An acquaintance of mine (we haven't moved to the "friend" stage yet) is writing a novel for Disney and told me that she just got some work from them on a film novelization. Cool, no? But it got me thinking...who reads novelizations anymore? At one time, before movies became a commodity, people read them because they loved the source material and wouldn't have access to it for a long time. R-rated movies wouldn't be seen uncut again unless the flick got a re-release (something that used to happen fairly regularly). So we read novelizations, reliving the experience of the movie...
That era is long passed, so I ask again, who reads the stuff?
UPDATE: My blog editor -- Windows Live Writer -- doesn't have the world "novelization" in it's dictionary! My God, it's even dropped out of the lexicon!
6 comments:
*Raises his hand* "Uhm, I read novelizations. I tend to like Alan Dean Foster's novelizations. Pretty much, of course, I'd almost always rather read a book, even a novelization, than watch a movie.
Charles... that's odd, man, odd. Especially with Foster, cause doesn't he do mainy Sci-Fi novelization? The films are so visual ... you sure I can't convince you to change your ways, man?
Foster's "The thing" was even better than the movie, which was quite good, I thought. Pretty much the only way movies hold my interest if I'm reading at the same time. There are exceptions, though. There are a few movies I really like and will watch over again.
Interesting, Charles. I have a friend who grew up with books and not television or movies, and she can barely force herself to watch them...it's funny, I've always believe that readers were developed young, but I just assumed that everyone enjoyed films...at least in part (my dad didn't like films, but he watched sitcoms and dramas on regular tv excessively).
I read many novelizations in my teens.
My first "adult" book (i.e., non-Scholastic Press) was the novelization for TALES FROM THE CRYPT. I read it three times. I did so because I was too young to see the R-rated film.
I see no point in reading a novelization if the film is available, and I stopped reading them after I was old enough to enter R-rated movie theaters.
Thomas...as hard as it is for us to understand, there are those folks, like Charles and another friend of mine, who films don't resonate with...of course, it's fascinating to me, as it appears that movie/tv watching is a habit developed at a young age, just like reading.
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