TTT Turns 10! | Best/Worst Book to Movie/TV Adaptation

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly topic hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week she provide a topic and you are free to use that topic and/or variations of that topic to make your top ten list. A full list of the weekly themes can be found here.

This week TTT turns 10! In honor of it’s birthday, the topic is to either revisit a TTT topic you’ve done in the past and redo/update it or pick a past TTT topic you wish you’d done but didn’t get a change to do. Since, I only just started doing this I am obviously going to chose option 2.

The past topic I chose (I mean you could’ve figured it out by the title) is Top Ten Best/Worst Book to Movie Adaptation. I’m going to split this in half: five of the best and five of the worst.

Worst Adaptations

5.

To start off, I did love The Haunting of Hill House series on Netflix; however, to say it was based on Shirley Jackson’s novel is taking things a bit far. The names of the characters are there and of course, the house, but after that nothing is really the same. I will say the decision to take a singular family instead of four random strangers did work well. The storyline was well thought out and written, and the cast did a phenomenal job. On it’s own, it is wonderful, which is why it’s at the bottom of the list; but as an adaptation of a book, it’s not faithful to the source material.

4.

The longest book in the series, and it’s the shortest movie. I just don’t understand. The movie removed all the important information and changed it to a more teen angst movie. This is by far my favorite of the books, as the characters start to realize that the stakes are high. There are so many important topics covered in the book upcoming war, discrimination, mental health (Harry has PTSD, fight me), government not paying attention. But no lets focus on Ron’s relationship with Lavender. The one redeeming scene of this movie is this:

3.

What even was that movie? I was confused the whole time I watched. Completely cliched and unbelievable from the start. I’m also not a huge fan of the series either.

2.

WHY? WHY? Whhhhyyyyy?? I just am so confused about why they changed the entire ending. There was a point for it to end that way.

Spoiler Alert

Anna had to die. If Kate actually died, her mother never would have forgiven Anna for not helping her sister. Anna needed to die for the family to realize how important Anna was to the family. I just don’t get the idea of changing an entire book’s ending.

I can’t even with this movie! Saying it’s horrible crap is an insult to crap! Why are there 20-something year olds playing 12 year olds? Why did they change the ages from 12 to 17? Was every blonde busy at the time? Did the screenwriters, directors, ANYONE WHO WORKED ON THIS MOVIE actually read the damn book? I’m guessing not!! This adaptation was a train wreck from the beginning and didn’t get any better.

Best Adaptations:

5.

I know I’m in the minority in this, but I absolutely love the Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley! I think this movie stays true to the spirit of the book. I know that the BBC Pride and Prejudice is word for word from the book, but honestly, I fell asleep through the first one and could never try to watch it again. Also, the chemistry between Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen is spot on. The one part that I would change is to have it end with the Mr. Bennet laughing after giving Lizzie his blessing.

4.

Does Elijah Wood age? Has he found the fountain of youth and is keeping it from us? Same goes to Cate Blanchett! This first one is my favorite of the trilogy. They make a wonderful movie while keeping faithful to the book.

3.

This is one of the few times I will say this statement, so pay attention: The movie was better than the book. There I said it. They keep to the book but do such a great job in adding and expanding on the universe. The scene when Katniss and Peeta are on tour and the little girl tells Katniss that she wants to be like her when she grows up. The look on Jennifer Lawrence’s face at that point is pure perfection. Adding in the scene with President Snow’s daughter wearing her hair like Katniss is so poignant in showing how much inspiration she has garnered from the public, including the Capital. It’s just so amazing! I absolutely love this movie.

2.

This is the way to make an adaptation. This is also the way to make a movie your own while still having your own ending. I think Andre Aciman says it best, “What I do is chisel a statue down to its finest, most elusive details. What a film director does is make the statue move.” Later on, when he saw the movie at the Berlin International Film Festival he states “I was stunned. The ending captured the very spirit of the novel I had written in ways that I could never have imagined or anticipated.” No, we didn’t get the scene where Elio and Oliver meet up 20 years later, but the subtle way of showing the pain and sadness through Elio staring into a fire and crying with the music in the background, I can’t help but cry as well. Timothée Chalamet deserves all the awards.

There is no complaints when it comes to this movie! The only major difference between the book and movie was the fact that Stanley wasn’t overweight. I heard across multiple social media sites that this was due to the director not wanting Shia LaBeouf to gain weight then loose it all super quickly, as it would be unhealthy. Again, not sure if this is true, but either way, I can get over the weight aspect since the entire movie was perfect from the book but still it’s own original creation.

Happy Reading Darlings!