How Movie Adaptations defrauds its viewers

I am an avid book reader and a movie watcher.  After immersing myself into both worlds, I have come to understand that a movie adaptation has never ever done justice to the book it was adapted from. Not Harry Potter, not Curious Case of Benjamin Button, not Lord of The Rings or The Hobbit, not Silence of the lambs or Hannibal, not any Chronicles of Narnia, not Les Miserables, not any book.

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While reading Les Miserable, and for the first book in the first volume (it is divided into volumes, books and chapters), I was wondering if I had the wrong book, as I had done myself the injustice of watching the movie first, even though I got the book before I got the movie. A whole lot was cut off from the book when it was made into the movie. If you are curious and are interested in getting the complete story, not just 30% of what you think is the story, please, get the book and read. No matter how good the movie had been, it is just not it when compared to the book. All I can say is we were defrauded.

Les Miserables, using it as an example, is literary fiction, not commercial fiction. Commercial fictions are plot driven books, while literary fictions are character driven books. This means if you adapt literary fiction to movies, and you cut what makes the character out, you have cut off about 80% of the book. I understand the fact that Les Miserables is a very voluminous book, and they would not be able to adapt every single part into the movie, but the injustice done in this case was massive. Imagine a bishop who had a whole Book with several chapters dedicated to him in the book having just two scenes in the movie. Marius's grandfather and father nko? Nothing!

Now did the movie script writer do anything bad by cutting important parts out? No. Was the script interesting? Yes. Was it good? Yes.

But the question here is, does it give the viewers the whole picture, does it tell the whole story? The answer is a big No. If you think because you watched a movie adaptation, you know the whole story, you would only be kidding yourself.

Why does Severus Snape hate Harry Potter so much, what is his origin? Why exactly did the bishop cover up for Jean Valjean, what legacy did he leave? All these things are not what you can get from the movies. You have to read the book to know the whole story, eat the real cake and not just get fed on the icing sugar these movie adaptations tend to feed us.

This is not just about Les Miserables, I'm just using it as a case study. This is about all books that have been turned into movies. I haven't read or watched Hunger Games, but I heard it is one of the most poorly adapted movies ever.

So what am I saying here? If you watch or want to watch a movie adaptation, and you love the story line, and you really want to get the whole picture, then please, read the original book. The book is always far more interesting than the movie, anyway, since it always has the whole story.

Don't let yourself get robbed

In other news, when I watched video the stage performance of the Les Miserables cast at the 2013 Oscars, I got goose bumps, and almost cried because I couldn't sing. I am so sad that Gavroche wasn't in the performance. Did you know that Gavroche is Eponine's brother? So, you see why you have to read the books? Anyway, wacth the video