What Happens When Hollywood Gets a hold of Your Favorite Series?
It’s no secret; I like to read, as I am sure, most of you do as well. Some of us may have started to read book series at a young age, or stumbled across something in high school that led to bigger and better things. For me, that first series was Harry Potter. I ended up seeing the movie first and coming into the book series four books in. While waiting for the fifth book my friend gave me the first six books in Laurell K. Hamilton’s series The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter. This series led into Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, which led into The Twilight Saga, Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries and so forth.
Then what happens when Hollywood gets a hold of our beloved characters? Do they remain faithful to the characters, or to the series? Perhaps they twist the story lines so far out there, it’s hardly recognizable as the series you loved?
Now, I am in no way a purest. It’s hard for me to go into a movie and not enjoy it. Is it always accurate to the book? No. Will they leave some stuff out? Yes. Is there anything we can do about it? Well, if you complain enough and boycott, that may, and that’s a big may, get someone thinking a little clearer, but don’t count on it.
I am going to talk about some of the changes/differences in a few series that I have either enjoyed, felt indifferent to, but would have been cool to see, to some that made me go, “What the heck?”
If you’re a fan of any of the above mentioned stories, please continue reading and let me know your thoughts!
Most of us would not be here if it wasn’t for vampires, to put it more clearly The Twilight Saga. There was one omitted movie scene that I would have loved to have seen and that is the Blood Type scene.
I would have liked to have seen Mike escorting Bella to school nurse and have Edward taking over. When I heard online that this scene was not in the movie I felt a little sad, I will admit. There is just something about this scene that I held near and dear to my heart. But, for pacing of the film, it did sadly have to say good bye.
One other thing that kind of let me down was the fact that Alice’s semi back story was never revealed in the first movie. In the book the whole reason that Alice was changed in the first place was because the warden that was overseeing her knew that James was lusting for her blood, and rather her die a horrific death, decided to change her to prevent James from killing her. This is something that obviously isn’t important to the overall story, but would have been coo nonetheless to see.
However, in Eclipse, I really like how David Slade and more importantly Melissa Rosenberg, paid attention to detail. It was really nice how they incorporated the infamous leg hitch scene into the movie.
Next on down the list is Interview with the Vampire. It may seem a little silly, but when this movie first came out, my dad was against my mom taking me to the theater to see it. Granted, I was only nine and the movie was rated ‘R’. I had to wait until it was on HBO and my mom taped it for me. While I had read it was adapted from a novel, it wouldn’t be until tenth grade that I would rediscover this series in book form. I had forgotten my book at home for silent reading, and upon looking in a box of books, I found this in my English class and began to read it.
Within the first chapter I knew this would be different from the movie. For instance, Louis had a brother. After his brother’s death, Louis binge drank and was suicidal. This is what led Lestat to him. In the movie, Lestat says that he didn’t have a choice, that he was turned against his will. He tells Louis he knows nothing of his past, which in fact he does. In the movie, it is also said that Louis first human victim is the slave woman, where as in the book is it actually Lestat’s dad.
These small plot differences are probably a result of the company not thinking that the movie not would be a hit. Even though they had optioned and bought the rights to the two books following Interview, they probably weren’t planning on making the last two and decided to make slight changes to the story that wouldn’t necessarily change the overall outcome of the series. These to me were minor changes, and things that most people could live with.
There are a lot more differences between books to movie, or television, translations. The two that come to mind are The Vampire Diaries and True Blood, but these would have to wait until another time because their plots are much more complex than the others that I have just described.
With that, I leave the message board open for discussion. What are some of your favorite changes a series has made, or what has made you cringe and make you not want to watch the series anymore? Do you think Producers and Writers of such things should have as much power as they do? Is it for the better?
Until next time,
Charmaine
I’m actually kind of waiting with baited breath to find out who gets cast in The Hunger Games. I’m anxious for the movie as well but I can’t help but be apprehensive about it. I’m just hoping that they get Hugh Laurie. I am not optimistic but I can hope!
i’m a twilight fan. i love the movies but there was, of course, a few things i felt should be included.
for example, in New Moon i really missed Alice’s talk with Charlie about Bella’s depression. it was really heartfelt and emotional in the book. Also, when Edward says to Bella about being a moonless night before her.
