Book Vs. Movie First
Last spring, my son watched The Hunger Games movie at school, which led to us watching films 2 through 4 at home. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes released around that time, but I told him we couldn’t watch it until after I read the book. Unfortunately for him, I was in the process of editing my upcoming novel at the time as well as writing another, and therefore, wasn’t ready to read it yet for risk of it influencing my own works. But I did finally read it last month, and then we finally watched the film adaptation together. (If you’ve both read the book and seen the movie, I’m curious what you thought of the latter.) I’m now at long last reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit after seeing the movies more times than I can count, and so this seemed a fitting subject to write on.
I’m sure there are plenty of movies based on books that I’ve seen without reading the book first. But I probably have little to no intention of ever reading those books anyway. HOWEVER, when it comes to a book that I do plan to read, I’m a firm believer in reading the book before watching the movie. I regret not doing that with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but I was barely a teenager when the first film was released.
Here are my reasons why:
There is something truly magical about reading a book and getting to envision what that world and its characters look like for yourself. Yes, the author’s words on the page shape that vision (unless you’re like my husband who completely abandons the facts of the book and makes up his own idea of how it should be — cou-Theo-gh), but the end result is uniquely yours, something that (unless you are an extremely talented artist) no one else will ever see. But when you watch the movie first, that magic is lost. You’ll never know what you would have come up with because now you see the characters and their world as they are depicted in the film. What a tragic loss of imagination that is!
I don’t want to say that reading a book after watching the movie is boring—it isn’t that. And we all know you’ll find differences between the two when you do. (I’m only four chapters into The Hobbit and have already found contrasts.) But to a degree, it is less intriguing, less captivating. Because you already know the gist of the story, it just simply doesn’t draw you in in the same way. When I read a book for the first time with no prior knowledge of it beyond the blurb on the back cover, I don’t want to put it down. It keeps me guessing what’s going to happen next and makes me want to read all the way to the end. Sometimes, I even finish it in a day, or if not, a few days at most. But when I know the movie version of a story so well already, it takes me longer to read the book because it was robbed of its ability to capture my curiosity to the fullest.
As previously mentioned, there are always differences between books and their movie adaptations. A movie simply cannot portray every detail, sometimes even leaving certain characters out entirely (here’s to you, Pluribus Bell). I frequently find that some of the plot changes in film were completely unnecessary. And when a considerable portion of a book is internal dialogue, it often doesn’t translate well to film, losing much of the heart and meaning of the book and the significance of the characters’ actions and their arc. By reading the book first, you get to experience the story to the fullest as the author intended it and as it should be.
I will say that on the flip side of this, it’s sometimes harder to enjoy a movie when you know all of the things that are missing or all the ways they got it wrong. My son was definitely able to enjoy The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes more than I was—with the exception of me pausing it every few minutes to tell him what was wrong or missing. (I make no apologies!) But I still believe that the pros of reading the book first far outweigh the cons.
Which side of the debate do you fall on? Let me know in the comments below.