The Mortal Instruments

The Mortal Instruments is a very out of the box fantasy book series by Cassandra Clare about a young girl names Clary and her entrance to the Shadow world. She finds her ability to see things that no one else can frightening, until she discovers that she can use this and her skills in rune drawings to help her and find how she fits in to the Shadowhunter world. She could use their help too, after her mother is stolen form her by creatures from the shadowworld.

The first difference that I noticed in the conversion to film is the pacing of this storyline. In the book, it takes a while for Clary to understand what the shandowhunters do, what she can do and how she is a part of their world. She also learns about her mother and what she is toward the end of the book, just like the movie, but the time it takes for her to get there is substantially longer. In the movie, everything is very fast-paced and it is hard to see how Clary found everything out about everything that she did in the amount of time the movie gave.

Another change from the book to the movie is the way the first scene is handled with Clary's mother. Jocelyn. In the movie, Jocelyn is shown to be strong and fighting the demons that attack her. In the book, it seems as though Jocelyn did nothing to save herself and Clary is left to fight the creatures that she couldn't. Also, the way Clary kills the creatures is different. In the book, she throws the sensor in its mouth and it dies. In the movie, she sets things on fire and sets off an explosion to get rid of them. Either way, Jace has to come back to help her.

Hugo's role is downplayed in the movie more so than in the book. They also leave out much of how he finds out all his secrets, which are through his animals: his cat and bird are spies for him. Another character who has less screen time is Simon, and his feeling for Isabelle. I think that a large portion of this could have been explained during the scene that Simon is turned into a rat, but the that scene is cut from the movie. Yet another under-represented character is Magnus Bane, who helped Clary learn some runes and admits that he's the one who has been changing her memory her whole life, and that Jocelyn was paying him to.




The very end of the movie with the portal was set in different locations. In the movie, it is in the institute, but in the book it is in an abandoned mental hospital on an island that they must drive to in order to save Clary's mother. Luke, Jocelyn's on-and-off boyfriend turns out to be a werewolf and is the one who helps Clary save her mother. He and his pack fend off Valentine's people while Clary goes inside to get her mother. Luke's entire story is different, and a bit sped up from the book.

All in all, a O.K. book-to-movie adaptation. Not the greatest, and then were quite a few important omissions, but I think that if a sequel is made, they can improve on it a lot. Overall, I would give this adaptation a 2.5 out of 5 rating.

The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner book is the first book in a trilogy written by James Dashner. It follows a group of boys trapped in an unsolvable maze without their memories. They are trapped there with no way to know why they're there or how to get out. That it, until the first girl appears with no memory but a strange connection to Thomas and then everything changes. Now, in a race against other creatures in the maze trying to kill them, they must find a way out before they are all killed. So there are a few differences between the recent movie that was released and the book.



For one, the serum to cure the stings given by the Grievers exists before Teresa shows up in the book. Every time a Glader was stung, in the next batch of supplies a cure would show up. In the movie, Gladers died from the Changing that occurred when they were stung. Only when Teresa shows up do they get a cure, and only two of them.

Another large portion left from the movie was Thomas and Teresa's telepathy. The moment she comes out of the supply box she says Thomas's name, and when she is unconscious in the building Thomas can hear her telepathically. This has a large influence later on in the movie, and I am curious to see how they will fill the gap in the plot line that its omission has left.




Another, more minor detail was the lack of beetle blades and their watching the Gladers. Beetle blades were small beetle shaped cameras that had the name WICKED on them. Thomas sees one of these for the first time when he is trapped in the maze at night. Another small change was the spelling of WICKED, in the movie it was changed to WCKD.

Gally is a character who had drastic changes to his role in the movie. In the book, Gally runs away in the woods for most of the time, until he is captured by a griever and brought to the exit.In the movie, Gally follows them out. Also, the end of Gally's story was different. The book says that Gally is mind controlled by the creators and attacks Thomas with a knife. In the movie, Gally shows up from having followed them out of the Exit and attacks Thomas willingly with a gun.


