• A filmmaker would have some challenges making Dear John into a movie possibly because of all the battle scenes that John begins to talk more and more about throughout the book as he starts to lose hold of Savannah. He's in the army, all over the place: in Kosovo, Kuwait, etc. and it would be difficult to create all of those battle scenes and stay within any budget. To make this work, we'd need to cut a little out of the plot in the story, by making there be fewer in-action scenes of battle to save money. It's not necessary to change any of the characters in the story; there are only around 6-7 talked about in the whole book.
• One specific scene essential to keep is the scene where John jumped into the ocean to grab Savannah's bad for her, and you can't change how that occurred or else it may not seem like such a big deal how they met. But this was how they stayed together for a long time, and it's arguably the most important scene in the story. Another scene essential to keep is where Savannah and John's dad were bonding over the coins in his den because this is what allowed her to study him and see that he may have Asperger's, which led to the huge arguement between her and John because Savannah had overstepped her boundaries. It's a major plot twist in the story because while they seemed before that perfectly happy and a healthy couple this was their first fight like this; no one saw this coming. And thirdly you'd need to keep the scene where John is reading the letter from Savannah where she is telling him sadly that she has now fallen in love with someone else while he was off in battle over in Germany because we all know as readers how heartbroken he must have felt when he read that letter, and that is the climax of the story, their relationship continued downhill and plummeted to a stop. This also leads to his reasoning for resubmitting into the military, and is why he spent his leaves with his dad alone and not with Savannah.
• One part of my book I would have to cut if adapting it would be the scene where they go to the aquarium. That was an unimportant scene, and doesn't really have an effect on anything that happens throughout the book after that. It was a little silly at parts, but really the point of it was to show their time spent together, which was obviously shown many more times in the story besides that one. Also, another part in my book I would have to cut is the scene where John is saying goodbye to Savannah tearfully for the second time (after his second leave) because it would save time (I can see this being a long movie) and it is pretty much already implied because everyone can see how much she loves him and how much she misses him, and based on the first goodbye and their relationship had gotten even stronger by that time they wouldn't need to show that again. We would exclude these two scenes to include more of the toll that 9/11 took on both of them and on the country so that we can clearly see his reasoning and Savannah's understanding for John signing up a second time for a two-year time trial in the military. Everyone was so shocked and filled with pride for their country that they could and would protect themselves that John felt it impossible to abandon his military buddies now, in their time of need.
No comments:
Post a Comment