Adaptation in name only, should I be mad?

[random11]

With both Lucifer and Preacher, we have examples of an adaptation that takes mostly the names of characters and places, but change the entire plot and concept of the source material, and these are certainly not the only examples.

Regardless if the show itself is good or not, I ask myself if I should be angry at the process.

On one hand, these are not source materials that are easy to adapt for many reasons, and if the show itself is okay, why should I care?

On the other hand, I can't help feeling that I, as a fan of both comics, was manipulated to see the show only because I enjoyed the source material.
Would I watch a TV show if I knew if's a cop and Lucifer working together to solve crimes without the connection to the comic? Maybe and maybe not, but I wouldn't have such high hopes and I would easily abandon it if I felt bored.
But with a "name only adaptation" every episode I get JUST enough connection to the source material to give me hope that maybe it will be as interesting as the comic in the next one.

So, should I be mad?

[Blue Lantern]

No you have no right to be mad.

Unless a producer or a writer said that they were aiming for a faithful adaptation of the comics any expectation you had is you own creation.

[t209]

And it worked for Mark Millar. Then again the most of his comics are pretty notorious.
- Wanted has a better premise of villains running the world than movies' secret society but the comic is pretty mean-spirited and gory (not to mention that protagonist is nihilist jerk).
- Civil War movie, not only it's pretty much an improvement over the comic but then again, they didn't have many idiotic moments (like Spiderman erasing his marriage, Sally Floyd's "MySpace and NASCAR" statement, and turning out to be ridiculous caricature than clever political statement)
- Kick-Ass (believe me, it's much more vile with
- Big Daddy being an insane comic fan who kidnapped his daughter to have "awesome" life.
- giving metaphorical insult to people who read it.
- and Red Mists'....let's not mention about one panel.)

[Tyndmyr]

Nah, Preacher is definitely not "in name only".

Might not be exactly the same, but it draws heavily off the source material. Characters feel similar, and what not.

Consider, say, World War Z. THAT is "in name only". It's not even vaguely the same thing at all. Take comfort that your beloved things were only partially destroyed by Hollywood.

[random11]

No you have no right to be mad.

Unless a producer or a writer said that they were aiming for a faithful adaptation of the comics any expectation you had is you own creation.

First of all, we always have the right to be mad, the question is if it's the correct approach.
I think it's a very valid question, are the fans of the comic being manipulated to create hype to the show, or should we be grateful that relatively unfamiliar comics are being adapted.

Second, before they came out, while they did not promise a 100% faithful adaptation, they did say it was an adaptation, and whenever any article was released prior to the pilot, only information that is related between the two was published instead of anything that might be different. This is not a coincidence.
Compare this to the first "the mask" movie. No one tried to say it was based on a comic, and right from the start it was shown as a goofy comedy.


And it worked for Mark Millar. Then again the most of his comics are pretty notorious.
- Wanted has a better premise of villains running the world than movies' secret society but the comic is pretty mean-spirited and gory (not to mention that protagonist is nihilist jerk).
- Civil War movie, not only it's pretty much an improvement over the comic but then again, they didn't have many idiotic moments (like Spiderman erasing his marriage, Sally Floyd's "MySpace and NASCAR" statement, and turning out to be ridiculous caricature than clever political statement)
- Kick-Ass (believe me, it's much more vile with
- Big Daddy being an insane comic fan who kidnapped his daughter to have "awesome" life.
- giving metaphorical insult to people who read it.
- and Red Mists'....let's not mention about one panel.)


I'm less mad about civil war movie, since while there are differences, the core idea and the characters were kept.
Also, the characters that already established in previous movies, so nothing came as a major surprise.

Also, I'm generally more forgiving toward comics like Spider-man or Batman.
In these cases, the source material is very diverse, and included multiple writers over a long period of time. So as long as there is no major contradiction to the basic character (*cough* superman *cough*), it's not much of a problem.
Lucifer and Preacher on the other hand, are both very contained stories from specific books.

[random11]

Nah, Preacher is definitely not "in name only".

Might not be exactly the same, but it draws heavily off the source material. Characters feel similar, and what not.

Consider, say, World War Z. THAT is "in name only". It's not even vaguely the same thing at all. Take comfort that your beloved things were only partially destroyed by Hollywood.

I'll admit, in the anger scales, my emotions toward Preacher are not anger but somewhere between confusion and annoyance.
Sure, the core surface concept is the same, but they seem to go for a direct opposite meaning of the phrase "seeking God" between the two.
But while there are differences in the core story idea, the humor does remind me of the comic.
There are also the characters that feel forced into the series (like arseface). Would it have been better if it was published without any relation to the story? Maybe, not sure.

[Lethologica]

Mad is mostly a function of execution. Faithfulness is a moderate-but-not-strong predictor of execution.

[warty goblin]

Consider, say, World War Z. THAT is "in name only". It's not even vaguely the same thing at all. Take comfort that your beloved things were only partially destroyed by Hollywood.

I cannot fathom this attitude. I mean I like The Hobbit the book, read once every eighteen months or so. The fact that the Hobbit movies are terrible, stomp over blindly on the actual themes of the book, and generally make a person pray for the sweet release of death has no bearing on actual text of the The Hobbit. It hasn't done anything to my childhood memories, and if I somehow let it diminish my enjoyment of the book, that's my fault for being a sufficient idiot to allow a couple of bad movies to ruin my joy in the book that's sitting on my shelf right now.

[Tyndmyr]

I cannot fathom this attitude. I mean I like The Hobbit the book, read once every eighteen months or so. The fact that the Hobbit movies are terrible, stomp over blindly on the actual themes of the book, and generally make a person pray for the sweet release of death has no bearing on actual text of the The Hobbit. It hasn't done anything to my childhood memories, and if I somehow let it diminish my enjoyment of the book, that's my fault for being a sufficient idiot to allow a couple of bad movies to ruin my joy in the book that's sitting on my shelf right now.

If you hoped to see a good execution of your favorite work on video, well, the fact that it was done poorly, or not done at all, but labeled that, likely makes it difficult for other to acquire rights and do it. We probably won't see an actual World War Z movie for this reason.

Now, for super popular things, you can always hold out hope for a reboot(despite the...highly mixed track record of those as well), but for a lot of things, they only get one crack at a movie, so it can be super disappointing to realize that it was burned on something that wasn't actually the thing at all.

[warty goblin]

If you hoped to see a good execution of your favorite work on video, well, the fact that it was done poorly, or not done at all, but labeled that, likely makes it difficult for other to acquire rights and do it. We probably won't see an actual World War Z movie for this reason.

Now, for super popular things, you can always hold out hope for a reboot(despite the...highly mixed track record of those as well), but for a lot of things, they only get one crack at a movie, so it can be super disappointing to realize that it was burned on something that wasn't actually the thing at all.

It's disappointing to be sure. I'd have loved a (singular) Hobbit movie as good as Fellowship of the Ring. Didn't get it, won't get it, life goes on, and all I'm really out is the price of a movie ticket. It's not something I'm gonna get angry about; it's entirely non-productive, and being angry for the pleasure of anger is not a path I want to walk down.

[Darth Ultron]

Any ''adaptation'' will be ''in name only''. I don't think it is possible to take something in a form of media and make it exactly like the original.

[Mx.Silver]

First of all, we always have the right to be mad, the question is if it's the correct approach.

The answer to that is: no, it's not. Being disappointed is entirely fair and understandable as a reaction, but getting angry about it is starting to verge into fanboy territory and that's not a great area to end-up in. Especially once it starts drifting into 'we, the fans' type talk.

To be clear, feeling upset or disappointed is a perfectly valid response. Just don't let it stew.


If you hoped to see a good execution of your favorite work on video, well, the fact that it was done poorly, or not done at all, but labeled that, likely makes it difficult for other to acquire rights and do it. We probably won't see an actual World War Z movie for this reason.
While I can understand this reasoning, it's always struck me as having an undercurrent of the idea that film is the supreme medium for narrative. That is, the idea that a novel (or any narrative work that isn't a live action film) in some war needs a film adaptation. I see a similar element of this in random11's second post, suggesting that fans should feel grateful that 'at least they got an adaptation', as if having a film adaptation is some sort of requirement for a work's worth.
I'm not saying this is a position you're explicitly arguing, but it is one that this reasoning is buying into. In any event it raises the question: why does it matter if something gets a film adaptation or not? If a work is good then the quality of any adaptive works is very unlikely to impact that in any measurable way. If someone makes a good film that's based off it then that's a nice bonus, but that's really all it should be considered: a bonus.

