ADAPTED: FROM BOOKS TO MOVIES
By Cedric, Chloe, Jeff, and TJ
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 3: About the writers Pages 4‐5: The Spectacular Spider‐man by TJ Henry Pages 6‐7: First Rule of Fight Club by Jeff Kempton Page 8: The Tale of the Classic Underdog by Jessica Roper Page 9: Twilight Books vs Film by Mackenzie Andrillon Page 10: The Great Gatsby: the Movie and the Book by Chloe Lomelli
ABOUT THE WRITERS TJ Henry is a student at Valencia College. He is majoring in Journalism and is 20 years old. He is from Orlando Florida but born in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. TJ also enjoys watching movies and TV shows. Jeff Kempton is 25 years old and wants to join the air force. He eventually wants to write fiction. He enjoys reading and playing the piano. Jessica Roper wants to be in advertising and public relations when she finishes school. She is 20 years old from Clearwater, Florida and she also like baking and Netflix. Mackenzie Andrillon also wants to be in advertising and public relations when she finishes school. She is 19 years old and is from Fort Myers, Florida. She likes to cook, play volleyball, and listen to music in her spare time. Chloe Lomelli is a 19 year old student at Valencia College. She likes to play soccer and is going to school to be a journalist.
THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN BY TJ HENRY
Spider‐Man is one of the world’s most iconic superheroes of all time. Over the years there have been many incarnations of the comic book superhero being adapted to video games, television shows, and other books. One of the web‐slingers most popular media adaptions is on the big screen. There have been four theatrical releases of Spider‐Man, and the fifth movie is to be released later this year. Although the movies have been based on the comic book character, there have still been some slight changes in the Spider‐ Man movies. To begin with, Spider‐Man was first created by comic book legends Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. The web‐head made his first comic book appearance in the comic title ‘Amazing Fantasy #15’ in 1962 (Marvel Comics™ Encyclopedia The Amazing Spider‐Man 1st Edition V.4) . In the first comic book that gave birth to Spider‐Man, Peter Parker is shown as a science whiz orphan who is being raised by his aunt and uncle. Peter is bitten by a radioactive spider at a science exhibit and acquires super strength, the ability to adhere to walls and ceilings, as well as a precognitive sense that warns him of immediate danger he calls his “spider‐sense.” In his first movie adaptation titled ‘Spider‐Man‘, Peter is instead bitten by a spider at a school field trip to a genetics laboratory. Also, in the movie Peter Parker gains one more ability, being able to shoot webbing like fluid directly from his wrists like a spider, while his comic counter‐part creates mechanical wrist mounted web‐shooters that shoot artificial webbing. Furthermore, another difference the comic book counter‐part has with his movie self is the family and friends he has around him in the beginning of his story. In the comics, Peter meets his best friend Harry Osborn and his first love interest Gwen Stacy at his college Empire State University. He is later introduced to his second love, Mary Jane Watson, by his Aunt May (http://marvel.com/comics/characters/1009610/spider‐man). But, in the very first Spider‐Man movie, Peter Parker has known all of these people, except Gwen Stacy, since elementary school. Mary Jane has actually been Peter’s next door neighbor since they were kids. In Spider‐Man 3 Gwen Stacy finally makes a short appearance, but she is nothing like her comic character. In comics Gwen Stacy is Spider‐Man’s very first love interest and is killed by an evil villain later on in the story. Instead of Gwen being the Web‐head’s first love, in the Spider‐ Man 3 theatrical release, Peter uses Gwen Stacy just to make his ex‐girlfriend Mary Jane jealous and actually has no real interest in her.