In Eclipse, it was the same sort of thing. The one thing I really missed was the discussion between Jacob and Bella when he says to her “the clouds i can handle, but i can’t fight an eclipse”. i think it captures the whole point of the book perfectly and i think it was sorely missed in the movie. i felt like this discussion was not as detailed and heartfelt as it should have been :)
The very minute I saw the title of this article I knew I had to read it… Thank you from bringing this up..
First of all, good job Charmaine! Very nice! :)
This is a subject that has always been a bit difficult to me. I’m a movie addict, and I believe in “adapted screenplay”, usually I have no problems with it. Since I became a book addict (I used to read only for school, which was boring, but a year and half ago, everything changed), and I’ve discovered the tv, or movie adaptations of some books, I’ve been having a hard time trying to “digest” in a way, some things I see on the screen. Thankfully, this is not always the case.
My first series was Harry Potter, I totally love the books, but most movies have been lacking something to me. I’ve cried reading HP books, and when watching the movies, I wasn’t that moved. Everyone at home is a huge HP fan, and they always say I expect too much. In any case, I keep watching them just because there are some things that are too cool to watch to miss. Lol.
In the case of “Interview with the Vampire”, my experience was exactly the same as Charmaine, I had to wait until HBO aired the movie (I was 8 by the time it was on the cinema), and made my dad woke up at 3:30am on a Friday so I could watch it. I’ve always have some sort of fascination to vampire stories, and this was just OMG’ing to me. In a way it was a door that opened to me. When it comes to the book, I recently read it, and I’ve found that is easily for me to watch it than read. However, I’m blaming this on my mother language, I have the book in Spanish, and Spanish as lovely as it is, tends to be wordy and tedious sometimes, and I’ve had a truly hard time reading the book. Is a GREAT book, but gosh! lol
The other series made to tv, that I have both read and watch is Southern Vampire Mysteries. This is a totally different experience from Interview. I liked the books, there’s a point when they started to annoy me but it’s ok. The tv show however, I think is going down and down each season. I try to watch it as if I haven’t read the books, and still I think the storyline doesn’t make any sense. I find myself saying WTF more times than not while watching; and I’m truly believing that in a very near future not even Alexander Skarsgård will make me “endure” the whole hour of show each week.
I totally agree with Lisa that some series are way too hard to make on tv or movies. And I pray that if they ever do it, the producers, writers, etc try to stay true to the story. (I love my Black Dagger Brotherhood and Dark Hunter series too much lol). Also, as Lisa said, I tend to like my visuals more than Hollywoods’s, so maybe that also might get in the way with certain adaptations.
Again, thank you very much from bringing up this topic!
Love,
E
Great article! I read a LOT of books and series as well. I’m something of a book addict, but that’s another story…
I think the Harry Potter series did a great book to movie translation. Sure, a LOT was left out, but you still got a great feel for the world and the little details within it. I mean Quidditch alone must’ve been hell to translate to screen in a way it could be understood.
I agree with both of the scenes that you wished could’ve been fit into the Twilight movie. Blood Typing and Alice’s background – oh, how I wanted to see both! I was also mildly annoyed that they only had time for one dance – the Prom – as opposed to Bella turning down all the boys for Girl’s choice because that still makes me laugh out loud when I re-read the book. Oh, and I wish they would’ve kept the meadow scene more true to the book as well.
I liked the New Moon adaption – other than the screaming like her appendix burst during the months right after Edward left – but she kinda did that in the books too so I can’t really complain too much. I was relieved they included the tent scene in Eclipse as it’s one of my absolute favorite scenes in the entire series. The book version was better, but the book version always is IMO.
A lot of the series that I read haven’t been made into movies, and I don’t see how they could be. Just to name a few of the series I read: The Dark Hunter world? The Immortals After Dark? The Black Dagger Brotherhood? I just don’t see Hollywood capable of taking on those series and making them believable yet – not to mention there are a lot of books in those series which would be great if the first one did well at the box office, but a let down if they started and then didn’t finish.
Besides, I’ve almost always preferred my visual over Hollywood’s. The only movie (off the top of my head) that I preferred over the book is The Last of the Mohicans, and that’s because the book was just too wordy when it didn’t need to be. Oddly enough, that’s what people love about the book. Whatever.
Again, great and fascinating article. Thanks so much for posting this. :)
~Lisa aka cfmom