Film Point of Discussion: Adaptations from Other Mediums

[cestuneblague]

So rules are of course, be opinionated but don't belittle or shout down other opinions, don't be a thread-derailing troll and just don't be afraid to share any insight you may have, however "unpopular" they may seem




TOPIC: FILM ADAPTATIONS FROM OTHER ARTISTIC MEDIUMS


What do you think makes a successful film adaptation from a book, graphic novel, stage play etc? Is it important to stay faithful to the outline of the original work, or is it more important to stay faithful to the spirit but make some necessary changes for the film medium, and for the creative team to give a more personal touch to the adapted work? Are there things that work in other mediums that don't really work in film, and vice versa? What do you think have been some of the most successful, intriguing adaptations, and even some that made you think differently about the original work or appreciate it more?

[Applerill]

Maybe it's because I have so little non-VG nostalgia from my childhood, but I've hardly ever had a problem with this in my life. Books and movies play by very different rules, and it's silly to compromise on making something unique in a medium just so you can be "faithful to the source material".

Instead, I think it makes much more sense for the auteur to make the property theirs, and to use the source material to say something unique about life. This is what makes The Lego Movie one of the greatest movies ever made: Instead of just talking about Lego characters, Lord and Miller instead use it to speak philosophically on the concept of creation itself in the 21st century. Spike Lee's magnum opus Malcolm X and last year's amazing The Big Short are two other great examples.

I just don't understand why we need movies to be "just like the book" if we already have the book to begin with. The 1960s saw the release of adaptions to Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, and while I wasn't much of a fan of either, it would've been ridiculous for me to measure them up to the original novels.

[benpaco]

Alright I wanted to wait til I had some time to think on this and write something out proper so I'm sorry if this gets excessively wordy ahead of time.

There's kind of a lot of different categories within this, so I guess I'll start with

Movies that came from beloved source material and adapted them faithfully

Obviously this is probably the target when you're adapting a book into a movie is to do it well and make the fans happy. Within this, you've got a lot of real classic novels that were adapted successfully and faithfully - I guess the two of these that first pop to mind are Of Mice and Men(1992) and To Kill a Mockingbird, though other classic novels like Moby Dick obviously became well regarded films as well.

Other films did a great job at recreating fan favorite sorts of atmospheres - there's a reason that Deadpool was able to rise in the ratings on IMDB quickly, but this isn't limited to material like that, with Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Trainspotting both offering critically acclaimed films that are rather faithful to their origins. I haven't read The Martian, but have heard from others that it is surprisingly faithful to the book, with the exception that they cut some of the more science-heavy moments from the novel as they wouldn't play well to the screen. And then obviously, you can't really talk about adapting beloved source material without talking about Lord of the Rings, remaining a nerdgasm to this day. These adaptations are faithful to the source material, generally well reviewed, and popular among the fans. But what about

Movies that came from beloved source material and failed to live up to fan expectation

Now, you can start off with the obvious - The Last Airbender and Eragon aren't exactly the pinacles of fine cinema, regardless of whether or not you enjoyed the source material, or even was aware of it. The Hobbit was stretched far too thin across 3 movies when it could've been one, two max. Ender's Game was mediocre at best. The Narnia series was doomed from the start cuz, well, children grow up.

But then there are movies that are sort of harder to talk about. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a pale shell of the book, but if you knew nothing of the book or the movie that already existed, it's not honestly that bad. Not Burton's best, but as a "here's a slightly dark kids musical", it's okay. Perhaps Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the movie) is the better example - a lot of buffs of the book don't feel it capture Adams' humor accurately, and others were upset at everything from Zaphod's head to Marvin's design to the involvement of Mos Def. But if you look at it without really knowing the book, it's a funny sci-fi flick that might not be a really earth-shatteringly great movie (pun intended), but is a fun watch and honestly one of Zooey Deschanel's better performances. I think it certainly was a more pleasant experience than the TV Series, which is more accurate to the books and radio series but I think a worse thing to watch. The DaVinci Code was a dumb movie and it's hard to translate that much intrigue from a book into a film, but if you didn't know anything going in, it would seem like a National Treasure style adventure flick that was just a bit too slow.