Another change to the book storyline include the Gladers meeting creators at the end. In the book, the escaped Gladers meet the maze creators and speak with them, and then their rescuers show up and kill the creators. In the movie, the creators are already dead when they show up and they see a video of the a woman explaining things to them. They also see on the video the violence and fighting that had taken place there just minutes ago.

The last few changes that I will mention are that there were 30 original Gladers in the book. In the movie they have made Alby the only one. Also, Alby wasn't as nice to Thomas in the book as he is in the movie. The rescuers use a bus to bring the Gladers away from the maze. When they leave the facility, it is raining and nighttime in the book. Whereas in the movie, they are taken away in a helicopter, it is sunny and they appear to be in a desert. Lastly, in the book the maze is underground and they see a fake sunny sky that never rains, until Teresa comes. In the movie the maze is a part of a complex where they can see the real sky above them from inside the maze.



Overall, I would say that this is a very good book-to-movie adaptation. Other than a few things being left out, I think that the film followed the book's storyline fairly well. I do think that they might have trouble creating the sequels because a few of the changes, but we'll see. I would give this book-to-movie adaptation a 3.5 out of 5 rating.

Hunger Games

It's been a while since I read this book, but I brushed up on it again for this post. The book features a dystopian world where this society has been broken up into 12 districts, each contributing something to the society. There is also a main city called the Capital, and it is the most wealthy area as well as where the Hunger Games are hosted. Because the districts tried to rise up and rebel once, the Capital subjected them to these games where each year every district has to submit two tributes, a boy and a girl, to fight to the death in an arena until only one remains. Katniss Everdeen is from District 12, the poorest district and the district of the coal miners. Her younger sister Prim is pulled from a drawing to participate in the games, so Katniss volunteers to take her place. While in the arena, Katniss and her fellow District 12 tribute Peeta have a strange budding romance, but she also has her best friend and somewhat boyfriend at home, Gale.


As far as the book adaptation to the big screen, I think that it was done fairly well. The film generally stick to the storyline of the book and only minor differences were made or excluded. There were a few things that changes, and maybe not for the best, but I understand that not all of the details can make it in.

One thing that I did notice that was excluded was the description and background of the Avoxes. The Avoxes are the people in the film dressed in red or black outfits with red hair who are used as servants. They are only ever briefly in the background to serve dinner in the film, but in the book it is a much deeper story. The Avoxes are traitors who have had their tongues cut out and must now serve the Capital. Katniss knows one of the girls who is a servant in their rooms in the Capital. She saw the girl and a boy trying to escape from her district while she was out hunting one day, and she finds out that they were captured. The girl ended up as an Avox and the boy was killed. I know this doesn't seem like a huge thing to leave out, but this is just one instance of a small background detail that is excluded, there are many other examples that are similar.


Another back story that was excluded was Madge and the Mayor. Madge was the mayor's daughter in District 12 and a classmate of Katniss's. Katniss and Madge were somewhat friends, but when Katniss receives her goodbyes before going to the Capital to be in the Hunger Games, Madge is actually the one who gives her the Mockingjay pin. SPOILER*** Madge later dies when the Capital destroys all of District 12, along with her father the Mayor.***

Also, when Madge is left out of the goodbyes said to Katniss before her departure, another character is too. Peeta's father goes to say goodbye to Katniss and gives her cookies that he baked at their family's bakery. This just shows a further connection between Katniss and the Malark family that is left out of the movie. I find it especially interesting that Peeta's father said goodbye to Katniss when his own son was also going to be in the Games.

In the Games, very few things were changed and I think that they were done for legitimate reasons. For one, in a few instances the timing of events is off, but this was simply done to speed up the movie. An example of this happening is when Katniss finds water. In the book it takes her a few days to find any drinkable water, but in the movie she finds it relatively quickly. This simply speeds up the time between the start of the Game and her finding water, which is basically just a lot of her wandering around. Another event that is sped up is Katniss and Rue's alliance. It actually takes place over a couple of days and Katniss protects Rue because she reminds her of her younger sister Prim. This is not mentioned in the movie and is again another instance of leaving out background details.


