What Do You Expect From Adaptations?

[Lumenskir]

So I'm finishing up reading the Ex Machina collection my friend gave me, and I decided to go on Wikipedia and TV Tropes to read up about it. Around the bottom of the description I see that the rights to the comic were optioned for a film. I was then dismayed. Thankfully, the option was tried for in 2005, so I'm assuming it'll probably languish in development hell (but at least the creators get some of that no-work-necessary option money every so often), but it was still a unwanted thought.

This prompted me to wonder just why the thought of an Ex Machina movie would be bad. While I'm not averse to seeing the comic done in live action, the core is more about day-to-day ordeals of the world's only superhero mayor, and a movie would by necessity have to either cram a lot of subplots into one offering or expand one of the smaller subplots beyond recognition (and would then probably have to choose one of the arcs with SUPER PROBLEMS) so that it loses the charm of the original. It's the same problem I assume the *shudder* Shia Lebouf starring adaptation of Y: The Last Man would have (you know, on top of the Lebouf problem).

Of course, I would have no problem if either of those became TV shows, because TV is just inherently better at showing incremental processes, which both of those comics are great at, and thus a show would be truer to the source material.* But then I remembered that I just recently, in this very forum, defended There Will Be Blood on being a great adaptation of Oil!, even though I acknowledged that the movie barely treats the book as an idea generator, let alone a thematic blueprint. And I will throw down to defend a bunch of other adaptations in varying states of 'trueness' to their original source.

So I've just decided to throw out a few reasons when I think adaptations do and do not work.

When They Can Competently Distill the Original - Probably what we usually hope the least for in adaptations: that they got the original and brought it over to a new format. I'm willing to forgive a lot of changes if the new work at least feels like something directly related to its source. For instance, even though lines and situations are being changed in the Scott Pilgrim movie, I'll probably still like it as long as it feels Scott Pilgrimmy.

When The Adaptation Actually Uses the New Medium - I don't really want to watch slavish recreations of comic panels, or have the words on page read aloud. If I did, I would just stick with the originals. If the new version actually demonstrates that it's something that could only be done within the new format, I won't mind radical departures from the source.

The Adapter Has a Great Time Doing The Adaptation - By most accounts, The Long Goodbye the film bears only passing similarities to the book of the same name. I still think it's a great adaptation, because Altman and the entire cast are having a ball transplanting the surface elements of the novel to the screen. An even more extreme example is Starship Troopers, an absolutely great film that somebody in this thread will probably deride as an adaptation that didn't get Heinlen's work and is shitty for it. I'll just say that I'd rather live in a world where a 100 bad adapters get to make shitty works as long as we get one or two that make great accomplishments of entertainment made from whatever misconstrued bits and pieces the new guys liked from the old work.

I'm sure there are other categories I could come up with, but this is long enough.

TL;DR - Answer the thread title.

*This is also my big problem with taking serial shows and trying to filmize them. Just as a present-ish example: the Last Airbender movie. Beyond however you feel about the casting and director and whatnot, the first season of the show works so well because it's able to be a ramshackle Adventure Town filled road trip that can stretch over 20 episodes as Aang comes to grips with how his world has changed and why he needs to step up and change with it. You can't capture the same theme in a 2 hour movie, especially when a disproportionate chunk of that has to be the final battle. And the second season would be even worse to try and cut down.

I have no qualms about a movie based on the third season. You can condense all of the parts about that season that actually matter into two hours, sure. But leave those perfect first two seasons alone, gosh darnit.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

As long as the spirit of something is translated well it doesn't really matter how "accurate" it is. Sometimes an adaptation can surpass the source material like what happened with To Kill a Mockingbird.

[Kim]

One thing that recently occured to me is that adaptations don't have to tell the story of what they're based on.

A Legend of Zelda movie only needs Zelda, Link, Ganon, Hyrule, and the Triforce. So long as they have those things, they can treat it as one of the many "Legends" and can even introduce it as such.

Plenty of video games and anime allow for the possibility of stuff happening during the journey, or even before/after it. Simply treat it as one of the adventures the characters went on, rather than trying to distill the original, because in most cases it's honestly impossible. For example, take Fullmetal Alchemist. It could take place before the anime "starts". All it'd have to be is one of the assignements Ed and Al were sent on shortly after Ed became a State Alchemist. This sort of idea is why Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy more or less worked. I guess just base the movie and the game's world, and not the game itself, is what I'm saying.

