I went to the cinema yesterday and after much hesitation, I finally chose to watch Bridge to Terabithia.
I had only seen the trailer and it made me think it was a Narnia-style children movie.

Now... Is it just me or has the genre literally bursted after the combo Lord of the Rings x Harry Potter?

I may be wrong on this one, but I remember clearly my thirst for this kind of fantasy movies when I was little... So much that I got to worship Fantaghiro and the like.

But since Harry Potter proved to Hollywood's producers it was actually possible to earn money out of children's dreams, I get the impression they're dying to put any similar work on screen (and sometimes they shouldn't be in such a hurry... 'specially about Narnia, if you'd ask me).

I thought Terabithia was another Narnia... A big story of children becoming rulers of a fantasy world and a big budget but nothing else (note that I still have to swallow my disappointment at the movie to get around to read the book, so what I'm saying is absolutely unrelated to the original work of Narnia)... And I'm still ashamed of how utterly wrong I was.

I'd advise anyone to watch it somehow, but to prepare the tissues, 'cause Terabithia is a sad movie.

And I went to the bookshop after the movie, to try getting my hands on Patricia Cornwell's "Cruel and Unusual"... and I bought the book behind the movie, Bridge to Terabithia.

I just finished the book a while ago and cried again (yeah, I'm a crybaby, ain't new) at the exact same point...

And at the same time I was left uneasy by the differences between the book and the movie... I mean, I'm no longer the hopeful child who'd be dismayed by her favorite scene not living up to her expectations. I can tell the difference between the changes that had to be made and those that were made, period.

For instance, the movie's heroin is a strikingly beautiful little girl. The kind of little girl you can't help linking the word "princess" to. And you get fairly well why the other kids hate her : they resent her beauty, her brains and open mind.
The book's heroin isn't beautiful. She's a tomboy. Not a tomboy just because she wears pants or talks back to boys (it never ceases to amaze me how it's easy for some people to stick "tomboy" on perfectly feminine young women... come on guys, meet me at age 9, you'll see what a tomboy really means!)... a real tomboy all the way. At their first meeting, the hero doesn't even know if she's a she or a he. And of course, you also get fairly well why the other kids hate her...

It's just... not the same kind of hatred. It's not jealousy. It's the good ol' ostracism and nothing else.

Anyway, there are a lot of details that were changed between the book and the movie. And not all of them make sense to me... I mean, what was going in their heads when they decided the heroin would go from black-haired to blond and the hero from straw-blond to plain brown? Or when they picked a dog that looks nothing like the book's?

Okay, such details are harmless... which makes me wonder all the more why they were changed, by the way.
Other details deeply change the way the audience is going to percieve the characters and emotions. Like the hero's dad... Honestly hated him in the movie (where the mother was transparent)... But he's fine in the book (where I hated the mother). Details were changed and other added to make the dad a horrible character. Why? Is it personal? Is the scenarist or the director someone who has father image issues?

Anyway, I'm finding myself wondering more and more about the moviemakers' motives behind changes...

Oh and the gold medal of distance between book and cinematographic adaptationd definitely goes to I Am Legend :)