Adaptions & You

I hate adaptions.

Whether it be a comic book, novel, graphic novel, etc.. I have a severe dislike of them and at best can tolerate only a scant few. What bothers me is that the source material is readily available, and often enough, the author is available as well, yet, the movie tends to go way off into left field because someone behind the camera felt they could do better or had a "vision" that just must come to life.

Example: The night that Queen Of the Damned premiered, director Michael Rymer held a live chat to discuss the movie. The chat, not surprisingly, comprised of fans asking why he ruined the movie. Rymer's response? Poetic License.

It's one thing to take an established world and create new stories, but to take an established world and it's stories, then twist them to fit your idea, that's just wrong.


</rant>

It works both ways. The writer of the original Alien movie spoke to our film class and he HATED the director who ruined his story with his stupidity (in his opinion).

That comment came up when I asked "Why there was so much Steam in a Space ship?" Water usually being at a premium when traveling in space after all.

He said "Because the director didn't know how to film a monster in the dark movie! He couldn't build tension so he used fog machines instead!"

Well the movie certainly did well enough although the 2nd movie was miles better and the only one really worth watching more than once. (unless you are watching the later ones trying to figure out what the heck the movie is about lol)

Worst example I can think of was The Shining. The movie was the worst ever but people loved it. The book made it look like something stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

Some adaptations I love, some I hate.

For instance, the "Burn Notice" tv series is much better than the movie it's adapted from a few years back. Chuck Palahniuk is noted for saying he loves the "Fight Club" movie better than his book.

I also found the Bourne books boring and slow, but I love the movies, but I think the adaptation of John Steakley's "Vampire$" to film to be an awful mess, while I've read and reread the book at least 20 times.

And there are those who would say that Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" is better than Shakespeare's "Macbeth" and others who would claim you cannot top Shakespeare.

On the other hand, Frank Miller claims he still gets letters from people hating what he did to Batman, even though the majority of fans believe "The Dark Knight Returns" was the greatest thing to happen to Bruce Wayne ever.

I'm a huge fan of Neil Gaiman's work. So much so that I have a tattoo of one of characters. When watching "Stardust" I cringed at the introduction of Robert De Niro as a cross-dressing sky pirate, but I found the performance of De Niro wonderful.

When I become a multi-billionaire overlord of the Earth, or at least a major film studio, I'll corrupt Troy Hickman's works the same way! Except, there will be pants involved!

~summons Hickman~

Adaptations have been going on since the Greek tragedies. And with any form of entertainment, one's level of appreciation/dislike will vary.

Fight Club, the movie is way better than Fight Club, the book. Some of the superhero movies, while not following comic book continuity 100%, effectively boil down 40+ years worth of stories into a solid presentation that captures the hero's journey.

Some changes are done because what is described in a book can't be shown on screen, either because the lack of good enough SFX or the flourish of that scene just doesn't visually fit in with the story. Characters are changed or dropped because they would bog down the story and expand a two hour movie to a three hour movie. And while it would be nice to include the original author(s) in any adaptation, remember, writing a novel is a lot different than writing and making a movie.

So, bottom line? Adaptations are not inherently good or bad. They are what their creators make them to be. Like any other movie or TV show (or even book, like the novelization of movies we often see).

There is a difference though between adapting due to constraints (tech just not available) and adapting to fit your idea (Queen Of the Damned).

But that is true of any movie, that it is ultimately the director's vision that gets placed on the screen, whether it be from an adapted or original screenplay (see Hollywood's use of the Alan Smithee pseudonym). Unless the screenwriter is also the director or producer, the final product on the screen is in the hands of the director, the ultimate interpreter (though the studio gets a lot of say as well). Which is why we get things like deleted scenes and alternate endings.

Also, a good counterpoint to Queen of the Damned travesty is the Fight Club triumph, where the author himself says David Fincher's and the screenwriter's ideas for the film, particularly the ending, are much better than what he could of thought himself.

