What happens when we take a story from a book to the big screen?

We generally know the stories of ‘Harry Potter’, ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Frankenstein’ or many others through the blockbusters that Hollywood offers to the worldwide audience. However, these films have been based in previously written books. As a result of this, many great pieces of literature have been unfortunately impoverished and simplified by the Film Business in order to fit a commercial product.

‘The Twilight Saga’ is a story like the previous ones: it was first published as a book and then taken to the cinema. The saga was written by Stephenie Meyer in 2005, and is divided into four volumes. The first of the books was taken to the big screen by Summit Entertainment in 2008, and then the second and third followed. The last one has not been released yet. All of them had an enormous and incredible worldwide success.

The saga’s four volumes are ‘Twilight’, ‘New Moon’, ‘Eclipse’ and ‘Breaking Dawn’. The films have the same title than the books already mentioned; however, their content does not coincide.

In the motion picture, the story is quite similar to the one in the book and this happens all throughout the saga. We say only ‘similar’, as there is a slight difference when talking about details. We know that it is impossible to include in a film everything that a book says, because while the movie lasts two hours, reading a book may take us a week, a month or even a year. There are some incongruities when comparing Stephenie Meyer’s books and the films, in spite of sharing titles, their content is not identical when talking about the details previously mentioned.  We mean that in some of the films there is coincidence of events with their corresponding book, but not in all of them. For example, we may find in one of the films some situations that won’t appear till we reach the next corresponding volume of the books.

When these films were presented in the cinemas all around the world, we could see frantic and mad teenagers queuing for hours and waiting to see their idols. And then, we met them again while watching, or at least trying to watch, the film in the middle of their crazy screams. Beautiful women, blue-eyed vampires, super muscled werewolves and a love story make the Twilight saga an irresistible attraction for young people. But, what happens with the rest of the audience? Are people in general interested in this kind of films? Actually, they are not. It’s clear that adults or mature viewers are looking for something more than just two hours of romance or fights between creatures that don’t exist at all. However, when we refer to these same facts in the books, we may find at least some people interested in reading them. The quality of the writing is really good, with great details and profound moral matters expressed in a subtle way. This last point may be the one that can attract a non-teenager-public, because it gives the reader some food for thought.

One last point that we want to refer to is that of the position of the reader or viewer upon the ‘presented images’. The writer may describe a scene in the most detailed way, but there is always a gap, bigger or smaller, for imagination. This doesn’t happen when we watch a blockbuster: there is nothing else but what we see; our imagination has a limit. In this way, the audience is much more ‘passive’ when watching this kind of films than when reading a book. They just watch and wait for the sceneries to appear in front of them, while a reader might need to reconstruct the ‘presented image’ in his mind. Although he has more freedom, he also has to make a bigger effort.

Our intended focus is placed on the importance of getting to know the stories through their real source, their original form, content and meaning; and also to restore the position of books as mind activators, critical-thought-builders and the key to a new world of creativeness and unlimited possibilities for the imagination.

AVATAR: A NEW ENDING

Neytiri’s parents were still opposed to her relationship with Jake; no mixtures were allowed on the Na’vi world. Neytiri and Jake wanted to fight for their love, but they could not find a way to make the rest understand how they were suffering because of their being apart.

One day, they decided to meet secretly at the sacred tree to ask for its help. They talked to the tree hoping that it would listen to their problem. Suddenly, something strange happened: a bright light covered them and a soft voice called their names. They felt something embracing them, like a shield. The voice was from an ancestor answering to their prayers: Neytiri was allowed to turn into a human being and to go to Earth and live freely with her love.

They couldn’t believe what they were listening to! The soft voice disappeared abruptly, together with the lights and the feeling of peace. There was a loud noise, an explosion, and an enormous and blinding white light lifted them up. They could see nothing except from their faces for a couple of seconds, till they felt another explosion and fell to the ground.

They looked at the place, and then at each other. Amazed and confused, they finally understood: they were on Earth! They were humans!

“Cabs never stop in NY,” 

Jake muttered tiredly while Neytiri was struggling with his wheelchair as she tried to cope with the cab drivers who seemed to ignore her signs. The city was crowded as usual: people were running against the clock; men with their suitcases; women in high hills; noisy mobiles; traffic with its red lights, then yellow, green, red again; everything in the right usual place. 

“Everything is so insultingly chaotic!” she regretted.

Suddenly, there was a sound in particular which didn’t seem to fit in all that. It seemed alive, vivid. 

“Where does it come from?” Neytiri asked while taking a look around the place.

 “There it is again!” she yelled in the middle of the street, full of excitement. 

Jake shook his head towards the sound and recognized it at once. It was an elephant’s bellow, and it came from the zoo, just a couple of blocks from there.

He tried to hide what he had found out, but she immediately started asking him about it, staring at him suspiciously. He told her the nature of the sound; he knew he had no choice but to tell her the truth. There were animals living right in the city. She simply said,

“Take me there! I’m not going anywhere else!,” and took the handles of the wheelchair and marched firmly towards the sound that then was heard a third time.

“Conquest and heroism? Is that what you, humans, think to achieve by keeping animals in cages?” Neytiri enquired sadly as she looked how pleasant people stood up in front of every cage. 

She could hardly speak. She was suffering as much as those captured animals, and it seemed ironic how furious she was in the middle of so many happy and excited people. 

“Well, you’ll have to learn how to cope with this if you want us to be together,” Jake said firmly. 

His words made her even more disappointed. Her anger had become so deep by then, that she started shivering. 

“Please,” he said tenderly, “Let’s go”. 

He took her hand and both moved towards the exit.

The night had come; Neytiri was watching the city from Jake’s flat window. 

“All those lights, all those giant skyscrapers, all those people and cars moving like tiny insects, little bugs,” she said to herself. 

