Why Can't Movies Be Like Books?

[Imladris]

"Please, lets get it through our collective heads --- a book is one thing while a film is quite another. What works in one medium does not always work in the other."

I quoted this from another thread, and I have ran across many statements written like this, and always as a statement of fact.

It's more of a general rule of thumb than a fact -- to overquote a movie, it's more of a guideline for discussions than a rule. Eg -- books written in the first person would be rather difficult to turn into a movie since it's about interior thoughts of the narrator and that is very difficult to show without narration...and most people view that as bad form. LotR is easier -- except for the massive amount of detail that is both needed and rather unnecessary.

Please remember that directors have to report to another higher authority than just themselves. They don't have the final say. For example, I believe when I watched the commentary (which was a very long time ago so I am liable to misremember) -- they wanted Jackson to do it in two movies and, iirc, he fought very hard to keep it at three. There are also the matter of funding and all sorts of troublesome things. Sure a book can be turned into a movie, but at what cost? And if the higher ups deems it'll cost too much...well compromise must be made.

And everybody has a different vision or interpretation of the work. Just because it doesn't match yours doesn't mean it's necessarily false. I had read Tolkien's work many times before the viewing of the movie and I didn't think that Borormir's character was all that "changed", just that different aspects of his complexity were emphasised.