Books or Movies based on books?

 “And she stepped onto the balcony. Her palms flew to her mouth to muffle a gasp. It was like nothing she had ever seen. The size of the spaceship was bigger than the descriptions in the incredulous reports…”

When you read a book you are instantly transported to a world of infinite possibilities! It’s just you and the characters, all being tossed around by the ingenuity of the plot in the resilient boundaries of your imagination. When you are reading something like the above paragraph there is so just so much that your sinfully excited brain can comprehend and imagine.

You can picture the girl to be anyone; she could look like you if you fancy that!

The balcony? Hmm…maybe it is like the ones they show in those ridiculous Beverly Hills mansions in TV series..

Spaceship eh? Like the conventional ones that they show in all sci-fi movies or something more sophisticated?

All this for just one tiny paragraph, the whole book would be an exponentially more exciting experience.

Now, if you were watching the same scene in a movie instead of reading it in a book the experience would be totally different. Firstly, how much you might enjoy the movie would depend on a lot of factors like the style of direction, the cinematography, the visual effects and of course the actors who play the characters.

The anticipation while turning a page, the multitude images whirring through your head piecing the story together…all this can’t be matched by the experience of watching a movie.

 For most kids who grew up both reading the Harry Potter books and later watching the movies, the movies were never more than an unsuccessful attempt to bring the magic of the plot to the big screen.

The characters, the situations binding them together and their feelings; everything feels so much more real when you read the books. You feel like you are in Hogwarts, watching everything unravel in awe; or better still, you feel like you are one of the characters, actually experiencing and feeling everything around.

Movies based on books have seldom appealed to real fans of the books. Your favorite part gets left in the editing reel or your favorite character is played by a pathetic actor or the worst nightmare of all, they decide to tweak the plot a little! Oh, it’s a blasphemy!

Twilight series may not really classify as great books, but they are any day a great deal better than the movies. Whoever told Kristen Steward that the character Bella Swan must look eternally constipated should have considered reading the book first and saved us an ordeal.

We can’t deny that all the movies based on books have excellent sets, amazing graphics, most outrageous budgets and larger than life actors…yet something doesn’t add up. The enchantment of a book is far too precious to be replicated probably.

The recently released movie Cloud Atlas has an extremely surreal concept about our actions in the past and the future affecting our present. How much one can grasp by merely watching the movie is questionable. The book that it is based on would definitely give a much better insight into the bizarre theories of the plot.

Movies based on those books that don’t involve fantasy or magic or out of the world themes usually turn out pretty decently.

All the movies based on Nicholas Sparks’s books like Walk to remember and Message in a bottle have many admirers. Even Cecelia Ahern’s P.S I love you was made into a cult hit movie that managed to catch the essence and the beauty of the book. (Which probably had more to do with Gerard Butler’s mere presence than anything else!)

Not all movies made from books are terrible. Many are just as good as the book, maybe even better. It’s just that the experience of reading a book is much more captivating than that of watching it on a screen.