Now, I’m never one to say a film or TV adaptation of a book is ever as good as the read itself. I’m not much of a reader as I’m more of a visual person, but when I do read it’s usually something that I know I use as an excuse to be more critical of something I will be watching. Those that have read the Harry Potter books know that although the films are great, they are not even a dusting on the original stories in the books (the special effects don’t do JK Rowling’s descriptions justice).
But I must say all of the ‘Paranormal Romance’ adaptations of recent years have pleasantly surprised me. I’ve been loved the he Sookie Stackhouse books (adapted to True Blood) in particular the audiobooks, which has an amazing narrator in Joanna Parker (on several occasions I forgot that she was just one person doing the voice of every character, including a brilliant Eric) and although the books are amazingly exciting, funny and a little on the erotic side, where Alan Ball has changed parts of the story for his True Blood series he has truly changed them for the better.
Another example is the popular CW series The Vampire Diaries. This series started out as a TV version of the Twilight Saga, but has quickly turned into a much darker, edger show. I didn’t actually like these books, I just couldn’t get in to them and didn’t like the character Elena. Elena is a selfish ‘queen bee’ who is rude to her friends and Bonnie is of Scottish decent, still a witch but really her only skill is to allow a paranormal being to use her body to communicate with Elena. Of course, there may be more to these books, but this is all I could get from the couple that I managed to read.
The final example I would like to raise, and I apologies if I offend any Twi-hard fans out there is the Twilight Saga. There is a great story idea in these books, but they read as if they are written by a child. Often cheesy and feeling like a copy of the Sookie Stackhouse storyline these books annoyed me, but I kept reading as I wanted to know what happened next – I just wished someone else had told me. The films, have taken the story of the books and, as you would expect from a film, taken out the fluffy descriptions (except for the pointless and cheesy slow motion running scene in New Moon) and just given us the story as it should have been told.
What interests me the most from these book to TV/Film is although you would expect to know what will happen next, these are adaptations that are ignoring the original idea of their creators and delivering something that has taken the world by storm and creating the new ‘Paranormal Romance’ genre.
Image source: twifans.com