[tomandtish]

This also opens up a bigger question, which is how do you want to react when something isn't as presented. Adaptations may be an easy target, since there's a presupposition about the material already, but there are times where even by itself something can turn out radically different from presented.

How many of you are old enough to remember when The Fisher King came out (1991)? How many remember the previews for that movie? Robin Williams in another wacky comedy, right?

Wrong! That movie was extremely dark, and we came out of it severely depressed and feeling cheated. The previews put in all the funny Robin Williams bits (and literally just about all of them), and leaves off mass-murder/suicide, the major mental illness by both leads, and a lot of other significant points. It irked me to no end that it was STILL put in the comedy section (until video stores disappeared).

Heck, even within the same medium a work can be pretty much "in name only" to the source material. I've heard rumors of a Highlander 2 after all…

Should you be mad? I used to be (I wasted theater money on that alleged Highlander 2), but there's not much point in being mad these days. Everyone is going to have their own vision of a work and it may or may not match the original. And that's OK. I prefer to go into any adaptation with the "in name only" mindset and then see if I'm pleasantly surprised.

[Vinyadan]

What about Final Fantasy? Was that supposed to be an adaptation?

[Ranxerox]

I'm going to add my voice to the chorus of noes.

When someone adapts an intellectual property that you care about, read the reviews, and if it sounds like they ignored the whatever it was about the original that made it magical for you, just don't go see it. This way it is as if you heard that they were going to make an adaptation of something you like but at the last minute the adaptation didn't go through. You know, disappointing, but them's the breaks. Certainly nothing to get angry about.

[erikun]

Aren't Superman, Batman, Captain America, and many other exceptionally old superheroes vastly different from their original source material? Heck, comics are typically a collection of "different from source material" stories, where runs from one writer to another can vastly change a character's personality and motivations.

I can certainly understand where you are coming from. It feels pretty bad to see something you enjoy get what you might consider a cheap cash-in on brand name only. However, there's nothing stopping this adaption from being good in its own right. If you dislike it, fine. I think it would be better to dislike the thing based on its own merits, though, rather than not being what you had hoped - there are lots of things that will disappoint you because they weren't what you had hoped.

Also, a terrible TV series won't stop the original comic from still being as good.


I'm less mad about civil war movie, since while there are differences, the core idea and the characters were kept.
Also, the characters that already established in previous movies, so nothing came as a major surprise.
I do find it particularly ironic that you're defending Civil War, though. The whole point of Civil War was fighting over a forced government registration, with Spiderman being a key public player (outing his identity and everything) and a lot of the side-characters going on record as their country not supporting the initiative. By contrast, the movie was about multiple countries trying to draft a voluntary oversight committee to watchdog a single small group, and the conflict revolved around one side going after some crazy guy who was (apparently) going to unleash supersoldier assassins on the world.

While there was a similar underlying theme... sort of... there isn't much similarity between the two. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the comic version of Civil War ended up a mess at times and the movie (despite the weak first part) did a far better job at giving characters motivations, ideals, and reasons for what they were doing. But that's liking the movie because it was good, not liking it because it was a faithful adaption from the original.

[Traab]

I have two main unfaithful adaptation beefs. One is disneys hercules. Any fan of greek mythology should be having a seizure right now thinking about how many different ways they just distorted the ever loving heck out of the hercules mythology in order to make it family friendly, the other was Final fantasy, The Spirits Within. They took the Final Fantasy label, and churned out some obnoxiously generic computer animated film whose only up side was how "realistic" everything was drawn or some such thing. There was nothing final fantasy about it. I wasnt expecting it to be a movie version of one of the games as such, but the least they could have done was toss a frigging chocobo into the thing! Maybe a moogle? I probably would have been ok with the film had they named it anything else but final fantasy. Its frigging sci fi, name it Phantasy Star if you are desperate to try to suck in an rpg crowd!

[Legato Endless]

Eh, I think the thread is being a bit hard on Random since what he's detailing is kind of a problem. While I can appreciate the occasionally cash grab as a good work itself, it's not meant to be taken so. And that's the real issue. This isn't something you worry about with novels and other mediums because it's a flaw of the studios that run these branches of entertainment. A perfidious one.

It only exists to perpetuate a financial system based on extreme risk management and hostility to the new, the unconventional, the unexpected. (Originality is fine if it looks well vetted and fashionable) From the meritocratic and artistic points of view, it's not something that should exist in the craft; it's a necessary evil of a system drunk on it's doxology about what works and what doesn't. And it's emblematic of the chaining to rout patterns. It stems from the same larger industry model that only ever so slowly and half hardheartedly embraces diversity. Which is why I don't think this is quite so innocent as it's being made out to be.


No you have no right to be mad.

Unless a producer or a writer said that they were aiming for a faithful adaptation of the comics any expectation you had is you own creation.

Poppycock. To invoke a name is to make a claim of legitimacy. It is to promise a continuance of what came before. That's why they're invoked at all, legally, biologically, etc. You don't get to prance down the street and say one thing, then grin at the 'mistake.' The only reason the confidence game is played is because people have faith to be taken advantage of.


On the other hand, I can't help feeling that I, as a fan of both comics, was manipulated to see the show only because I enjoyed the source material.

Yes, that's why it happens. I wouldn't spend a lot of time getting mad about it, but yes, it's a shell game, and it's not fair. The feeling of annoyance happens because someone is taking advantage of a social contract about what identity means to you.


Any ''adaptation'' will be ''in name only''. I don't think it is possible to take something in a form of media and make it exactly like the original.

No, because a spectrum exists and we all aren't purists. That's not what the term means at all. In name only means if I remove the Proper Nouns you wouldn't recognize the example as being part of it's native series. Most adaptions do not suffer this distinction, however controversial directions are taken.


I can certainly understand where you are coming from. It feels pretty bad to see something you enjoy get what you might consider a cheap cash-in on brand name only. However, there's nothing stopping this adaption from being good in its own right. If you dislike it, fine. I think it would be better to dislike the thing based on its own merits, though, rather than not being what you had hoped - there are lots of things that will disappoint you because they weren't what you had hoped.

While there's merit to this, I have yet to meet a human being who did it consistently in practice, especially if we move from something innocently irrelevant like IP to more grandiose areas. Wanting is part of having, and expectation is part of judgment. The presentation informs the identity. If you're removed from the context, then that's fine. But I can't blame people with a history for failing to disassociate in face of invocations to the contrary.

[Eldan]

Aren't Superman, Batman, Captain America, and many other exceptionally old superheroes vastly different from their original source material? Heck, comics are typically a collection of "different from source material" stories, where runs from one writer to another can vastly change a character's personality and motivations.

I'd say the difference is that comics evolved to where they are now by gradual chances. Sure, Man of Steel has little to do with Action Comics #1, but one can see how they got there.

Lucifer, on the other hand, started in Sandman, then had his own series and after that only showed up in a few spin-offs and cameos.

And, well. Comic Lucifer's defining trait is that he is proud and aloof. He doesn't care about mortals or deal with them. He mostly goes around dealing with elder gods, archangels and demons to gather the power to create his own universe free from his father's influence. But TV Lucifer is a charming trickster who solves mysteries with the cops. The only things the two share in common is the name Lucifer and owning a night club. If they hadn't claimed it was based on the comic, I'm not sure a lot of people would have made the comparison.

[Pronounceable]

Let's see. Lucifer is a great series. Preacher is all right so far. And then there was iZombie, which was ****ing awesome. So no, there's no grounds to be mad at. Comics/originals/inspirations literally do not matter. Adaptations need to be judged as TV series, movies, novels, whatevers.

You can be mad at x series for being bad, tho. That's normal and dandy.arrow,cough

[random11]

Aren't Superman, Batman, Captain America, and many other exceptionally old superheroes vastly different from their original source material? Heck, comics are typically a collection of "different from source material" stories, where runs from one writer to another can vastly change a character's personality and motivations.

I can certainly understand where you are coming from. It feels pretty bad to see something you enjoy get what you might consider a cheap cash-in on brand name only. However, there's nothing stopping this adaption from being good in its own right. If you dislike it, fine. I think it would be better to dislike the thing based on its own merits, though, rather than not being what you had hoped - there are lots of things that will disappoint you because they weren't what you had hoped.

Also, a terrible TV series won't stop the original comic from still being as good.

