I'm going to see Harry Potter 6 with a new female acquaintance next weekend, and amidst other email-based conversational topics, we've been talking about movie adaptations of popular novels. Especially fantasy novels. We're both fans of the LotR efforts, and Harry Potter as well, to a lesser extent. The way we're approaching them is very different though.
I saw the first 2 HP movies (my mom dragged me) before I read any of the books. I then started reading the series with some skepticism, before they grew on me as the books got better/more mature around #3 or #4. I've enjoyed the movies since then, but primarily because I'd read the books first, and knew what was going on. Plus it's fun for me to compare the films to the novels. I like to ponder what they cut, what they expanded, how they translated character thoughts and narration to the visual medium, etc.
Quite the opposite is true of my date. She's purposely put off reading the books until after she sees the movies. She prefers to enjoy the films first, her thoughts untainted by advance knowledge, and then after seeing each one she goes and reads the book. She said she had all of the DVDs as well, so apparently she enjoys the films again after reading the books, too.
Along with that conversation, we traded some thoughts about how movie adapatations work, and as you might suspect, I had a lot to say about that. Too much to presume upon her via email, so I greatly condensed what I said to her, and saved the main block I wrote to post here, where 1) you've come to read my bullshit, 2) you're bored at work anyway, and 3) I'm not trying to impress you, so I can be windy to a fault.
So... The issues and perils of adapting a 400 page book to a 120 page screen play are fairly well known, but differ between projects. I think the HP movies have been fairly good films, and fairly good representations of the books, but so much of what makes the books work is the sense of place and time and routine and repetition, and the films just don't have time to delve into that.
The structure of the HP books, one set each school year, always starting off with Harry at home with his wretched relatives, racing to school just ahead of some dire misadventure, and then diving into the comforting routine and rhythm of the school year. But before he can get totally settled in each year, some larger plot starts to occur; a new teacher or two, some peril at the school, and always the overarching quest/menace of Voldemort growing in importance throughout the series.
The movies tap into that neatly as well, and while I don't think they've done anything brilliant, they've been fairly entertaining. The structure is useful in the books, and it helps the films as well, by saving on exposition. The movies don't need to reintroduce the setting or principles each time, since the viewer can be counted on to known about Hoggwarts, Dumbledore, Hagrid, quidditch, etc. And the HP world is gorgeously visual, with all the costumes, the great architectural sets of Hogwarts, magical spells, and mythological creatures galore.
I haven't thought any of the HP movies were brilliant, but they've all been pretty entertaining, and I've enjoyed them more with additional viewings. I've never sat down and watched any of them start to finish, other than in my initial theater viewing, but the hour here and half hour there I've seen on TV has kept me entertained. I think they're better the more you know of the stories. Hoping for surprises or big shocks is pointless, and watching them before you've read the books is confusing. They're more like comfort food; better when you know what's coming, and just want something enjoyable but not especially challenging or novel.
Another recent, famed movie adaptation is Lord of the Rings. I won't go into huge detail on that one, but I'd read the books a few times, and I thought the movies improved on the books in almost every way. Besides the great casting and acting and scenery and special effects, the writing was inspired; preserving all the mood and tone and epic scope of the books, while greatly improving Tolkien's fairly lacking characterization, dropping unnecessary material, tightening up the plot, increasing the female roles, etc.
The other ongoing fantasy (sort of) series is Twilight, which I'm somewhat curious about. I might watch the movies at some point (#2 is this fall, #3 is next summer. They must
really be worried about cashing in before the current craze fades.) just to see how they handled the adaptation. I went off
in fairly critical terms about their visual cheapness and poor casting, as evidenced by trailers for the first two films. But giving the idea of Twilight films some more thought, it's quite likely they'll be better than the books.
Admittedly,
I didn't think much of the books, but they provided enough raw material to make some decent films. The novels left enormous room for improvement, since they were rambling, repetitious, and seemed virtually unedited.
That said, so much of what makes the books work (at least for their core audience) is Bella's endless worrying, dithering, whining, moping, fretting, heart-sicking, etc, etc. Much of the books are virtually diaries in their presentation of her every activity and angsty thought, and while that's "bad" on any professional quality of writing measure, it's what (I think) all the girls and (immature?) women who are embracing it most enjoy. They want to delve into some (fictional) woman's every thought and worry and feeling of love or betrayal, and her mooning exultations over her uber-hot vampire boyfriend/true love/soul mate/destiny, etc. That's why learned critiques of the literary failings, while correct, are largely beside the point.
Less defensible is the generally wretched plotting, the overly wordy, blabbering prose, the poor characterization (everyone talks the same and the chars lack distinctive behaviors or behaviors), and the way big showdown scenes are constantly and frustratingly sidestepped at the last minute.
So, how the films will work (or not) is a matter of debate. Unlike the HP movies, honing films from the source material isn't a matter of cutting down the plot events to squeeze all the material into a less-than three hour block. There's very little plot in the Twilight books, with most of the books' length made up of Bella's moment-to-moment thoughts and worries. That sort of internal psychological struggle is difficult to convey cinematically, and I'm not at all sure the Twilight movies should even try to convey it, since it's not very good in the books (despite the fact that it's what most of the fans are so enamored of).
The essential points, which are somewhat contradictory.
The Twilight novels are easy to adapt to film, since the books are very light on content and all key plot events can easily be fit into a 2 hour film.
Unfortunately, the plots of the Twilight novels aren't actually very good, and even where the sequence of events is potentially thrilling, the way exciting events are presented in the books is very poorly done. Meyer's rudimentary writing skills are at their weakest when trying to describe physical events and actions.
However, the Twilight novels are not "about" their plots. They're about the emotions of Bella Swan, and how she reacts to events. That sort of tight focus on one character, especially on her thoughts and emotions is very difficult to translate to screen, and the way the effect is achieved in the books is by endless repetition. Very skilled screenwriting would be required to transfer that into films that were not themselves vastly overlong and boring.
I think they'd be better off almost going from scratch. Retain the characters and the plot skeleton, and make changes/improvements/modifications very liberally. And that seems to be what the first film did, judging from what I read in reviews and saw in the trailer. Were the fans okay with that? All the buzz I heard was about how hot the 14 y/o girls thought the actor hired to play Edward was, and honestly... that's a perfect macrocosm of the whole Twilight phenomena. Adolescent urges and hysteria trumping any tangible quality, intelligence, plot, etc.
Labels: harry potter, lord of the rings, movies, twilight, writing
