CGI helps Benjamin Button see the light!

Yeah, I'm a hypocrite. In class, I said that Slaughterhouse Five would make a good movie, and that the trailer wasn't too bad. Either I was out of my mind or I have finally seen the light. There is absolutely no way that they could translate such a complex novel into a movie successfully without ruining key key elements of the book. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I can assure you that a remake would be very unlikely.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in class that had to re-read some parts of the book to fully understand them. I just needed to slow down and break down some sections to differentiate between time frames and such. This would be impossible in theaters, since you can't pause or rewind the movie.

Time-travelling scenes, which would make up the majority of screen time, would be very crazy. A viewer who has never read the book before would be very lost for any answers or explanations, as the concept is not explained too well. Ideas like these are more easily explained on paper, where you can keep reading them till you understand, but on the big screen, the movie-goer would need to be naturally bright and a quick thinker. This is the biggest issue facing the movie, as confusion would be so prominent among viewers that the movie's message would not be received by them. If you spend all night trying to figure out how Billy closed his eyes during the war and woke up in his home, chances are you won't notice hidden metaphors and symbolism.

The fact that you are able to witness a man's strange life from the beginning till the end, with no real enemy or conflict (much like Forrest Gump or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and lose yourself within his story is very attractive, but the viewer's experience becomes a blur when you are constantly being pushed from one moment in life to another. It works well in book form, where you can slow down and focus on certain segments, then put things together for yourself, but in a movie, where ideas tend to be spoon-fed to you, it becomes a challenge and requires brain power to become emotionally involved with a scene but be able to quickly change feelings into another scene.

In the case of the original Slaughterhouse movie, transitions seemed to be choppy and random, which leads to an even more dizzying experience that is already hectic enough. Sure, CGI is better nowadays, but adding explosions and realistic Tralfamadorians does not make up for other mistakes. A remake of Slaughterhouse Five would be a colossal mistake, and hopefully no studio is fooled into making it. Sure, those who have read the book would know what's going on, but studios don't target such a small demographic, especially with a movie requiring such a huge budget for smooth transitions and appropriate musical scores. Overall, not too many potential audience members have read the book, so it really would be a bad idea to make a movie for them.