09 Track 9

Review unit 1

fluency practice

reading review 1: The film and the novel: twilight

page 45

The film and the novel: twilight

When a popular book gets made into a movie, there will always be a debate about whether the novel or film is better. The filmmakers always have to consider certain things: do they want to follow the book closely to please dedicated readers, or do they want to change parts of the book if they don’t translate well on-screen?

No matter what they do, there will always be people who feel the movie will never be as good as the book, people who will love the movie without ever reading the book and people who enjoy both.

The vampire series twilight, by Stephanie Mayor, became so popular that movie companies wanted to produce it for the big screen.

Most twilight fans were excited about seeing characters such as Edward and Bella ‘come to life,’ but there were other fans who did not trust the movie script. They assumed the scriptwriters would change parts of the story to make it seem more interesting as a movie.

By the time the first twilight movie was released, millions of people had read the series. Many of these people went on to watch the film, which made $35.7 million just on its opening day.

While many fans and critics liked it and said the movie more or less followed the book’s storyline, some fans were not impressed.

One change that angered them was that certain sound effects were added to the movie, such as a ‘whooshing’ sound when the vampires jumped.

This was not mentioned in the book and many fans felt that it was too distracting.

Those who like the movie said they enjoyed the light mood and excitement. This was very different from the book. The writing and twilight is dark and gloomy, like many vampire novels.

The movie, however, added more energy to the story and more personality to the characters.

For example, many characters in the book are portrayed as being quiet, and they spend most of their time at school. But in the movie, the characters are cooler and funnier − one scene even shows them going surfing together.

The director of the first movie, Catherine Hardwick, thought it was important for the characters to be believable.

She wanted them to have a wide variety of emotions, since the series is for, and about, teenagers.

In the end, the films were considered a success, even if there were both happy and unhappy fans. It’s a great accomplishment to make films that are watched by millions of people, and you can’t expect to be able to please everyone all of the time.