Books vs. Movies

I stayed up waaaaay too late last night finishing the last book in the Hunger Games series. Once I get going on a book that I really like, I just can't put it down. I always tell myself that sleep is overrated (which is kinda ironic b/c I do love me some sleep). I have been hearing a lot of people talk about these books, so with one of my  amazon gift cards that I got for christmas, I went ahead and bought the series. It was an interesting read, and pretty full of action. A little gory in places, but that just may be me being sensitive to that stuff. I liked the way the author had me guessing pretty much the whole time, and at the very end, I was surprised at what happened. It wasn't at all what I was expecting. I kinda wished it would have ended a little happier, but I can still be satisfied that it wasn't predictable. One thing I didn't like was that she (the author) seemed to leave out a lot of detail, and in my head I was asking a lot of questions about things. Some of them were explained, and others were not (at least to my satisfaction). Michael made a good point (he is reading them now) that it seemed like the whole story was from the main girl's perspective, so some details may have been left out because of that. Who know, I enjoyed reading all three of the books. Hopefully all that just increased your interest level in the books without it being a spoiler alert :).

The point of all that was that I saw a trailer for the hunger games movie the other day, and was thinking about how I am kind of a snob about movies adapted from books. I really like going to the movies, and also watching movies at home is great, but I just really love reading. And books themselves. There is nothing better than a new book smell to me. So great. I kinda have a little of a book-hoarding problem. Almost every movie that I have seen where I have read the book first, I kinda hate. Or else spend the whole time comparing that movie to the book in my head, pointing out all the things the movie-making people got wrong. Especially if its a book or book series that I really really liked. The only exception that I can think of is the Lord of the Rings movies. They did not get all the details right, but those were some of the best made book-adapted movies that I have seen in my opinion. I think its because I have a pretty active imagination, and none of those movie producers get the characters, setting, etc "right" according to how I saw it happen in my head while I was reading. I blame my mother who made us read all the time when we were younger, and kicked us out of the house to play outside with the neighbors instead of watching tv while we were home-schooled. Sometimes, my mom would take my books away from me as punishment until I did my chores. Yeah, I was am kinda nerdy, I know.
The twilight series (yes I know, but don't even put me in the same category as all those crazies out there) is one of my favorites. I have read all the books 3 times (that's not too abnormal for me, I usually read books that I like a lot at least 2 times). I just think its a fun story and really well written fiction. But I saw the first movie, and almost walked out in the middle of it. It was terrible. So so many things were horrible about it. My comparison is to a super low budget cross between lifetime and MTV movies. Needless to say, I have refused to watch any of the others. I get kinda sad for all the people who think they are great movies b/c I feel like if they had only read the books, they would understand that the story is so much better than it is depicted in the movies. Oh well. Harry Potter is almost the same in my book. I am probably going to offend several people who love those movies, but I thought that they were just OK. I did watch all of them, b/c my husband likes them a lot, but I will hopefully never watch them again. The last 2 movies were probably the best of the bunch, and I didn't think that watching them was a waste of time, but they still don't hold a candle to the books in my opinion.
Well that was a lot of rambling brought on just by one movie trailer (sheesh!) Even after all that, I will probably end up seeing at least the first movie of the hunger games. I am a little curious about how they will try to make that story work in a movie. Plus, I bet Michael will want to see it. But if you are going to see it, read the books first! I think you may just enjoy them more :).