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A Box Office Disappointment: Why the Book is Always Better than the Movie

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Summary

Areas of Science
Difficulty
 
Time Required
Long (2-4 weeks)
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Abstract

The author of this project hypothesized that movies often disappoint readers because book-based movies tend to "dumb down" the works on which they are based (Fuhrman, 2002). Naturally, selective compression is necessary when telling a story as a movie, or no one would sit through it. (Hey, maybe there's an idea for a different experiment!) Selective compression is not necessarily the same, however, as simplification. There are ways to objectively measure the complexity of written language with a computer program. (In fact, if you have programming skills, you could think about writing one yourself. See: Paragraph Stats: Writing a JavaScript Program to 'Measure' Text.) For a large selection of movies, compare movie scenes to the same scenes in the books on which the movie is based by transcribing the dialog from the movie (a DVD player is very helpful for this part). Type in the corresponding text from the book. Run each block of text through the same complexity analysis program and compare the results.

Bibliography

Fuhrman, A., 2002. "A Box Office Disappointment: Why the Book is Always Better than the Movie," California State Science Fair Project Abstract [accessed February 1, 2006] http://cssf.usc.edu/History/2002/Projects/J1705.pdf.
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General citation information is provided here. Be sure to check the formatting, including capitalization, for the method you are using and update your citation, as needed.

MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "A Box Office Disappointment: Why the Book is Always Better than the Movie." Science Buddies, 22 June 2021, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Soc_p024/sociology/book-movie-box-office. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2021, June 22). A Box Office Disappointment: Why the Book is Always Better than the Movie. Retrieved from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Soc_p024/sociology/book-movie-box-office


Last edit date: 2021-06-22
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