3 Things You Need to Know About Enjoying Adaptations

As someone who has read her fair share of books and seen plenty of them adapted into films, I’m here to tell you three things you need to know before watching your next adaptation. This isn’t a blueprint on how to adapt your favorite book, but rather understanding what it takes to make an adaptation and how to enjoy them even if every minor detail from the book doesn’t make the cut.

1. The book isn’t better, it’s source material

We’ve all been there, walking out of a theater with our friends muttering about how “the book was better,” but that’s not the case all the time. No adaptation is going to include every line of dialogue or the main character's hair might be a different color; these details do not make or break an adaptation. Felicity Flesher tells readers to “Think for the screen” in her article for InFocus Film School. She emphasizes that “Audiences will not be reading text as the film goes. It is a visual medium in a way that prose is not. Think of it as translating the story from one medium to another. In some cases, there may not be an exact translation. You may need to come up with a solution to get the same message across” (Flesher).

At the end of the day, films are a different medium with limitations. Books don’t have to worry about a props budget or finding the right actors. The reason people think the book is better is that they got to read the book and make their own movie in their head so, of course, anything that doesn’t measure up to what their imagination came up with is going to be a letdown. Go in with an open mind and remember, there’s no budget for your imagination, but that is certainly not the case for Hollywood studios!

2. Step back into your favorite world

Adaptations are, at their heart, an opportunity to venture into your favorite world once again. While there is an argument to be made for books and how they utilize readers’ limitless imagination to create their own worlds, there is something special about seeing a beloved book on the big screen. As stated before, in a studio the limitless imagination becomes more limited with budgets and executives, but the magic is still there.

Ashley Strickland writes, “The idea behind movie adaptations, besides franchise-building, is to give readers a new opportunity to walk through their favorite world” (Strickland). The next time you go see an adaptation remember it’s a chance to fall in love with another world all over again. Studios providing audiences an opportunity, even if only for two hours, to relive their favorite stories and visit worlds they had only made up in their heads is an incredible thing to accomplish.

3. Have fun!

Even if the adaptation is vastly different from the book, remember that hundreds of people worked for months to bring this new world to life! Enjoy it for what it is!

Sources:

Flesher, Felicity. “How to Adapt a Short Story into a Feature Film.” InFocus Film School, InFocus Film School, 10 June 2021, https://infocusfilmschool.com/how-to-adapt-a-short-story-into-a-feature-film/.

Strickland, Ashley. “Young Adult Books from Page to Screen.” CNN, Cable News Network, 22 Nov. 2013, https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/22/living/young-adult-book-movie-adaptations/index.html.