Nothing is better than sitting down, putting in a DVD and losing yourself in a story that a team of filmmakers have created for you to enjoy, especially when it is based on the work of a great writer, like Tolkien, Lewis or another literary master.

...Or is there? Movies based on other works are becoming more and more prominent in society, with titles like "Harry Potter," "The Hunger Games," and "The Lord of the Rings" being some of the highest grossing book-to-movie adaptations, according to The Richest. However, not all are as successful as them. Remember "Percy Jackson?" (I have tried to forget about that as well.)

Then there is the whole video game-to-movie genre, which historically have been downright horrible. Everything from the "Super Mario Bros" movie from the 90's to the several "Mortal Combat" movies have fallen short of the mark fans have for them. In recent years, though, they have been on the rise. With the "Tomb Raider" series, "Warcraft," and the newly released "Assassins Creed" film, all with strong showings, why are the scores for these movies so low? The highest Rotten Tomatoes score was a 44, received by "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" and the highest MetaCritic score was a 58, given to the 1995 movie "Mortal Combat." Given that these games worked so well, made so much money, and are beloved by fans, why does this not transfer over to the big screen?

I think the answer lies within each of us. There is no feeling in the world like getting sucked into a fictional world, far away from the problems of this one. When reading or playing video games, I am no longer Douglas Parry; instead, I am someone or something else. For a time, I can be a Shadowhunter protecting the world from demons and other mystical forces, or a wizard, walking through the halls of Hogwarts. I can act out my savior complex as I play as Ezio, saving renaissance-era France from the evils of the Templars. The list goes on and on, with countless hours and hundreds of dollars spent on these things. Yet, when I watch these on the screen, something just feels off.

For example, one of my all-time favorite book series is "The Mortal Instruments," which follows the life of a New York teen as she discovers the secret of her family and the hidden underworld of the supernatural. The entire series made it on the New York Time's Best Seller list and was wildly successful. I was able to lose myself for months within the narrative that Cassandra Clare was able to weave into the pages. Being able to lose myself in the make-believe New York that I so wish I was in, at times rereading my favorite fight scenes and the romance of the two main characters. So, imagine my excitement as I learned they were making it into a feature-length movie. With hopeful optimism, I waited until it came to HBO and I blocked out an afternoon for the purpose of watching this story come to life. And, well... I was let down.

It was a decent movie that I would watch again if it came up on TV, but I wouldn't purchase it. (Movies like "Van Helsing," "Dodgeball" and "Napoleon Dynamite" also fall into this category.) The characters just could not compete with the mental images and the emotional connections I had built with them. It was as if I was watching the movie, but it wasn't the same story that I knew and loved. Now, I know the director had to take some artistic liberties, and I'm not going to critique that. But the emotional connection just never happened. The same can be said of the "Assassin's Creed" film that was just released. I had fallen in love with the games, and the countless hours I have spent playing the games resulted in a slight let down when I saw the movie the other day. Don't get me wrong, as a stand alone movie it was excellent, it just fell well short of the mark left by the video game.

Emotional attachment is a beautiful thing. It helps us connect and relate to each other and works of art. However, it can also fail us at times, with movies based off of other works being such a case. When a stand alone movie comes out, I have a much easier time connecting with those characters than when a movie based off a book or video game comes out, and I believe that is why so many of these movies fail. Trying to compress a 400-page narrative or a video game that people spent hundreds of hours on into a two-hour movie just does not work. Regardless of how good the movie is by itself, it will always pale in comparison to the work that came before it.