"If I'm going to watch a book get turned into a movie, I want to see what the movie will do with the material. I want to see what they can do with the story. I don't want to watch a reiteration of the book's narrative, word for word, point by point. I might as well just sit in my living room and read the book and just picture the characters in my head. I don't need to watch a movie to see the exact same thing that happened in the book. It's already in the book. I want the movies to do something different, something ... more. Some fans of just too protective, too devoted to the source material and open themselves up to the possibility of looking at the story from a slightly different angle. It's blasphemy to them, which I think is silly. If they can just accept the movie and the book as two separate entities, they might appreciate the movie better for what the movie is, instead of deducting points for each way it differs from the book. That's not what the movie is for." - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2908446/board/thread/242049018 scroll down to the Iswallace82 comment made 1 hour ago below Buzzhanks and and7579

Edited April 1, 201510 yr by Riku21Terr

Or, you know, people can have their own opinions on how they can feel about a movie.

While these are wise words, I think the opposite can also be true. If a movie adaptation isn't going to follow the book exactly, fine. There's nothing wrong with changing a few things for screentime purposes, etc. But an adaptation should still be able to stand alone as a engaging film, and not a movie crippled by what it didn't include. For example, Disney's animation "Alice in Wonderland" left a LOT out of the book, but it's still a classic, enjoyable movie. You watch it, and you don't feel like there's anything missing, because of how great it is as it's own product.

 

 

Some film adaptations can't do that. You watch them, and you can't help but feel A. Lost, B. Annoyed, or C. Straight up irritated, because the directors pick and choose what material they want to use, without making  sense of it. If a person wants to watch a movie version of something instead of reading it's book, then they should be allowed to do so without feeling like nothing has an explanation. If you watch a Trailer for something on Youtube, one of the first things you'll see in the comments is "That part is explained in the book!" "Read the book, dumbass!" No. A film should be able to stand alone. I don't care what it's an adaptation of.

I tend to like to watch movie adaptations before reading the book (unless I obviously read it before a movie was going to be made), I understand things must be cut from it to fit it into a film so you could see a good movie, then read a book that gives a lot more detail and such (I don't even really read any more, I use audible).

 

I think there's actually only been one book I read (or listened to) before I watched the movie adaptation of it and I found myself annoyed since they changed something in it that really annoyed me (it just screamed "We're trying to make they teen-movie-esque") and the way they demonstrated her compulsion looked like the camera man was on acid and the way they demonstrated the mains main reading thing had her talk to herself out loud which would scream to others that she's crazy.

Ehhhhhhh....that could depend. I mean, Percy Jackson went a little too far in doing it's own thing, so much so that it barely even resembles the book. A movie should be allowed to take its own liberties, sure. Leave out some scenes that won't cripple the story, add in some lines or jokes that weren't in the book originally, hire actors who may or may not fit the descriptions that the book gave. That's all fine. But a movie should still at least try to accurately follow the book to an extent. There are some things that you don't mess with, like the original age of some characters, the events that actually happen, or how the overall plot points actually take place. If a movie changes too much from the original, fans will notice and they will be outraged. A movie should be able to do it's own thing, but not to the extent where it's only association with the book is it's title and character names.

Ehhhhhhh....that could depend. I mean, Percy Jackson went a little too far in doing it's own thing, so much so that it barely even resembles the book. A movie should be allowed to take its own liberties, sure. Leave out some scenes that won't cripple the story, add in some lines or jokes that weren't in the book originally, hire actors who may or may not fit the descriptions that the book gave. That's all fine. But a movie should still at least try to accurately follow the book to an extent. There are some things that you don't mess with, like the original age of some characters, the events that actually happen, or how the overall plot points actually take place. If a movie changes too much from the original, fans will notice and they will be outraged. A movie should be able to do it's own thing, but not to the extent where it's only association with the book is it's title and character names.