These of course assume that an actually competent writer is behind the project. Chances of that happening are slim, though.

[Donomni]

Originally Posted by NonCon

These of course assume that an actually competent writer is behind the project. Chances of that happening are slim, though.

Case in point: that Super Mario Bros. movie. Ugh.

[Magus]

I think your Starship Troopers point is interesting, since I usually think adaptations have to be a lot more slavish than they usually are, but from what I know about the book, Verhoeven changed a lot of stuff and made into an obvious satire at points. I think it's mainly your first requirement that mainly comes into play for me--it has to feel like the original work to an extent I'm not turned off by the changes. Also it helps if the changed elements are just as good as the original elements as well. If I judge them to be not as good, I will probably complain.

I think the safer route for adaptations is to be slavish, though. It's much harder to mess up a slavish adaptation (given the original thing has lots of stuff going for it that are easy to translate one-to-one to the screen), than to take the risk and change stuff when so often 1. the fans are going to be displeased, and also the risk that 2. you've also removed things that made the original work good, and so then you don't please everyone else either.

I think it's harder to find a bad slavish adaptation. The only one that even comes to mind might be Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which oddly enough despite being pretty accurate to the games (I think, they added in a few dumb things I'm sure, but then again MK's back story is incredibly dumb to begin with, so it's hard to tell), was horrible. Then again there aren't a lot of slavish adaptations in the first place, so as far as the evidence goes I think it's the original content not being fit for adaptation.

[bluestarultor]

A slavish adaptation will never be a good adaptation. That's like arguing a movie based on a book should be nothing but scrolling text set to silence. What makes a good work in one media almost never makes a good work in another.

Heck, even between games and movies. Games really shine when they give the player choice. Movies simply don't have the option. A movie based on a game has to take one pathway through the story and try to stretch (or in some cases condense) it into a coherent two hours. That and it all has to be rewritten so it doesn't sound ridiculous in the new context and yadda yadda.

I have one old story that I've written for three different media: game, book, and movie, and all three versions are wildly different. The reason for this is some stuff just doesn't work in other places and some things really need a specific media TO work. Trying to transplant the story directly resulted in me realizing this.

It's just a matter of different needs and different strengths. To make a good product, you need to cater to the media.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

A slavish adaptation will never be a good adaptation. That's like arguing a movie based on a book should be nothing but scrolling text set to silence.

No, it's not arguing like that. Books obviously have descriptions of scenes and what characters say and are wearing and so on. It is not difficult to imagine this being translated to a visual medium such as a play or movie. It has been a hundred million times. I've seen plenty of slavish adaptations and while they have often left me saying "meh, so what", they were still entertaining and competent (this depends on how much interpretation can be done with the source material and still be a "slavish" adapation, of course. Like I was wowed by Lord of the Rings, which had some minor changes, but nothing too major (well, okay, the cut out whole chapters of the series, but still!), whereas Day of the Jackal seemed pretty damn boring to me because there was absolutely no change whatsoever (plus it was a bit dry). On the other hand, minor changes in, say, The Handmaiden's Tale annoyed me and I wish they hadn't been put in there since they did not improve the story or theme, and I just didn't like them). So no, I am not saying that movies based on books should be scrolling text set to silence.

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

What makes a good work in one media almost never makes a good work in another.

Fair enough, though I wouldn't say "almost never", as I think it's been done decently many times.

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

Heck, even between games and movies. Games really shine when they give the player choice. Movies simply don't have the option. A movie based on a game has to take one pathway through the story and try to stretch (or in some cases condense) it into a coherent two hours. That and it all has to be rewritten so it doesn't sound ridiculous in the new context and yadda yadda.

This is true for some games but the Max Payne movie didn't have to change much of anything to be made into a film because it was linear and already fairly cinematic. But they changed 95% of it, to something that was worse. There are some adaptations that are quite possible, but it depends on the game, and there might not be many, I agree with you on the point that there are few things that may make very good "slavish" adaptations, or even adaptations at all.

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

I have one old story that I've written for three different media: game, book, and movie, and all three versions are wildly different. The reason for this is some stuff just doesn't work in other places and some things really need a specific media TO work. Trying to transplant the story directly resulted in me realizing this.

