Of Books, Movies and other such Writings

I watched a really good movie last night. It's called The Last Sin Eater. I read the book written by Francine Rivers several years ago so I know what the story line was about and I sincerely believe that it went very well with the book. Michael Landon Jr. Did a very good job directing it. And if you ask me he does a whole lot better at it then his father would ever dream of doing. I am sure if it had been his father The Kie would have been killed by an angry mob at the end (even though it wasn't in the book)
Not every movie that comes from a book is like that however. And I think non writers of Movies don't really understand the reasons why. As a writer who has been through all of the courses from Script Writing to Novel Writing I have a pretty good reason why movies many times don't go with the book.
First of all let's get something straight. When a Movie is written there is a disclaimer with it. It's in the little words "Based On". These two little words mean that although they have taken the story from a certain book there is still that artistic Writers licence that allows the movie writer to write the movie so that it is in "Ahem" Movie form. If a movie were written just as the book was written everyone would be looking for a new movie within about 10 to 15 minutes of the movie.
It's just the nature of a story.
A movie has to be much more compact then a book. Descriptions that are written in a book and thoughts that are inside a persons head can't be expressed in words during a movie. So a script has to be written to fit a certain format causing the story from the book to sometimes get lost in the two hours it has for viewing.
I know there are some writers who could care less about how a movie is based off of a book. They end up using the name only saying it is "Based off" of the book when in reality the name is all it is based off of.
In the past few years the trend to keep a movie as close to a book as possible has really come around, but there is still the problem of not being able to fit every single detail into the movie.
So the next time you see a movie that is based on a book, Read the book then enjoy the movie and realize that each one is different in their own way. Don't compare them by saying "Oh how could the writer approve of having their book ruined like that?" It's not ruined, It's just different.