Monday, July 20, 2009

When Is a Good Book a Good Movie?

Tip of the Day: The Percy Jackson trailer is online. I'm looking forward to this one!

With any luck, as this blog post publishes, I'm on vacation in sunny North Carolina. My mom lives in NC and I'm looking forward to going to the movies with her and my daughter to see Harry Potter 6. Yeah! Finally!

I'm going to make a small confession here. I love all the Harry Potter books, but I think I like the movies better. Although the movies highlight a few plot holes (I always get hung up on why they can't use the Time Turner to save Cedric), they also make a few plot improvements. Like Cho Chang should have been the traitor to Dumbledore's Army, the way it happened in the movie. That's more elegant, I think, than her best friend selling out Harry in the book.

I know, we book people usually like the book better than the movie. Let's face it, Hollywood has chopped up some of my favorite books in painful ways. The City of Ember was not being devoured by giant animals or why would they have wanted to go aboveground where there were more animals?! Yeesh. And I can't even look at the DVD cover to HORTON HEARS A WHO without bursting into tears of rage.

So what does it take to write a novel that would make a fun movie? I love physical comedy on screen. It's fun to picture my main character getting clocked in the head by a locker door, for example, but it's not quite as funny when I type it out. Verbal humor seems to work better for me in print, which is probably why I loved reading HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY and A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS and didn't enjoy their respective movies. I'll keep working on writing physical comedy, but man, it would work better if I could draw pictures, I think.

You know what I'm really hoping for in Half-Blood Prince? Learning the music to the "Weasley is Our King" song. I know, I know, I'm not going to get this wish. The song was in The Order of the Phoenix book. But I've heard there's a lot more Quidditch in this movie, so maybe ...

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

2 comments:

DeenaML said...

We will have to discuss HP6 movie when you return! Those actors make a huge difference, too. I love the ones who portray the HP cast!

Christina Farley said...

I was just thinking about this because last night I watched City of Ember and I remembered you saying the movie disappointed you. Yeah, me too.

I think it's also how the director sees the story and if that also lines with the author's vision too.

So when are they bringing your book's movie out?