I just finished reading the book, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," by Stephen Chbosky. As you probably know, this book was also turned into a movie, which I saw twice before starting the book. I think it is really interesting to read the book after the movie. Movies, generally, are shorter, and therefore cover less of the topics included in the book. But, movies also add stuff that is not in the book.
For example, in the book there are some really important scenes that are completely omitted from the movie. For example, in the book, the main character Charlie's sister gets pregnant. This is a huge deal, but it is not even touched on in the film. This made me really wonder about how things are decided to be erased, or kept. After a while, I realized it was probably just for one reason: simplicity. When you think about it, one book usually has many different plots and story lines. But a movie, on the other hand, usually only has one, at most two. Movies usually just stick to the one plot line, which is why they had to edit out all the extras.
After I read the book, I saw the movie one last time. Everybody always says the books are better than the movie. But when I thought about it, in this case I favored the movie. I usually favor books to movies, except for two main examples that I can think of: this book, and Twilight. When I thought about it, I realized the two things these book/movies have in common. In both cases, I watched the movie first. I think that people usually prefer the book/movie they experienced first.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower movie, was one of my favorites. Because I saw it before I read the book, when I did read it I was constantly comparing it to the movie. Instead of the movie being the afterthought to the book, for me, the book was the addition to the movie. Since the movie was the first experience for me, when I thought of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", I thought of the highly enjoyable movie. For me, the movie was the real thing, and the book was the comparison. The same thing happened to me when reading Twilight.
In conclusion, this is what I think about books to movies, and their differences.
I love your response! I definitely agree with how movies cover less detail than the books. It was interesting how you read the book after the movie and then compared the two, most people read the book first and then are always saying how the book is better. You did a great job!
ReplyDeleteAs one to always read first watch after, I always look at he book as the real thing. I guess this is because the book was written first and he movie was based off the book there for, the book is the actual story and the movie is the copy.
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