YA Book to Movie Adaptations

Alright you guys, I swear, every time a new YA book to movie adaptation comes out, I get the same thoughts and this time I am going to voice them. Book to movie adaptations are a big thing today, and I understand why. Really, I do. If a book does well, in theory, the movie should too if it's catering to the same audience. But now if you describe a movie as a YA book to movie adaptation, there's almost like a negative connotation to it. There is this presumption about what it's going to be like and most people roll their eyes at it and think of it as a Twilight rip off. Even worse, it seems as though people are judging books by their movie. Let's talk.

My biggest issue with this trend is that the movies aren't staying true to the books. A book does well in sales for what it is. I don't know why film companies feel the need to add romance into every. Single. Movie. They also want to age the characters up, I'm looking at you Percy Jackson. They also sometimes work off the assumption that the audience has read the books, which is not always the case. So we end up with many YA movies being fairly similar when the books aren't. And I know this isn't always the case. A book sells because the content that's in it interests people. So why change what works?

Read or watch reviews on movies like The Hunger Games, Twilight, The 5th Wave, Divergent, The Maze Runner, The Host, or The City of Bones. They don't exactly get rave reviews. And as easy as it would be to say that everyone who says they're all the same, or they're trying to be the next Twilight, or the world made no sense as them being ignorant and not noticing all of the differences, I can't blame them either. Movie critics don't always read the book before watching the movie. That isn't their job and it doesn't always interest them. Movie critics watch movies and base their reviews on what they see on screen. And what they see is nothing unique. And we can't blame them or call them ignorant. They are just a part of the audience. Yes, you could say that they hate everything but can you also say that The Host was an award worthy movie? Probably not.

So the movie producers should stick closer to the original content if they want a successful franchise. They did it with Harry Potter as best as they could and that worked out amazingly well. Do it again. Stick to the source material. There still won't be a guarantee but it does mean a better shot. They glamorize YA lit to the point where it all just becomes cheesy and cliche and appeals to no one. I also am tired of hearing people groan at YA lit because of it's reputation with movies. The books are usually better and I wish people would realize that but not because it was originally a book but because the content is genuinely more developed and means more in written form. I just wanted to make this post really quick because I watched some reviews for The 5th Wave and I got some vibes from them that I wasn't appreciating but I also couldn't blame the reviewers for their thoughts. I many do part two for this post soon but that's all I have time for this week. See you guys next week!