Comparing books to movies

Rating: Null/10 (16 July 2011)

I do wish everyone would stop comparing the Harry Potter movies with the Harry Potter books!! This has been going on as long as they have been making the movies and I am sick of it. I never read any of the books and therefore went into the first movie with an open mind. I saw the final film today, and I must say, the complete saga of Harry Potter and his adventures has been thrilling, exciting, rollicking adventure and one of the best book to movie series that I have ever seen. For me, the phrase "based on the book by J.K. Rowling" does not mean that I am going to see a page by page representation of the book on the screen. Even if I had read the book, I would not expect such an adaptation. It just can't be done. They've been trashing Ian Fleming's James Bond books for decades now, and still, millions of people are rabid fans of the character of James Bond. Lines go around the block when the latest James Bond film appears at the local cinema. Yet, there hasn't been a Bond film that actually followed a Fleming original story in years! Those of you who have an issue with the movies should accept the fact that the books stand on their own, but so do the movies. The script writers worked with the material they had, along with input from the author and the time constraints that they were given by the studio. Under these conditions, they made the best set of movies possible. Everything in a book cannot possibly appear in a film, and if your favorite scene is missing, then I suggest that you go back and re-read the book so that you can capture the scene as J.K. Rowling envisioned it. Even if J.K. Rowling had written the scripts for each of the movies, do I believe that everything from the books would have made it onto the screen. A movie - based on a book - will always be a compressed, rewritten version of the original source material. This is the way it has been for over 50 years, and the way that it will continue for long into the 21st century!