen. They did it for the money, and accuracy be damned! ↩
- I’m not still bitter about that. Not really. ↩
- I’m such a Twilight fangirl that I’m on a first-name basis with the characters, seriously. Don’t judge me, literary classmates who may or may not have found my site. It’s how I stifle the editor I’m trying to cultivate, when I just want to read for the sheer pleasure of actually enjoying a story. ↩
- What? ‘Full frontal’ was too risqué for their pre-teen market? ↩
- As in, the only good thing. ↩
- Even if she is only reading it because of her illegal love for the actor who plays Edward. ↩
- As you can no doubt tell from this post, I have no standards. ↩