Controversial Bookish Topic: Book-to-Cinema Adaptations

We all have our opinions on book-to-cinema adaptions. (I say "cinema" rather than "movie" because some books have adaptations as TV shows, miniseries, musicals, and so on.) This is a very heated discussion, and the general consensus is that the book is always better. Here's my plan for posts over the past few days:

1. Book-to-Cinema Adaptations: The Good Ones (3 April 2022)
2. Book-to-Cinema Adaptations: The Decent Ones (4 April 2022)
3. Controversial Bookish Topic: Book-to-Cinema Adaptations (5 April 2022)
4. The Bookish Dilemma: Book-to-Cinema Adaptations (6 April 2022)

Did I plan for this week (4 days, including today) to be focused on book-to-cinema adaptations? Sort of. I knew this was a topic I wanted to talk about, and I finally decided to just make a post about it. And then it just happened that 5 days were dedicated to the topic.

Please remember that all of the posts titled "Book-to-Cinema Adaptations" include opinions that I hold about any cinematic adaptations of books. You don't have to agree with me, but you also don't have to be rude about your disagreement.

With all of that out of the way, here's the Controversial Bookish Topic post on the subject!

So what's so "controversial" about cinema adaptations of books? I personally think the "controversy" is related more to readers' fears. Here are what some of those fears can look like:

1. Who are they casting? This doesn't always line up with the author's (or reader's) take on how the characters look.
2. Will they get the story and world right? Sometimes they do, but when they don't, it often doesn't go very well.
3. Name pronunciation. This is a lesser fear, but sometimes readers don't pronounce names right, and all of a sudden, the "correct pronunciation" comes out in the movie. (This isn't necessarily dependent on an author's involvement in the production.)
4. How much involvement an author has in production. This fear is a double-edged sword.
1. Firstly, readers want the adaptation to fully respect the source material.
2. However, there may be scenes or dialogues in the book that don't translate well onto a screen for whatever reason.
3. There may also be characters, places, or situations that don't happen or appear for long enough to make a screen appearance worth it.

So this is why book-to-cinema adaptations have garnered a controversial veneer as of late. Additionally, there is also the hard-held belief that the book was, and will always be, better. However, this is a belief that I want to argue against. It's not that I want to change it - in many cases, the book is better than the cinematic adaptation. However, there are many cases where the cinematic adaptation meets the book in how good it is. Sometimes, the cinematic adaptation is better than the book.