Friday, July 11, 2014

Day 11 - Movie adaptations of fantasy books

The thing about movie adaptations of fantasy books is that they tend to be darker.  A book is only as scary as your imagination is.  But in a movie, someone else's imagination is foisted upon you, and I think it tends to be darker and scarier than you've imagined. 

I noticed this first when I watched the Lord of the Rings movies.  I'd imagined the orcs as nasty creatures while reading the book, but the movie made them downright terrifying as well as nauseating, making me want to close my eyes whenever they appear on screen. 

Similarly, Harry Potter.  It's been a while since I read the books, but I keep watching glimpses of the movie now and then when I run into them on TV.  They are distinctly darker than I'd imagined while reading it.

So, while reading Septimus Heap, I naturally thought of Harry Potter, and I decided against reading it out to Puttachi, thinking that it will be too intense for her.  But there are some situations in Septimus Heap which are pretty scary, but Puttachi takes them in with equanimity.  That's because her imagination probably doesn't allow it to get that scary in her mind. 

That makes me think that I can probably let her read/read out to her the first book of Harry Potter pretty soon, perhaps immediately after we finish Septimus Heap. 

What has your experience been?

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