From books to screen (have no other title on mind so just read the damn thing)...

Last week I decided to go and see Insurgent and after finishing the movie I asked my self a really simple question ''What make a good adaptation??''. For example, what made the Harry potter movies so special?? And what made a movie like ''The mortal instruments'' so bad that I actually would rather watch paint dry than watching this piece of tard again.

For years movie makers have been using books as a way to create new movies and franchises and let's be honest here who doesn't want to his favorite characters on the big screen?? But here is the thing while some adaptions worked really well and gained critical and financial success like the harry potter experience others were total flops and were so dull and boring that they don't even belong to the glorious ''so bad, it's good'' category. 

The Divergent Series: 

For me, The divergent book series is one of my favourite YA series though the last part sucked donkey balls but overall I love this series. So after finishing the books I was really excited to see the movies. I got more excited when I saw that Shailene Woodley was in the movie, God I love her. Then when I heard that Kate Winslet was part of the cast the deal was sealed, so yeah I had high expectations towards the movie. 

But boy was I disappointed. Even thought the movie had a really strong cast, it lacked stuff like imagination, character development and a cohesive plot. So in other words the whole thing was a mess. The book was so detailed, you could actually feel how Tris was struggling to find her new self and how she tried to hide her ''Divergent'' identity. Even the characters around her  like her friends and peers, the book did a great job in developing them and giving you an idea about them. The movie failed to  give us characters who we could give a damn about. I remember there was this scene that one of Tris' friends killed himself while it affected me while reading the book, I was like''Meh, shit happens'' when I saw it in the movie, god I felt the same thing whenever someone died in the movie, at somepoint I had to make sure that I was still human because of my lack of emotion . 

Now lets compare this to Harry Potter, through out the 8 parts the movie makers gave us characters who we could relate to at some point, we sure did give a damn about them and yes they were developed in a good way that when Snape died we were all affected by it, that is how damn good the movies were. Lets take another example, the almighty Fault in our stars, this movie made m,e so emotional, why?? Because the way the plot and characters were written were so good that a lot of people fell in love with them and some how felt that they could relate to them but in a movie like Divergent?? Nothing made sense even the characters. Which takes me to another point, the way the events were translated to the big screen. It's not easy to turn a 500 pages book into a movie, you'll have to add and take out things to make the book adoptable. What makes a smart movie is what do you add and you take out and how to tie the whole thing together to make it look cohesive and make sense to whoever is watching the movie. The hunger games series managed to do so in a smart way, the chain of events made sense, the way the characters reacted made sense and understandable and for a casual movie goer the events were laid smoothly and made sense. On the other hand in movies like Divergent and The mortal instruments: City of bones, the screenplays were so confusing and unbalanced that you could feel that you are watching a series of disjointed sketches stitched together by a clumsy panda. Seriously, while I was watching The mortal instruments movie, I was thinking that even the Porn industries have better screenplays than this, I remember when a porn company's executive said that you remove all the porn from his movies and you'll still end up with an interesting film so I wasn't surprised that Batman's porn parody has a higher rating on IMDB (6.7) than the city of bones movie. 

So the real question is:

What makes movies like the Divergent series, the mortal instruments and the Vampire academy suck and flop while films like Harry Potter, the never ending story, the maze runner and others clicked with people??  

What makes a book a delightful experience is the fact that you use your imagination to imagine the characters you are reading about, the places that are being described in the book and the situations that our heroes face throughout the novel, the power of imagination in other words. So when you think about it the idea of powerful imagination and passion is what makes a book something magical. So when a book is being adopted into a movie, being creative and passionate is what will make the movie work and click with the people. For example, when they were choosing the directors of the Harry Potter franchise, as the series went on it got more dark and edgy than the first few part so they brought a director who could translate this darkness into the big screen with the help of great screen writers and the result?? An epic finale to an epic franchise.    

I remember watching The never ending story when I was young and boy was I hooked because of the creativity and passion that was used throughout the film plus the movie's and the book's message were really good and made me love the whole thing.  Sometimes production companies just want a quick way to make profit so they make shitty choices that leads to boring and forgettable movies. Making money isn't the problem, who doesn't want to make profits?? But this doesn't mean destroying a great source material aka the book it self for nothing. And after seeing The divergent's series latest misfire Insurgent god only know how painful the third part will be, especially that Allegiant is a god awful book by it self. 

But hey, for every Divergent we have the hunger games, For every giver we have the maze runner and for every Twilight (lol) there is the Fault in our stars. So you see the idea isn't about the adaptation itself but the way the adaptation is being handled. 

....God, I love this movie (and yes I also adore the book)....