Spider‐Man’s first super‐villain and criminal comic book showdowns also had a few differences in, the scenes in the movie adaptation. In first Spider‐Man movie, Spider‐Man’s first pursued criminal was the burglar who shot and killed his Uncle Ben, which he had the chance to stop after witnessing the burglar rob his own wrestling promoter. But, in the comic Spider‐Man is a popular television show star, but also allows a burglar to get away to the same effect as shown in the movie. After that Spider‐Man took up his role as a crime fighter to make sure no more innocent lives get hurt like his uncle once did; this is the same for all movie and television adaptations, with his uncle teaching him the most famous of Spider‐Man’s quotes, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” The comic book version soon came across his first super villain named the Chameleon, who had the ability to create mirrored disguises of anyone. The super villain began framing Spider‐ Man as a criminal (http://marvel.com/comics/characters/1009610/spider‐ man). Instead of the Chameleon being the first super villain Spider‐Man fights in the first movie, the menacing Green Goblin. The Goblin has a unique set of deadly gadgets including a glider, as well as his own super powers including super strength, speed, and quick reflexes. This evil Goblins goal is to harm everyone close to Peter after discovering his secret identity. Although this super villain was shown in the Spider‐Man movie as his first super powered threat, his comic book counter‐part would deal with this threat a little later on in his career as a super hero. In conclusion, as you can see Spider‐Man is my favorite superhero of all time, but all of the changes in the character for his movies are a very noticeable thing to a true fan. I personally believe that the changes in the character were made in the movies so that the character may be more appealing to a younger audience while also adding a little drama that all ages can understand. Audiences of today like to see drama, action, and struggle quickly so they wouldn’t want to sit in a movie theater taking a very long time on the character’s back story. I enjoyed almost all of the Spider‐Man movies, but I am looking forward to the ‘Amazing Spider‐Man 2”, which is to be released in May of this year. It looks like it will be better than all of the previous Spider‐Man movies. If anybody wanted to start to take a look on superheroes in general, I would recommend Spider‐Man to everyone of all ages. The character is probably the most important character in the Marvel Comics’ universe in my eyes, and he will be reinvented every decade in order to reach and connect with a younger audience.
FIRST RULE OF FIGHT CLUB BY JEFF KEMPTON
Fight Club is a 1999 movie directed by David Fincher and based off of the book written by Chuck Palahniuk three years earlier. Though the movie did not do well in the box office, it has gone on to become a cult classic and has garnered some recognition for both the director and author. I saw the movie when I was pretty young. I couldn’t understand it very well, but there was something compelling about it. I watched it again later in life, and I now consider it to be one of my favorite movies of all time. I’ve also read the book. The story focuses on the narrator (whose name is never mentioned) who has become bored with his life and begins to suffer from severe insomnia. To help with his insomnia, he starts attending cancer support group meetings, where he meets Marla Singer. Then he takes a vacation where he meets Tyler Durden. In the novel, the narrator meets Tyler on a nude beach. In the movie, however, he meets him on a plane. The narrator returns from his vacation to find that his condo has been blown up by some kind of home‐made explosive. He calls Tyler Durden and asks if he can stay at his place. The two meet up at a bar and end up fighting each other. The two enjoy it so much that they begin fighting each other regularly. Before long, other men who witness these fights want to join in, and in this way Fight Club is born. Fight Club becomes an underground bare‐knuckle boxing ring, and though its number one (and number two) rule is that you are not to talk about it, word begins to spread. Meanwhile, Marla and Tyler meet through the narrator and begin to have an affair. The narrator, who now lives with Tyler, notes that he never sees the two of them in the same room together. In the movie, only a few scenes are devoted to the affair, while in the book it is a reoccurring annoyance to the narrator. Both mediums show that the affair seems to take a toll on the state of the house itself. Tyler takes Fight Club to the next level and starts “Project Mayhem,” which uses members from Fight Club to carry out acts of terrorism targeted at corporate America. The narrator tries to stop Tyler, but he can’t. Tyler then reveals his plans to the narrator; these plans differ between the book and the movie. In the book, Tyler wants to blow up the national museum and the Philip Morris building. He plans on dying in these explosions, thereby becoming a martyr for his cause. In the movie, Tyler wants to blow up the headquarters of several of the largest banks, so that everyone will “go back to zero.” In his attempt to stop Tyler, the narrator discovers that he and Tyler are the same person. This is first hinted at when a member of another city’s Fight Club calls him Tyler and is later explicitly revealed when the narrator asks Marla to tell him what his name is. She says, “Tyler Durden.” The movie has a clear advantage in the way it handles the big revelation: a flashback montage showing us scenes that originally featured both Tyler and the narrator, only this time Tyler is not in any of them (as he had only ever been in the narrator’s imagination).We see the same scenes the way they actually played out, with the narrator talking to himself, punching himself, and saying and doing the things that we had previously seen Tyler doing. The book doesn’t have a flashback sequence, so it’s up to the reader to imagine how the previous parts with Tyler may have actually played out.
