Classic Novels

The movie industry is impacting the American youth by taking books and creating movies. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Romeo and Juliet, nearly every classic novel teenagers are assigned to read have been translated on screen into a movie. The enjoyment people once received from reading Shakespeare is gone and movies are now becoming more popular. For example the first Romeo and Juliet movie to come about at least stuck true to how Shakespeare wrote the script. Then as time progressed teenagers began to associate Shakespeare with Leonardo DiCaprio’s version of Romeo and Juliet which is has a modern twist. Take a look at the picture below of the modern version, since when are there guns during Shakespeare's era. It seems that filmmakers are running out of ideas for movies and attempt to translate timeless books into movies with little success.

These movies lower the incentive to read the book. Teenagers are already looking for any excuse not to read the book by using sources such as sparknotes and cliffnotes and now movies can be added to this cheat sheet. Why read when you can watch it with the click of a button? Reading is becoming a forgotten pastime, as the movie industry grows.  

Harry Potter

Today, let us take a look at one of the latest adaptation of novel to film. Harry Potter is almost universally known and the recent Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One hit theaters last month creating the Harry Potter frieze once again. As an avid reader of JK Rowling’s novels and Harry Potter fan, I was there at midnight for the opening showing and I truly enjoyed the first part of the Deathly Hallows, enthused that they stuck to novel, instead of deviating. However, upon watching the movie a second time, my Harry Potter radar started to go off and I began noticing small differences that were not included. Lupin and Tonks never announced their marriage or that they were having a child, thus Harry was never asked to be the godfather. Harry, Ron and Hermione never planned to break into the ministry but appeared to do this on a whim. Peter Pettigrew was never killed. In addition to the absence of these scenes, new scenes were created such as the dance Harry and Hermione shared in the tent and when Ron convinced Harry not to leave at the beginning of the film. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn0lh6684pA

Granted these are minor details that only a dedicated fan would pick up on, but it is these minor details that make this series addicting. I am disappointed to know that the next upcoming generation will not have the pleasure of reading these novels. Once a movie has been created society is more inclined to watch the movie than pick up a book. Simply watching any two hour Harry Potter film will give you the same idea that spending 12 hours of reading will. The convenience of simply renting the movie off your television screen as opposed to going to a bookstore combined with the time spent on each activity make the option of watching the movie more appealing to most people. Unfortunately avid readers are a dying breed and movie-goers are on the rise.

My Sister's Keeper

Why read? Personally I love to read and to pinpoint an exact reason is difficult. Reading allows your imagination to wander, where a movie is simply given to you straightforward leaving no room for creativity. I feel that books allow a reader to become more immersed in that world due to the amount of time a person spends reading, they feel more connected with the characters and become emotionally involved. When I read my Sister’s Keeper I cried during the last portion of the novel, yet the movie was not a tear-jerker.

However like Harry Potter, My Sister’s Keeper had grown to be one of my favorite novels and the movie version completely butchered the storyline changing the ending. In the novel the younger sister had just medically emancipated herself so she did not have to give her sister, who had cancer, a kidney. In that last chapter of the book a twist occurs and Anna, the younger sister is in a serious car accident and brought to the hospital. This resulted in the cancer sister, Kate, receiving a transplanted kidney from her sister who was brain dead from the accident and died shortly afterward.  In the movie I was shocked to find that after Anna medically emancipated herself and refused to give her a kidney transplant, Kate died due to cancer. As you can imagine anyone who read the book was sorely disappointed.

Movies adaptations are ruining good books by differing from the novel, therefore the audience is disappointed. Even those who did not read the novel prior to the movie’s premiere are not getting the best storyline, in turn deterring them from wanting to read the book afterward. These movies not only taking away from the audience, but insult the author as well.. They are taking away everything the author worked for and creating a worse version of their already amazing book just for entertainment. However what is more disappointing are those authors that sign over the rights of their books to a movie company. Why would you give away everything you worked for? Why would you encourage movies over books? The movie industry is corrupting the book industry, and unfortunately some authors are contributing to this phenomenon. 

Future of Books

The mere act of picking up a book, for those of us who still read, is dwindling. Technology is advancing and items such as a kindle and online reading is becoming more common. This is not just affecting novels but other publications as well, such as newspapers and magazines. With the convenience of the internet; news and magazine’s website, YouTube, and television broadcasts reading is becoming overlooked and forgotten.

The rise of the movie industry combined with the decrease in book readers is not only affecting society by how we spend our spare time, but in professions people pursue. As reading is becoming less popular, authors have a harder time breaking into the falling market, where as the film establishment is rising and job opportunities are growing. Directors, actors, screenwriters, producers, stage crew, and countless other positions are all needed during the creation of a movie making this a huge job market. In the future as one of these markets expand and the others deteriorates people will change professions and eventually authors will become a dying profession. With the decrease in authors and then in books, reading will soon become obsolete.