The last difference that I thought was influential to the story line was the rioting the occurred in District 11 when Rue is killed. People are fighting against the peacekeepers to show support for Katniss and her trying to protect Rue. The rioting happens from the point of Rue's death on through the film. In the book, because it is told from Katniss's point of view, the rioting is not known to the reader or to her until the very end of the book. This affects how she acts and feels about the Capital and what she does in the Games. I think that it just had to be handled differently in the film because it is no longer being told from a first-person perspective.

Overall, I would give the book to film adaptation a 4.5 out of 5 rating. The story stayed on track to the book and there were very few changes made. I think that most people who loved the books first would be fairly happy with the film.

Vampire Diaries

I know that this series was made into a show and not a movie, but I still think it is relevant for a book adaptation to an on-screen element. Anyways, the book is about Elena Gilbert, played by Nina Dobrev, who lives in a small town called Fell's Church, where all sorts of supernatural things are going on. For one, she finds out that the new guy who she starts dating, Stefan, is a vampire, and so is his brother Daemon. She also finds out that one of her best friends, Bonnie, is descended from ancient Druid witches. The book follows Elena as she deals with the loss of her parents, finding out what Stefan is and loving him anyway, and having to overcome Katherine, Daemon and Stefans' ex-lover who is bent on killing Elena, while also trying to not be killed by Daemon on his bad days. So far I have watched the first season of the show, and let me tell you that they only kept about the most basic premise of the book, including names and basic foundation of the book. Almost everything else was left out or changed in some way.



To start off, I have to point out one of the biggest fundamental differences in my opinion: the fact that Meredith doesn't exist. Meredith is Elena's other best friend in the book, but in the show they cut her character all together. She is Elena's best friend and confidante, as well as the strong one of the Bonnie Meredith duo, but instead they made Bonnie's character very headstrong and confident in the show. Meredith also ends up dating Alaric Saltzman, the new history teacher at the school after Mr. Tanner died. Leading to the next difference, Mr. Tanner was not the football coach and did not die at the football game in the book. He died at the Halloween party and was found on the witch sacrificing table in the high school gym.

Another huge change was that in the book Jeremy doesn't exist, and neither does Pearl, Anna, or even Emily. The show changes Elena's sibling from a four-year-old younger sister to a teenage brother. Her sister Margaret does not understand things that are happening yet, but Jeremy being older does, and keeping the truth from him is an added problem for Elena to handle in the show. Pearl, a friend of Katherine's from the show, and her daughter Anna whom Jeremy has a crush on, are nonexistent in the book. Emily, who is Bonnie's ancestor, possesses Bonnie to help destroy a crystal. This never happens in the book and Emily does not exist either.



Speaking of the crystal, the whole part where the crystal that Emily charmed in the 1800's is the key to opening the tomb under the church does not happen in the book. There is no crystal, and Katherine torments Elena and the Salvatore brothers using the tomb as a hiding place. Also, in the show there are 20-some other vampires in the tomb under the church, and that's why Emily does not want the tomb opened, and so destroys the crystal. They find out that Katherine was never under there and escaped a long time ago, but never cared enough for Daemon to come see him. This breaks his heart in the show because he has spent 142 years looking for a way to save her. There is only Katherine under the church in the book, and she is not trapped at all, but comes and goes as she pleases.

There is a difference in the reasoning for Elena's similar appearance to Katherine as well. In the book, it is never really explained why Elena looks so much like Katherine, just that she does. In the show, they make a whole adoption story up that Elena's mother gave her up when she was 16 and that her mother was actually Isobel, which was Alaric Saltzman's wife. In the book, Alaric's wife's history was never explored in depth, and Elena wasn't adopted.


Some other changes they made include Aunt Judith from the book was changed to Aunt Jenna, and she in the book she was engaged to Robert, where in the show she is dating a few people. Daemon is much more evil in the book, constantly trying to win Elena over and he often gets in fights with Stefan that end in one or both of them almost dying. Caroline, a side character and ex-friend of Elena's, teams up with Tyler in the book and hates Elena. In the show they are all still best friends and Caroline and Bonnie become even better friends as the show goes on. Vicki is never a vampire in the book and is not related to Matt. Stefan does stay in the old boarding house like in the book, but he lives in an upstairs room and stays with Mrs. Flowers, not Daemon and Zack. Lastly, there was not secret City Counsel that was out to kill vampires. The town is very ignorant of the vampire war that is feuding around them.



