Book to Movie Adaptations That I Love

It is well known that 9/10 times when a book gets adapted to movie format it turns out horribly. I understand that sometimes it’s not anyone’s fault, we get that you couldn’t fit a 700-page book into an hour and forty-minute retelling, but there are some times where they change the entire plot. Or the age of the character. Or they take out a character. There’s no telling what the monsters in the movie industry will do. But thank goodness, there are some times when they do OK, or maybe even halfway decent. So I’ve decided to share a list of some book to move adaptions that I enjoyed.

Number 1: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

 

I believe that The Lord of the Rings movies are a shining example that all aspiring book to movie makers should look to for inspiration.

When I was younger, about 9 or 10 years old, my father used to give me books to read, and one book that he so graciously loaned to me was The Fellowship of the Ring (of course, I was only granted the privilege of reading this book after I had read The Hobbit). Now maybe it was because I was small, and my attention span wasn’t great, but The Fellowship of the Rings tended to be quite long-winded at several points throughout the book. Don’t get me wrong! I loved the entire series, it was incredibly cool and fantastical and funny, but J.R.R Tolkien has a talent for drawing out things that don’t necessarily need to be drawn out. I mainly contribute this to the time in which the book was written. The Fellowship of the Ring, much like many classics of its time, uses drawn out language that may or may not frustrate a 9 or 10-year-old.

It’s for the exact reason stated above that I love the movies so much! Besides for the fact that it’s filmed beautifully with awesome looking costumes, in a movie there are no long-winded drawn out lines of text!

(seriously look how cool! ^)

(also dis guy! I may have an infatuation with elves. Whatever.)

Also, I adore how the movies tried so hard to include as much as possible from the books,  it’s the longest film – running longer than 200 minutes! (LOTR marathons are a pain but so worth it). (They become even worse if you try to add the Hobbit movies to it as well).

Number 2: Room

  

First off, a few things about this book.

Room is a spectacular book, and if you haven’t read it yet you must rush to your TBR immediately and put Room right at the tippy-top of that most probably dangerously long list.

I’m going to be honest and admit that I only read the book after I had seen the movie, but my excuse is that I didn’t know it was book. Which isn’t such a good excuse, but it’s the one I’m going to stick with.

I had watched Room (for the first time) after I saw that it was nominated for an Oscar, because I always like to judge what other people say is good when award season comes along. After finishing the movie, I was blown away, it was such an amazing story and it was told so beautifully. So, I obviously had to make other people watch it, which led to the second time I saw it, and eventually the third and so on.

(me right after watching Room for the 50th time.)

The main reason why I elect Room as an amazing book to movie adaptation is because the movie convinced me to read the book. In general, I stay away from books that have rape themes in them, so I probably would have never picked up the book were it not for the movie.

Number 3: Crazy Rich Asians

 

Malka and I went to see the movie a little over a week ago and it was SO GOOD!

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I’m not an avid romance reader. I go so far as to not read books that might have any romance in them at all. Which is a bit dumb, and I know I’m being overly picky, but I’m growing out of it (I think). So, the main reason that I loved Crazy Rich Asians (the book) was because of how over the top and dramatic all the characters were. And of course, I had to share my love for this book with others, so I would recommend CRA to anyone who hadn’t read it constantly. Unfortunately, some people * cough * Malka * cough * did not take my recommendation seriously until news of the movie began to come out.

It got even better when the movie was released and so many people began to read the book (there are literally hundreds of holds on CRA at my library). Not to mention that the movie was done so well!

I’ll admit that they changed a few parts here and there, but all the changes made sense and made the movie work even better. I loved the casting of all the characters, and how even with limited screen time they managed to give all the big personality characters a true portrayal on screen.

 

Honorable mentions:

Home (The True Meaning of Smekday), The Giver, Wonder, and Hugo (The Invention of Hugo Cabret) are a few that I can think of off the top of my head.

The thing is that I love books and I love movies, so obviously I always hope to love book inspired movies. Nowadays every other movie is one that’s inspired by a book so statistically speaking the chances of a good book to movie adaptation coming along are greater. I think. I don’t actually know anything about statistics. But here’s to hoping.

Do you agree with my picks? What are some of your favorite book to movie adaptations?

 

 

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