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Is the Paper Towns Movie Like the Book? Thoughts on Adaptations

2015-04-28 · letter vlog · John · 3:28 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion, on location

John argues that a good adaptation recreates the feelings of the book rather than every plot point, and says the Paper Towns film, though different in many details, is both good and faithful.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Can't decide what to do with the blank wall Hank dislikes, so John goes to the airport; enthusiasm for airports bounded; 'I live here now'

  • ★ John can't figure out what to do with the blank wall that bothers Hank, so he goes to the airport, where he knows how to make videos. (playful) — 00:00:01
  • ★ John's boundless enthusiasm for airports is a little bounded at the moment; he has stopped caring what people in the airport think and says he lives there now. (playful) — 00:00:13

00:00:25 — The question he's asked most: will the Paper Towns movie be like the book? Yes, and also no

  • ★★★ The question John is asked most is whether the Paper Towns movie will be (exactly) like the book; his answer is yes, but also no. — 00:00:25 · Paper Towns (film), Paper Towns

00:00:42 — Childhood love of novelizations, especially The Goonies; noticing changes; text vs images: 'my Harry Potter is just mine'

  • ★★ As a kid John loved novelizations, especially The Goonies novelization, which felt fresh because he knew the movie so well, and he loved working out why the writer changed things to make the story work as text. — 00:00:42
  • ★★★ Images and sound work on us differently than text: readers make up text-based stories with the writer, so John's Harry Potter is different from everyone else's. — 00:01:30

00:01:49 — Wanting an adaptation to recreate the book's feelings; John's own failed theme-first screenplay; Weber and Neustadter's brilliant script

  • ★★★ What John really wants from an adaptation is to feel the feelings he felt reading the book, and he is willing to sacrifice a lot of plot points for that. — 00:01:49
  • ★★ John's own Paper Towns screenplay, written many years ago, was vastly different from the book (Q chases a different girl, an airplane crash) and was horrible because it focused on theme over storytelling. (playful) — 00:01:54 · Paper Towns

  • ★★★ John says the idea he wanted to tell visually is that putting people on a pedestal, failing to imagine them complexly, is tremendously destructive. — 00:02:07 · imagine others complexly, Paper Towns

    “when you put people on a pedestal, when you fail to imagine them complexly, it's tremendously destructive.”

  • ★★★ John calls the Paper Towns script by Mike Weber and Scott Neustadter, who wrote the Fault in Our Stars screenplay, brilliant because it captures both story and ideas; for him it created the same feelings. — 00:02:23 · Paper Towns (film), The Fault in Our Stars (film), Paper Towns

00:02:40 — Differences: no SeaWorld, less Whitman, Angela joins the road trip; changes are not necessarily worse; better good than faithful, and it is both

  • ★★ John says there is no SeaWorld in the movie, its book scenes moved elsewhere; he quips that no one was anxious to pay SeaWorld for the chance to give it good publicity. (playful) — 00:02:42 · Paper Towns (film)
  • ★★ The movie has significantly less textual analysis of Walt Whitman than the book, though there is still some. (playful) — 00:02:51 · Paper Towns (film)
  • ★★ Some changes are just better: in the movie Angela joins a road trip she isn't part of in the book; John likes the decision and wishes he had made it eight years ago. — 00:02:57 · Paper Towns (film)
  • ★★★ John learned from the Goonies novelization that changes are not necessarily for the worse; he would rather Paper Towns be good than faithful, but believes it is both. — 00:03:06 · Paper Towns (film), Paper Towns
  • ★★ John is very grateful to the people who made the Paper Towns film and feels very lucky. — 00:03:16 · Paper Towns (film), Paper Towns

00:03:19 — Hank's tour is done; congratulations; sign-off

  • ★ Hank's tour is done; John congratulates him and hopes he sleeps for three days before his Friday video. (playful) — 00:03:19

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: film adaptation · Paper Towns (film) · The Goonies novelization

Also: People: Walt Whitman

Projects: Tour Because Awesome

Works: Paper Towns · The Fault in Our Stars (film) · The Goonies

Organizations: SeaWorld

Terms: imagine others complexly

Concepts: novelization

Characters: Angela · Harry Potter (character, “Harry Potter”) · Quentin Jacobsen

Only in the description or credits: Michael H. Weber · Scott Neustadter

Also centred on film adaptation: The Book Was Better? · The Truth of How Books Become Movies · I Already Got Paid

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