Many people believe that watching a film adaptation helps reinforce one’s understanding of a book or at least increases their interest in it; some even believe that watching the movie without reading the book is sufficient.  I personally have watched many film adaptations of books for the same reasons.  Though I often find these movies as entertaining as the books, I believe them to be harmful if the viewer intends to learn the story through the book.  For me, film adaptations have “ruined” many of my former favorite books, including The Lord of the Rings and Frankenstein.  I believe that the fundamental reason for this is that film adaptations restrict readers’ imagination and views regarding the books.  Film adaptations only follow the filmmakers’ own views on the author’s writings and descriptions, so these movies will give only one well-defined and clear version, or perception, of a book.  Thus, readers may have trouble developing another possibly better perception about the book while reading as their ideas about the book would be nothing more than their ideas on the film.

First, one might question the importance of having multiple perceptions for a work of writing.  If the objective is to obtain a full understanding of the work, I would say that it is very important.  This is shown in the finding of a book’s overarching central themes, which together are a main element of the work.  I find that taking into account only one perception of a work, though it may be the author’s intended perception, is not a good strategy for finding the central themes: it is better to take into account multiple different logical views of the work, including one’s own, to truly reach the core of the work.  This is because the central themes of most works are more complex than the author’s intended perception; otherwise, many older works would be impractical to their readers.  By taking into account a variety of perceptions, we can explore new dimensions of a work’s meanings that allows us to indicate its full significance.  Thus, following only a film adaption’s perception limits our ability to fully understand a book.

Another problem with following a movie’s version of a book is that if the filmmakers made a mistake, such as if an actor’s appearance does not match the description of a character, the reader may have trouble breaking from this mistake even after reading the correct descriptions in the book.  A more significant example of this is when events in a book are not included in its film adaptation, whether for brevity or another reason.  When viewers of the movie read the book, these events may appear confusing, insignificant, and/or unnecessary, even if the author intends for them to be important.  For example, I have experienced this after watching the first and third movies of the Lord of the Rings: a significant portion of the first book with the character Tom Bombadil along with the chapter from the third book called “The Scouring of the Shire” seemed almost entirely out of place when I reread the books.  I also could never again change the appearances of each character in my mind from their appearances in the movies, thus limiting my imagination about the story.

A third problem is that the clarity of a movie’s perception of a book often leads to less questioning and less debate.  Asking questions, a key method of learning, and debate are both extremely helpful for a group of individuals to understand any work.  Thus, watching a film adaptation can ultimately lead to a weaker understanding of the book it is based on.

My goal is not discouragement from watching film adaptations for books.  For many people, movies are a preferred (and easier to comprehend) form of storytelling compared to reading books.  However, based on my experience, I believe that people who truly wish to understand and enjoy a book should avoid these films and instead reread the book as many times as necessary to achieve these objectives.  This way, readers can become acquainted with the stories without the expense of individual perceptions and imagination.