Creating their Own World

I believe Richard Corliss is correct in his assertion that readers think the book is better because they have a perfect version in their mind.

I have read a lot of books about alternate worlds and these books contain a lot of imagery to create the new world.  Sometimes I feel like the books are meant to only be seen in the readers' heads.  They are alternate universes after all and are not meant to be based in our world.  In books with magic, time travel, etc I feel since these events cannot occur in today's world the movies make the scenes extremely cheesy.  This cheesiness creates laughter among the audience and readers knowing it is not meant to be a humor filled scene may get angry at the film adapters.  

Readers also may dislike how the film adapters created the world or cast the characters.  Every reader imagines the world the writer creates differently.  Readers may add images into the world in their head that the writer does not give or they may ignore imagery in the novel that they dislike.  This manipulation in the readers mind will then lead to a slight difference in everyone's mind on what the movie version should be.  So when the film adapter reads the book and pictures the movie one way some of the readers will disagree.   Some readers, after watching the movie, may not be able to imagine the world their head created and instead picture the movie version.  If this event occurs many readers will say the movie ruined the book for them and dislike when their other favorite books are made into to movies in the future.  Therefore readers will prefer the book trying to protect the world their mind created and ignore the movie's version as best they can.   

Comments

[dani K]

i agree, i think some things are better left to the imagination. because if someone else shows you what your supposed to see. the magic that the book holds for you disappears.

[Leslie T.]

True. Books brings way more imagination rather than films because books force you to actually "imagine" what's going on. Some films may have that power at times also, but since films have visual effects, it will not be as easy of a task to do than when you're actually reading a book and thinking about it. Good post!

[Rebekah]

I think your point about people changing the book in their heads to the way they want it is a really good point. I always thought the reason for so many different visions was lack of description on the author's part, but the fact that on top of limited imagery people have changed what the author intended makes a lot of sense too.