Recently, I went to go see “Safe Haven,” a book turned film, in theatres. Now, I read the book for the first time several months ago and when I heard the movie was coming out, I was obviously a little skeptical about how it was going to reflect the novel. Nicholas Sparks’ film adaptations have a way of twisting the story a little bit for every movie. “Safe Haven” was no exception. While the movie still brought me to tears and tugged at my heart, it left out a lot of details from the book that I would have loved to see in the movie. They also twisted the story in a way that I felt was not necessary. Overall, I would give the movie a B+. (See review for more information) Since I can’t exactly tell much more since the movie is still in theatres, I decided to go back through some of the more popular Hollywood adaptations of novels and grade them – plus, a couple of my personal favorites.
“Harry Potter” Series: A-. I can remember my sisters and I drawing straws to decide who got to read the newest book first. I was about eight when the movies first started coming out and the first couple barely changed anything around with the storyline. For theatrical reasons, there always has to be a change here or there, but for the most part, I was fairly happy with the outcomes. Then the directors changed, and it was obvious Chris Columbus wanted to stick closer to the original writing than the future directors. By the time David Yates took over for “Order of the Phoenix,” there were no more robes, no more points taken or given to houses, the storylines became more about the big picture of the book and less about the reason the novels had started in the first place. Still, though, I do have to admit that the movies kept more to the books than a lot of others. Which brings me to...
“The Hunger Games”: C+. Firstly, I read this series after I saw the first movie. Just a heads-up, I am going to be a buzz-kill for a lot of Katniss-Peeta- Gale trio fans. The book just offered so much more information about the Capitol and the districts and the story behind the thirteenth district. When I watched the movie, I felt absolutely no emotion from the characters, no connection to anyone other than Katniss, and I had gotten no character development from any of the other characters. The movie focused solely on the Games themselves and did not even touch on anything else the book did. For instance, Katniss did not receive her pin from the market; it was given to her by her friend, Madge. You would never know from the movie, though, because they completely changed where the pin came from. In the later books, that small detail becomes a much bigger one. That, along with the fact that the Peeta-Katniss relationship is practically five times more complicated in the book than it is in the movie.
“Twilight” Saga: A-. To be honest, up until the fourth book, Stephenie Meyer should be happy with the adaptations of her novels. Of course, there’s going to be a glitch here and there as is the case with any reworking of a novel – and for the record, for me to say these movies were not terrible is a huge thing – but as the movies continued they actually got better, not worse. Every movie had a different director and, to be honest, every movie got better, and I’m pretty sure there’s been a consensus that the ending to “Breaking Dawn: Part II” was actually better than that of the book’s. That might be the first time I’ve ever heard that.
“Alex Cross”: C-. A personal favorite of mine, but not for the movie itself. I am a huge James Patterson fan, the writer of the novel the movie is based on. Now, I loved the movie probably solely for the fact that they actually made the movie, but I do have to say it was lacking in several areas. For one, the book was not set completely in the past, which is what the movie is. In “Cross,” the novel the movie was based on, the scenes in the past are only a small portion of the book. “Alex Cross” was created from several flashbacks which were chopped up pieces of the book. The movie actually added in details that were not included in the novel, which I noticed right away, and they didn’t sit well with me.
Just from these five movies I’ve mentioned, there should be enough of a case to argue that books should be left alone, or if they are chosen to be adapted into movies then please, just stick to the script that’s already been written by the author. So for some future novels that are already scheduled to come out at some point – for instance “The Great Gatsby” and “50 Shades of Grey” (especially “Gatsby”), I hope that, for the sake of the authors, the directors and screen writers make good of the novels. However, the past does speak for the future in this context, and I have a feeling the future of film adaptations is not going to change anytime soon.
*** This editorial is an opinion stated by the writer and does not represent the views of The Rotunda or Longwood University.