On the night that the explosion is set to commence, the narrator goes to the Phillip Morris building to confront Tyler. He has a gun with him. The greatest difference between the two mediums, as far as plotline goes, is in the way that they end. In the book, Marla, along with one of the cancer support groups, shows up at the building just as the narrator has a gun in his mouth. The narrator intends to kill himself, thus killing Tyler Durden as well. He tells Marla and the support group to get out of the building because it is rigged to explode, but they refuse to leave. The timer hits zero, but the bomb malfunctions and doesn’t go off. Even still, the narrator pulls the trigger. He wakes up in a hospital room which he believes to be heaven. He sees that some of the doctors and orderlies have cuts and bruises on their faces (an indicator that they are members of Fight Club.) They inform him that they are continuing forward with Project Mayhem and are anxiously awaiting his recovery. The movie ends differently. The narrator confronts Tyler in the Philip Morris building and shoots him, but the bullets don’t do any harm because they are the same person. Knowing that it’s the only way to stop Tyler, the narrator puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. He wakes up on the floor of the building, and Marla Singer is there. The narrator is alive and seemingly unhurt. Tyler is gone. Marla wants answers, but before the narrator can explain, the explosives that had been planted in the headquarters of the banks start to go off. Marla and the narrator look out of the window to see the buildings blowing up and collapsing. He grabs her hand and says “You met me at a very strange time in my life.” Aside from the introduction of the Tyler Durden character, and the endings, the rest of the differences between the book and the movie are much more subtle. Most of these differences are dictated by the difference in the mediums themselves. For instance, there are a few scenes in the movie where the image of Tyler Durden appears in the frame for just a split second. Only in a visual medium could this type of thing be done, and it helps the viewer to insinuate that Tyler Durden might be a figment of the narrator’s imagination. The book has the advantage of giving more details on the characters’ backstories, and does better to show gaps in the narrator’s memory, which the reader can infer to be the times when his split personality takes over. A few other minor details are different between the two mediums (such as past jobs that Tyler has held and some of the scenes involving Marla), but for the most part, it is a solid adaptation. Fight Club is one of the rare adaptations where I prefer the movie to the book. I feel this way mainly because of the difference in the ways that they end. The book’s ending leaves the reader guessing, as one cannot be sure whether it is the narrator or his alter ego that has survived the gunshot. I find the ending of the movie to be much more hopeful and complete. Nothing beats that final scene of the buildings collapsing, that final line by the narrator, and the song “Where is My Mind” by the Pixies playing right before the credits roll.
THE TALE OF THE CLASSIC UNDERDOG BY JESSICA ROPER
People tend to fall in love with the tales of the underdog struggle who rebuilds into the epic hero. Silver Lining Playbook tells the story of Pat and his struggle to over come his mental break down that takes his life into a 180‐ plot twist. Pat loses the stable life of a high school history teacher he once knew. He winds up in a mental institute, “the bad place” and living back at home with his parents to overcome is sudden battles through lost family bonds. Mathew Quick published the novel, Silver Linings Playbook, in 2008 and the movie was released in 2012 across the United States with an A list cast. The film was a box office hit staring a hyped up cast including Bradley Cooper, Jenifer Lawrence (who had just hit fame with The Hunger Games) and Robert De Niro. The film was nominated for 16 awards during the 2013 award season including the Oscars, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Jenifer Lawrence swept all three award shows with her performance as Tiffany, for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Though I found both the novel and book to complement each other and both to really amaze me, they were both different in many ways. Pat is the main character in both stories but in the book is Pat Peoples and in the movie he is Pat Salitano. Pat in the movie is still somewhat self‐ aware of what has happened and why he ended up in the “bad place” where in the book he is completely out of touch with the reality of his actions. Another huge difference is Pat was in the mental institute for eight months in the film and four years in the book. There are also quiet a lot of family differences with Pat. His relationship with father is a huge component to the story line and the battle he and his family go through and rebuild together. In the film is father (Robert De Niro) is helpful and willing to comply with Pats problems and helps to get Pat back onto his feet. In the book his relationship with his father is much more strained. His father is presented as a complete close‐minded who won’t speak to Pat. The other main differences are the football aspects to the story. Pat and his family really rebuild their relationships off of their love for the football team, Philadelphia Eagles. Pat receives a jersey from his brother of the latest draft pick and earns his nickname, the player was changed in the movie I’m assuming to keep up with that years draft pick. Pat, his brother and father have important scenes that take place at Eagles games. But the movie shortens the scenes when the family lives in Pennsylvania compared to New Jersey in the novel. I feel like most of everything that was changed was too fit into current present day life. Or also to be shorten for an appropriate movie length. If the writers would have kept Pat and his father so estrange then the plot would have been needed to be longer. Unlike a lot of movies, Silver Linings Playbook was able to keep fans on both sides. I read the book after I saw the movie and fell in love with the story even more then I had before. Either way they both carry out the important message of finding silver linings and excelsior in life, in everything.
