It seems like everyday you hear about a new book that is being turned into a movie or a TV show. Some people hate when this happens, some people love it. Nine times out of ten, I’m definitely one of those “The book was better people” but I can also appreciate a good page to screen adaptation when I see one. Here are some my favorites.
Harry Potter (all of them)
I am a hardcore Harry Potter fan and I can’t express how happy I am that the movies stayed pretty consistent to the books. Aside from a few details in each, there were no major plot differences between the two. It’s understandable that not every magical detail made it into the movies, seeing as toward the middle and end of the series, the books were over 600 pages. But I can appreciate everything they did put in the movies and honestly say that I love watching them just as much as I love reading the books.
Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments
The Mortal Instruments series first tried its run in a screen adaptation with a movie in 2013, but it wasn’t very successful nor was it very good. However the TV show, which premiered in 2016 with a whole new cast, had a lot more success. This is one of the only cases where I think the screen adaptation was much better than the books. The show deviated from the books in more ways than one, but in my opinion, all of the changes were for the better. While most of the characters were kept the same, the show changed some storylines, which I think made the plot more enjoyable. It also fixed a lot of problems that arose in the books, including how they treated their LGBTQ characters, and how they dealt with certain relationships.
The Hunger Games – Catching Fire
All four of the movies were good adaptations in my eyes, except for some things like white-washing Katniss, but I remember enjoying Catching Fire the most. The second movie was the most entertaining for me and I remember that everything seemed to be exactly like the book—there were no scenes added and very few, if any, taken out.
Simon vs. The Homosapien Agenda / Love, Simon
The movie version changed its name to Love, Simon, which I didn’t like at first, but after seeing the movie, I thought it was fitting. This adaptation actually had a lot of changes from the book, which would usually bug me, but the fact that the movie on its own was so good made me not care as much. Even though a lot of the details were changed and some characters were removed or added, the plot was essentially the same as the book.
gif credit: https://tenor.com/view/love-simon-nick-robinson-gif-11355995
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
There are a few details in the movie adaptation of this book that are different, but overall I think it was consistent. The book is told in letters from Charlie, so obviously they had to change some things in the movie to get some of the information across. I thought the casting in this movie was very accurate and although they cut some storylines, like some details about Charlie’s sister, the movie lived up to my expectations.