Here's a Thought: Books Before Movies?

As you may know, the Hunger Games movie was released on Friday March 23rd in the USA, attracting a huge audience, and a huge profit for the movie franchise. The Hunger Games movie was based off of the best selling Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins which brought many fans to gather for the midnight premiere. Large midnight gatherings for movies based on books have been very common the past few years with the final installments of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and the very popular Twilight series movies, based off of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga. With all of these very popular book series becoming movies this brings up the question: What do you read/watch first, the book or the movie?

Read The Book First
This side of the argument is most often seen by those in the avid reading community. Books are often seen as better than the movie because they are the original idea with more ideas and connections in the story than can be portrayed in a two hour movie. Books involve the reader's own imagination and the reader can personally picture the characters and setting in any way they please within the information they are given in the book.

See the Movie First
This is the side of the argument that most people who don't often read on their own take. Seeing the movie first is a lot faster than reading an entire book. People who do not enjoy reading can still hear the story, and they aren't as concerned as those who have read the book about how the characters look and the setting feels as those who have already read the entire series and have formed their own vision of the story.

Watching a movie before reading the book (or vice versa) is really dependent upon the reader. Some people may see the movie before the book because they are unaware that it was based off of a book. Others might because they are very young went the movies come out and a 500 page book is not appealing to them. Some might not read the book first because the book is not in the readers genre of book but still think they may find the movie appealing or they just plain old don't enjoy reading. Whatever the reason this topic could be argued many different ways. Which do you prefer?

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This is my 3rd Here's a Thought Post. Here's a Thought is where I introduce a book or blogging topic with two or more sides to the argument and lay them out to show both sides. I post Here's a Thought In Place of In My Mailbox if I have no mail to show, or if I have a lack of things to post over a long period of time. If you have any ideas for Here's a Thought please leave them in the comments, and they may be used.