Monday's Movie and TV Talk! (7)

Welcome to Monday's Movie and TV Talk! I don't know if I'll do this every Monday, or just sporadically on Mondays, but I LOVE TV and movies, so I figured why not add some of that to the blog for fun?? It'll be especially awesome when I can tie things into the YA book world...

Okay, so remember when I reviewed Beautiful Creatures (read it here) and told ya'll that the main reason I read it was because I was SO excited for the movie? Well, guess what I saw last week on President's Day??!

First off, I have to mention how much I LOVE going to the movies at odd times. I went on Monday morning to the early show (10 a.m.) and I was one of three people in the whole theater! It really makes the experience so much more fun if I can actually hear the whole movie without the crowd noise. (And, yes, I do know that this makes me *that* weird girl that goes to the movies alone...I don't care! LOL.)

 

I also want to mention that I was right *brushes shoulders off proudly* when I said in my review that this book translates really well to the big screen.  This movie was good.  I really liked it and will probably see it again...even though they did change some BIG things!

 

All right, without trying to ruin this for anyone, I will try to disclose how I felt about the changes without giving too much away.  Let's see if I can do it!

 

One: A huge revelation about a character's secret identity is revealed about one third of the way into the movie...allowing viewers to build the story upon that reveal...BUT I loved how in the book, I was pretty sure that was going on, but did not find out for sure until the LAST third of the book.  I thought it was much more dramatic in the book, though the revelation scene in the movie was well done, too!

 

Two: Although the movie still features one of the coolest libraries I've ever seen in fiction, I was saddened that they combined two characters in the movie, cutting out the awesome librarian from the book series. I suppose this was to make it easier for viewers to keep track of characters, but it also inadvertantly changed Ethan's mother's backstory in a way I wasn't too fond of... *and* the library itself is a little downplayed in the movie. *My librarian heart is breaking.*

 

Three: When Lena must finally face what is going to happen on her sixteenth birthday, she decides to handle the situation all on her own.  A HUGE change from the book.  This change sets in motion a bunch of littler changes, including the entire moral character of one of her cousins, and allowed for a very different ending to seem to happen. Thankfully, in truly movie magic fashion, and a very dramatic way, the moviemakers pulled through at the last moment and things work out again...though it will make for an interesting start to the second movie...

 

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and think that people who have not read the book will love it.  I think readers will probably bemoan the same things that I did, but also realize that this made for a great *movie* experience.  And now, I have to read book two!