Should books be adapted into movies?

Movie adaptations spoil the joy of reading

Question: Should books be adapted into movies?
Position‹2 of 3›: Books should not be adapted into movies
Argument‹3 of 4›: Movie adaptations spoil the joy of reading

Movies fix a visual anchor for the characters, props and setting. The imaginative process is lost and affects the reading experience.

The argument

It is not uncommon to picture the characters and setting while reading the book; this is an imaginative process that is unique to every reader and makes the story special to them. The creation of a movie might destroy their own mental “movie” of the book as there are bound to be discrepancies with one’s imagination. As a result, the experience of building up one’s own interpretation of the story from reading the book is lost and limits one’s imagination. The fun in reading a book for the first time disappears.

Premises

[P1]Reading lets each person build a unique mental picture of the characters and setting, an imaginative process that makes the story personal to them. [P2] A film inevitably clashes with that imagined version, overwriting it and stripping away the reader's own interpretation along with the joy of discovering the story first-hand. [C] Therefore, because movie adaptations spoil the joy of reading, books should not be adapted into movies.

Counter-arguments

Some people may picture the story better, or even feel it would be more realistic in their minds, if they have seen a predetermined visualisation of the world through a movie. Taking advantage of the fact that movies may not faithfully recreate every element from the book, readers can now build a new mental "movie" that shows the original story, in its complete authenticity that the author wanted it to be.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] A movie does not necessarily ruin the imagination in reading a book.