The fact that they come from a long period of time from different authors make me less sensitive about it.
If someone publishes a new superman or batman comic/TV series/movie about these characters, there isn't a specific version that the writer is suppose to adapt, so as long as he keeps the core idea it's fine.
Also, it's obvious that some changes need to be made even in the core ideas since the morals changed drastically over the years since the characters begun.

Also, these kinds of comics are so well known, it's obvious that even after a bad adaptation, someone else will pick the same material and try again with a different angle.
The same cannot be said about less well known comics. If they screw up Lucifer or Preacher, I believe even the Fantastic four will have a better chance of getting another try.


I do find it particularly ironic that you're defending Civil War, though. The whole point of Civil War was fighting over a forced government registration, with Spiderman being a key public player (outing his identity and everything) and a lot of the side-characters going on record as their country not supporting the initiative. By contrast, the movie was about multiple countries trying to draft a voluntary oversight committee to watchdog a single small group, and the conflict revolved around one side going after some crazy guy who was (apparently) going to unleash supersoldier assassins on the world.

While there was a similar underlying theme... sort of... there isn't much similarity between the two. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the comic version of Civil War ended up a mess at times and the movie (despite the weak first part) did a far better job at giving characters motivations, ideals, and reasons for what they were doing. But that's liking the movie because it was good, not liking it because it was a faithful adaption from the original.

I'm not really defending Civil war, I just care less about the changes there.
First, from the obvious reason that I didn't read the original series, so what I knew was only a very thin idea of the concept.
From what I heard, some fans of the comic were pissed even with the trailer came out since they noticed major changes I didn't, but that was in the TRAILER, not after the bought the ticket. Most people knew what they were getting into before, whether they liked the movie or not is another matter.
Last but not least, like I mentioned earlier, I'm less concerned about Civil was since it's the about the 10th movie with the same characters, if that was the introducing movie of the avengers, maybe my opinion would have been different.

[random11]

I have two main unfaithful adaptation beefs. One is disneys hercules. Any fan of greek mythology should be having a seizure right now thinking about how many different ways they just distorted the ever loving heck out of the hercules mythology in order to make it family friendly

So I'm guessing you really enjoyed "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" and "Xena" :smallcool:
I remember watching the show for the first time somewhere in the middle of the series, and asking myself "WTF is this, and what does it have to do with Hercules?"



the other was Final fantasy, The Spirits Within. They took the Final Fantasy label, and churned out some obnoxiously generic computer animated film whose only up side was how "realistic" everything was drawn or some such thing. There was nothing final fantasy about it. I wasnt expecting it to be a movie version of one of the games as such, but the least they could have done was toss a frigging chocobo into the thing! Maybe a moogle? I probably would have been ok with the film had they named it anything else but final fantasy. Its frigging sci fi, name it Phantasy Star if you are desperate to try to suck in an rpg crowd!

I'm trying to think, if it was the same movie but a chocobo, would it have been better because there is some relation to FF, or worse because it would feel out of place and forced?

I think FF the movie annoyed me less because in a way, all FF games are "in name only".
Except for Cid, chocobos and the moogles, there was never a connection between the games. Take ANY game in the series, and you can rename if and just think of it as a regular JRPG game.
The Final fantasy name is closer to a brand than a series, we buy the games and the movies because we trust the brand, but we don't have any expectations about what will the new game/movie actually be.
The movie was crap mostly because it was boring, but I didn't feel betrayed.

[random11]

Let's see. Lucifer is a great series. Preacher is all right so far. And then there was iZombie, which was ****ing awesome. So no, there's no grounds to be mad at. Comics/originals/inspirations literally do not matter. Adaptations need to be judged as TV series, movies, novels, whatevers.

You can be mad at x series for being bad, tho. That's normal and dandy.arrow,cough

I dislike Lucifer since I see it as yet another cop plus quirky guy show, but that's not what bothers me about it.
If it was called something different and no one would made the claim that they are related, I might have even enjoyed it. I even watch "Houdini and Doyle", so no doubt I could enjoy a series about the devil and a cop.
But in Lucifer as it is, I can't stop comparing it to the comic because this is what the writers do, I feel like almost any episode someone is dangling a carrot in front of me, and saying "See? We just presented the angel wings, so it might connect to the comic after all!".
A lot of "end of episode plot-lines" entered not the make the story better, but to address directly people like me. Trusting us to supply the hype to the series with plot lines that never existed nor will ever appear in the show itself.

[Cheesegear]

Sometimes it's not so much about making a faithful adaptation of the source material that's important, it's holding onto the license of the source material that's important, particularly to make sure that no-one else has the licenses to said source material. A boilerplate license deal will usually include a clause that says the buyer of the property has to actually do something with the property in X years or for X years. If the buyer of the source material doesn't do something with it, then the license lapses, the seller basically gets free money, and then is free to sell the IP to someone else, to make more money of them - money that is not being made by the second party who let the license lapse.

Sometimes it's not about making faithful adaptations.

Sometimes it's about doing something - anything, that is - that allows the studio to maintain their license deal. Not all the time, surely. But I'm still putting the idea out there, because, sometimes, that is the case.

I can't speak for Lucifer, but I do watch Preacher, and that's pretty good (so far), even if it doesn't stick to the comic.

But here's the thing; I don't want things to stick to the source material, especially if I've already read it. I read Watchmen, I really didn't gain anything out of seeing a shot-for-shot remake of the book in movie form. I knew what was going to happen next. I don't want 100% faithful adaptations of things I've already seen. I don't think I even want 75% or even 66% faithful adaptations. Walking Dead gave us Darryl, not to mention a poop-ton of changes to the story. I don't exactly know what's going to happen next, because Walking Dead isn't 100% faithful to its source.

Game of Thrones is the most exciting it's ever been (IMO) this season, because for the first time, I haven't read the books and I don't know what's going to happen next. I knew The Red Wedding was coming, I knew Bob Baratheon and Ned Stark were going to die. I know that Joffrey dies. I know how Game of Thrones played out, because I've already seen it. But, due to how intricate the story of The Song of Ice and Fire is, many plot elements must exist in the show, or the plot wont work.

How much source material needs to be cut to make a filmable medium? For example, internal monologues never translate well to screen.
How much source material needs to be cut to reach a wider audience? Not just the original fans, but, how much source material needs to be cut (or added) to make new fans?
How much source material needs to be cut to fit it into a TV format? Does the show go for ~25 minutes or ~50 minutes? How many episodes per season is the studio willing to pay for? 10? 12? 20? 24? Do the writers know that they have a permanent gig? Or is the show renewed on a per-year basis from ratings? How much effort should you put into a show when you don't even know if you'll get cancelled in a single or not?
How much source material needs to be cut to come in under budget? How much budget per episode/season does a series get?

Sometimes, it's just unrealistic for certain shows/movies to stick to the source material. Constraints are put on the showrunners/writers/studio/actors/etc. that make it impossible to stick the source material, even if they want to.

How much source material needs to be cut, before it stops becoming an adaptation, and starts looking like an attempt to simply hold onto a license?

[Mx.Silver]

Eh, I think the thread is being a bit hard on Random since what he's detailing is kind of a problem.
I'm not sure it actually is a problem though. Well, that's not quite true: I do think there is a problem (more than one, in fact), but that problem isn't 'adaptations not being faithful to source material', which -- if that should even be considered a problem at all* -- is more of a by-product. Overly risk-averse production leading to worse creative output from the industry, eschewing original concepts in favour of derivative bandwagon-jumping/cash-grabs (among other problems), is a bad state of affairs, but adaptive film is generally going to be around regardless of what state the industry's in. Getting angry at the latter works for not being true enough to the source material probably isn't going to help that much in any case -- if that anger involves demanding new adaptations be made that could even end-up being counter-productive.

The other problem though, stems from that 'manipulation' claim. More specifically, letting being a 'fan' of something dictate someone' personal identity in the first place. Conflating their interests with their characteristics. And the thing is: while this is to a degree something that people are prone to doing, it is at least in part a manipulation. Marketing departments across various media and wider industry spend enormous amounts of time and money cultivating and promoting this sort of 'fandom as identity' idea because it makes selling things to people far easier. Comics have been exploiting this for a long time ("Are you a Marvel reader or a DC reader?"), although the videogame industry is still probably the king of this in the media world.
Getting angry at adaptations not being faithful enough, buying into the idea that a work in some way needs a film adaptation that you as a fan are somehow obligated to see, is fundamentally still remaining part of that underlying state of affairs. It's not the "taking advantage of a social contract" that's a problem, it's assuming that there was ever a social contract anywhere to begin with.




