By Jaci Hernandez
Staff Writer
One of my favorite things to do is to watch tv and movies, and read books.
When you’re a lover of these books like I am, you probably have an opinion on whether or not the books or the on-screen adaptations are better or maybe just as good.
I think it depends on the filmmakers and how well they adapt the book, and how accurate they make it.
In my opinion, one of the worst adapted books was “Percy Jackson & The Lighting Thief.” My friends and I read the book series, so we were super excited for the movies to come out.
The first movie was okay, it was mostly accurate, but the second movie completely ruined any chance of getting another movie.
There are five books in the Percy Jackson series, so the second movie should have followed the second book. Instead, the second movie was completely ruined.
It was not very accurate and the movie combined stuff from the last three books as well. There was no other Percy Jackson movie made after this, and I’m sure this is one of the reasons why.
In this instance, the question of whether the books or the movies were better, it was definitely the books.
Sometimes I like to watch the movies before I read the books. I do this because, with something super emotional, I like to think that it’s preparing me for the more detailed, more in-depth emotion that the book is going to give me.
I also like to watch the movies first, sometimes, so that I can picture the characters’ faces when I read the book.
I did this with “The Best of Me,” so that I would’ve hopefully been more prepared emotionally. It didn’t matter though because both made me cry.
Sometimes, movies can be almost as good as books, but nothing compares to the emotion you feel when you read detailed stories. That’s how I felt about “The Best of Me” and that’s also how I feel about “The Hunger Games” franchise.
“The Hunger Games” movies were done very well in my opinion and they do their best to capture and convey the emotion. Trying to figure out what a character is feeling by looking at their faces in a movie, versus actually knowing what they are feeling by reading a book through their eyes and emotions is a very different experience. For me, this is just another example of why books are, and always will be, better than movies.
The third book of The Hunger Games series, The Mockingjay, it really showed how much Katniss went through mentally. It was heartbreaking how scarred she was through all of her trauma; it made me cry.
The Mockingjay part one and part two just does not convey those inner dialogue details that make the reader feel the emotion ten times more in the books.
I know this question has been around for a long time, but for me it’s not even a question anymore or a debate. To me, it is just a fact that books are better. When I’m watching a movie, I’m just watching it, but when I’m reading a book, I’m living and experiencing it.
