Katie on entertainment: What's with all the book movies?!?

The title of my blog clearly gives me free reign to talk about just about anything here. CF, nutrition and eating, and in general anything that pops into my pretty little head. Ok, not pretty, maybe cute. Anyway, I have a bit of a gripe. As a teacher, I've read a lot of books. I enjoy reading. Reading is a great escape and I think it's awesome that 10 different people can read a book and their vision of a character can be different. Reading is really personal. Your thoughts on a book all depend on your connection with it.

It drives me nuts then that Hollywood now seems to be finding it necessary to turn every decent selling book, in particular books of the children's variety, into a movie. Now I know this may sound odd since obviously some of my favorite movies are things that were books first. But the movies I enjoy were movies that were LABORIOUS processes and projects where directors and writers spend hours trying to make the movies connect to books as much as possible. They aren't projects that are produced in a matter of months, and thrown together simply because they want to make money quickly. Lord of the Rings took YEARS to film and produce and literally boosted the economy of an entire COUNTRY. Harry Potter has also been continuously filming for years as well. Band of Brothers? Come on. Hanks and Spielberg? Attention to detail was at the utmost.

But seriously, all these new movies that are coming out that are based on the books really anger me. Kids especially NEED to use their imaginations and when they see the movies it takes away that connection to a book and it removes their imagination from the equation. Now the only thing they think about is how it looked in the movie. Reading encourages their thinking and creativity and that therefore encourages their learning. When we take that away from them by digitizing everything, it really hurts them. I can't tell you how many times I have heard a kid say, "Yeah well, that doesn't happen in the movie." GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. No, it doesn't happen in the movie. Because the movie is a piece of crap! Ugh! I understand that there are some things that as a movie are great, but we don't need to turn EVERY bestselling YA novel into a movie. Twilight? Really? Someone saw the cash cow in that and decided to go for it. You can't tell me that a producer really had a "vision" for that series. I would honestly have preferred that they leave that alone. Besides that, it reeks waaaay too much of being a Harry Potter wannabe. I thought that when the author WROTE the books for Pete's sake.

Anyway, I honestly think that kids today are overstimulated. With all the Wi's and Nintendos and computers, they barely have time just to use their brains and imaginations. Everything is already imagined for them. They need to read. They need to develop their own sense of characters and connect to books on a personal level, not just read it because "It's going to be a movie." We're not doing our kids any favors by turning every book into a movie. I say, if Hollywood feels the need to create a movie, they ought to think of a plot line on their own. Leave the books alone.

Katie's List of children's books that got turned into craptastic or mediocre movies

*Chronicles of Narnia (HORRIBLE!!!!!!! and I own it so yes I can say that)
*Tuck Everlasting
*Bridge to Terebithia
*Inkheart
*Where the Wild Things Are
*Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
*Fantastic Mr. Fox (This was my FAVORITE Roald Dahl book in elementary school and I'm PISSED that they turned this into a movie. The version in my head was way better)
*Tale of Desperaux
*The Spiderwick Chronicles
*Series of Unfortunate Events
*Eragon
*Aquamarine
*The Thief Lord
*How to Eat Fried Worms
*Hoot
*Holes
*Because of Wynn Dixie
*Zathura
*Cat in the Hat (SERIOUSLY!?!?!?!!?)

Katie's list of children's books that she actually does like as movies (again, with the exception of a few, most of these were laborious, long drawn out processes with lots of attention to detail. Maybe this is why they are better?)

*Polar Express
*Ella Enchanted
*Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (my imagination didn't do that one justice)
*Harry Potter (Quidditch played on screen is way cooler than in my head)
*Princess Bride

As a side note, I have yet to see The Lightening Thief. That series was such a kickass series, especially for YA boys, that if they f it up, I will be SUPREMELY pissed off. The way that he integrated Greek mythology with a learning disability, and a male protagonist is pretty awesome. That was a terrific series and I'm going to be very very upset if they don't do it justice. This is the first of a 6 book series... so it'll be interesting to see if they do a good job with it or not.