*which personally speaking I would say it shouldn't. Not when considering the amount of good-to-great adaptive films that take huge liberties with the source material (e.g. Blade Runner; Apocalypse Now; Throne of Blood; etc.)

[BWR]

When you can't really tell what the adaptation is supposedly adapted from without being told, it isn't an adaptation. The Lucifer show is a good example of this. If it hadn't been billed as an adaptation of the comics or the character, I don't think anyone here would have complained. As it is, it changed so much you can hardly even say it got things wrong because there is so little in common with the source material.


Adaptations that aren't too true to the source material can, as noted above, be good but the important thing here is they aren't being billed as the source material. Apocalypse Now isn't claiming to be Heart of Darkness. Throne of Blood isn't pretending to be Macbeth. The source material shines through but the changes aren't bad because the final product is inspired by the original rather than a bad attempt at being same-yet-different.

I know adaptations have to make changes. Different media work differently and money constraints, time constraints and more necessitate alterations. So long as they are true to the spirit and the general flow of events, I'm usually fine with changes, which is why I generally liked the Constantine show. What I generally find inexcusable is when they change the personality of characters (like in Lucifer) and miss the point of the original, again as in Lucifer or the "I am Legend" movie or Burton's Alice movies, or what they did with Chas in Constantine.

[druid91]

It's disappointing to be sure. I'd have loved a (singular) Hobbit movie as good as Fellowship of the Ring. Didn't get it, won't get it, life goes on, and all I'm really out is the price of a movie ticket. It's not something I'm gonna get angry about; it's entirely non-productive, and being angry for the pleasure of anger is not a path I want to walk down.

That's been out since I was litterally a child. It was animated and awesome.

[Legato Endless]

I'm not sure it actually is a problem though. Well, that's not quite true: I do think there is a problem (more than one, in fact), but that problem isn't 'adaptations not being faithful to source material', which -- if that should even be considered a problem at all* -- is more of a by-product. Overly risk-averse production leading to worse creative output from the industry, eschewing original concepts in favour of derivative bandwagon-jumping/cash-grabs (among other problems), is a bad state of affairs, but adaptive film is generally going to be around regardless of what state the industry's in. Getting angry at the latter works for not being true enough to the source material probably isn't going to help that much in any case -- if that anger involves demanding new adaptations be made that could even end-up being counter-productive.

No, I think you're conflating my view which isn't precisely in line with Randoms, especially considering the purity of the Hercules myth crack he made. Myths are ever in a state of flux, kindly explain to me how Odysseus can meet Hercules in the Underworld and yet he managed to ascend to Godhood, and so on and so forth.

True enough is not my issue. Ive no issue with a story being reworked in itself. My issue is on the extreme end when studios stamps a known works names onto what was obviously a different project simply to get the idea green light. Thats a disservice to both parties. And its not really an adaptation in any sense of the word save the most superficial. I don't see why that should exist at all from the persecutive of anything besides a byproduct of industrial flaws. So yeah, that sounds like a problem.


When you can't really tell what the adaptation is supposedly adapted from without being told, it isn't an adaptation. The Lucifer show is a good example of this. If it hadn't been billed as an adaptation of the comics or the character, I don't think anyone here would have complained. As it is, it changed so much you can hardly even say it got things wrong because there is so little in common with the source material.

BWR gets it.

[random11]

I see that the thread is full of discussions that are less related to the problem I presented, so I want to give a few examples to clarify what I think the problem is.

1) Avatar the last airbender movie
The movie was bad both as an adaptation and as a movie by itself, I don't think there will be much arguments about this here.
However, this is not the problem I was talking about.
Even if this was a horrible adaptation, you can see that the creator at least TRIED to make it based on the series.
Fans of the series still has a right to be pissed about this movie, but it's not from the same reason I was talking about.

2) Neverending story movies.
The source material is my personal favorite book of all times, I loved the first movie as a kid, got confused by the second and only years later when I read the book, I understood what happened: The problem is that the first movie ended in the middle of the book.
If it was done today, they would make it as a two part movie, or maybe even stretch it to a trilogy. But these were different times, and I understand the limitations.
So the first movie was good even if it wasn't a faithful adaptation, and in the second they were limited both by the book and by how they ended the first one, so they had to fight themselves to write the script.
While the second was not such a good movie in my opinion, I can respect the writers for at least TRYING to be faithful with the limitations they had.
They missed the main ideas and plots of the book, but at least they tried.
So both movies, even if they are very different from the source material, do not relate to the problem I was talking about.

I cannot say the same for the third though...
I didn't even know it existed before I saw the Nostalgia Critic review about it, and without doubt, this movie does enter the list of "name only" examples.
It was an attempt to use the nostalgia of all the people who loved the movie, but had NOTHING in common with both the book or the movies that came before.
Sometimes names and ideas were tossed to remind the viewers what it was supposed to be, but it was hollow and meaningless.

3) Mythology (especially Greek), almost every adaptation.
In this example, I'm not sure if it should or should not enter the list.
It has all the right elements - A movie or TV series that promises the adventures of Hercules/Zeus/Whatever, sells it to mythology fans like myself, but gives a story that is barely recognizable.
However, there are multiple source materials, and the material is so old and different from our culture, it should be obvious changes will be made.
There is also the question if it was sold as an adaptation or if it was obvious from the start that the writers will go for a different direction.

So similar to what I wrote earlier in the thread about remakes of Spider-man or Batman, some examples might technically be on the list, but I tend to be more forgiving about them.


I hope that helps clarify my view on what I think the problem is.

[Closet_Skeleton]

However, there are multiple source materials, and the material is so old and different from our culture, it should be obvious changes will be made.

If you get angry with a mythology adaptation for getting the plot/themes wrong you don't know your mythology.

If you get go into a Disney movie and are shocked to find a bland product barely propped up by solid musical workmanship then I hope you never make the same mistake again. Its after all a company that exists purely to rewrite copy right laws so it can corrupt them into a tool of abuse of the group the laws were intended to protect.

Of course Disney's Hercules sucked, its Disney doing Hercules. But its changes to the source material are 100% fitting to how mythology should be approached. There's value in historical accuracy if you want to understand past cultures, but that's history not story telling. From a story telling perspective, timeless narratives are valuable only for their ability to be retold with new emphasis and meaning.

[Traab]

If you get angry with a mythology adaptation for getting the plot/themes wrong you don't know your mythology.

If you get go into a Disney movie and are shocked to find a bland product barely propped up by solid musical workmanship then I hope you never make the same mistake again. Its after all a company that exists purely to rewrite copy right laws so it can corrupt them into a tool of abuse of the group the laws were intended to protect.

Of course Disney's Hercules sucked, its Disney doing Hercules. But its changes to the source material are 100% fitting to how mythology should be approached. There's value in historical accuracy if you want to understand past cultures, but that's history not story telling. From a story telling perspective, timeless narratives are valuable only for their ability to be retold with new emphasis and meaning.

And if I wanted to re-release Monopoly by turning it into a first person shooter, you wouldnt be annoyed that I destroyed what the actual game was about? Its not about the history as such, its about stealing the name and reputation of something then releasing a product that has nothing to do with it. If I am advertising the next lotr film and you sit down at the theater expecting to see lotr, only for it to be the next jackie chan adventure, you should be upset by that. These various mythologies are classics for a reason. They are well known for a reason. To take these well known works of literature and just obliterate everything they were about while using its name and reputation to get attention for something that is barely connected at best is just wrong.

If you want to write up a film about a demigod falling in love, and saving their pantheons version of heaven or whatever, thats fine, but dont steal the name of something famous if you arent going to be even remotely faithful to the source material. If you are advertising a friday the 13th movie, I expect to sit down and watch a dude in a hockey mask try to kill a bunch of teens that can barely stop fornicating long enough to run screaming. I dont expect to see a whacky comedy adventure where jason vorhees goes back to high school and falls in love with a cheerleader while playing second string goalie for the local hockey team.

[Sam113097]

I feel like the way an adaptation should be approached differs based on the source material. Game of Thrones, for example, has had to simplify/combine many aspects of A Song of Ice and Fire in order to work as a TV show. Personally, I have enjoyed the different take on the story, as it allows for interactions between characters/extra scenes that didn't occur in the books or show a new perspective. I disagree with some of the changes, but you can tell that the show runners are telling the same story as the books, just in a different way.