There were a few changes that were very small, but had many people upset over them. Elena was supposed to be blonde and very fair-skinned. Bonnie is supposed to be red-headed. The town name is changed to Mystic Falls in the show. Daemon and Stefan were born in the 1500's in Renaissance Italy in the book, not in the 1800's in Mystic Falls like the show says. There is no problem for vampires to travel over water in the show like there is in the book. Elena's living room and bedroom in the book are from an originally older house than the rest of her home, making it a safe area for her from Daemon because he wasn't invited in to the oder home. In the show, this stipulation doesn't exist, but then again, Daemon is much kinder in the show.

There are probably hundreds of other changes that could be listed, and this is all only from the first season of the show. Overall, I would give the book to show adaptation 2 stars, and again, I think I'm being generous. The show is not bad, I actually enjoy watching it a lot. However, the changes that they made are too many and too drastic for me to say that the adaptation is a good one.

Beautiful Creatures

The book Beautiful Creatures, written by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, was converted into a movie in February 2013. The book is about teenager Ethan Wate, who is obsessed with his urge to finish high school and go on to college in order to leave behind the small town of Gatlin, South Carolina... until a mysterious girl begins to inhabit his dreams. When he meets Lena Duchannes, a newcomer who has just enrolled in his school, Ethan knows she is the girl in his dreams. Lena is rejected by the rest of her classmates for being the granddaughter of Macon Ravenwood, whom the town's superstitious residents consider to be a devil-worshipper. But Ethan gives her a ride anyway and they fall in love. Lena reveals to her new boyfriend that she is a witch, and that on her sixteenth birthday she will be claimed by either the forces of light or of darkness. She will remain in the light, but only if she does not remain in love with Ethan. To make matters worse, her evil mother, Sarafine, is casting spells to push Lena to the dark side. Ethan joins her in a search to find a magic spell to save their doomed love. I would give this movie a 3 1/2 stars out of 5 for a book to movie rating.



In the movie adaptation of the book, there were a number of differences, some minute and some so astronomical that it makes me wonder how they could ever make the sequel movie. I'll start with the biggest difference, the one that made it seem unfeasible for a sequel movie to ever exist, and I'll work down to the mildly irritating things.

In the book, the entire final scene of Lena being claimed on her sixteenth birthday is played out differently. This is where some spoilers will start! So in the film, Lena is also given a bit of extra information that she will have to kill someone that she loves in order to break the curse. That does not happen at all in the book, but there is a different stipulation. If she is claimed by the Dark, then all of the Light witches will die and vice versa. It wouldn't seem to matter if she was claimed by the Light and all of the Dark would die, but it also includes her Uncle Macon, because he is an Incubus.

Which brings me to my next point. In the film, they never tell you that Lena's Uncle Macon is an Incubus, which also means that he is claimed by the Dark without choice, as all Incubuses are, and that he feeds off of people's dreams. There is a scene in the movie where Ethan wakes up in his room one night and Macon Ravenwood is there,  gives Ethan a warning to leave Lena alone and jumps back out the window. In the book though, Macon is feeding off of Ethan's dreams, and that is how he gives him such a chilling and accurate warning to stay away from Lena -- he's been stealing Ethan's dreams for sometime.

A huge difference from the book to the film is the Kelting that Lena and Ethan do. They have an ability to sort of throw their thoughts to one another, but not necessarily read each other's minds -- more like a telepathic texting. This ability they have is never mentioned in the movie, it just seems as though Ethan is very tuned-in to Lena's emotions and thoughts. That is also how they communicate most of the time and how he knows to come to Lena's aid in the battle. Speaking of which...



The end battle scene came to the same ending that the book did (almost) but it got there in a very different way. In the book, Ethan misses most of the war reenactment and is stabbed by Lena's evil mother Sarafine. Lena uses the spell that cursed her whole family to save him, and her uncle dies because of it. Then Lena uses her ability over nature to block out the moon and she isn't claimed at all, but another song starts about her seventeenth birthday now. In the movie, Lena's Dark cousin Ridley seduces Ethan's best friend and makes him shoot Ethan during the war reenactment. However, Uncle Macon was using his shape-shifting abilities and was pretending to be Ethan, so Uncle Macon is the one who was shot and ends up dying.

