A couple of weeks ago while watching a bunch of different booktubers I came across a video by BooksAndLala where she talked about all of the upcoming TV or movie adaptations of books which inspired me to talk about why I love adaptations of stories that I love!
I am sure most of us have adaptations of our favorite books that we wish didn’t exist or had been done differently but I like to concentrate on the positive side of things rather than dwelling on what could have been!
You Get To See Characters And Worlds Come To Life
This is probably one of the most exciting things for me because I am very bad about visualizing characters or worlds that are being described in books which is why I can’t picture actors as characters. Usually, I will have seen fancasts or actual casting announcements and I will just go from there. Once I have seen a picture of a character pop up over and over again, that’s pretty much what I see whenever the character is mentioned in the story (see: Rhysand as drawn by Charlie Bowater).
Which is why I love seeing a book I enjoyed come to life on the big or small screen! I never had a picture of what Thomas from The Maze Runner trilogy looked like and then they cast Dylan O’Brien and I was like ‘Yes. That’s Thomas.’. Whenever I finally get around to reading Harry Potter you can bet any amount of money on the fact that I will be picture Daniel, Rupert and Emma as their respective characters while reading.
You Get To See Characters Be Developed Further
I don’t think any work of fiction is ever perfect which results in characters having flaws that you might have really disliked while reading a book (see: me with Clary in The Mortal Instruments). The great thing about adapting this story is that the writers have the chance to the work on things that didn’t work and change them for their version of the story. This happened with Clary and Alec on Shadowhunters and I couldn’t be more excited about it!
If you were to compare book!Clary and Alec to their show counterparts you would definitely see differences in how they are characterized. For example, book!Alec needed a fearless rune to finally be able to say what he was thinking and he was portrayed as this shadowhunter who stood in Jace’s shadow in a way. On the show, Alec isn’t afraid to speak up (even if it may take him a bit to get to the point of speaking up sometimes) and he is a great shadowhunter who kicks some serious ass! I love him.
Clary isn’t a whiny 15-year-old girl anymore who judges Izzy for her clothing and constantly talks herself down and compares herself to women around her and looks for all the things she is ‘missing’ – I thought that was really annoying about the book character. On the show, Clary (as well as everyone else) has been aged up and she’s a lot more secure in herself and her relationship with Izzy is awesome from the beginning!
You Get To Re-Live A Story Over And Over Again In A Different Form Of Media
You guys might know that I am a big fan of reliving your favorite stories by re-reading books (as I talked about in a previous post) and with an adaptation of that favorite book you actually get to relive the story in a different form of media too! How fun is that?
I regularly hear about people re-watching the Harry Potter movies every couple of months (it seems) or other well-loved book adaptations and that fills me with so much joy for those people because they get to have that second version of their favorite book that they can dive into whenever they feel like it!
You Get More People Interested In A Book You Love
Don’t we all want to make more people read stories we enjoyed too? Or help a book we love to reach a wider audience? I feel like adaptations are a great way to do it! I don’t know how many non-readers watch a movie or show and think ‘Oh, I should pick up the books too!’ once they find out it’s based on a book but I often hear bookworms talking about how they heard about a particular adaptation hitting cinemas soon and now they want to read the book too so they can watch the movie. And that’s just beautiful.
Sometimes even just the news of a book being adapted for TV for a film will motivate bookworms to pick up a book they might not have picked up otherwise and that’s awesome! One more person to potentially fall in love with something you love too and hopefully fangirl with! And any extra sells of a book an author can get? That’s awesome too! We always talk about how we should support authors more and an adaptation and the exposure due to it is a great way for sure!
What About You?
How do you feel about book adaptions? Are you #TeamAdaptation or are you on the side of #PleaseStayAwayFromMyFavoriteBook? Or does your opinion change depending on who is involved with a project? Do you pay attention to that when you’re trying to decide if you want to watch the movie or not? Let’s discuss in the comments below!
If there are any adaptations you’re excited about, let me know! I feel like there are so many things coming out that it’s difficult to keep track sometimes!
The Caffeinated Bookworm Life 
What a lovely post! I agree with all your reasons of why movie adaptations are great!
I have some sort of love/hate relationship with them — I LOVE that you get to experience your favourite stories in a different media form and it’s incredible to see your favourite characters come to life! But ONLY if it’s done well!
The Maze Runner movies are soooo great and I love what they did with them! Sure, movies never stay completely true to the books because movies are a completely different format etc but the TMR movies are so well-done and I love watching and rewatching them!
On the other hand, so many movies are just BADLY done *cough Divergent cough*. I’ve seen the trailer for the first movie before reading the book so I already pictured the characters as the actors but I thought the first movie was still good! It all went downhill from there though — the second movie was just so bad and I didn’t even bother to watch the third one because it all looked so futuristic and I was like ????? This is not.. right??????