The Magicians is one of my favorite books series, but its content seemed pretty unfilmable to me. I was initially pretty upset to find that the TV series, so far, has not followed the plot of the books closely. However, I came to enjoy seeing what was basically a new story with the same world and characters I enjoyed in the books. In this case, drastic changes were made to plot of the books, but they turned out to be enjoyable and still respect the "spirit" of the books.

The film version of World War Z, on the other hand, completely ignored the source material, and made changes that were unnecessary from a filmmaking standpoint and abandoned the "spirit" of the novel. It truly was an "in name only" adaptation.

In short, I believe that "in name only" adaptations are fine as long as they stay true to the tone and major themes of their source material.

[Cheesegear]

In this case, drastic changes were made to plot of the books, but they turned out to be enjoyable and still respect the "spirit" of the books.

Norman Reedus auditioned for Merle on The Walking Dead. He was completely wrong for the part, but his audition was so good that the showrunners completely invented Darryl just for him.

[t209]

The film version of World War Z, on the other hand, completely ignored the source material, and made changes that were unnecessary from a filmmaking standpoint and abandoned the "spirit" of the novel. It truly was an "in name only" adaptation.
And didn't help by the fact that the author said "as long as they adapted it" in his interviews.
Except I kinda already bugged with "let's focus on a single family and one guy instead of society as a whole" in disaster movies (Day After Tomorrow, 2012, No Escape*, and Dante's Peak).
*I am aware of controversy but I feel that it would be better had they made it a multi-perspective movie.

[Closet_Skeleton]

To take these well known works of literature and just obliterate everything they were about while using its name and reputation to get attention for something that is barely connected at best is just wrong.

Mythology isn't literature. Hesiod's Theogyny is literature. Appollonius' Argonautica is. Ovid's Metamorphisis is. But 'Hercules' is not, he's a character spread over the world by Roman Imperialism so they could steal stories from conquered territories and slap a Greek derived name on them. Peisander's Heracleia was once a work of literature, but its now lost and all we have are derivatives of it. There is no 'story of Hercules' to faithfully adapt. Even the concept of 12 labours (which the Disney film does use) wasn't 'canonical' in the ancient world.



Concerning Heracles, I heard it said that he was one of the twelve gods. But nowhere in Egypt could I hear anything about the other Heracles, whom the Greeks know. [2] I have indeed a lot of other evidence that the name of Heracles did not come from Hellas to Egypt, but from Egypt to Hellas (and in Hellas to those Greeks who gave the name Heracles to the son of Amphitryon), besides this: that Amphitryon and Alcmene, the parents of this Heracles, were both Egyptian by descent1 ; and that the Egyptians deny knowing the names Poseidon and the Dioscuri, nor are these gods reckoned among the gods of Egypt. [3] Yet if they got the name of any deity from the Greeks, of these not least but in particular would they preserve a recollection, if indeed they were already making sea voyages and some Greeks, too, were seafaring men, as I expect and judge; so that the names of these gods would have been even better known to the Egyptians than the name of Heracles. [4] But Heracles is a very ancient god in Egypt; as the Egyptians themselves say, the change of the eight gods to the twelve, one of whom they acknowledge Heracles to be, was made seventeen thousand years before the reign of Amasis.

Moreover, wishing to get clear information about this matter where it was possible so to do, I took ship for Tyre in Phoenicia, where I had learned by inquiry that there was a holy temple of Heracles.1 [2] There I saw it, richly equipped with many other offerings, besides two pillars, one of refined gold, one of emerald: a great pillar that shone at night; and in conversation with the priests, I asked how long it was since their temple was built. [3] I found that their account did not tally with the belief of the Greeks, either; for they said that the temple of the god was founded when Tyre first became a city, and that was two thousand three hundred years ago. At Tyre I saw yet another temple of the so-called Thasian Heracles. [4] Then I went to Thasos, too, where I found a temple of Heracles built by the Phoenicians, who made a settlement there when they voyaged in search of Europe; now they did so as much as five generations before the birth of Heracles the son of Amphitryon in Hellas. [5] Therefore, what I have discovered by inquiry plainly shows that Heracles is an ancient god. And furthermore, those Greeks, I think, are most in the right, who have established and practise two worships of Heracles, sacrificing to one Heracles as to an immortal, and calling him the Olympian, but to the other bringing offerings as to a dead hero2.

And the Greeks say many other ill-considered things, too; among them, this is a silly story which they tell about Heracles: that when he came to Egypt, the Egyptians crowned him and led him out in a procession to sacrifice him to Zeus; and for a while (they say) he followed quietly, but when they started in on him at the altar, he resisted and killed them all. [2] Now it seems to me that by this story the Greeks show themselves altogether ignorant of the character and customs of the Egyptians; for how should they sacrifice men when they are forbidden to sacrifice even beasts, except swine and bulls and bull-calves, if they are unblemished, and geese? [3] And furthermore, as Heracles was alone, and, still, only a man, as they say, how is it natural that he should kill many myriads? In talking so much about this, may I keep the goodwill of gods and heroes!


Most mythological literature was written as part of a four thousand year long pissing contest between different city states and temples. Appropriating motifs from neighbouring cultures for political reasons was kind of the whole point. Greek mythology is just Chinese whispers versions of the mythology of the Hittite Empire, which was just a grab bag of incompatible stories from conquered peoples, primarily the Hurrians, whose mythology was a polemical version of Babylonian mythology which was a demonisation of Sumerian mythology.

The use of Greek figures by one of the prime players of American cultural imperialism might be in some ways a slight against ancient Greece, but that's just another way in which its just a continuation of the same endless process the Greeks were part of.

If you want to defend 'literature' against 'overly liberal adaptation' you won't have any literature left to defend (pretty much all of Shakespeare will have to be thrown out).

[Traab]

Hercules isnt the point! Forget about hercules! This is about someone releasing a film called Great Expectations, based on the charles dickens novel, only for me to go watch it and see a romcom set in steampunk asia! The entire point is about people releasing a product that takes the name and reputation of something well known, and releases something that has little to do with it if anything at all. Adaptations are fine, adaptations where the source material you are supposedly drawing from is nowhere to be found or at best cheaply pasted onto it, "What do you mean its unfaithful? The lead character is CALLED Pip! Sure its about him falling in love with his mechanic as he builds a mecha fit to conquer the galaxy, but I fail to see how thats unfaithful." is not.

Its no different than releasing a drink called pepsi and having it taste like chocolate milk. It says pepsi, its not unreasonable to expect it to taste like pepsi, and I think everyone would have the right to get upset when instead they get chocolate milk.

[The Glyphstone]

Is it bad that all of your ideas sound awesome, Traab? I'd play the heck out of a Monopoly-themed GTA clone, and I like the taste of chocolate milk but hate the taste of Pepsi.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Hercules isnt the point! Forget about hercules!

If you're just making an on topic post that isn't specifically about the point I was making, why are you quoting me?

I'm just confused.

[Kitten Champion]

Is it bad that all of your ideas sound awesome, Traab? I'd play the heck out of a Monopoly-themed GTA clone, and I like the taste of chocolate milk but hate the taste of Pepsi.

Oh, on the other hand, a GTA-themed Monopoly would be fun. Use one of the fictional cities as the base, utilities would be the various criminal sectors - drugs, prostitution, black market, etc - the game pieces could be various vehicles from the games, and you could have a lot of fun with Chance cards.

Although, with the proliferation of various Monopolys with famous genera IP-themes I wouldn't be surprised if there was one already.

[The Glyphstone]

Oh, on the other hand, a GTA-themed Monopoly would be fun. Use one of the fictional cities as the base, utilities would be the various criminal sectors - drugs, prostitution, black market, etc - the game pieces could be various vehicles from the games, and you could have a lot of fun with Chance cards.

Although, with the proliferation of various Monopolys with famous genera IP-themes I wouldn't be surprised if there was one already.

I'm pretty sure this is fake, sadly.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/monopoly/images/b/bd/500x_monopoly.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131104113344

[Traab]

If you're just making an on topic post that isn't specifically about the point I was making, why are you quoting me?

I'm just confused.

Because you are missing the point entirely to attack the example instead. The point is that an adaptation should be in more than name only. As an example, when they did the leonardo dicaprio version of romeo and juliet. They took the original script, and stuck it into modern times. That was an adaptation done right. If you liked the movie or not is a different matter, what i mean is, they took the source material, made their change to it while still leaving it clearly connected to the source, and released it as what it was. They didnt call the movie romeo and juliet then release a film where leonardo dicaprio is playing the role of hamlet.