I would say that the Percy movie series did a reasonable job of remaning true to the book than just the character names and title. I mean the overall plot of a youth discovering the hero within himself and going cross coutnry on quests to rescue his mother/friend/fleece and going to (MOST) of the locations and scenes was kept in.The only major changes were replacing the St. Louis Scene with a much more believable Patheon scene and having Kronos rise at the end (though THAT was what Luke WANTED TO DO IN THE BOOK fyi). Everything else was pretty much a typical similar scene from the book but slightly altered and certain things streamlined to have it make sense. Plus one other thing I liked in the movies was that Percy stays at Camp year round. WHY on earth would he torture himself to go back to these schools where he feels so miserable and is not very good at it, always getting expelled etc? If Annabeth and many other campers can stay at camp year round for their education, then why can't Percy? Them making the characters older also helped with this as Percy would have all the basic educational needs by high school (you can drop out of it legally u know) and can get any other educational needs through correspondance at the camp 

 

 

 Plus consider that it would look very weird to a broader audience to see 11-12 year olds going off to war and doing what they were doing. That is personally why I did not connect with the books as much, it was far too unbelievable. Plus tehre were also waaaaaay tooo many monsters and mythology with there being a new encounter of them every two pages which got very repetitve and boring so much so that after reading the series back ot back I did not even rememebr what specifically happens in each book as they were all the same and i actually reread the series many times. 

I would say that the Percy movie series did a reasonable job of remaning true to the book than just the character names and title. I mean the overall plot of a youth discovering the hero within himself and going cross coutnry on quests to rescue his mother/friend/fleece and going to (MOST) of the locations and scenes was kept in.The only major changes were replacing the St. Louis Scene with a much more believable Patheon scene and having Kronos rise at the end (though THAT was what Luke WANTED TO DO IN THE BOOK fyi). Everything else was pretty much a typical similar scene from the book but slightly altered and certain things streamlined to have it make sense. Plus one other thing I liked in the movies was that Percy stays at Camp year round. WHY on earth would he torture himself to go back to these schools where he feels so miserable and is not very good at it, always getting expelled etc? If Annabeth and many other campers can stay at camp year round for their education, then why can't Percy? Them making the characters older also helped with this as Percy would have all the basic educational needs by high school (you can drop out of it legally u know) and can get any other educational needs through correspondance at the camp 

 

 

 Plus consider that it would look very weird to a broader audience to see 11-12 year olds going off to war and doing what they were doing. That is personally why I did not connect with the books as much, it was far too unbelievable. Plus tehre were also waaaaaay tooo many monsters and mythology with there being a new encounter of them every two pages which got very repetitve and boring so much so that after reading the series back ot back I did not even rememebr what specifically happens in each book as they were all the same and i actually reread the series many times. 

Well clearly you enjoy the series in a different way than I do, which is fine. It's just that I find all those points you find ridiculous or boring as some of the best things I like about the series, so when that's trimmed out for the movies, I get disappointed. The way that it comes across to me is that with the movies they're trying to recreate the Harry Potter formula, but instead of doing what those movies actually did and stuck to characters' ages and routines and such, they tried to make it look like the later Harry Potter movies and other young adult novels, where it seems everybody is still obsessed with seeing teenagers being thrown into end of world scenarios. It only bothers me so much because both series had their characters start out as 11-12 year olds (who don't jump into actual all-out war until they're 3 to 5 years older by the way), only for the H.P series to stick to that while the P.J. series just decides to look like every other novel adaption with older characters, and the P.J. series sort of inherits the title as "the new Harry Potter" whereas the movies try to look like how the H.P. movies ended. And changes of location I can be fine with, but when you do things like take a monster from one book later and put them into an earlier story or actually accomplish an antagonist's goal when it never happens in that story, it kind of feels like a kick in the shin to me. The movies aren't doing a terrible job, but I feel that they might be taking a bit too many liberties with how they interpret the books.

 

*Also, Percy only didn't stay on camp year-round because he wanted to stick with his mom for the rest of the year, the dude's loyal and an awesome son like that.

Edited April 13, 201510 yr by Hero of Light XIV