Reading the Book after Watching the Movie

Reading the book after watching the movie

Most of the time people read a book, enjoy the book, and then afterward a movie or TV show is released and people watch the movie. Often I end up following this path except it’s backwards. This was the case for me on a movie called Monster directed by Anthony Mandler which is an adaptation of Monster by Walter Dean Myers. After watching this movie on Netflix, I ended up reading the book.

When you watch a movie all the characters and settings are visually displayed and are set. This differs from a book in which you may use your imagination from the book’s descriptions to visually find out what everybody and everything looks like. For example, in the book, the setting is during the 1990s, but in the movie, the setting is the current time. This can change seriously because the type of technology during the book can significantly change the plot. In this instance most of the book took place in a courtroom, setting could change the evidence or laws in the trial. This is why people can be frustrated by movie adaptations.

Especially in comic book movies about superheroes. There was a very famous flop in the movie industry with the Justice League (2017). Zack Snyder, the director, had to leave due to family trauma, which led to Joss Whedon taking over. Due to the two-hour run time and the characters not being fleshed out like in the comics, it lost 60 million dollars. The studio had brought the old director, Zack Synder, and his version back to life. With the new 4 hours of run time, and the characters being original to the source. The Zack Synder cut made upwards of 650 million dollars. 

The adapting of books to movies can be a hard process, but when done with care and effort, the experience can be truly memorable.

                                                                                                                    - Darshan