All my life, I’ve been an avid reader. Perhaps avid is even too mild a term. Obsessive. I was the only kid I ever knew whose parents told her to stop reading and come watch TV with the rest of the family. And my mom is a schoolteacher, not a Matilda villain. If I am sitting, odds are I must read, be it book or computer or cereal box. And I’m far from the only one.

Of course, Hollywood recognizes love of books, and that authors often come up with better stories than screenwriters and producers. They also acknowledge we love to see our favorite stories before our eyes. Even though it takes away some of the mystery and individuality of our vision, it’s wonderful to watch Atreyu and the Empress or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory come to life before us. And if we don’t like it (or even if we do), it’s so much fun to complain; to compare the books we love to the movies and to make snotty, geeky comments about how they weren’t anywhere close to the right interpretation, and what we would have done differently.

It goes without saying that some adaptations are better than others. Some are true genius; others bear little similarity to the books beyond the title. Some movies change the endings in a big way, others actually stay faithful. And it’s always fun to rate the actors playing our favorite characters, and complain or rejoice over casting choices.

So how do producers stack up against publishers? I’m challenging myself to find ten books on my bookshelf that have been adapted into movies and compare.

Bridget Jones’ Diary (by Helen Fielding)

Let’s start off with an easy one. Bridget Jones’ Diary is exactly what I’d expect a movie adaptation to be. It’s 70-80% faithful to the plot of the book, it’s about 100% faithful to the characters and the message and tone, and they got Colin Firth and Hugh Grant — two actors mentioned by name in the book and/or the sequel — to play the two men. Definitely above par on your adaptation scale.

The Big Change: The addition of the fist fight between Daniel and Mark. This does not even come close to happening in the book. However, it is funny, fits both characters perfectly, and translates better on screen than it would in print, anyway. This change is approved with a swiped two thumbs up.

The Big Problem: My problem with Bridget Jones has nothing to do with the movie itself and everything to do with the hype, and of course it has to do with Renee Zellweger’s much bally-hooed weight gain. Bridget is supposed to be a woman with a weight issue in her mind, not a woman with a weight issue in real life. Renee looked like a real life woman, and frankly looked better with the weight on. Why did the media have to make such a big deal out of the whole thing? If I could look like Renee in Bridget Jones all the time, I’d be one very happy girl.

The Fountainhead (by Ayn Rand)

I’ve been meaning to review this for ages, but just haven’t gotten around to it. Yes, they did do a movie version of The Fountainhead (my second favorite book), staring Gary Cooper as Howard Roark. It’s actually pretty decent, as I’d hope since Ayn Rand was directly involved in the writing of the script. It’s very stylized, and very fifties (duh, it was made in 1949). However, when you’re making a thousand-something page book into a movie, you do have to make a lot of cuts. Some where good, some were not-so-good.

The Big Change: In the book, Roark is sued over the Stoddard Temple. In the movie, he is sued over the Enright House. There were other changes, but this is the one that sticks with me, because the Stoddard Temple was a matter of the owner not feeling that the design was appropriate for a temple, and bringing religion into the mix, whereas the Enright House was an apartment building. The lawsuit made no sense in the movie.

The Big Problem: Casting. Specifically, Gary Cooper as Howard Roark. Howard Roark (who should be much younger than Gary Cooper was at the time) is a hard headed, unmoving idealist. Cooper lacks both the fire and the stubborness to play him correctly. Plus, the trivia section of IMDb says he didn’t even quite understand his big speech.

The Princess Bride (by William Goldman)

One of the best books ever, told with an absurd number of hysterical asides and lots of satire. Also one of the best movies ever, with truly witty lines and the actors relishing their over-the-top characters. The book and the movie are remarkably close, and you’ve gotta admit watching the duel between The Man In Black and Inigo is SO much better than reading about it. Flashy sword work, perfect casting, great sets, and one of the best scores ever. One of the best book-to-film adaptations of all time.

The Big Change: The Zoo of Death, which is really quite interesting in the book, is removed. Frankly, that’s understandable and a small disappointment.

