Books Into Movies: Should You Read The Book BEFORE Or AFTER Watching The Movie?

You’re probably pretty familiar with the phenomenon of books being made into movies and I thought with the release of “The Lovely Bones” movie, this would be an appropriate time to discuss this fad.

Most people going to these movies will likely fit into one of three categories: 1) those who have read the book (or are ‘fanatics’ of it) before seeing the movie 2) those who have not read the book but go see the movie and 3) those who have read the book but go with people who have not read it or vice versa. I’ve been part of all these categories on various occasions, and each time it’s a very different experience.

In category 1 my experience was with Harry Potter. In a way I guess you could classify me as a fanatic for these books. I mean…I guess I went to every release of the book at midnight…and I went to every movie on the first day…and have read all the books multiple times in English and one of them in French…and I GUESS I do have a few of them on audio for my ipod….but other than that it’s just another book to me… Anyways…when the first movie came out I watched it with high hopes, but afterwards I realized I definitely didn’t like it as much as the books. Why? I think first of all the movie could not encompass all elements of the book, so inevitably some of my favorite parts were missing. Also, some parts were skimmed through while others I may not have thought were as important dragged on. Furthermore, when you read a book and really love it, you know in your heart exactly what each character should look and sound like…and without being a casting director it’s hard for the movie to be an exact representation of what you imagined. So, to read a book before seeing the movie is not always a good idea, unless you can learn to expect different things from the book and the movie…or at least don’t go and re-read the book right before seeing the movie…otherwise you’ll likely come out disappointed.

In category 2 my experience was with the “Lord of the Rings”. I really did try to read the book before going but couldn’t get through it… but, you can’t be mad at me here, because I even tried reading “The Hobbit” but… that didn’t really work out either…however, I DID get a lot further in that book than I did with the “Lord of the Rings” (maybe I was just too busy reading Harry Potter…). Ok, so this being said, I still wanted to see what all the hype was about and thought maybe if I watched the movies, I’d be provoked to read the book. Well…I didn’t actually watch all the movies until last year (I know, I was a little slow on the draw there)… but you know what…I liked them! However, I know a lot of people who didn’t like them because they were so different from the book (or so I’m told). So not reading the book actually worked out for me a lot better for this case…although I still haven’t had the time to read them…

Finally, in the 3rd category I was the one who had read the book before seeing the movie and my friends had not. This happened when I saw “The Lovely Bones” the other day. I think here, reading the book ahead of time wasn’t as bad as when I read Harry Potter before seeing the film. I feel this way simply because I think with the topic being what it is some people do better going into it knowing exactly what’s going to happen. My poor friends who I went with were both on edge the whole time…one waiting vengefully for the guy to die (if you’ve seen the movie or read the book you know who I’m talking about) and the other afraid the whole time that additional harm would befall the girl’s family. I found that although I had read the book, the movie was not the exact same as I had pictured it in my mind but the general ideas and perspectives of it were depicted really well. Additionally, some of the things represented in the movie were better than what I had thought of, as a lot of the abstract thoughts were finally brought to life in the movie whereas before I couldn’t really picture them myself.

In the end the question of whether you should read the book before seeing the movie based on it will obviously depend on the movie as each will be different. However, here are my general guidelines: read the book before seeing the movie if you can, but don’t expect the movie to be everything the book was to you. Also, if you have read the book, make sure you give yourself some time after reading it before you go see the movie and you’ll probably enjoy it a lot more!