The last big thing that changed, although it didn't influence a possible sequel, was the last scene of the movie. In the end of the book, it ends after the final battle with a warning song of Lena's now seventeenth birthday. The film adds in an extra couple of scenes at the end. After the battle, it shows Lena and Ethan outside of Ravenwood Manor, and Lena makes it "snow" with flowers. While this is happening, she erases his memories of her so that he can go on and live a normal life. But when Ethan runs into Lena in the library before leaving on a college visit to NYU, it jostles his memory of her. Once his memories of her come back (about 10 seconds later), he yells her name and the movie ends. In the book, Ethan just has to deal with having a cursed with girlfriend.

Other problems I had with the movie that didn't affect a sequel or the ending were the accents, Marian's role, Ethan's father's role, and Link and his mother's roles. First, for some reason the heavy southern accent drove me insane during this movie. Every character has it, but in the books they discuss how Ethan does not because his parents are professors, and Lena doesn't because she's not actually form the area. Lena's accent bothered me more because she was not supposed to have even close to a southern accent. Next, the lack of Marian's role was very disheartening to me. Amma in the movie covers both her own role as well as Marian's, kind of a two-for-one character. I wish they hadn't pushed the two together though because they both play such different and influential parts in the movie that I can't see how the sequel would work with this duel character role. Also, Ethan's father is never present in the movie, but I wish that they had included more how the lack of his presence impacts Ethan's life and choices, and how his being locked away in his study is like a looming cloud on Ethan's life. Lastly, Link is in the movie, but barely. Compared to his role in the book, Link's role in the film is basically killing off Ethan/Macon and being seduced. Really, he is another huge influencer on Ethan and is there for all of the shenanigans that Ethan gets up to. Link's mother's reveal as Sarafine came far too early in the movie in my opinion. In the book that reveal came toward the end of the book and I was disappointed that they felt that they had to spread out the action in the movie more in order to fill in some spaces.



There were a few other things, like Lena's driving a different car, that were different in the movie than they were in the book, but I wasn't as put out by these changes as I was about the big ones listed at the top. Overall, the movie was coherent and enjoyable, but I do wish that they hadn't changed so much toward the end. I think that the movie would have done better and that it would have made more sense to the sequel if they had kept the ending more true to the book. Still, the cast was excellent, special effects weren't anything to cry about, and the movie was a fun watch.

Divergent

The movie Divergent, based on the book by Veronica Roth, was in my opinion not a very good adaptation. The book is about a dystopian society based in Chicago that has been split into five factions that are based on different characteristics that the faction strives for. They are Erudite (the intelligent), Amity (the peaceful), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), and Candor (the honest). Everyone grows up in a faction, but when they turn 16 they choose whether or not to stay in that faction or to switch factions and be disowned by their families. Before they decide, however, they take an aptitude test to tell them which faction they should be in, but they can pick a different one if they want to. Rarely, the test will give them more than one result, and these are the people who are Divergent.

Beatrice Prior grew up in Abnegation along with her brother, an they both decide to go to other factions, he to Erudite and she to Dauntless. The story follows Beatrice, or Tris, as she makes her way through Dauntless training and discovers what truly lies behind the leaders' intentions of all the factions, as well as trying to stay alive long enough to make it into Dauntless.

For the book-to-movie adaptation, I think that a lot of essential parts were left out and many extraneous details were kept in. Many details about Tris's training in Dauntless that were important to the story, like Al's death, Edward and Mia's leaving, and Tris nearly being thrown over the chasm, were left out. Also, all of the details of Tris and Four's budding romance were left out, and it made the love interest feel rushed and sudden. Just from watching the movie, I would have never understood how or when the two fell in love, only that it happened when Four doesn't assassinate Tris toward the end.

