The Seeker

Books based on movies. Movies based on books. Two things that in general don't work well at all. Books based on movies seem to lack the basic essentials that make good books. In a lot of movies there isn't a whole lot of information, or narration as with books. There is a chance to take a movie and expand it into a well-written novel, however, that rarely seems to be the case.

The biggest problem, though, is books being turned into movies. Queen of the Damned was a good movie if you completely divorced it from the book which was full of subplots and cool vampire history. It is sad that they chose not to follow those plots and tell the whole story behind the King and Queen of vampires and Maharet, her twin and Khaymen.

Many movies can do tolerably well because if they don't really follow the book they are based upon, they can at least be well-made and interesting. Unfortunately for fans of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, The Seeker was a total bomb. It didn't follow the first book well at all. It changed some of my favorite characters and combined and added characters. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it just didn't work.

They made the Will's family Americans living in Britain, they put a special focus on Max and Will getting a girlfriend (which didn't happen in the book, but I guess you have to have some romance). Besides that, the plot of the movie was bad. It didn't follow true to the book, which may have helped it more. Instead it became a silly movie, full of special effects, bad acting, and bad storytelling. I couldn't even make it through the movie. It was sad. I was such a fan and excited to hear that one of my favorite series would become a movie.

But, books made into movies do have a high risk rate. A high risk of failure if there is deviation far enough from the plot to upset purists without enough originality and genius to make up for the lack of accuracy.