Book to film adaptations are always going to be around. Because of this, there will always be people that say, "The book will always be better than the movie." But does this have to be true?
I'm taking an adaptation class this semester, and one of the first things we talked about was how we shouldn't compare how closely the adaptation of a work follows the original work. Rather, we should look at the original and adaptation as separate works. In any adaptation, there will be differences - especially in written works, because writing the same exact thing would be plagiarism. Even in movies, there will almost always be differences based on what the director wants to portray as the most important elements of the plot. To fit an entire book into a moving picture is an unrealistic expectation. The movie would end up being at least three hours long, and even hardcore fans of a universe most of the time do not want to sit through that long of a movie just to have it be the exact same as the book. Some cuts have to be made to fit a plot into a reasonable chunk of time, or it risks having the movie cut into at least two to three parts.
Another issue with comparing how closely a film adaptation sticks to the original is the issue that you've seen it before. If the movie is exactly like the book, nothing new is being added. No new issues are examined, no new themes are introduced, and you only see with your eyes what you already saw in your head. Adaptations, for the most part, try to add original elements into the films to emphasize elements that are important, change elements they believe should be changed to make a better story, and add or take away themes that the directors feel are conducive to making the movie match their individual vision. Without these changes to the book versions of stories, nothing new comes from watching the movie instead of rereading the book.
While on the topic of adaptation, copying, and reworking works, there is almost no such thing as an original. All novels, songs, and movies borrow scenes, themes, or characters from other works. Especially when talking about how movies tend to not follow the plots of books, books don't follow the plots of other books that they are based off of. Even written works that are easily noticed as an adaptation don't have to follow the plot that the original follows to be considered good. The novel "Wide Sargasso Sea" is an adaptation of "Jane Eyre," but very little of the story is even in the same setting. Jane isn't even in the book, yet "Wide Sargasso Sea" is considered a masterful adaptation. But when a movie makes changes to a book, even though making a book to a movie is a very clear adaptation, it's considered wrong, or worse than the book.
Movies can exist as their own entity, even as an adaptation of a book. Comparing the two only makes watching the movie less enjoyable. Expecting a perfect recreation of a book is strange, as very few movies follow their originals to a T. It might be more fun to watch a movie for itself, instead of watching the movie for what you wish it was, or watching it for a recreation of what you already saw when reading the book.
