NOoooooOOOOoo

Okay, while my blog is still ruminating on my fear of change, I'm going to run with that thought. And talk about my fear of my favorite books becoming movies, which I'm pretty sure stems from my fear of change.

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When I really like a book, I like it the way it is. I like my experience of it, and don't want it to be tainted by seeing other people experience it differently. Do I get happy to find out that certain books are going to become movies? Yes! Like, for instance, If I Stay. The whole time I was reading that book, I wanted it to be a movie. The Sky is Everywhere? Sure, why not! These are books that I know aren't going to become big, huge, blockbuster movies. They're also books that don't involve a lot of picturing of the characters-- like, I honestly couldn't tell you what the physical description of Adam is, or what Joe Fontaine looks like other than that galaxy-brightening smile. So my versions of the characters can't really be changed by the casts of the movies.

But say, like, Anna and the French Kiss were to become a movie. I know that Nickelodeon has bought the rights to it, and that totally freaks me out. Not only because Nickelodeon is for little kids and so they'd have to change a larger fraction of the content than you'd think, or because Nickelodeon could turn it into a crappy half-hour television show or a crappy hour-and-a-half television movie, but because I know in my head who these characters are to me. I don't want everyone else to see them differently; I want people to see them as they are in the book. It terrifies me to no end to think that Anna Oliphant and Etienne St. Clair could become household names to teenybopping Nickelodeon-watchers or scowling know-it-all television/movie critics. Or, even if that didn't happen and viewers and critics alike loved Anna, I'd still hate it because I'd feel like these people don't know, you know? They just wouldn't get it. Plus the characters would look different and the story would feel different and just, agh, I can't.

And now I'm starting to make no sense. Let me backtrack and explain what brought on this panic attack:

Apparently, Delirium is in the process of becoming a movie. As in, the script has been written and there are people working to make it happen, including Lauren Oliver, who has been "brainstorming" cast ideas. I'm even more afraid for this series to become movies than I was for The Hunger Games, because deep down I knew that The Hunger Games couldn't really be interpreted as "another Twilight" (yep, that again). I'm not so sure with Delirium. Personally I don't think it is another Twilight-- by which I mean it's not all about a swoony nonsense romance. It's about a society that has outlawed love, where they do procedures on your 18th birthday to make sure you can never love anything or anyone. It's actually really twisted! The main character starts out a passive 17-year-old who's afraid of getting the "disease" (amor delirium nervosa), but she ends up a totally kick-butt character who's dared to defy everything she has been taught to accept, and adore everything she's been taught to reject.

I don't want this to become a movie because, okay, I have a fear of narrow-minded people. The people who will watch the movie and label it as "this thing that's been done before" or "that thing that's been done before," just because of the romance. The romance in this story is actually necessary to the character and plot development; without it, nothing would happen. Yet I'm afraid that people will criticize it for the focus on Lena and Alex's relationship-- how Alex watched her from afar until she noticed him and they fell in love, how Lena ends up willing to leave everything she knows behind because of him. They won't see that Alex helped her find the fault in life inside the fence, or that Lena isn't only willing to leave so she can be with Alex, but so she can be without the wrongness of forcing people to live without love. They'll hone in on "girl sees mysterious boy, mysterious boy shows up again, mysterious boy gives her a mysterious amount of attention, girl and mysterious boy fall in love, plan to run away together." Which is wrong.

There's also the problem of movies changing the characters, even in the slightest ways. If I'm attached to a character in a book, I want to be attached to that character just as much in the movie, but it doesn't tend to happen that way. Here comes an example you probably didn't see coming: Peeta Mellark. Don't get me wrong, I loved The Hunger Games movie. I'm seeing it a fifth time this weekend. But... Peeta. Josh Hutcherson does a wonderful job with the role, but I felt like he wasn't given enough of Peeta's material to work with. A lot of the dialogue in the cave scene was cut out, as were a lot of Peeta's funniest moments that made him seem like more of a real person to me. Movie Peeta just isn't the same as book Peeta, and I always fear that happening with my favorite characters.

Not to mention, if they make Delirium a movie, they'll have to make Pandemonium a movie. Which is going to SUCK A LOT (Julian, ugh) but I'll have to see it. And also they'll have to find a way to get whoever plays Alex to be okay with a lot less screen time in the second movie.

And then there's the whole phenomenon where a book series that becomes a movie series eventually becomes, to most people, only a movie series. People think Twilight, they don't think of the books-- they think of KStew and RPattz and Taylor Lautner's abs. Which is a big change, if you ask me. And have I mentioned I hate change?

But who knows? Harry Potter and The Hunger Games have certainly done well enough to vouch for books-turned-movies. But they're in the smallest section of the Venn-diagram:

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes, Hollywood needs to learn to leave well enough alone. Or make sure that not leaving it alone is the best choice for everyone.