Movies and Books Go Hand in Hand

I am a major movie/book addict. I have seen more movies than books. Often when the movie is inspired by a book, I have to go and read it right after, and I discover (as I have with almost every book) that it was so much better than the movie. I currently am taking my movie addiction and putting a goal to it to watch the top 5 grossing films of every year from 1930-2012 (plus some extra movies I just want to see). This comes to 538 movies! While I was making the list of movies I was gonna watch, I also started slowly making a mental list of books I wanted to read that were based on these movies. As I got to the 1990s to 2000, I realized I needed to start making a list of books to read along with my list of movies. That's something I want to do this Summer, starting with my favorite, To Kill A Mockingbird, and moving on to others, such as Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Sherlock Holmes and so many other amazing stories. I love that different forms of art can fit so well together. The visuals of a movie can be eye catching, and can tug at the heart just like a great book can. One series of books that I felt benefited from the movies was The Lord of the Rings.

I read these books in the eighth grade due to my absolute love of the movies. As I began to read it, I really struggled to continue. It was a very difficult story to read, often having long, dry parts. As I finished, though, I  noticed information that was not included in the movies and helped to develop the story better. As the books helped better the movies, I felt the movies helped to better the books. The movies went faster and didn't dwell on all the camping and the walking. As a viewer, I got to enjoy the intense fighting and war scenes that were not as developed in the stories. Both included valuable things that increased the level the story was at and only making it even more of a classic tale.