“The books are always better than the movies,” said everyone, but me. Of course, if I have neither read the book nor seen the movie, I could not say. But this does apply at least with, “Lord of the Flies,” “Aladdin,” and “The Little Mermaid,” I like the movies a lot more.
Now all these opinions are my own, so everyone can still prefer the books over the movies. A lot of people get disappointed when something they liked in a book was cut from the film adaptation or changed. I totally understand that. In fact, these days, I empathize with the authors more than I ever had.
When their books are adapted into movies or TV shows, they usually don’t get to have any creative control whatsoever—except if they are big like J.K. Rowling. She was one of the rare exceptions.
Movie makers often claim that their film adaptations may do poorly if the author gets involved. It is not that I don’t believe them or think that they don’t know what they’re talking about. They do make a good point about how some content on pages don’t translate well onto the screen.
However, what I notice is that many of those movies get mixed or negative reviews. A lot of them come from the books’ fans and readers.
There have sometimes been moments in books that I didn’t like. And if removed or altered, I appreciated. The “Harry Potter” franchise is actually one of the biggest of these.
But now I find the books and movies equally good, with many cuts changes from both versions to be fine. Yet, there are also scenes from the books that I wish had made it into the films. You can read more about that here.
“Lord of the Flies” was a required book when I attended high school. I found it boring, but the movie engaging.
“Aladdin” and “The Little Mermaid,” like many other Disney movies, were based off fairytales. And the original stories were dark and mature.
I don’t know if they were all told to children back in those times. But, of course, Disney had to drastically clean them up to make them appropriate for all ages.
There are several moments from Disney classics that would not be acceptable today. A couples of examples include a female character as a damsel-in-distress or a guy kissing a strange unconscious girl to wake her up.
There are also several moments that aren’t historically accurate. But if they were, the movies would not have been rated G or PG.
Films usually have a time-limit to their productions as well as budgets. So, that is why many exciting moments, unfortunately, have to be cut.
I enjoyed reading fiction for fun until fourth grade. I would only read fiction if forced to. Then right before eighth grade, I read the “Harry Potter” books. I would only read those for fun.
Eventhually, I returned to reading fiction for fun. In fact, I have re-read some of the first “Harry Potter” book and picked up on new details.
Anyway, I tend to view book-to-film adaptations differently. There actually are some occasions when I like something in the books more than the films.