Irk!

Here's something that irks me: going to a message board and someone has posted a thread about a remake of a movie or possible movie adaptation of a book (or something else) and then, asks who should play whom. And that's it.

I find it quite disturbing how little people actually know about making movies. Here's a few myths people have about making movies.

1. A movie based on a book is basically transcribed from the book. As most people who actually read books and see the movie can tell you, this is not true, but the myth remains surprisingly prevalent. While some dialogue from books can work very well on film, in many movies, very little of the book's dialogue is used.
2. Why read the book? I've seen the movie! Because reading the book sounds more intellectual? And plus, if you're reading the book for a school assignment, you might as well not even finish the assignment, because you'll get an F either way. A book is a story. The movie is an interpretation of the story, sometimes with the ending or important elements changed or eliminated.
3. If the movie sucks, it's the actor's fault. Hardly. Someone wrote the script, someone directed it, and someone thought it would be a movie worth making. The actors are just doing their jobs, following the writers and directors.
4. Okay, let's say this movie was being made. Who would play who? Too early. It depends on the interpretation of the story and characters that the movie will go for. And frankly, they'll often go against what the fans think should happen, because the fans don't really understand it.

And that is why I rarely talk about movies with most people.