Back to our book for October, The Fault in Our Stars.
Now, I knew before I ever read the book or watched the movie that it was going to be sad. It was going to be wonderful, but sad. It was going to somehow give hope, but be sad. It would bring joy, but be sad. It was going to be sad, but still more sad than I could have imagined. Still, it was going to be. Just be.
All I knew about this plot of the story was from the movie previews. It was about a girl who was sick, and about a boy she meets. That I knew it was going to be a love story or sorts. That's all though. That the thing about movie trailers these days, they show you how cool the movie looks without actually giving you an idea what the movie is about.
Here is what I have to say.
Hollywood really sucks at making a movie based off of a book.
I know that I have already proved this to myself a few times this year, but really they do. The book is 313 pages long. The movie is just over 2 hours. How is it that they can not make a movie longer and give it the same timeline and places for parts to happen as they do in the book. Yes, I have said it already I know they changed things to flow better in for a movie point of view. However, this movie would have been perfect to do for a movie. It's already written in Hazel Graces voice. You are already living these same moments with her in the book. You have have done it in the movie too. You could have had her narrate the whole movie and that would have been great. Yet, they didn't. They let it go.
The best parts of this story is the friendships that were built. Hazel Grace and Augustus had a beautiful friendship that does go to more, however, the movie missed just how much Issac played into the whole thing. Hazel and Issac ended up have a great friendship of their own that is wonderful and really underdeveloped and all but assumed just happened in the film. There are a great many moments that we never got to see from those two, like Hazel visiting Issac in the hospital after his eye surgery. How they played video games together, or enjoyed each other's company. It doesn't even show how close the relationship of Issac and Augustus had at all. It was like Issac was just a guy to put in when they needed him to move a point along in the story rather than being apart of both their lives.
I hated they showed the relationship of Hazel's parents to her. They did an okay job of showing how sarcastic they are, in a loving way, to each other. However, the other love that they showed, about how much her dad cried, and how much she knew how tired her mom was, was never played out. Her own feelings about what her cancer is doing to them are never expressed in the movie.
I think that is what is the thing that doesn't make sense for book to movie adaptations. How is it that they can make these great relationships in all kinds of movie but when it comes to this kind of adaptation it is always missed in translation. I mean the book has it literally written out for you and they miss it by miles. Just because the words used to express the emotion in the book are not spoken by someone doesn't mean they should be ignored.
I will say this about the book. It was sad, I think I have made myself abundantly clear on that, but it did get me thinking about what our own stories mean when we are gone. Augusts feared "oblivion". That after he was gone who is going to remember him and what was he going to be remembered for. I think we all fear that in a way. We all want to be known for something, or at least have the chance to. However, I know that my name is not going to end up in any History book. I will not be in a hall of fame. I write blog that no one reads, or may two or three do, but even though I will not be known for something I know a part of me will go on. I believe that we are not "self made". We don't come from nothing and we don't become nothing after we are gone. Every one of us has a genetic history, personal history, and while the history of me will never be written. The fact my history exists could inspire someone else to go and be a name in a history book one day. Something I have not yet done could start a chain reaction to have someone in the future make a great change in this world. Even, just smiling at a stranger could give them hope at the right time and place to keep going so they can be the inspiration for someone to do something amazing and be known for it.
We are all build by the people not only in our everyday lives but by those who we see once and never again. The stories, good and bad, that we read or watch or experience get carried with us and get engraved into own beings and gradually change us overtime to become whoever it will be one day. Our lives are the millions of little things that we pick up from the everyday, from every person, and from the little of moments who don't normally think about. Even what I am writing now, if someone is ever reading it, will somehow be a part of your future later. You may not quote what I am saying, or remember that I said it but it's something that will shape some part of you and might prepare you for something that will be coming.
One of the best quote from The Fault in Our Stars is "Pain demands to be felt". I like the quote because we often try to hide our pain. We try to ignore it. To Push it down. Pain is something that is hard to keep down for long because it comes out of no where. It's sudden not gradual. It's everywhere at once. It's an instant demand. In order to get through that pain is needs to be experienced. It has to happen. We have to make it's presence known so we will be able to move forward to experience the good in life again. Pain helps us to put our lives in perspective. For without it how would we know the the thrill of all the other emotions without something to compare it to.
Don't forget dear reader...
While joy, sadness, fear, hope, love, and peace do not instantaneously demand to be known as soon as they show up, they still demand to be felt. For it's in some of these moments that remind ourselves what the pain is good for.
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