ANYWAY. Sorry for rambling so much, I guess what I’m trying to say is that it really depends for me!!!
ALSO I’m like super duper nervous about the Shatter Me TV casting because THEY CAN’T GET ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS WRONG LIKE THEY’RE MY BABIES. And I honestly can’t imagine any real-life people playing them 😭 I pictured Warner as someone else entirely and then I’ve seen Hunter Parrish as the fan cast and at first I was very meh about it BUT NOW I’M TOTALLY ON BOARD. AND THEY’RE PROBABLY NOT GOING TO CAST HIM BECAUSE HE’S TOO OLD AND HE ALSO HAS QUANTICO TO FILM AND STUFF AND I’M SO STRESSED BECAUSE HE IS LITERALLY WARNER. THERE AIN’T NO OTHER PERSON WHO CAN PLAY HIM NOW, HIS IMAGINE HAS LITERALLY BEEN ENGRAVED IN MY MEMORY!!!!!!
Oh my god, ANYWAY 2.0… sorry for rambling so much???? I remember us once talking about long comments and mine is HUGE (I don’t even want to scroll back up) so SORRY 😂😂😂
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I remember watching and enjoying the first Maze Runner movie, but I never continued watching for some reason? So I have no idea how the movie was. But I might have to change that as I really liked the books when I first read them and I like Dylan O’Brien so that’s another reason to watch the movie!
Divergent never even got a third movie! I guess Insurgent did so bad, that they didn’t want to do another one? I’ve heard there was talk of doing a straight to TV/DVD movie and probably not even with the original cast, so who even knows! But yeah, I think maybe that book just wasn’t an ideal book for an adaptation or the people behind it just utterly messed up.
To be honest, if they cast Hunter in the Shatter Me series I might watch it? Or if they have other cast members I really like – I’d probably be on board! But I totally get you! I wouldn’t want someone to ruin my favorite characters and series either! Literally, whenever they are like ‘Book XY gets adapted!’ I’m like ‘Oh no. What if they mess it up???’. We’re supposed to get a Raven Boys tv show and I’m just worried that they’ll mess it up!
Don’t apologize! I’m all for rambly comments as that’s what I tend to do too! 🙂
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I’ve seen the second Maze Runner movie very recently and it was so good! I’d even go as far as to say it was better than the book because they didn’t have the whole desert scene that went on for aaages! And Dylan O’Brien is one of my faavvvees so I’d totally recommend it! 😛
Really?? Oh man, that’s just ridiculous! I hope that never happens because I don’t think there’s a single person who would watch that especially if it won’t have the original cast 😂
Yeeessss!! Hunter is just generally nice to look at *winks* but I also think he’d do a pretty good job at portaging Warner! I’m very interested to see what they do with the show but also super nervous! And I’m the same! I’m always very happy but in the next second I’m like “please don’t mess it up please don’t mess it up please don’t mess it up”. But I was so happy when they announced the Simon Vs cast! I haven’t even read the book but all the characters seem SO fitting! I’m so excited to see it 😍
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Oh, that sounds very promising! I might have to check that movie out then! 🙂
Shit! I totally forgot to check out the Simon VS cast! Especially now that I’ve read the book – I need to know who plays who. I only really know who one of the actors is playing so far and that’s because he’s on The Flash too so he comes across my timeline from time to time. 🙂
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I love adaptations of books too! I don’t understand why some people hate them – I can understand why there is always a fear of their favorite book not being done justice – but there’s no harm in trying out the movie/tv show anyway! I love adaptations for all the reasons you mentioned. They bring the story and characters to life and I find that more comforting and easier. Also, you can watch a 2 hour movie much more times than read a 500 page book!! So that helps in reliving the story again and again. Also, yes – movies definitely make more people interested in the book!
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That’s definitely true! Though I’m usually more likely to read a 500 page book than watch a 2 hour movie because I find myself getting bored easily? Which is ridiculous when I think about the fact that I can binge-watch multiple episodes of any given tv show!
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I totally agree with you! I absolutely LOVE book to movie/tv show adaptations, and I think people are way too hard on them. I get wanting something to be loyal to the book, but it doesn’t have to be exactly the same. If the movie or TV show takes the story in a different direction but it’s still creative and enjoyable, I’m usually okay with that. I pretty much enjoy an adaptation as long as it still captures the heart of the book!
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I often find myself actually falling on both sides of the spectrum. Some days I’m all ‘As long as it’s still a good story, I’m alright with it!’ and then other days I will be like ‘But they didn’t do it justice!’ but in general, I’m all for it because I want to see all those characters I love so much on my screen as much as possible!
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