Right at that moment, a strange but certain idea came to her mind. The city was a huge zoo for people! She ran towards Jake and explained anxiously what she had discovered. He tried, with no success, to calm her down. 

“Is that what you do when someone has become inconvenient? You just try to calm things down? No fighting?,” she screamed out. 

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, I promise,” he said patiently as he moved towards the bedroom. 

She felt alone for the very first time in her entire existence.

Neytiri couldn’t sleep a wink. The images from the zoo kept running in her fevered mind. She had to do something about it, and she had to do it quickly. She escaped. She was decided to set the animals free. 

“And then…who knows?” she said silently.

She arrived at the zoo by midnight, when all the animals were slept and there were no people around. She started opening the cages, one by one, with the utmost care, so as not to make the creatures get excited. In spite of her attempts, the animals went wild and she was not able to control them as she would do in Pandora.

All the animals were running away. The elephants’ steps made the ground shake like an earthquake. People were terrified and everything was out of control. The city was in a complete chaos.

Neytiri started feeling frustrated and so she tried to escape home and find help. Suddenly, she ran into a menacing snake which left her petrified. Being face to face, she tried to make a spiritual connection to calm the beast, but it was useless.

The snake bit her and immediately the poison started flowing through her veins. Feeling dizzy and about to faint, she stared at the fierce look of the creature.

She could see nothing else for a while. She was totally blind and only heard the din around her. She didn’t have strength to move or even speak because of the pain. There was no one to help her. She was dying.

Neytiri couldn’t stop thinking of Jake, her great love, the reason for her to come to Earth and leave everything behind. He was at home now, resting peacefully while she was there, in the middle of the chaos she herself had provoked. 

It seemed to her that there was nothing to do, and she was right. Nothing could stop the effect of the poison. She was going to die soon, very soon. The only thing she hoped was that in this new world, the Earth, there was someone like Eywa waiting for her, or at least a place full of energy and peace where she could rest.

Suddenly, she could get out of the darkness where she had been for a moment, and saw a bright light descending from the sky, directly over her. There was no sound, and nothing else around, only that light. The sensation was very pleasant, no more pain. She closed her eyes and still saw the brightness; she was part of it now. All the anguish, terror, and desperation vanished into the air together with her entire body.

All the memories from her life in Pandora and the last moments on Earth with Jake came to her mind and filled her spirit with love.

Neytiri needed and wanted to leave a message, and to teach humans one of the most important things she had learned during her life: to take care of nature, and the world where we, humans, live.

While she was thing of this, she saw hundreds of seeds falling from the sky and then beautiful plants, flowers and trees growing from them. And from among all these, an enormous and leafy tree appeared just where her body had been lying.

She could see everything from up above, and felt satisfied with her legacy. Now people would be able to admire the exquisite scene in the middle of the city, and their moved spirits, in view of such beauty, would feel inclined to take care of it.

Neytiri felt her mission was complete.

Exquisite cadaver

She lost one of the buttoms of her coat while she was preparing to leave. Outside was rainy and cold in the street, so nothing could happen. She continued walking to Harry's house. Hanna was his best friend and when she learnt about Harry's story she wanted to support him. When Hanna arrived she saw that Harry was crying outside because he knew the truth about his parents who had a double life.

His mother was a strange woman. She had a beautifyl figure, the kind you can see in the cover of models magazines. She was fair skinned; here hair was deep black, gently waving, up to her shoulders, like a cascade in dark unruly waves, with chocolate brown eyes. She was smart and cunning. She looked like a perfect wife and a perfect mother.

Harry’s father was a distinguished man among his friends and a perfect husband. A nice person, who had an unconditional love to his wife and his family. He always wore a simple, elegant suit and took care of his appearance. 

He usually gave presents to his wife. One day he bought a beautiful red coat with three golden buttons and gave it to here because it was their anniversary. 

Some days later she arrived very late home. She put here coat over a chair and she went to sleep. 

Harry woke up and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. He paid attention to the red coat. He noticed that on button was missing.

The next morning, when his father went to his job, Harry and his mother were having breakfast when somebody knocked at the door. It was Harry´s father’s friend. 

Harry saw that this man was talking with her mother and gave something to her. When he realized that what was the thing that the man had given to his mother, he kept in silence. 

He waited for his father and when his father returned Harry said to him: She lost one of the buttoms of her coat.

She knew that it would be a disaster when she gets home. Oh! Only thinking about these evil eyes staring at the missing button made her shiver. Who was to blame? “Only me!” she cried.

The next five minutes were full of strategies but she had no doubt that there was no way out. She knew by heart all the pain that losing a button will cost her.

Ten minutes later, there she was in front of the evil eyes as expected. Staring. She felt condemned at once. A terrible scream started the endless punishment. 

In despair, as the evil eyes came closer and closer, she found the button in her pocket by chance.  “Here it is! Here it is! I have it!” she mumbled.

She had the strangest epiphany in her short life. Closing her eyes tightly she threw the button away, hoping her mother and her evil eyes would run after it. Actually, she did. And she ran furiously straight to the wall because she was arriving late to school. Her day had been horrible and she was tired.

That day, her mother had bought a new sweater that it had cost $100.000 but her mother didn´t want to lend it to anybody.

That´s why she wanted to grab it and take it to show her friends. Then she caught it because her mother was working and didn´t notice.

At the end of class, she ran to house but she stumbled on the way and she lost a button from her mother's sweater when she was coming from school.

Groups in order (phrases in bolt indicate connecting sentences used by two groups):

• Romina Sandoval and Belén Peirano
• María Belén Brea Aguirre and Carlos Rojas
• Verónica Fernández and Lucía Rivero Boni 
• Nahir Milla and Catalina Alonso