Book before Movie

Why you should always read the book before watching the movie.

Book before Movie

Books are meant to ignite our imagination, but by watching the movie first we are giving ourselves less of the experience of the story and characters. You should always read the book before you go see the movie. Reading the book first helps you visualize the scenery and characters in your own way.

Some people say that the movie tells you how they actually look, but in my opinion, the characters are supposed to look the way you visualize them, no matter how the author originally imagined them. You can find more meaning in the book by viewing it in your perspective first, then comparing it to what the author of the book or the director of the movie wants you to see.

A lot of times when I go to movies when I first see the characters they do not look the way I imagined, but that only makes watching the movie more fun and makes it seem more original, even though the plot and story are the same. The movie also gives a lot away in plot and characters, making it seem like a waste to read the book afterward. If you read the book first you may know the plot, but you get the pleasure of experiencing the scenes in a different way then you may have first visualized them.

The movie can make you see different perspectives than when you read the book and you may view the story in a completely different way after watching the movie. Another reason you should always read the book before the movie is that a bad movie can turn you off of a truly amazing book.

For example, the Percy Jackson movies are generally considered to be one of the worst books to movie adaptations, but that doesn’t mean that the books were any less great. I was a fan of the Percy Jackson series from the start, so when the movies came out, I was really disappointed because I had seen the potential for great movies when I first read the books.

Someone who has never read the books before might see the movies and have a bad perception of the series after that and never read the books. The people who always watch the movie first may never read a truly great series because they judge the book by the movie and see it as bad after seeing that the movie is not very good.

When the movie is bad usually the book is a way better experience. The book wouldn’t have been turned into a movie if it wasn’t amazing in the first place. Some big producer has to measure it up against all the other popular books of the time and determine if it has a good enough story and compelling enough characters to be a big movie hit. Even if the movie is bad, the book had to be good enough to be turned into a movie in the first place, so there is at least some credibility from that.

 

 

Additionally, some movies tend to stray from the original message of the book, especially if the author is not involved in the making of the film. Reading the book first can let you see the message that the book is trying to bring to light, even if it is heavily obscured in the movie for some reason or another.

If you have ever watched a movie and couldn’t wrap your mind around why a character did something or how something makes sense the book will most likely have answers to that as well and can help you avoid confusion.

Even good book to movie adaptations like Harry Potter have some plot-holes that are easily solved by reading the books and better understanding characters and their motivations. Directors and scriptwriters can’t show everything that happens in the books on the screen, so sometimes the best parts of the book being adapted get skipped over for heavier more plot-heavy parts.

Overall, you should always read the book before the movie, and see how the plot and characters interact to show you the bigger picture but at the same time convey hidden messages and meaning before you watch the movie. It may cover the plot, but it takes away from the imagination and experience that comes with reading a book.