Illustrated Feature- Where the Wild Things Are

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Recently the trend of making movies based off of books has skyrocketed. The new children’s hit movie Where The Wild Things Are is a prime example of just that. The 10 sentences and twenty pages of the beloved children’s book published 1963, has been brought back to life to fit the silver screen and entertain the children of a new generation. Where the Wild Things Are is a keen example of how recently books are being transformed into movies.

An illustrated children’s book that consists of nine sentences and 20 pages does not immediately suggest a feature film adaptation. Nonetheless, Spike Jonze has fearlessly plunged ahead to weave whimsical movie magic to bring Maurice Sendak’s 1963 “Where the Wild Things Are” to the screen. Now Spike Jonze has undertaken the arduous task of translating this beloved work to the big screen and the results are amazing.

The story, as millions of children know, tells of a rambunctious boy, sent to bed without his supper, who then encounters fearsome-looking but surprisingly gentle creatures when his bedroom turns into a mysterious forest. Instantly named ruler of all, Max is given a request, get rogue Wild Thing to come back to the pack and make everyone happy again. This won’t be easy, though. Max eventually learns that his newfound family is just as complicated and “out of control” as the one he left back home. Through puppetry and computer animation, the filmmaking teams have successfully put a world of childhood imagination on the screen.

Past recreations of books into movies have been huge successes. Who can ever forget the Harry Potter series that grossed 5.4 billion dollars worldwide in just movies alone. This of course does not include the merchandise, book selling, and other products related to the brand. There’s no introduction needed for the recent craze of released and present Twilight movies. The sale of the Twilight book saga skyrocketed in the presence of the release of the film.  The Lord of the Rings series also created a humungous stir when it was being released. It only makes sense for this film to be such a hit. It can arguably be called one of the greatest all around achievement in film history (when you take all the elements of effects, cinematography, direction, acting, writing, etc).

It’s hard for directors to translate the books view and story into visual images that accurately delineate the story without straying far from the original work. It often annoys viewers when a movie turns out to be completely untrue to the book. There has been countless number of times when I heard people coming out of the movie theatre complaining that they skipped all the “good” parts.

However in this case, Where The Wild Things Are was in a completely opposite scenario. The entire book consisted of 10 sentences and twenty pages. So there was not much that the director could stray away from. This however, might be even more difficult. Usually the director is responsible for producing the movie in comparison to long books with complex plot lines. When there is a minimal amount of story, as in Where The Wild Things are it becomes the job of the director to create a whole story line that adheres to the theme of the story. This forces the director to get involved thoroughly in the process and become more creative.

It is a delicate process to create a feature film that will attract viewers, all the while adhering specifically to the author’s story and theme. Often in such occurrences like these, the movie may not need as much advertising as other movies. These movies generally become successful because of one reason, but because of the rapid and loyal following that the book series has.

There are some skeptics that say movies based on books are wiping away the imaginations of kids today. And some suggest that the movie is never as good as the book. Many people, once having seen the movie, will never pick the book up. My personal experience is otherwise. For example on hearing that the movie my sisters keeper was coming out and after being recommended to read the book I decided to read the book previous to the movie and then compare the two.

While some movies totally disembowel the book they are based on, there are many good movie adaptations out there. Who doesn’t want to see their favorite characters come to life on the big screen? Most times the movies don’t end up quite how we imagined and the characters don’t quite fit our expectations, but it is still fun to see our favorite books turned into movies. In the case of Where the Wild Things Are, the small loveable children’s book was transformed into a great movie that delineates the feelings of being a kid all over again.