Since the turn of the millennium movie adaptations of novels have been increasingly popular. Although some adaptations like Lord of the Rings, The Da Vinci Code, and Harry Potter have been quite successful in sales, many others have not. Adaptations across media, specifically novels to films, meet with severe criticism for not keeping true to the novel. By definition though, a story changes or adapts to the new medium, which is why it is called a ‘movie adaptation of a novel’. Movies must change some elements of the novel in order to facilitate the transition from telling the audience thru a novel, to showing them thru a movie. The manners in which these changes are made determine the success of the adaptation. Here Linda Hutcheon describes the changes made by Raymond Chandler in his adaptation of the novel Double Indemnity:
… [Raymond Chandler] may have streamlined the plot and cut expository passages, but he also added more wit to the dialogue, more cynical self-conscious play, more hard-edged eroticism, and a moral center…Additions in performance adaptations might range from this kind of stylistic and even ethical material to inserting new characters or increasing suspense. (2006: 37)
This is an example of how the changes necessary to adapt a novel into movie format can be done in a positive way. One novel that has a very effective adaptation as well as another poor adaptation (as well as many others) is Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. In 1999 director Nick Willing released his made for TV Alice in Wonderland. Although the movie follows the book fairly closely, it is an ineffective adaptation of the book because the plot is slow and drawn out. The TV version was three hours and even the VHS version was over two hours long. Disney’s 1951 Alice in Wonderland on the other hand is a very effective movie adaptation because its’ fast pace engages the audience, it is appealing to the senses, and it added a moral center.
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