Movie Versions

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Movie Versions

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1skoobdo
Jul 16, 2007, 1:36 am

Movie versions of any novel or true story will never be the same versions. Movie versions have added "dramatic" scenes to add more interest and "spices" to a story.Some scenes in a movies cannot be found in a book. This would sometimes angered the writer of the original story even though he was paid with high royalties fees.

2DeusExLibris
Jul 16, 2007, 2:53 am

The point of a movie version of a book is to transfer the book to screen as closely as possible, not to create a new story. Adding scenes is, simply, completely unnecessary, as there's already a complete story in the book, and, honestly, if things really need to be added to draw people in it must not have been a very good book in the first place.

3bluesalamanders
Edited: Aug 6, 2007, 10:55 am

I have to disagree. Books can do a lot of things that movies can't, like sharing the thoughts and feelings of characters, and similar stuff that can't easily be translated onto the screen (without, say, voiceovers, which are generally a bad idea). Sometimes adding scenes can be appropriate if information from those kinds of things is necessary.

4MrsLee
Jan 9, 2016, 11:22 am

I've been watching the extra features of the filming of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is very informative to hear the reasoning Peter Jackson and others use to arrive at their decisions to add/subtract from the written versions. They did not do it lightly or without thought and care, and many of the actors encouraged them to put back words that the author used. It was truly a creative process to make a unique work. One of his thoughts was that the book had been written, for anyone to read and was excellent. He wanted to make a creation of it in a different form of media which honored the spirit of the book and brought the world to life. He said what is the point of making a movie of a book if it isn't its own unique creation which uses all the best of movie making ability?

In discussing some of the scenes of the Hobbit, and comparing them to what was in the book, I think he was right to make some changes because if filmed exactly as the book read, there would really be no movie to speak of. Tolkien was able to express, in very few words, huge themes or actions. It was a book written for children. Our minds automatically fill in the battle scenes when we read, even though there are very few words written about them. A movie can't do that. They have to make those few words visual. Our imaginations take a flight of fancy when told in one sentence that there is a White Council and that they dealt with the Necromancer at Dol Guldur. In a movie, that needs to be played out or it seems pretty lame of Gandalf to leave at a crucial moment.

The two forms of media are distinct, and each have their limitations or specialties. A movie can carry the spirit of a book, it can make characters and worlds come to life, but it cannot, and should not, replicate the book.