Here's one way of looking at it. Adaptations are taking something from one medium into another. The fact they aren't the same medium means the end products will be different. And how they work really depends on the perspective of the particular consumer of the product. Some people like the condensed "Cliff notes" aspect of a movie and don't like getting bogged down with the minutia that some authors bring to their works. (Personally I love when an author will spend a few pages describing the contents and history of a room) But any time you switch media you get a different product. And also alot of times which version of the product you saw/read/consumed first will likely paint your preference for which you think is the better version. Take the best most delicious hamburger you can think of. A painting of that same burger by the worlds greatest painter probably won't give you the same satisfaction as eating the burger. Someone who is an artlover yet never tried that burger before, may see the painting and think its wonderful and want to buy it and admire it. Then if they finally taste the burger they may not find it as satisfying as looking the painting, because that painting has taken on a certain interpretation in their mind and the burger may not measure up to it. Or they are a vegan. /shudder

angry nerd rage rants are better served with correct spelling, adaptions isn't a word.

secondly, i could possibly see your reasoning if someone "adapted" a book by writing another book...... but transferring medias is, in itself, a reason to do so. regardless of the end product and whether you appreciate it or not is not the point, it's the reasoning behind it. Which you must assume is "i like this (insert original source material), wouldn't it be great if could turn it into a movie". haven't we all thought that exact same thing about a beloved story from our past? and aren't we all equally assured that we would absolutely hate what someone else has done with "our beloved material"?

your rant is unsolicited, and since it wasn't in response to a specific adaptation, it smacks of self indulgence, born of the anonymity of the internet. thank you oh so much for foisting your angst ridden, misspelled complaints on all of us.

Around these parts we were just talking about movies being adapted into musical stage plays and then turned back into musical movies.

bad -> good -> good
Little Shop of Horrors -> Little Shop of Horrors -> Little Shop of Horrors

good -> bad -> bad
Auntie Mame -> Mame -> Mame

good -> good -> good
Hairspray -> Hairspray -> Hairspray

good -> bad -> terrible
Phantom of the Opera -> Phantom of the Opera -> Phantom of the Opera

good -> good -> good
Roxie Hart -> Chicago -> Chicago

good -> bad -> bad
Pygmalion -> My Fair Lady -> My Fair Lady

Which then spiraled into a discussion of books and other things being adapted into plays and then into films, musical or not. (Annie, Oklahoma, Oliver!, The King and I, Show Boat, etc.)

Basically the consensus was that it came down to the talent of who was doing the adaptation and how closely they hewed to the basic theme of the original piece rather than getting all the fiddly little details exactly the same. I think Kubrick's track record was better than most, for example, with a couple exceptions.

Obviously each adaptation must be taken separately - there's no blanket of "all adaptations are bad because they are adapted".

F'erinstance, I just read Wendy Pini's future-sci-fi-yaoi adaptation of Poe's Masque of the Red Death.

It was *fantastic*. She put a lot of effort into the setting, the back story, and finally delivering the dramatic last blows to what was a very simply written short story from another era.

I am one who will take whatever comes for its face value though: I love both the Harry Potter movies, AND the books - though most folks will rabidly defend the books as being "better". There is no "better" - they're both fantastic and wonderful, and well worth reading AND watching.

The originally made prequel to Silence of the Lambs, horrible on film ONLY because it left out half the book. Was it horrible in and of itself? No.

Simply being an adaptation doesn't make something bad.

Would you say, then, that Chuck Jones' version of opera in What's Opera Doc is bad? It adapts several operas (and is a well-meant parody) and for many kids, was the only time classical and operatic music was part of their lives.

Adaptation is artistry, and some people are better at art than others. I'd say leave it at that. Take each project for what it can be, and if it's terrible on its own, it's not necessarily because it's an adaptation - it's because it's just plain bad.

Some things are so entrenched in the medium used that you can't adapt it without turning it into something completely different.

I actually liked the more recent, made-for-TV miniseries version of The Shining better than the Jack Nicholson movie. No idea which one is closer to the book, as I haven't read it.

Adaptations are like any other machine, they're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem.

I find that I generally enjoy novel adaptations of comic book story arcs more than the comics themselves. Infinite Crisis, Knightfall, Batman: No Man's Land, and Kingdom Come as a for instance.

The main difference between The Shining movie and The Shining TV miniseries, according to King himself and why he wanted to do the miniseries, is that Kubrick made Jack's insanity a result of supernatural aspect of the Overlook while in King's book, the crazies were more a result of his alcoholism (which mirrored what King himself felt he was going through at the time with his own alcohol problem and his family).

Redrum!