Seeing Da Vinci Code recently reaffirmed my belief that when you make a movie out of a novel, it decreases the beauty of the novel. Movies don't let your imagination fly as wild as a book. The poetic license that is accredited to writers are not available to a script maker. None of the books I have read have made a better movie. Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Harry Potter, Lord Of the Rings, Time To Kill, David Copperfield... The list goes on. But the fact remains. Even the Star Wars series where the book came after the movie is no exception to it.
Think of the Harry Potter for instance. When I read about dementors, I had my own scary creatures, to imagine about. Seeing them in the movie was like showing me a calculator and forcing me to believe that it is a super computer. Another would be the Star Wars, The Phantom Menace. The book says that Anakin Skywalker could feel every part of the pod he was driving as if it were part of his body. He could sense an engine failing even before it actually did and switch to alternate power. How could they ever picture it in a movie without a narrative.
I am by no means demeaning the work of the film makers. They have their own restrictions to fight. I appreciate the hollywood style of preparing a manuscript and then going on to shoot, unlike their tamil counterparts who deviate from their plan after the shooting. You can identify parts of the film where the lip movement does not match the voice. Bad planning. All I ask of the book writers is that they have some foresight. If they know that their book is going to be made a movie let them make it known. I will avoid such movies. But still I see those movies when I sit at home with nothing else to do. Can't avoid it though. May be in such cases, I will avoid reading those books. :)
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