Another detail I had a huge problem with was the characters' physical descriptions. Now, normally I don't get very upset when the details don't match up perfectly. After all, we all picture different things when we read the books. But in this book, each character was described in painstaking detail, and there was a reason for it. Half of Tris's fight in the book is being so physically small and having to fight with the other initiates in Dauntless. Shailene Woodley, who plays Tris, does not fit this description at all, and so many of the details that highlighted this struggle for Tris in the book were cut out of the movie, but then, it does not seem so miraculous that such a tiny person could fight some of her bigger competitors, like Molly. Interestingly, Zoe Kravitz, who plays Christina, does have this characteristic, but does not seem to have the struggles that Tris does in the book from being so small. All together, I was extremely disappointed that so much was left out to accommodate the actresses' physical traits.

I think that this movie was incredibly difficult to follow if you had not read the book, and left out so much that it seemed unnatural. The pacing was way too fast and so confusing if you could not fill in the blanks from reading the book beforehand. Overall, I would only give this movie a 2 out of 5 rating, and I think I'm being generous, for the book-to-movie adaptation.

Vampire Academy

I read this book series about a year ago and just loved it. The concept for the series is unique, which is a difficult feat to accomplish with so many authors overloading the market with vampire books. The characters are entertaining and relatable, as well as believable. The world building on Richelle Mead's part is done fairly well, with details about people in other countries or professions and a very good look into this world's government and political system.

In early May this year, the Vampire Academy movie was released, and I was so excited for this movie, I downloaded it from iTunes a week early so I could watch it on a plane ride. I personally enjoyed the movie on its own, but as a book to movie adaptation it fell short.

There were a few things about this movie that didn't meet my expectations as an avid lover of the book series. First, I think it's important to take into account that this movie had a very low budget. For a comparison of graphics, the recent film Guardians of the Galaxy had a budget of $170 million, and just from commercials I've picked up that they have some pretty awesome graphics. Vampire Academy had a budget of only $30 million. That being said, the low budget of the film definitely showed. A lot of the action scenes were unrealistic, the movie was not publicized much at all, and the film was cut quite a bit shorter than it could have been.

Aside from the budget, the actors were not exactly who I would have pictured for a number of reasons. Zoey Deutch is the actress who plays Rose Hathaway, the main character of the story.

I expected someone a bit "curvier" to play Rose because she's described as not only having certain female assets but also being to kick some serious butt in the book. This actress does not look like she could kill a hoard of vampire murderers. Also, Rose has a very sarcastic sense of humor and can truly be a brat, but I love her because you get to watch her grow through the book. In this movie, she showed no growth or better sense of the world, she was the same bratty child she appears to be in the beginning of the book. Not to mention, most of the humor in the movie was almost making fun of how bad the movie was in graphics, jokes, and general put-together of the film. Her immaturity in the movie is also what make the love interest somewhat awkward. Which leads me to the next set of problems...

Dimitri is played by Danila Kozlovsky, which was an interesting choice for the character. His facial features and accent did fit, but the way he delivered was a bit off. It seemed strained and awkward, which was reflected back in the love interest. Zoey and Danila have very little chemistry, not to mention he seems so much older than Rose in the movie that it seems almost gross that they have a scene getting a bit less clothed together.

Lissa Dragomir, Rose's best friend, was played by Lucy Fry. Lucy was a generally good choice for the role, but the way her lines were written is the strangest thing. They gave her these lines that were very old timey, and it just came off as confusing. I understand that they did it to show the disconnect of the vampire world to the human, but it just seemed strange and out of place, seeing as no one else spoke like this in the movie. She is from Australia and has an accent, but it didn't fit Lissa's character, who grew up in the States.

Overall, not the worst book to movie adaptation I've ever seen, but definitely could have been done to infinitely higher standards. I think that a lot of us fans were really hoping for more out of the film, and it kind of just fell flat on its face. There were huge chunks of story line that did not make sense unless you read the book. The love interest was incredibly rushed and random in the movie, and it was inorganic and painfully awkward. I enjoyed watching the movie, if only because I was so excited for it to come out, but I think that in comparison to the book series, it just did not do justice to Richelle Mead's world or characters.

A little additional information, the movie is based only off of the first book. They did try to make a second movie, but they did not receive the funds for it. I'm almost grateful for that, because it would have turned into the Twilight series movies.

Well, that's all for this post! Thanks for reading!

- Savanna