When a game is called final fantasy, I expect a sword and sorcery based rpg. I dont expect to be playing a puzzle game like Myst. When I read a book titled Harry Potter, I expect a story about a kid going to magic school, not a space opera. When I watch a movie called The Avengers I expect to see Uma Thurmon exchanging polite repartee with Ralph Fiennes. Not some freaky green giant fighting alongside a man encased in metal! yes that last one was a joke

[Ravian]

I think the problem I've had with Lucifer is why they marketed it as an adaptation.

Lucifer is a public domain character, hell I'm pretty sure you could still put him running a night club in LA and no one would bat an eye at the similarities with the comic. There is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of the devil helping cops with crimes (other than the over-proliferation of cop dramas as a cheap substitute for creative plot set-ups, but that's neither here nor there.)

The problem is it isn't "Lucifer", and because of that those who enjoyed the original comic feel deceived.

They literally could have taken the same basic concept of "Devil helps cops solve mysteries.", and ran with it without any sort of additional billing, and people probably would have still watched it regardless.

But they didn't do that. They took a comic series well-known for its more philosophical moments and look at the question of faith and free will, told people that this was going to be a show about that, and then gave us a Cop Show. They tried to have it both ways, banking on using a recognizable property to bring in a core fandom, while shying away from the complexities that people enjoyed about the comic in question and instead relying on mass appeal through a tried and true formulaic structure.

I understand that the show might be great, but it never should have been marketed as an adaptation. You lost nothing by simply having the character be the public domain Lucifer, and they betrayed the very fans they were hoping to attract.


It just strikes me as lazy, like you told everyone you were having steak, then serving them hamburger. The hamburger's fine, and serving it probably got more picky eaters to enjoy it, but if you were going to serve hamburger you should just say it's hamburger, not get everyone excited for a nice steak before revealing you decided to simplify things by throwing it in the meat grinder first.

Granted there are acceptable variations. If I'm told we're having steak and it turns out to have an unexpected seasoning to it, I'm intrigued. My opinion is likely to vary by how much I enjoy this particular seasoning, but as long as it's still recognizably steak, I can't hate it too much. But changing so much of the basic nature that people enjoy so much and still calling it steak is just deceptive.

[BannedInSchool]

Lucifer is a public domain character, hell I'm pretty sure you could still put him running a night club in LA and no one would bat an eye at the similarities with the comic.

Ehh, I think the lawyers might, so that would be a reason to get the rights even if those were the only similarities.

[BWR]

Ehh, I think the lawyers might, so that would be a reason to get the rights even if those were the only similarities.

But you could remove that one little thing and the problem would be solved. There was no need to have Lucifer run a nightclub. He could easily have been an independently wealthy playboy with exactly the same effect. Ravian is exactly correct in pointing out why many of us who liked the comic feel the show is terrible. When they pretend it's an adaptation but get everything wrong, it's bad. If they hadn't pretended, well, the show wouldn't be any more enjoyable but it wouldn't be the insult it was.
If you say you want to adapt something but discard everything except the names, you obviously don't want to adapt something, you just want the free PR of the names.

[Ravian]

But you could remove that one little thing and the problem would be solved. There was no need to have Lucifer run a nightclub. He could easily have been an independently wealthy playboy with exactly the same effect. Ravian is exactly correct in pointing out why many of us who liked the comic feel the show is terrible. When they pretend it's an adaptation but get everything wrong, it's bad. If they hadn't pretended, well, the show wouldn't be any more enjoyable but it wouldn't be the insult it was.
If you say you want to adapt something but discard everything except the names, you obviously don't want to adapt something, you just want the free PR of the names.

I wouldn't call it objectively terrible, I haven't watched enough to judge it as such. But I also have little reason to watch it, and I feel cheated.

Going back to my steak analogy. I don't dislike hamburger, I enjoy hamburger quite often, but don't give me hamburger and call it steak, especially when you specifically said there would be steak to get me to the table.

I didn't read Lucifer for cop drama and supernatural mysteries, I could get that from Supernatural, or any other supernatural urban fantasy out there. I read Lucifer because of Paradise Lost, and Sandman, because of weird cosmic philosophical questions that make you think beyond simple conflicts like "will they catch the crook?"

[BiblioRook]

...and I like the taste of chocolate milk but hate the taste of Pepsi.

Not to get bogged down in the metaphor, but then why would you be drinking a drink called 'Pepsi' if you didn't like Pepsi, even if it ultimately ended up tasking like chocolate milk? I guess word of mouth can work here, someone saying "Hey, you should really try that new 'Pepsi' drink, I know you normally don't like that stuff but it actually tastes more like chocolate milk which you do like', or do you just routinely drink stuff you don't like in the off chance it tastes like something utterly different then how it normally would?

Then there's the question of why the drink was made. Was it made to try to get people who like chocolate milk attached to the Pepsi brand? But how would they even know to try it unless it was marketed as something other then Pepsi? At that point why bother making it 'Pepsi' in the first place?

Okay, I need to break away from the metaphor now because if I go on I'm just going to confuse myself.

Another poster put it nicely saying elsewhere that remakes/reboots typically aren't made for the core fan-base already established but rather an attempt to draw in new fans. I think they also went on to say that adaptions typically are made for the more established fan-base but I actually kind of disagree considering that in these days any adaptation is also automatically a reboot or a 'remake'.

[Cheesegear]

I think the problem I've had with Lucifer is why they marketed it as an adaptation.

Essentially, the argument is "Marketing/Advertising lied to me!"
If we're going down that road, we're in for a bad time, and unfaithful movie/TV adaptations are only the very, very tip of the iceberg.

Should you be mad that advertising lied to you? ...For a little bit, maybe. Then once you've calmed down you should know that you should've seen it coming, and advertisers trading/banking on source material in no way. At all. Is an indicator of the final product. You know this. You've seen it a hundred times. It's not new. It's not like this is the first time it's happened. This is what marketing companies do. They rely on sheep fans of the source material to be invested because of the source material, not because of the final product.

Should you be mad over advertising? ...I don't know. Some people might. But not me. Being a person that has been burned so many times, I no longer about source material adaptations. Starship Troopers was nothing like the book, and I loved it. Ender's Game was almost exactly like the book, give or take the boring parts that wont fly in 20xx (e.g; Locke and Demosthenes (https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/635:_Locke_and_Demosthenes)) and I hated it.

A medium stands on its own, or falls. Trading on the source material is what executives want you to do. They want you invested because of the source material. Whether or not the final product is any good.
Fellowship of the Ring was boring. The book was great. The movie was boring. I'm not going to pretend that I liked the movie because I liked the book. That's not how it works. That's how it should never work - but advertisers want it to.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Because you are missing the point entirely to attack the example instead. The point is that an adaptation should be in more than name only.

I wasn't attacking an example, I was using it as an example of all mythology stories.

You're ignoring my point completely, which I stated as plainly as I could.


Mythology isn't literature.

R + J was a performance as much as an adaptation. Most adaptations can't do that, so its useless as an ideal.

[Ravian]

Essentially, the argument is "Marketing/Advertising lied to me!"
If we're going down that road, we're in for a bad time, and unfaithful movie/TV adaptations are only the very, very tip of the iceberg.

Should you be mad that advertising lied to you? ...For a little bit, maybe. Then once you've calmed down you should know that you should've seen it coming, and advertisers trading/banking on source material in no way. At all. Is an indicator of the final product. You know this. You've seen it a hundred times. It's not new. It's not like this is the first time it's happened. This is what marketing companies do. They rely on sheep fans of the source material to be invested because of the source material, not because of the final product.

Should you be mad over advertising? ...I don't know. Some people might. But not me. Being a person that has been burned so many times, I no longer about source material adaptations. Starship Troopers was nothing like the book, and I loved it. Ender's Game was almost exactly like the book, give or take the boring parts that wont fly in 20xx (e.g; Locke and Demosthenes (https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/635:_Locke_and_Demosthenes)) and I hated it.

A medium stands on its own, or falls. Trading on the source material is what executives want you to do. They want you invested because of the source material. Whether or not the final product is any good.
Fellowship of the Ring was boring. The book was great. The movie was boring. I'm not going to pretend that I liked the movie because I liked the book. That's not how it works. That's how it should never work - but advertisers want it to.

Frankly I consider Starship Troopers to also be a perfect example of the problem I have with this sort of adaptation.

That the movie Starship Troopers was good is irrelevant, by no rights should have it been called an adaptation (For a long period it wasn't, it was called Bug Hunt on Outpost Nine until the studio decided to slap a few character names and superficial plot details and call it an adaptation. What resulted was that most fans of the actual book were offended.


