literature

Books versus Movies

My fiance sits on the couch finishing Return of the King as I sit typing at the computer. Having just come from Stephen King’s web site, having just watched a number of DT inspired short films and having made plans to watch The Two Towers on DVD tonight, I feel the need to reaffirm why I love books tremendously more than movies. Mr. King himself said it better than I can, at least right now, so I will lift what he wrote from the FAQ section of his site in response (it was in response to the question “Are you going to make a Dark Tower Movie?”):

“I’ve always resisted that idea because movies have a way of freezing characters and places in the audience’s mind whereas in books everybody has their own different idea of, for instance, how Roland or Susannah looks but if you do it as a movie, immediately that kind of gets frozen in place and you say ‘Oh, Billy Bob Thornton is what Roland Deschain looks like.’ Or you say ‘Brad Pitt, that’s what Eddie Dean looks like.’ You know what I’m saying, or you can say ‘Calla Bryn Sturgis from Wolves of the Calla looks like maybe the Universal back lot’, and I’ve always resisted that.”

‘Nuff said for now…

2 thoughts on “Books versus Movies

  1. I feel the same EXACT way about book covers. I HATE when some crappy illustrator does a horrible job of creating an image of my favorite character from a book. I can barely get my mind off of it while I read. I always look back to the cover and feel disgusted. When I read hard cover books, I store the jacket away so I can’t see it until I am done. That, and the dust jacket always get fucked up in my bag. In any case, there is nothing worse than somebody else messing with your vision in your head.

  2. my jacket covers always get fucked up too…thats hilarious. I always find myself looking back at the cover when there talking about that particular caracter and trying to imagine them that way also. i do like how they made lucy from the chronicles of narnia look in the new movie thats comeing out…shes sorta how i imagined her

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