Why It's so Hard for Movie Adaptations to be Good

 Movie adaptations of books are hit or miss. They're more often than not catered more towards the general public than what the books catered to, which can cause some changes in the plot. Most of them are considered 'failures', 'jokes', or even 'non-existent' to the original fandom of the books just because of how bad they're considered. But why? Here's why.

The Fanbase

Oftentimes, a book series has to get very successful before it can even be considered to have a movie made out of it, and success means a large fanbase. Fanbases mean fanart and already-existing (sometimes popular) perceptions of the characters. Sometimes, there are even fan-castings, where actors are portrayed as acting out certain characters, even if they haven't played them. If the movie actors don't perfectly represent these pre-existing looks, imagined voices, and vibes of the characters, it can cause outrage in the fandom and the movie can be deemed a failure to represent the books properly.

Inability To Detail

In books, you can add as much detail as you want using words. However, you are often limited by CGI, budget, etc in movies. This can cause a lack of detail compared to the book, causing the movie to feel bland in comparison. It's difficult to create the same feelings from being told something rather than being shown something (in terms of the writing tip 'Showing vs. Telling'). In movies, it's extremely difficult to create those kinds of subtle clues and details in the same way as the books without almost completely erasing them

Lack of Time aka Pacing

Movies have a time limit and books don't, it's simple as that. I've gotten into watching movies more since Spring Break and compared to the books and TV shows I usually entertain myself with, it feels like there's so much that's crossed over. There're so many details that I want to know and some parts that I wanted to savor more that I just wasn't able to, because the movie has a time limit and goes at its own pace. However, it's the exact opposite with reading books (at least reading books for fun). You can always close a book and take a break from reading to savor the moment a bit longer and take in the scene word by word or speed through it. You can take as long as you want to read the book, whether it be days or weeks, while with movies you're restricted to a couple of hours. (Sidenote: This issue is very easily fixable with just making TV show adaptions instead.)

Need for Them Dollar Dollar Bills

I touched on this briefly in the section before, but movies are aimed at the general public. Given the choice between pleasing a fandom of maybe 1 million people or click-baiting that fandom AND catering to the public of 100s of millions, producers will of course go with the latter option. It doesn't matter whether the fandom likes it afterward, they'll already have paid for the movie to watch it. This is the reason behind all of those YA books from the 2000s getting the reputation of just being love triangles with an interesting background, because that's what their movies brought to the forefront. 

In conclusion, I don't like movie adaptations very much.

- Shreeya