Of course, sometimes the interesting bits of the adaptation are less about how well it translates and more "wait what are they making into a movie?" or "really that was a book?"

Movies that came from less well known sources

The one a lot of people like to point to for this is Forest Gump, a book that sold a supposed 30,000 copies before getting made into a movie. As a result, they had some leeway to change a lot in the book, much to the chagrin of the author, who started his next book with a warning to not let people make your stories into movies. While the movie offers some major deviations - the author said in his head, Gump was more like John Goodman, and the ending differs a lot, its hard to argue that it wasn't an improvement over what was an alright story. (And yes I did read that one - not a fan). Mrs. Doubtfire is hard to even imagine as a book, and didn't really find success until after the film was out. Psycho was supposedly pretty unknown before the film as well.

And the interesting thing that these films offer that is different from the above is the expectation going in. Whereas something like LOTR has to stand up to fan expectations, and if not falls down, whereas something that doesn't have a massive fan following might be able to get away making more changes without upsetting fans (not to say anything about the author.

Tone changes

First and foremost, from this point down, there may be spoilers for some movies. Alright? Alright.

Some movies go for a completely different tone than their original counterparts, with mixed results. Whereas Romeo + Juliet is generally considered to be one of the better adaptations of the tale for the silver screen, Gnomeo and Juliet ... well, maybe not so much. Other times the shift seems to help in making in a movie instead of a book - Who Framed Roger Rabbit in book form focusses more on newspaper comics rather than animated characters, and while obviously one can put Snoopy in movie form, I think the use of animated characters helps the movie as a whole. Additionally, the film switches to a more comedic form than the dark mystery of the book, which holds its own comedy in a drier fashion. While I think that's good in a book, I don't really know how they would've been able to market the already somewhat dark film to kids in any darker or less outright comedic a form. Similarly, Tarzan is a significantly different book, opening with Kerchack attempting to rape Kala and killing an infant in the process. There's a lot more murder abound in this book, the "gorillas" are much more like bigfeet, and about 1/3 of the book is spent with Tarzan playing pranks on a local tribe. Hell, in the book, Tarzan and Clayton end up being sort of friends, definitely never have that much of a conflict, and Tarzan doesn't get the girl. The movie makes it far more of a kids movie, though I am curious why they so brutally show the death of Clayton (by Disney standards, at least), as that was something they had to consciously decide to write in.

Perhaps the best use of a change of tone to save a project is Dr Strangelove. While I'm sure Kubrick would've been able to pull off a nuclear thriller, there's something far more unique and frankly important in making a nuclear comedy. And even then, Kubrick seemed that have a great grip on how far was too far with the tone, himself admitting that the original ending of the comedic version (a pie fight) would have been too out of place.

To retell the tale

Sometimes instead of the tone, it's the plot that changes form. Whereas some films tweak just minor plot points, like in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest removing any more overtly sexual moments, others go for more major shifts. As mentioned above, Forest Gump transformed a lot - in the book, Jenny not only survives, she then leaves Forest. While neither film really goes for the traditional happy ending, I think it would've been interesting to see that version of the end, with the cycle continuing. Jurassic Park ends with the mass napalming of the island instead of the T Rex bailing out the humans. The movie offers a lower body count as well, with multiple others dying in the book. While this might have been an attempt to lighten things up, I can't imagine that making the pseudo-dino-horror flick a bit darker would've been much of a problem. The Lorax really didn't need the extra little bit showing it worked, and I think an ambiguous ending like in the book might've helped kids get the conservation is important message in their heads even a bit more.

There's other times where the plot changes make a little more sense. As mentioned above, Tarzan needed more than a little bit of a guiding hand to become a kids film. My Sister's Keeper, arguably, offers a far more realistic and perhaps even more crushing ending than the book. While Planet of the Apes sort of ends with the same twist in both movies, the film's ending makes far more sense, as the idea of him somehow returning back to Earth and still just being 700 years out just seems stranger than "it was always Earth!" The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an interesting one because all 3 incarnations have different endings - the book offering a traditional "it all worked out he burned them and then they ran away!", the first movie offering what seemed like a dark monologue to end it (and then the studio put in a happy ending the directors don't like so let's ignore it), and the 70s version offering a twist that I was actually legitimately surprised by, something that horror movies often fail to do for me.