TWILIGHT BOOKS VS. FILM BY MACKENZIE ANDRILLON
Whenever a book is translated into a movie, fans usually are eager to see how they will translate it into a visual form. It is always the typical struggle that the film is too far removed from the book, or maybe the character choice wasn’t fitting. Twilight had quit the mixed reviews from fans some saying they liked the movie even better than the books, and others hating their adaptation so much that they stopped watching the series. The changes in a book to film translation movie may seem small, but on a big scale it is very important to followers. Twilight was a movie with a good amount of changes done, though towards the end of the series they stayed pretty true to the books. The book had much more detail in characters, allowing you to really dive in and understand how each character came to be and relate to them on a deeper level. It begins that a shy teenage girl is forced to move to a town called Forks where she meets an boy that she later falls in love with, but the catch is that he is a vampire. There’s a love triangle between this vampire and another boy in town that would turn out to be a werewolf. They struggle to keep her alive, with all of the vampire attacks until he finally agrees to turn her into a vampire with the acceptation that she marries him first. Before she is turned they happened to conceive a half mortal half immortal child that causes a big disturbance in the head vampire coven called the Voltaire. They are forced to bring all of the covens together to witness that she is not a fully immortal child. In the end the Voltaire realizes that the child is not a threat to them, and they are able to move on with their lives. The characters were depicted differently in the book, than in the movie. They split the last book into two movies. Many of the more intimate scenes were either deleted from the film, or modified. They skipped over many parts about the legends of the wolves, and vampire tribes. They needed the characters to be more easily portrayed, but instead just jumped right into the film without giving the background they did in the books. The books were too long to put it all into film, so they condensed the books to be able to fit them into the movies They had to skip some of the background knowledge, because it wouldn’t translate into the film well. Some of the characters didn’t really seem fitting in the movie, as they would have been seen in the books. They changed directors almost every movie, which translated in a sloppy transition to each movie, as the style would change. The movies weren’t horrible compared to some book to film transaction, they just should have focused more to detail. The should have also considered the following this book had, and been very careful in trying to make it to the standard it was held up to be. The books are my personal favorite, because the films just didn’t have enough background. If there was anything they could have done to better the movie it would be to have stretched them out into more movies so they can fit in more of the book.
THE GREAT GATSBY: THE MOVIE AND THE BOOK BY CHLOE LOMELLI
We have all watched movies that are based off books. Some movies do a great job at following the story and others do not. The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was recreated in 2013, and the movie stayed very close to the book. The main character, Jay Gatsby, is a rich fellow that throws exvagant parties, hoping that one day his true love Daisy will come to one. Daisy has a cousin, who is named Nick, and she also has a friend named Jordan who is a professional golfer. These characters all play an important role in both the film and the book. For example, some similarities between the book and the film are the dialogue and setting. differences are the, fact that Jordan cheats to win her titles. Also, Nick and Jordan have a love affair in the book but, it was not mentioned at all in the film. Now, of course there are going to be some discrepancies when a novel is turned into a movie, but other than a few differences the film makers of the movie did well staying with the original story. The movie some quotes made by various characters mirrored the novel. By the script writers incorporating the famous quotes by Daisy and Gatsby it made the movie a success. In the beginning Nick and Daisy stand outside speaking when Daisy says “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” By adding this quote from the novel the film makers really captured what Daisy is all about. This quote shows how Daisy does not like to deal with reality and also shows how shallow she is, this quote is important to the characterization of Daisy. Another important quote, which was both in the movie and the novel is one by Jay Gatsby. "She never loved you, do you hear? She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me.” Gatsby says this to Tom, Daisy’s husband in a very heated argument over who Daisy should be with. Another thing the movie did well on was setting. It showed Gatsby’s over the top parties. Also, there is a green light across the lake in front of Daisy’s house that Gatsby desperately reaches for, but never comes close to. The green light symbolizes the social status Gatsby will never have because he is “new money”. Meaning he was born into wealth, like Daisy was, so therefore he will never have her. The movie also had the all‐important towns of East and West egg and, the film makers keep the story in the state of New York. Something that I thought was odd is, in the movie they did not show Nick and Jordan’s love affair. In the novel their relationship is very much present and happening. Why the film makers chose not to include it, is beyond me. Also, Jordan is a golfer, she only won in tournaments because she is a cheater. Film makers neglected that trait about her. I feel that should have been included, because it builds her character. Without these little details movie watchers could not get the whole character of Jordan. All in all, the movie did well staying with the framework of the novel. I feel film makers should have included major characterization details so viewers could really understand the characters. I feel that people who make movies based off novels are entitled to some creative license. Sometimes details included in a novel do not work for a movie.