The Big Problem: There aren’t more adaptations like this, and Andre the Giant has sadly passed away.

The Prydain Chronicles (by Lloyd Alexander)

Actually, that’s a bit of a misnomer. It’s really The Book of Three and The Black Cauldron, both of which have been adapted into Disney’s The Black Cauldron. Surprisingly, Disney stayed relatively on target (for Disney — they were still pretty far off). I thought Fflewddur Fflam was too old in the movie (he seemed much younger, and much more flamboyant and fun in the books), the plot is kind of chopped and butchered, and we seem to be missing some major characters. But yes, Gurgi really does come back to life in the books. It is interesting that Disney chose to go this dark, but they’ve never done so again. Probably because having a PG rating shot the box office numbers.

The Big Change: Lots of them. Let’s just focus on the Fair Folk becoming Smurfs with wings instead of the mysterious creatures they are. And where the heck was Gwydoin?

The Big Problem: Ten scriptwriters, I suppose. There was a good story here. There really was. It just got chopped up along the way.

Circle of Friends (by Maeve Binchy)

Maeve Binchy is one of my favorite authors, and Circle of Friends is probably my second favorite book of hers. It’s a great coming-of-age story, and a story about college life and friendship and love. Chris O’Donnell was perfectly cast as pretty-boy heart throb Jack Foley, and Minnie Driver was dead on for the tall, rather heavy, self-conscious, very witty Benny Hogan. I wasn’t as happy with the supporting cast (except for Alan Cumming as Sean Walsh), but hey. What are you going to do. Most of this movie I was okay with, and it seemed like your average adaptation, until the end….

The Big Change: Spoiler for the book and the movie here. In both the book and the movie, Jack cheats on Benny with one of her best friends; partly over the issue of sex. (Benny wants to wait, Jack doesn’t.) She finds out in both. Now, Benny is a girl with a major self-esteem issue, a heart of gold, and rather prettier than she imagines herself to be (although not gorgeous). In both the book and the movie, Jack begs to be taken back. In the book, Benny stands her ground and says no, and ends up hooking up with a guy that’s not as good looking, but who has more in common with her and is far more trustworthy. In the movie, she takes him back.

The Big Problem: The changing of the ending (and the fact that Benny WAS willing to sleep with Jack in the movie) completely changes Binchy’s message of what love is about. Also, it turns Benny from a strong-willed but still wonderful woman into a doormat. Read the book, ditch the movie.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (by J.K. Rowling)

Oh, come on. You KNEW I’d hit Harry Potter.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is textbook in making all the mistakes I expect a movie adaptation to make, and still managing to be good. The main plot of the movie is still there, but some crucial backstory is cut and changed, and that annoys me to no end. Casting was actually pretty good (much more on this in a later article that I WILL finish one day!), especially the addition of David Thewlis as Lupin. The casting decision of David Thewlis is also notable for something else: he’s not at all how I pictured Lupin, and didn’t even play him quite as I pictured him. However, it was not out of character, either. It was a beautiful example of how differently two people can picture the same character.

The Big Change: The exclusion of the backstory about Sirius, Remus, Peter, and James. (Yes, James was supposed to be a major presence here.) What annoyed me about this as a movie wasn’t the lack of the backstory as much as the fact that moviegoers were not told that James’s Animagus form was a stag. It really took a lot of the emotional impact out of Harry conjuring the Patronus if you didn’t know that fact.

The Big Problem: Steve Kloves, repeat after me. “I will not give all of Ron’s best lines to Hermione. Hermione is a geeky little know-it-all who is very proud of the fact and we love her that way; she is not a Pink Power Ranger. Ron is witty, fun, loyal, and on the same level mentally and emotionally as Harry. I will stop turning him into a clueless, stupid buffoon whose only purpose is comedic presence.” Repeat 100 times and take it to heart. Thank you.