It's just a matter of different needs and different strengths. To make a good product, you need to cater to the media.

Again, this depends on the story. Lots of stories can't be adapted without big changes, but it seems like there are plenty that can.

Like, seriously the only thing I really think should be "slavish" is the overarching events of the story. You can change the main character to a woman or a mummy or from Mars and if the overarching events I enjoyed were the same I'd say it was a good adaptation, if the person being a mummy didn't get in the way of these events (they often would!), and if the character's personality was the same (it probably wouldn't be). Surface things can be altered quite a bit but when you change the plot extravagantly or entire major characters are removed or altered to be incredibly different I just have to question WHY it has the same title as the original work. If there is nothing left that you recognize from the original work, then at least have the courtesy to name it something else (for example, There Will Be Blood was NOT named Oil!, probably in recognition that it had extreme changes from the novel, though the new title fits the changes to the new main character and the overall tone of the story a little better, too, so there are obvious reasons for the title change). Where the line is on when you should change the title is debatable, but it's probably around about the time you put a mummy in it.

[bluestarultor]

Whoa, there! I wasn't being totally serious.

Let me explain why I said what I said. When people demand a slavish movie adaptation of a book or game, for example, that means they want that book or game in a new format. This just doesn't work. Books, in general, are too long to really do that. Games just generally don't have the substance because they're interspersed with gameplay to help make the pacing work. Even if it does work, it's not going to be anything but more of the same, so even though fans will be pleased at how true it is to the source material, they'll complain because they haven't gained anything. Also, in a lot of cases, it just doesn't make for a very interesting title. People expect different things out of different media. A book generally doesn't have a lot of "action" compared to description and dialog, while a movie has the description right on the screen, so you're left with a product that loses a lot of its pacing to get from one event to another. A game has tons of action in relation to dialog and the description is again on the screen, so the main concern is trying to balance the action with the plot.

What I'm saying is you're not going to cram a 10-hour game into a 2-hour movie well, or a 1000-page book's full breadth into a script of, what, less than 50 pages?

That's not to say a very close adaptation is impossible. Just very, very hard, and no matter what you do, you'll be leaving out bits that someone is going to miss.

Liberties have to be taken to bring the basic story to a new audience and make changes that are expected from other productions in the new media. Obviously, some things get unnecessarily gutted, but in some cases, a gutting is actually in order. Making a book out of a video game is going to require a lot of the characters' inner thoughts to be expressed to provide framing, or else people will probably put it down as busy tripe. A movie made out of a book will need to either cut out those thoughts or find a quick and simple way to express them and simply pare them down a bit. A linear video game needs to be condensed to fit into a movie, and a movie made into a video game is either going to need to be filled out with padding or suffer being criminally short.

No matter how hard you try, there is never going to be a decent "slavish" adaptation, because each form of media needs to satisfy different expectations. Changes are necessary to make a work that's both satisfying to old customers and enjoyable to new ones.



Sorry if I'm not making sense. My brain is a bit kaput at the moment.

[Archbio]

I think everybody is aware that an adaptation can't be mere transcription to the script, but rather take issue with specific changes, their judiciousness or their motives.

For example, I don't think it should be accepted that adaptations feature large alternations merely for a "different audience." Not only is that sometimes supported by dubious reasoning or prejudices, but really, I think it's one of the signs that show that the adapters (or the public) have no real appreciation for the work, and thus that the adaptation is badly advised/exploitative.

Faithful, not slavish.

Edit: Faithfulness is what a lot of big name productions that are adapted from some notable work imply that they deliver, in making the film version of a book. That's what they're selling to the public that they've already secured by using the visibility of the work.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Archbio

I think everybody is aware that an adaptation can't be mere transcription to the script, but rather take issue with specific changes, their judiciousness or their motives.

For example, I don't think it should be accepted that adaptations feature large alternations merely for a "different audience." Not only is that sometimes supported by dubious reasoning or prejudices, but really, I think it's one of the signs that show that the adapters (or the public) have no real appreciation for the work, and thus that the adaptation is badly advised/exploitative.

Faithful, not slavish.

Edit: Faithfulness is what a lot of big name productions that are adapted from some notable work imply that they deliver, in making the film version of a book. That's what they're selling to the public that they've already secured by using the visibility of the work.

Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to say. Thank you.