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scarfingfilmmaker:

It has been announced recently that The Fault in Our Stars by John Green will be made into a movie. Being a huge fan of the book you can say I am more than thrilled about this, but I am also worried: one of the things that has troubled me in the past is the fact that movie adaptations nowadays are not really adaptations, but translations. Screenwriters take the original book and literally translate it into a screenplay, which, in my opinion, is the worst creative technique ever.

I understand that many nerdfighters, and anyone who has read the book for that matter, will want the movie to be as close to the book as possible, but the truth is that this doesn’t let the writers play with the huge amount of creative possibilities out there.I’ve always thought that film adaptations should be based on the original material, but should also allow some changes to be made. Firstly because these are very different mediums: you can’t tell a story in a book the same way that you tell it on screen. But also because one of the key characteristics of any creative medium is the way ideas are developed. There’s a saying that goes:

It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.

So they want to turn this book into a movie… That’s nice. But you know what would be nicer? If they turned it, not only into a movie, but also into a new version of the story. I wouldn’t be mad at all if I got the chance to know more about Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters (the main characters in The Fault in Our Stars). Or to learn more about Isaac, that awesome character in the book who, in my opinion, didn’t get the story it deserved. In fact, I would love to! There are many things that could be shown in the movie that couldn’t be included in the book.

Some may disagree, of course, but I remain positive that movie adaptations aren’t meant to be the same as the book. In fact, I want to share a quote from John Barth about the subject:

Originality, after all, includes not only saying something for the first time, but re-saying (in a worthy new way) the already said: rearranging an old tune in a different key, to a different rhythm, perhaps on a different instrument.

So there you go. It’s not just about telling the same story. It’s about telling it differently. And that’s what originality is all about, something that most people don’t seem to realize when they see their favorite books turned into movies. The point is to use the content as inspiration, not as the source of an exact copy.

peeta-pettigrew:

The Fault in Our Stars by ~LuHander
This is perfect! It’s how I always pictured them :,)

kgishfish:

Hazel from The Fault In Our Stars