Book adaptations raise debates among audiences

Fans of literature and film have long debated whether it is necessary for these works to be adapted or remade. Factors such as casting, profit and changes to the storyline make people reconsider the value of creating film renditions based on existing stories. Movies that have been adapted from books such as “Little Women,” “Pride and Prejudice” and “Frankenstein” have been remade multiple times. Remakes of such movies tend to have a large budget and less revenue; movie remakes from 2014 to 2022 grossed $3 billion less revenue than original movies, as reported by industry analyst Chioma Azeh. Remakes are often criticized for being too repetitive and unnecessary.

“Remakes are just predictable,” San Marin High School freshman Tommy Goetz said. “It’s fine if I want to watch something and zone out but it’s not really fun to know everything about the movie before you even watch it.”

Many traditional movies are remade because of their success. These include remakes with more advanced technology, new live-action versions of animated movies, and movies that bend storylines. These remakes are often controversial due to public disapproval of casting. Many animated “Disney Princess” movies made by the Walt Disney Company film studio have been remade as live-action renditions. Fans of the studio have become highly selective about what constitutes “good casting.” In some instances, such as the casting of Disney’s live-action “Snow White,” actors have received backlash for portraying characters that have a different ethnic background than the originally written characters. In the original fairytale, Snow White is described as having “skin as white as snow,” while the newly cast actress Rachel Zegler is of Latin descent. Some suggest that casting directors choose to cast people of color to bring further diversity to the remade films.

Junior Shriya Pannala is a fan of Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson & the Olympians” novel series. Riordan’s writing inspired two movies, released in 2010 and 2013, and a television series which began airing in 2023. The new television series stars Leah Sava Jeffries, an actress of African descent, portraying a canonically white character. However, Pannala acknowledges Sava Jeffries’s acting skills are “incredible.”

“I personally like diversity, but I feel like with the remakes, people try to force diversity by [changing] characters,” Pannala said. “Which isn’t inherently a bad thing, but I just feel like instead of changing characters that already exist, [directors should] make new ones that are diverse.”

Some movies are created with similar storylines as the originals, but with small factors such as a character’s ethnicity or a character’s personality trait being changed. The practice of constantly remaking and changing existing stories brings up a debate about whether original ideas are being lost.

“I think that people in larger streaming companies aren’t coming up with creative ideas and aren’t trying to actually come up with an original product,” Goetz said. 

However, some people believe that originality in movies should not be as highly revered as it is. English and English Language Development teacher Camille Bernt is an avid reader and has seen many film adaptations of novels.

“Originality is overrated,” Bernt said. “[Remakes] have the potential to breathe new life into old classics, and remind us how universal a good story can be. I love the idea of a story as an evolving artifact. A work can have a very different weight to it in a modern context compared to when it was first published.”

Fans of popular books often become angry when the book is inaccurately adapted into a movie. Flawed depictions of a character’s appearance, personality, or character arc can cause the actor or writing team to receive ridicule. One of the most famous character arcs in literature is John Torrance’s descent into insanity in Stephen King’s “The Shining.” This novel is a psychological horror story of a recovering alcoholic and father who takes a caretaker job at a hotel before becoming mad and targeting his wife and son. However, Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of the novel showed some differences, including a lack of depth in Torrance’s alcoholism. Fans also criticize the depiction of Torrance’s wife, Wendy, as “excessively misogynistic… depicting [her] as [a] shrieking, helpless two-dimensional [character],” according to The Digital Literature Review. Film adaptations such as “The Shining” are sometimes criticized for diminishing female personalities and taking away certain aspects of the story that were present in the novel.

“Reading is really personal and it’s easy to get attached to stories that really move us,” Bernt said. “Because stories come to life in our own imaginations, it’s easy to get defensive or claim some weird ownership because we cling to our own versions of how things are supposed to be.”

Many people appreciate the nostalgia and originality that come from popular movies and books, especially older ones. However, newer versions can allow new perspectives and younger generations to grow up with movies similar but not the same as their parents.