Ok- I’m reading Harry Potter. I’ve loved and watched the movies a number of times, I’ve always wanted to read the books and I’m finally doing it.
One thing that I’ve noticed is I can’t fully engulf myself into the story, no matter how hard I try. My brain keeps putting Emma Watson as Hermione or The Burrow as what it’s seen in the movie. I feel like this is a barrier from what I could be experiencing.
It seems my brain is working hard to put these characters and settings from the movies into the book and I don’t know how to stop it.
SORRY FOR POSTING 8 TIMES, MY WIFI STOPPED WORKING…
by penutbuttertoast83
25 Comments
I don’t think it’s a huge deal. Maybe just embrace it because it sounds like you’re actively trying to work against it and it’s distracting you. This happened to me reading The Shining after watching the movie, but I just accepted that Jack Nicholson was going to be in my brain while reading and it was fine.
I think that’s pretty normal when you’ve already seen the movie. Probably not worth trying to stop it.
Truman Capote wrote an essay about this called “Medium Cool,” (Not related to the Haskel Wexler movie of the same name.) In it he described art as existing on a spectrum from cold to hot, based on the degree to which the piece is created within the mind of the viewer. So literature and music are hotter media than paintings or photography or film. If i tell you to imagine a chair. The chair we each imagine is different. But if I show you a photograph of a chair, we all pretty much see the same chair.
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It’s easier to go from hot to cold, than it is to go from cold to hot. One you have Hermione set in your mind as Emma Watson, it is difficult to imagine her as the girl with an overbite described in the text. Film is a very cold medium.
I had sort of the same thing except I just decided to ignore the book descriptions and imagine them as their movie versions for the most part. Not voldemort though, the book version was way cooler in my mind.
Anyway I think that’s a great thing about books. You can just imagine something however you want to. Every time you read a book you’re imagining your own version of it after all, just go with it.
Don’t know how you would stop it… But this is the reason I take care to not see movies of books that I intend to read at some point in the future.
I’ve gone through this, specifically with HP. I’ve found the audiobooks help me to disassociate the movies from the books. Hearing the descriptions makes them come to life more in my mind as they are in the page, and my brain doesn’t fill in the gaps nearly as much.
I specifically won’t watch certain films until I’ve read the book first for this reason.
Not for me. I seldom watch TV, mostly I’ll be doing something like crafting with my audiobook playing.
Maybe read the book before you watch, if you can.
Why stop? Those movies were very well casted
Picturing Nick Cage when reading Leaving Las Vegas is excellent.
That’s actually why I like movies or fan art of series. It allows me to better visualize what’s happening. but is there anything actually wrong with picturing Hermione as Emma Watson or the Burrow as how it’s depicted in the movie?
I agree, so many of the books I read when I was younger got adapted into half-baked films. With HP I hadn’t really seen the movies, so the reading experience was just amazing for me.
I recently read most of the Percy Jackson books with my daughter. No matter how many times Hades was described in the book… in my head he is the fire headed guy from Disney Hercules! 🤣
This is why i have only seen the first HP movie. The version in my mind is so much better and accurate than the movies could ever be, so i didn’t want to fudge it all up by watching the movies.
I prefer not to watch adaptations of books i have loved or still intend to read. It’s just easier this way.
I hate it too when movies ruin the movie in my head!
Harry Potter is probably one of the least egregious examples that you’ll find as far as conveying what the locations and characters are supposed to look like. It’s important to remember that J.K. Rowling had a very large part in deciding who a lot of the main cast members would be played by. Hands down it’s one of the best book to movie adaptations out there when it comes to casting.
I don’t really mind it, a lot of the settings in those movies are very well put together. The overall wide shots of Hogwarts along with the interior scenery are so iconic, and many of the side locations are very well constructed as well.
And books destroy movies ! I watched Live By Night after reading the book, and the movie felt 10 times more underwhelming. It’s always worse compared to how you imagine it in your head.
I always try to watch the movie second so that I “watch the book” in my mind first. Just did this with All Quiet On The Western Front and the 1979 TV movie (which did a good job actually). Moving onto the Netflix film soon. But I’m glad I read the book first.
Only reason I read the Harry Potter Books was because I watched the first movie. But I don’t see the movies when I read or listen to the movie. I see them as completely separate things. Basically an alternate universe.
I find watching the movie or show can help with some books.
They of course will be different but keeping all the characters from ASOIAF straight in my head would’ve been a lot harder had I not watch Game of Thrones first.
I always read the book first, then watch the movie. The book version is always better!
There are some who say Harry Potter kills reading!
This is one of the reasons i try to read the books first.
What’s wrong with that? I envisioned the movie characters. Didn’t bother me any. There are tons others that I don’t have faces for.
Go with the flow, it will be more fun!
I…. I fail to see the problem. When I read I also tend to imagine things in my head. Sometimes I’ll even get really deep into it and start imagining things to the point that I sort of forget I’m reading. Then I’ll snap out of it, and when I look back at the last few pages, I’ll find that I was indeed following along.
So if your mind fills it in with visuals from the movies, I think that’s fine.
I read books one through five and by that time Im pretty sure movie three was out and I just couldn’t continue the books I had aged out of careing and was older and honestly was more interested in reading outlander than Harry Potter which is a amazing cast and most of season one is word for word. So not all media is bad but if you liked the outlander TV show your going to love the book it’s word for word and the casting is perfect.