And then there's times that the line is not so easily drawn. Fight Club has somewhat ambiguous endings in both of its forms, with arguments abound on the internet not only over what each means, but also as to which is better. That one's up to you guys, I haven't read the book.

Filming the unfilmable

There are some arguments as to the limitations of an adaptation. For example, a lot of people were confused as to how Requiem for a Dream could possibly become a movie, and I gotta say I can understand that, it's not exactly a traditional film experience from the bits I know about it (which is unfortunately a lot due to someone getting overexcited about my enjoying Trainspotting). There was some serious doubt about Being There working by both the author and studios, but that came out, I think, incredibly well. I think these are the sorts of things that support that anything can be made into a movie if made right - some may just be harder than others.

Then there's the movies that proved doubts right. Jim Carrey as The Grinch sounds like a fine idea, and even Mike Myers as The Cat In The Hat wasn't necessarily destined for failure. But I'd be hard pressed to see another live action Dr Seuss adaptation for some time due to the failures of both of these. The same could be said for another go at The Last Airbender as live action. On the other hand, the relative failure of The Hobbit, I don't think, would be enough to turn studios away from the idea of a miniseries or even movie of The Silmarillion. And then, of course, there's the unspoken rule.

Adapting the unadaptible

Can there be a good movie made about a video game? Taking away things like The King of Kong or Indie Game The Movie, you're really left with nothing of substance whatsoever. Even if you ignore Uwe Boll's entire foray into these films, you're left with some of the most gutwrenchingly bad movies ever - Mortal Combat Annihilation, Street Fighter The Legend of Chun-Li, Silent Hill Revelations, Super Mario Bros. Then you have the "so bad they're good" movies, Street Fighter, Double Dragon, etc. The best reviewed of video game films, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, is an animated film that, although gorgeous, was a box office flop. We've got 4 major movies coming this year based on video games, but I've yet to see anything I've liked out of these, which is rather a pity as it could very well work. Something like Shadow of the Colussus, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, or Bioshock have premises that could translate well to the silver screen, but with the way these films have been going, I would be surprised if any were made, and if they were if they were any good.

The question of originality

Of the 8 best picture nominees this year, only one was not adapted from a true story or a book - Mad Max. Last year was 1/2 original, 1/2 true stories, and the last year that was more than 1/2 original (not based on a book, true story, older movie, etc) was 2006, and even then that includes Letters from Iwo Jima which was a companion piece to another movie. My roommate and I were discussing this the other day and he made a comment that he misses the originality. It made me question that - can an adaptation to a film be seen as creative, or is it inherently less impressive? I think to adapt a true story of a book into a movie is impressive in its own right, for sure, because to create something of value after the same idea already existed is a difficult thing. It's easy to see why someone could write off One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest because the book is so incredible, but the fact that the movie is good as well only adds to its own value, I think. What are others thoughts on it?
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[SuedeSwede]

[Applerill]

[benpaco]

[Mercury]

Truly applerill never fails in making me go "seriously? What is the deal with this person?"

Sigh. It's just so disconcerting trying to make sense of you.
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[Applerill]

[19loveless91]

I think the worst thing that an adaptation can be is to try and be exactly like the source material. I mean it could still end up being good, but it's inevitably going to have something missing from it. Adapting a book for example - there's a risk of not being able to delve as deep into thoughts and feelings of characters, or tell the story with the same amount of details. So a film can easily just turn out to be a lesser version of the book.

Better way is a film taking its source material as a base for creating something new - either trying to retell or reinterpret a story. Though this could obviously go both ways. Another idea is to focus on a specific idea and elaborate on that (e.g. Stalker). But I think the best film adaptations play to the strength of its medium. I.e. when they are uniquely cinematic. The Tracey Fragments is a good example of that.

Not sure about video game adaptations, never really played those, so can't tell...

[Norman Bates]