Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Dumbing Down Children Books when Adapting to Movie

I've always enjoyed reading children's books and especially since DD came along I make a point to read them often so I have a good idea of what books are out there for her. However, lately, I'm noticed a VERY disturbing trend when these same wonderful books get adapted into movies. It just seems like they are really dumbing down the books. Whole story lines get lost, things become too obvious, and I really get the impression that they think everybody who watches these movies are just not smart enough to have a memory of more than 2 seconds.

I don't get it, if a child is smart enough to read and understand the plot of these same books why are they dumbing it down so much for the movies? Also, shouldn't we challenge our children to think and, therefore, it makes more sense to make more complicated movies with twists and suspense in them? I just don't get this.

The only reasonable explanation I can see is that they are trying to draw in a younger crowd. But that just seems silly since many of these movies might be too violent for younger kids or even they do see them couldn't they also benefit from a more complicated storyline? Some examples off the top of my head are Eragon, The Golden Compass, and The Lightning Thief. Although, I'm sure there are many more that I'm missing.

Also, they definitely lose the older crowd when they dumb down the movies. Look at the success of Harry Potter (both the movies and books) amongst adults. While the movies aren't perfect, I haven't seen them dumbed down as much (especially the earlier ones... I'm not the biggest fan of the latter ones). Lord of the Rings is another example that I can think of that was still popular among kids and that was definitely NOT dumbed down at all!

I'm not a purist in that movies have to stick strictly to the book. I've seen a number of wonderful adaptations that differ from the book rather significantly. I just hate to see these books lose their level of sophistication!

Thanks for listening to my rant. We just watched the lightning thief and were really traumatized by how awful it was!

LOTR -- my kids LOVED it. D2 was only 7, and I refused to let her watch the movies because they were PG-13 rated. She said, "If I read the books, then can I watch the movies?". "Sure", I said, thinking that would buy me a few years. WRONG! Never underestimate a determined gifted 7 year old! It took her 8 months, but she read them all.

I do agree that there is frequently a problem with dumbing down kids books in movies, but they do it with adult books as well. Look at the changed ending for My Sister's Keeper. I actually disagree about Harry Potter, my kids and I both feel that the early movies missed the "smart" and the "funny". The books are infinitely more interesting than the movies because of those components. My kids and I feel like the later HP movies actually did a better job of catching the key smart/funny moments.

The thinking behind it, I believe, goes something like this: the production company wants the movie to appeal to all kids, not just the "brainy" ones who enjoy reading. Basically the movie is marketed to the average child while the book is marketed to the academic top 50%. It's complete bunk, of course, since most of those "brainy" kids will come out of the film thinking it was awful because it ruined the book, then go tell their like-minded friends not to see it.

Along the same lines, my son saw Tale of Desperaux and then wanted to buy the book at the book fair at school. I got it for him and then realized it was an adapted version of the book based on the movie!?!? It was easier for him to read, but now we are reading a chapter a night of the original together. Seems odd to adapt a screenplay of a movie based upon an award winning children's novel.

They're not dumbing them down for children - they're dumbing them down for the general audience, applying the usual formulaic movie treatment to every book. The question is, what will sell? And as far as I'm concerned, the worst thing the studios do is making children's movies PG13 and above - like Batman, Transformers, etc. - and conversely, marketing mature themed games and movies to children, like Halo. The general kid audience is too small - so they're not dumbing down to reach that audience. That's why there are so few G movies nowadays - they keep trying to attract kids, teens, and adults at the same time, which hardly ever works well. It all comes down to the bottom line. btw, my DS was angry about what they did to The Lightning Thief.

We've read The Lightning Thief, my DD is on the 2nd book now

We have not yet seen the movie. How bad was it?

Oh my DS9 was SO disappointed in the lightening thief. But honestly, it would have required a 6 hour movie to make him happy. My 5 year old DD loved it! (has not read the book!)

We've enjoyed the HP movies a lot. But they really aren't as good as the books. We just listened to the audio book of HP 7 on vacation and fell in love with it again. Glad they're doing that one in 2 movies. Another fine way to make more money! But we'll be there. I think it's also hard just working it into a 2 hour time frame that I assume they want to appeal as a stand alone movie. I think the HP movies could have been much better with about 1/2 hour more detail in each one.

I totally agree.

But, the end result, as you said, is the same. The Lightning Thief was shredded, and my DH and DS12 were disappointed.

Well, my DH and I enjoyed it. But what do we know? lol!

Oh boy, us too! I saw The Lightning Thief on opening day with DD10, DS7 and a family with two children of the same age. The 4/6 of us who'd read the series were horrified--At one point I looked over during the movie and saw DS 7 emphatically waving his hands and whispering to the other seven year old (who hadn't read the book)--it was clear he was going on at length about what was wrong with the movie. I personally think it was one of the worst adaptations I've ever seen, and one that didn't make any sense to me since they removed all of the parts that run through the books and make the series a series (along with most of the humor, some of the key characters and Annabeth's entire personality). Wouldn't you think they would focus on the things that would support a series of movies? Afterwards, the two ten year olds were foaming at the mouth all the way to the car while drafting vicious letters to the movie's producers Of course, DD was somewhat prepared for the experience years ago when she witnessed the demolition of The Golden Compass .

We actually didn't bother to go see The Tale of Despereaux since the trailers seemed bizarrely comedic relative to the tone of the book.

We are a little bit lenient with the HP films given the length of the books, but can't say we've actually enjoyed the last few. Sometimes I can't figure out why we are so excited to see them when they come out, but we are obsessed and will certainly be there for the last two movies too The fifth and sixth movies have particularly annoyed us. We thought the fifth would be great with all the potential slapstick scenes, but no such luck. I hated that movie. Is there no other way to strike an ominous tone than to shoot a film with dim lighting so that I end up squinting through the whole darn thing??? The sixth just confused us. We get that scenes have to be left out with such a long book, so what's with adding an entire scene that never happened?

Gee. This is long. Can you tell this thread struck a nerve?