The Host! The Book vs. The Film

Saturday, 30 March 2013

Yesterday I went all the way into Reading to see The Host with my sister! I was super excited about seeing the film seeing as I loved the book so much, and it wasn't terrible, but there were some things missing so I thought I would compare the two.

Firstly there are some MAJOR jumps in the beginning of the film that miss out some of my favourite parts of the book. Like it completely skipped the parts where she teaches at a college, sharing her experiences with other planets. It also misses out the parts with her therapist which I found interesting in the book. It also skips the part where Melanie/Wanderer plans their trip into the desert. In fact it kind of just happens, and their long journey through the desert seemed to last mere seconds onscreen. I understand they had to cut some things, but there were parts that originally made me fall in love with the book that they took out!

One of my major disappointments was that they removed Wanderer's stories about the other planets! I was really intrigued to see how they would show the planet of the 'ice bears' and the 'see weeds', but there were never even mentioned. Also the build up from the humans not trusting her to trusting her was kind of sudden, like they all flicked a switch and suddenly trusted her. Whereas in the book it took them all a LONG time to begin trusting her and it was through her interesting stories that people became relaxed around her in the first place!

There is a long list of holes I could pick in this film, but I won't keep going on and on. Basically this film feels a little rushed. It still ended up being a 2 hour film, but as someone who read the book I feel there was so much more detail in the book that makes the story so much greater. I loved this book SO much more than the Twilight series and I'm so disappointed in the film. It was nice to see one of my favourite stories brought to life, but I certainly prefer the version I created in my own mind. So in the war of Book vs. Film I'd have to say that the book won!
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  1. I don't think I am going to bother with the film as I liked the book so much xx

  2. oh so,. likely there are some scenes that are narrow, it is most like, if a film is taken from a novel