When I hear that a book is being made into a movie, I usually cringe. Too often, those who are into movie-making feel the need to change significant plot details, and that drives me nuts. My philosophy is quite simple. If the original plot in the book was good enough to make it a best-seller, why change those details for the movie? All that’s really accomplished is ticking off folks who want the movie to stay true to the book. This is even more true for our favorite books. Today’s blog will address some movie success stories and failures for those books that were made into movies. I caution you that there will be spoilers, so if you start reading about a book you haven’t read or a movie you haven’t watched, you may want to come back and read later.

1. Failure – In The Hunger Games movie, Katniss gets the mockingjay pin from a shop in the district. In the book, her friend Madge gives it to her. This may seem like a minor plot change, until you consider the role of that pin in the other two books. We learn that the pin originally belonged to Madge’s aunt who happened to be a friend to Katniss’s mother and who also happened to have participated and lost the Hunger Games. This is important to Katniss’s understanding of why her mother is the way she is as well as to her understanding of the way the rebels feel. Since the movie has already blown this, it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out in later movies.

2. Failure – In The Notebook movie, the two main characters Allie and Noah die in their sleep in each other’s arms. While that sounds quite romantic, it’s not how the book ended, with both characters still alive. This becomes even  more important when you consider in a sequel novel The Wedding, Noah is a primary character, and since the all-wise movie makers killed him off, it makes it impossible to make a movie version of The Wedding without totally annihilating the original story.

3. Mixed Success – In the Gone with the Wind movie, Scarlett is portrayed as the selfish character she is in the book, and yet, there’s still something missing. Perhaps they didn’t feel Scarlett needed to be totally vilified for her selfish actions, yet the book was a success. The movie does show Scarlett being wed twice before she marries Rhett, shows her stealing one of her husbands while he was her sister’s fiance, and shows her lusting after Ashley Wilkes the entire time. Scarlett gains a little humanity with her love for her daughter with Rhett, Bonnie Blue. However, what the movie leaves out is that Scarlett had two other children, one with each of her former spouses (both of whom died and left her widowed). In this instance I watched the movie first and then read the book so imagine my surprise to find Scarlett had other children. Granted, she ignores them a lot and is more loving toward Bonnie, but that is a significant part of her character which the movie left out.

4. Success – The Lonesome Dove mini-series carried the title of greatest adaptation until last weekend. The lengthy novel was made into a TV mini-series. Encompassing four nights, they did a great job with this movie. Dialogue came straight from the page. Events occurred in the same order they appeared in the book. Because of this, I was one happy girl.

5. Success – The Great Gatsby remake has taken the title of most successful adaptation. I watched this last weekend, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had told Jimmy he would need to read the book; however, after the movie was over, I told him he didn’t have to after all, as again scene-by-scene and dialogue occurred almost identically to the book. I enjoyed the Robert Redford version of the movie, but I do believe this is now my favorite version.

I could go on and on about movies that were so drastically different from the book that I have refused to watch those movies ever again. John Grisham’s The Chamber is one such movie. I hate movies that change the integrity of the characters for perceived financial gain. I’ve had so many people tell me that the ending of My Sister’s Keeper was changed and they hated it, so I still haven’t even watched that movie.

Just remember, if the plot sold the book and made it a best-seller, that same plot will sell the movie and make it a blockbuster. It’s time for the movie industry to stop ticking off the faithful readers who bought the book and would be willing to buy the movie, if only it would stay true to the book.