This is the problem with these superficial adaptations, that they don't draw people in, merely push them away.
It doesn't feel just like an "Advertising lied to me!" It feels like they're distorting a work for a more common denominator.

Lucifer is a examination of faith and free will, now it's a cop show.

I'm not going to go up on my high horse and claim that a work is inferior because it doesn't ask philosophically riveting questions. But you have to consider how the fans feel when a work that made them think about things is dumbed down for a wider audience.

And the problem is that it's so clear that the changes made were unnecessary. No one would have batted an eye if they made Lucifer without the half-assed ties to the comics.

Yes, advertising lied to me, but I'm not mad because I was tricked (I could tell from before it was released that they weren't going to be faithful to the comic.) I'm mad because they didn't trust me enough to tell the truth.

Had they called this show anything else, I probably would have watched an episode or two and judged for myself on its quality, but they didn't do that, they decided to bank on a title and hope that none of the fans would notice the show was almost nothing like the original.

It's not that they tricked me, it's that they thought I was stupid enough to fall for the trick, and in the end they did the exact opposite of what an adaptation is intended to do, alienate the core fandom.

[Kitten Champion]

Lucifer is a examination of faith and free will, now it's a cop show.


I personally like the irony that they showed neither exists within network television with that decision.

[huttj509]

Frankly I consider Starship Troopers to also be a perfect example of the problem I have with this sort of adaptation.

That the movie Starship Troopers was good is irrelevant, by no rights should have it been called an adaptation (For a long period it wasn't, it was called Bug Hunt on Outpost Nine until the studio decided to slap a few character names and superficial plot details and call it an adaptation. What resulted was that most fans of the actual book were offended.


This is the problem with these superficial adaptations, that they don't draw people in, merely push them away.
It doesn't feel just like an "Advertising lied to me!" It feels like they're distorting a work for a more common denominator.

Lucifer is a examination of faith and free will, now it's a cop show.

I'm not going to go up on my high horse and claim that a work is inferior because it doesn't ask philosophically riveting questions. But you have to consider how the fans feel when a work that made them think about things is dumbed down for a wider audience.

And the problem is that it's so clear that the changes made were unnecessary. No one would have batted an eye if they made Lucifer without the half-assed ties to the comics.

Yes, advertising lied to me, but I'm not mad because I was tricked (I could tell from before it was released that they weren't going to be faithful to the comic.) I'm mad because they didn't trust me enough to tell the truth.

Had they called this show anything else, I probably would have watched an episode or two and judged for myself on its quality, but they didn't do that, they decided to bank on a title and hope that none of the fans would notice the show was almost nothing like the original.

It's not that they tricked me, it's that they thought I was stupid enough to fall for the trick, and in the end they did the exact opposite of what an adaptation is intended to do, alienate the core fandom.

Starship Troopers is an even worse example because it was deliberate. The director grew up in Mussolini's Italy. Felt Starship Troopers was fascist #$^%&, and when the change was made decided to highlight the fascist #$%^. There's a reason parts feel, um, very Nazi.

[The Glyphstone]

Starship Troopers is an even worse example because it was deliberate. The director grew up in Mussolini's Italy. Felt Starship Troopers was fascist #$^%&, and when the change was made decided to highlight the fascist #$%^. There's a reason parts feel, um, very Nazi.

That seems to clash with the director having gone on record that he didn't actually read the novel, because he felt it was too boring and depressing after the first few chapters.

[BiblioRook]

That seems to clash with the director having gone on record that he didn't actually read the novel, because he felt it was too boring and depressing after the first few chapters.

Reminds me of another infamously bad adaptation, The Last Airbender, and how Shyamalan admitted knowing nothing about the series before being offered the chance to direct it beyond what he occasionally saw when his kids would watch it.

[huttj509]

That seems to clash with the director having gone on record that he didn't actually read the novel, because he felt it was too boring and depressing after the first few chapters.

And after those first few chapters, he didn't want to muddle through what he felt was the fascist preaching.

"In a 2014 interview on The Adam Carolla Show, actor Michael Ironside, who read the book as a youth, said he asked Verhoeven, who grew up in Nazi-occupied Netherlands, "Why are you doing a right-wing fascist movie?" Verhoeven replied, "If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships, but it's only good for killing f-----g bugs!""

Sorry, Netherlands, not Italy.

[Ceiling_Squid]

And after those first few chapters, he didn't want to muddle through what he felt was the fascist preaching.

"In a 2014 interview on The Adam Carolla Show, actor Michael Ironside, who read the book as a youth, said he asked Verhoeven, who grew up in Nazi-occupied Netherlands, "Why are you doing a right-wing fascist movie?" Verhoeven replied, "If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships, but it's only good for killing f-----g bugs!""

Sorry, Netherlands, not Italy.

Mangling the themes of the work you're presenting... yeah, that's shoddy adaptation.

Mostly because not everyone agrees with his estimation of those supposed "fascist" undertones.

Thanks to Verhoeven, there's unlikely to be an actual, faithful adaptation of a seminal work of science fiction. Since his film is what the public remembers, not the book.

That's the real tragedy with crap adaptations that displace the original in the public eye. It's why Dredd failed, thanks to that terrible Stallone film that preceded it. Well, that and terrible advertising.

Edit: Keep in mind, I actually enjoyed Verhoeven's film. But it was horrible as an adaptation. Should have been given another title, since it is a vicious parody of the original at best.

[Traab]

Mangling the themes of the work you're presenting... yeah, that's shoddy adaptation.

Mostly because not everyone agrees with his estimation of those supposed "fascist" undertones.

Thanks to Verhoeven, there's unlikely to be an actual, faithful adaptation of a seminal work of science fiction. Since his film is what the public remembers, not the book.

That's the real tragedy with crap adaptations that displace the original in the public eye. It's why Dredd failed, thanks to that terrible Stallone film that preceded it. Well, that and terrible advertising.

Edit: Keep in mind, I actually enjoyed Verhoeven's film. But it was horrible as an adaptation. Should have been given another title, since it is a vicious parody of the original at best.

Now im a bit on the fence about Princess Bride. Has anyone read the book? If you havent.... dont. I just cant comprehend how someone read that book and said, "You know what? I can make an awesome hilarious amazing film out of this!"

[Legato Endless]

Now im a bit on the fence about Princess Bride. Has anyone read the book? If you havent.... dont. I just cant comprehend how someone read that book and said, "You know what? I can make an awesome hilarious amazing film out of this!"

...you mean the original author? :smallconfused:

[Traab]

...you mean the original author? :smallconfused:

The original author is the one who wrote the screenplay for the film? Seriously? I guess he learned something then.

[huttj509]

The original author is the one who wrote the screenplay for the film? Seriously? I guess he learned something then.

Book was 1973, movie was 1987. He had plenty of time to wrangle things in his mind.

[Benthesquid]

...you mean the original author? :smallconfused:

Erm... pretty sure S. Morgenstern didn't have anything to do with the film adaptation. His estate tried to block it, IIRC.

Yes, I'm quite aware, thank you.

[random11]

It's funny that "The Princess Bride" is mentioned in this thread, since the main point of the book (at last one of them) was about adapting a source material faithfully, but while making necessary changes.

I loved both the novel and the movie.
While it was not a "word by word" adaptation, it was certainly not "by name only" either.
Most of the plot remained, and there is no way someone who read the book could mistake it for something else if only names were changed.
Also, it was a good thing they adapted the movie differently, because most of the subtle humor that worked in the book would be boring if shown on the screen.

Anyway, I think this is one example of an adaptation that was both faithful and different at the same time.

(BTW, the "original author" of the book is fictional and did not really exist)

[Vinyadan]

Mythology isn't literature. ... 'Hercules' is not, he's a character spread over the world by Roman Imperialism so they could steal stories from conquered territories and slap a Greek derived name on them.

[citation needed] Especially concerning the imperialism part, given that the Romans never made any effort to romanize anyone, limiting themselves to stomping out what was seen as politically unacceptable (certain druids, for example), if you mean cultural imperialism; the only other interpretation I can see is (wrongly) conflating imperialism and Empire.

[Ceiling_Squid]

Yeah, that's a bit off-the-wall.

The Romans were quite successful at incorporating conquered cultures into the Empire. Aggressive Romanization would have been doing things the hard way.

[Olinser]

Frankly there are (3) categories of adaptations in name only. Some you should be mad at, some you should not.

