Books X Films

Seen as the successor of Harry Potter and The Twilight Saga in theaters, The Hunger Games has much more in common with these titles than the simple fact that it came from bookstores and is focused on young people. As well as the other two teenage trilogies, The Hunger Games seems to lack something if compared with its written version. It is common to hear fans of such books say that the film was not good enough, the books are always better. But, are they really?

If so, what makes the books better than the films?

 

In my opinion, it is a matter of "medium". While books reveal their stories by means of words printed on paper, leaving lots of "gaps" for the reader to fill; films are much more objective, showing the scenario, the faces, the voices of the characters, so that to the audience is given only the job of sitting and enjoying the "show".

I am not saying that in films there are no gaps for the audience to fill with their own imagination. But the number of gaps is massively fewer if compared with books. In the books you know the characters through the description the writer gives you - tall/short, blonde/brunette, skinny/chubby, etc - it is almost impossible that the faces we draw in our heads are the same. We are given the power to imagine our own version of the characters and sometimes even of the story. In the movies, on the other hand, we have a specific face, a specific scenario, everything thought and designed by somebody else, not you. It is easy to say that the scenario in a movie was not quite what you expected, or that the actor that played the role was not the best actor for the character. The truth is, when we read a book, we fill the gaps in a certain way, and when the movie is out, the same gaps were filled in different ways, and that is why we get disappointed. 

Of course, sometimes there are also some changes in the "story" per se. While the books have hundreds and hundreds of pages, the movie needs to fit all the details in about two hours of footage. Sometimes, some cuts are necessary, and maybe the cuts are parts we really liked in the books. Another frustration! Or even, in order to make the story "fit into" the movie, the script has to change, and we really do not like changes. Even if the ending is better than the one we had in the books, most people will feel almost betrayed, because it is not the same story.

So, in my opinion, what makes the books "better" than the films is our active role, our capacity to put ourselves in them, we are responsible for part of the creation process in the books, while in the movies our participation is more passive, there is less space for the audience to participate.