Story by Morgan Grana
Staff Writer
Literature nerds are stereotypically a very distinct type of people. With their terrible coordination, bad posture, and ironic t-shirts (My Other Car is a Broomstick), they are very easy to spot. They often travel in packs, trading inside jokes and facts that only each other would know, and they all refer to their novel of choice with the same seriousness most people reserve for funerals.
When a popular book or series gets turned into a movie, fans often have mixed reviews. But it seems that no matter what story is being talked about, the book is always more popular than the movie.
“The book is always better,” senior Victoria Corona said when asked if she preferred the Harry Potter novels to the movies. “The books give better detail than the movie and it’s more fun to imagine a scenario in your head than to see it play out on-screen.”
Most fans seem to feel that all of the details and important events that take place in the book cannot fit into a two-, or three-hour long movie. Often times, they are disappointed, or even angry, by the movie versions of their favorite books.
When fans of a book are unhappy with its movie counterpart, they often take it as a personal offense. A lot of fans react as though the director was out to ruin the story, such as Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.”
“I just don’t think Peter Jackson fully understood Tolkien’s vision when making the movies,” religion teacher Mr. Anthony Garcias said. “Plus he changed a lot of things, which I didn’t like.”
For example, Mr. Gacias said he had a problem with Jackson’s treatment of Faramir, the second-favorite son of the ruler of Gondor, the most important human city in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth.
“[He] was supposed to be one of the most noble characters in the books, and he turned him into a kind of villain,” he said.
Of course, on the other end, there are some fans that are absolutely thrilled with the movie adaptation of a book and have little to no qualms.
Senior Olivia Hummer said she really enjoyed the adaptation of Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”
“The movie was definitely better than my expectations. It kept true to the story, which was really important to me,” Hummer said. “The most important parts of the story were included, and I really liked the part where Sam and Patrick danced to Come on Eileen, even though it never really said in the book what song they danced to. It was so funny.”