1) They didn't actually intend to adapt the story at all, but they were advised that the story they wrote was too similar to an existing intellectual property. So rather than re-write their story they get the intellectual rights and just go with it.

I wouldn't say I'm 'mad' at this when it happens. More like 'moderately annoyed'.


2) Adaptation features a different story because the writer/director/whatever liked the characters and the general story, but wanted to make a NEW story featuring characters rather than re-hash the same story everybody already knows, or perhaps fix problems with the original story. They also do this with most of the James Bond novels and a lot of the TV superheroes like Flash.

This seems to be what they're doing with Lucifer (which I enjoy, btw, and am glad they're getting a 2nd season). They took the premise of the show and went their own direction with it.

A good example of problem fixing is Goldfinger. The original Ian Flemming novel actually had the villain's plan be steal the gold from Fort Knox. The movie crew realized how stupid that was, so they changed his plan to destroying/irradiating the gold to drive the value of gold through the roof. And the story was much more believable and better for it.

I feel like you shouldn't be mad at this kind of thing. The writers aren't re-hashing the story or trying to pretend they're making a faithful adaptation, they're taking the established characters and writing their own story with them.


3) It's an 'adaptation' only because they happen to have a couple characters with the same names and they advertise it as though they're making ta faithful adaptation (general signs of this are that every single advertisement says something along the lines of 'BASED ON THE STORY BY XXXX!!!!'), but the characters are completely unrecognizable and the story is just trash.

This is the kind of adaptation you should be hopping mad at. Because it's not an adaptation. It's nothing more than a cynical attempt to cash in on something's popularity.

I haven't seen Preacher so I can't comment, but I definitely don't feel that Lucifer is this. I don't recall actually seeing ANY mention in advertisements for the show that it's based on a comic book/visual novel, and they are writing their own story.

[An Enemy Spy]

It's funny that "The Princess Bride" is mentioned in this thread, since the main point of the book (at last one of them) was about adapting a source material faithfully, but while making necessary changes.

I loved both the novel and the movie.
While it was not a "word by word" adaptation, it was certainly not "by name only" either.
Most of the plot remained, and there is no way someone who read the book could mistake it for something else if only names were changed.
Also, it was a good thing they adapted the movie differently, because most of the subtle humor that worked in the book would be boring if shown on the screen.

Anyway, I think this is one example of an adaptation that was both faithful and different at the same time.

(BTW, the "original author" of the book is fictional and did not really exist)

It's important to also know that the book and the movie were written by the same person.

[Ravian]

2) Adaptation features a different story because the writer/director/whatever liked the characters and the general story, but wanted to make a NEW story featuring characters rather than re-hash the same story everybody already knows, or perhaps fix problems with the original story. They also do this with most of the James Bond novels and a lot of the TV superheroes like Flash.

This seems to be what they're doing with Lucifer (which I enjoy, btw, and am glad they're getting a 2nd season). They took the premise of the show and went their own direction with it.

A good example of problem fixing is Goldfinger. The original Ian Flemming novel actually had the villain's plan be steal the gold from Fort Knox. The movie crew realized how stupid that was, so they changed his plan to destroying/irradiating the gold to drive the value of gold through the roof. And the story was much more believable and better for it.

I feel like you shouldn't be mad at this kind of thing. The writers aren't re-hashing the story or trying to pretend they're making a faithful adaptation, they're taking the established characters and writing their own story with them.


I wouldn't disagree that this may have been the approach the Lucifer creators' took. It could also be an attempt at money-grubbing but the actual (apparent) quality of the show would disagree with that.

If Scenario 2 is the case, then my problem is simply that I don't like the direction they took with it. Lucifer helping cops solve crimes may be a good series, but it still isn't "Lucifer" to me.

I won't fault the creators for having their own vision. Hell, I applaud them if they actually took such a basic plot set-up as "crime drama" and made a good show out of it. But it's still not Lucifer to me without the philosophic elements.

I suppose then that my greatest fault with the show is that its existence serves to dissuade a more faithful adaptation. This is even more of the case if the show is popular. And given that I feel the original story is worth adapting into other mediums, that disappoints me.

Not to mention that between Constantine getting canceled after a single season and the Sandman movie going back into development hell, the Vertigo drought continues for me. (Unfortunately, I've never read Preacher, so I'm not terribly interested in its series.)

At the very least there's still the American Gods series coming up. It ain't Vertigo, but it's Neil Gaiman, and that's just as good for me.

[BiblioRook]

I'm suddenly reminded about how Gaimen pulled the plug on the first attempt at an American Gods series because the producers insisted they made Shadow white...

[Ravian]

I'm suddenly reminded about how Gaimen pulled the plug on the first attempt at an American Gods series because the producers insisted they made Shadow white...

Well luckily he's going to be played by Ricky Whittle for this one.

Personally I didn't actually remember Gaiman mentioning Shadow's race when I read the book, but Whittle looks like he'll make a great Shadow. (Not to mention it'll break up the monotony of white leads in most of these Urban Fantasy series that have been coming out lately.)

I'm mostly happy just to see the story on screen though, especially given my personal love of mythology and folklore.

[BiblioRook]

If memory serves he was half white half black and was described as something along the lines of ambiguously dark, it's been a while though.

[Ravian]

If memory serves he was half white half black and was described as something along the lines of ambiguously dark, it's been a while though.

That makes sense.

Especially considering that Wednesday is his dad. That's probably why I pictured him white while I was reading. (Must have missed the bit about him being mixed race)

[Metahuman1]

As for a more faithful Lucifer, I've heard a lot of talk of HBO doing a Sandman series similar to Game of Thrones and the upcoming Foundation attempt. Does anyone know anything about that?


That could be AWESOME if they do!

[random11]

Frankly there are (3) categories of adaptations in name only. Some you should be mad at, some you should not.

1) They didn't actually intend to adapt the story at all, but they were advised that the story they wrote was too similar to an existing intellectual property. So rather than re-write their story they get the intellectual rights and just go with it.

I wouldn't say I'm 'mad' at this when it happens. More like 'moderately annoyed'.


2) Adaptation features a different story because the writer/director/whatever liked the characters and the general story, but wanted to make a NEW story featuring characters rather than re-hash the same story everybody already knows, or perhaps fix problems with the original story. They also do this with most of the James Bond novels and a lot of the TV superheroes like Flash.

This seems to be what they're doing with Lucifer (which I enjoy, btw, and am glad they're getting a 2nd season). They took the premise of the show and went their own direction with it.

A good example of problem fixing is Goldfinger. The original Ian Flemming novel actually had the villain's plan be steal the gold from Fort Knox. The movie crew realized how stupid that was, so they changed his plan to destroying/irradiating the gold to drive the value of gold through the roof. And the story was much more believable and better for it.

I feel like you shouldn't be mad at this kind of thing. The writers aren't re-hashing the story or trying to pretend they're making a faithful adaptation, they're taking the established characters and writing their own story with them.


3) It's an 'adaptation' only because they happen to have a couple characters with the same names and they advertise it as though they're making ta faithful adaptation (general signs of this are that every single advertisement says something along the lines of 'BASED ON THE STORY BY XXXX!!!!'), but the characters are completely unrecognizable and the story is just trash.

This is the kind of adaptation you should be hopping mad at. Because it's not an adaptation. It's nothing more than a cynical attempt to cash in on something's popularity.

I haven't seen Preacher so I can't comment, but I definitely don't feel that Lucifer is this. I don't recall actually seeing ANY mention in advertisements for the show that it's based on a comic book/visual novel, and they are writing their own story.

I agree that Lucifer is an okay show.
I wouldn't give it more since we have about a million variations of cop shows with quirky sidekicks, but it's not as bad as most f them.

However, I would easily put Lucifer in the third category you presented.
They DID present this as an adaptation of the comic before the first episode was out.
Obviously, they couldn't say the same when the show is already out since fans are not complete idiots, but during the season they dropped JUST enough plot elements from the comic to draw the fan support.
Take the wings for example, if you removed the story about the wings, would it really change anything about what happened in the season? I don't think so.
With the exception of one when they were the focus, the wings were always just there in the background, and never had any impact on an episode.

The answer to the question "so why were they there?" should be obvious to anyone who read the comic.
In the comic, the wings were a major plot element in at least 2 books, and had some impact later in the series.
So while no one claimed it was a faithful adaptation after the series was out, elements like the wings were placed there just to pull us, to give us the illusion that the plot for the comic is right around the corner.