TMI book to movie

I watched the movie in addition to the book and while poking around on youtube I couldn´t miss realizing that there is quite a lot of anti-fandom around towards the TMI movie, not necessarily towards the book(s) but especially the bad book-to-movie adaption. Many fans were highly disappointed having had great expectations after having read the book(s). Others remark noticing parallels between TMI, Twilight and Harry Potter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLKJQYOQkoY

Jeremy Jahns is a critic and comedian. Among many other reviews on his youtube channel he also comments on the TMI movie. I would claim that he hasn´t read the book(s) because he refers to the images, settings, characters but in no correlation to those in the book(s). But still he raises some interesting viewpoints although I am not fond of the comical way of presenting his criticism. Because I am a fan of fantasy and I read many books and watched the corresponding movies I do realize that it is not easy adapting the story, or the image of the story, perfectly to fit everyone´s view or own creations. I cannot deny I was a bit disappointed here and there, e.g. with the Harry Potter movies but nevertheless did I enjoy the movies and I enjoyed City of Bones. So, I was wondering what Cassandra Clare would say about the book-to-movie adaption of her own story, and I found following interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vUoGq04lW4

It´s only short and not much into detail but it gives you a first impression on how Cassandra Clare views her characters. The interviewer admits he hasn´t read the book which, in my opinion, makes it problematic to analyse the movie from that perspective. Clare might state that the reader owns his or her creation of a character within a story but that does not change the fact that she describes her characters differently in the book that depicted in the movie. So that makes it difficult because fans or readers cannot connect or identify which for fans is extremely important.

There is a huge amount of work to be found on the World Wide Web on The Mortal Instruments. A further discussion topic I viewed very interesting was whether or not Clare “stole” ideas from Twilight and/or Harry Potter.

Michaela F.

Comments

[Bettina Soller]

I don't think that it is important in terms of rating her as a writer. My pinion is not evaluative in that sense. i think it i interesting that she is asked about the fact that fans appropriate her story and she does not say that she herself, and the characters in the book/movie, stem exactly from this tradition. If it doesn't matter, then why not discuss it?

[Bettina Soller]

I think it is very interesting, that they avoid - as it seems - the fact that she was herself involved in fan fiction writing, and the way she appropriated other texts. Don't you think? I think it has a lot to say about how processes of influence are masked, because we as audiences prefer the idea of a strong author.

[Ronja F.]

But does it really matter in the context of rating the movie that she wrote fan fiction?
Also what bothers me a lot is the idea that an author who used to write fanfiction is atomatically not a good or a "strong" author. Does it matter whether an author used to practice writing while exploring another story they loved on the internet with reviewers available? Do you think that we can generalize a group of people like that?