How Movies Can Be Better Than The Book

Every year when a new movie comes, most of the time it is based off of a book. After that movie comes out you will hear all the fans of the book say "Oh my gosh the book was SOOO much better than the movie". So why do books get more praise than their movie counterparts? And does this mean that the movie has nothing about it that is better than the book?

In the past two weeks of Ms. Nagi's class, we read the play "The Crucible" and then we also watched the movie version of it. And when you watch the movie, there's several details that are left out. For example, Mercy showed up a few times in the play but in the movie she barely had any screen time. From a movie perspective this makes sense, because the producers wouldn't want a 4 hour movie so they cut out less important details. Also, they wouldn't want the audience to be confused so that's another reason some details don't make the cut. And Mercy barely being included is a perfect example of this, her part in the play is very minor and has little to no impact on events that happen, other than being one of the girls crying witchcraft. So why would the movie makers want to put time and resources into something as minor as that?

 Also, there are a lot of characters in the crucible and it's a little hard to follow along on who's who at the beginning of the play. However, in the play you can just flip back a few pages and re-read it to understand who's who, but if you're watching in the theater  you can't just rewind the movie. But even after all this, it makes sense why someone would still dislike the movie version. People in general dislike change very much. In English class, we never got assigned seats, but we all just sat somewhere on the first day of class and just continued sitting there even when there's nothing to stop you from sitting else where. So it makes sense that  when there's change in someone's favorite book or play, that they will dislike it very quickly.

But do movies have nothing about them that's actually better than the book? I think so. One of the biggest things that movies have over books is the power in which the actors can say the lines. For example, John Proctor's famous speech about his name: "Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!"

As you read that quote, you know it's supposed to be dramatic due to the inclusion of all the exclamation marks. But it isn't nearly as powerful as when Daniel Day-Lewis performed that scene in the movie version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYMLA84HobU

So there are pros and cons to both the movie version and written version of stories, but rather than bickering on which is better, we should all just appreciate how wonderful these stories are.