Alice In Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass (by Lewis Carroll)

One of my favorite novels, and one of my favorite Disney movies in its way (and also kind of scary because I’ve dressed up as Alice for Halloween before, and I’m close to a dead ringer). Disney keeps the drugged-out feeling of Alice in Wonderland, and although it samples incidents from both books, it remains fairly faithful to those incidents. The characters lend themselves very well to two-dimensional cartoon characters, and even in the books Alice herself never really undergoes any character development. So overall, excellent work on Disney’s part.

The Big Change: Wow. It’s really hard to REALLY think of one, because as I said each of the incidents are actually kept true to form. Sure, you don’t have the White Queen, the White Knight, and several other characters, and of course ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ is cut down quite a bit, but what do you want?

The Big Problem: Disney doesn’t make movies like this anymore.

Flowers In the Attic (by V.C. Andrews)

Ah, true literary trash. Yes, I’ve read tons of the V.C. Andrews books (the Flowers in the Attic series as well as the Heaven books, the Dawn books, and the Ruby books). And yes, they mostly follow the same plot. And yes, they are pure trash. But I challenge you to find a woman my age who hasn’t read them. The movie is pretty bad, but so was the book, so I guess that’s only fair. Bad acting, bad dialogue (can you really blame the screenwriters though?)…. Bad bad bad.

But notice I’ve watched it anyway.

The Big Change: At the end of the movie, the children who have been locked away in the attic all this time actually confront their mother, who then hangs herself if I remember correctly. (I’ve only seen it once.) Plus, the whole Chris-Cathy dynamic was majorly changed.

The Big Problem: Heh. The source material. While Flowers in the Attic IS V.C. Andrews’ best book, it’s still not exactly literary genius.

The Prince of Egypt (adapted from Exodus, by Moses)

Okay, so maybe I’m stretching a little to hit my ten. But not really.

Prince of Egypt does something that very few movies have the opportunity to do — it takes a story that you read and fills in gaps, instead of having to cut out material. It takes the telling of the story of Moses and turns it into a real story, with characters you can understand and motivations that make it real, instead of what can feel like archaic words on very thin paper. And it adds in emotion, which the Bible rarely does. The conflict Moses demonstrates as the city is destroyed is just beautiful to watch, even as it’s painful.

The Big Change: I doubt the people in Biblical times randomly broke into song, but that’s okay [Ed. note: the Bible does record a famous song that Moses' sister sang after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea]. I’ve always preferred musicals anyway, and most of the songs are very well placed. They’re either used as work songs, traveling songs, or songs during times of celebration.

The Big Problem: There really isn’t one here. If you haven’t seen Prince of Egypt, you really, really should — even if you’re not remotely religious.

The Lord of the Rings (by J.R.R. Tolkien)

Ohhhhh yeeeahhh. THIS is what a movie adaptation should be.

I’ll be honest. Tolkien as a writer bores me. I mean, he’s a little too dry and descriptive for my tastes. But Tolkien as a storyteller… now that’s different. And what the movie adaptation of Lord of the Rings does is pare down to the story, and fill in all the description as visuals. So what took Tolkien sixty pages to describe comes across in a few well-chosen shots. Everything about these movies was perfect, in my mind, but most notable was Gollum. I first read The Lord of the Rings in fifth grade. I was too young to really understand it on any sort of deep level, but Gollum stuck with me. I couldn’t have asked for something closer to my vision of him.

The Big Change: The cutting of Tom whatshisface. (Obviously a beloved character of mine. Look, I read the books in fifth grade.)

The Big Problem: Peter Jackson is working on King Kong instead of The Hobbit right now. Hobbit! Hobbit!

Well, that was my bookshelf (except for The Princess Diaries, which I’ll rant about in another review.). Of course, there’s many books there I’d love to see in the movies that might never make it. I’d love to hear Nanny Ogg actually sing The Hedgehog Song. I’m dying to see Mnementh take off. I can’t wait to see Ender at Battle School, and I’d love to see Lyra and Will travel between worlds. (Anyone get all four books?)

I also checked out our movie collection, because the Forum’s been quiet and I’ll toss you guys a discussion topic: Favorite (or least favorite) books to movies: Discuss.