this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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I would argue it's actually a detriment to experience anything other than the source material when adapting a work. Especially with books, different people are going to have wildly different interpretations of the world. The character that exists in your mind is going to be different from somebody else who read the same book. But once it is adapted to a visual medium, you lose a bit of that magic. Which sucks, because all of those previous interpretations are still valid! More valid even, than anything that was put to screen, because they were yours.
I think the argument for accuracy is kind of bullshit anyway (not that you said this, but others have). Is The Shining (the film) worse for the changes it made to the original text? Stephen King might think so; he would also be wrong. You don't want something accurate, you want something that's good. You want somebody with passion and artistic vision to create something new and uniquely amazing. The recent Last Of Us show, to my knowledge, tread pretty closely to the source material. "Aha!" you might say. But what is also true, is that the best episode of that first season was also the probably the biggest deviation from the source material. I probably don't even need to say which one if you've seen the show.
Anyway, companies should hire people who are both passionate about the source material, and want to make something cool and new in that world - not robots who are just going to recreate the original work beat for beat. If I wanted that, why wouldn't I myself just, you know, read the book?
I think a large part of people's issues with the recent trend of adapting/recreating existing media is how the director changed the intent or "soul" of the work.
A story is more than its plot points. It's how The Lion King and Hamlet have the same story bones, but have wildly different morals and audiences. So when a work is adapted for a different medium, stripping it down to its plot points kinda kills the soul of the work. The Avatar animated series and the movie (that doesn't exist) share a lot of plot points, but the movie is clearly soulless because they didn't understand what made the show great, and just retold the story with a slight spin.
The Last of Us worked so well because they understood why it was good, and only made changes "in the spirit" of the original work. They didn't try to put a spin on the story, they just adapted it for the new medium.
That's why understanding the work is so important when you are adapting it to a different medium. If you just transplant the plot points without understanding what makes it good, it's going to be soulless. If you try to just use the characters and setting to tell a different story, it's also going to be soulless because those characters aren't made to tell that story. Make your own characters and tell your own story if you don't want to stick to the spirit of the original work.
The last of us had people involved with creating the source material, I look at the expanse TV series as a good example solid adaptation, ty and Daniel (the book authors) were producers and writers for the show so it kept its spirit Imo. Stuff changed for tv, characters were merged etc but it worked.
I don't exactly agree with this. If the creator has a vision, I say let them try. They should be able to stretch and change and rework things however they want. Of course, the farther they stray, the more it begs the question "Why?" but I don't think it's impossible if they have ideas.
I started writing an "here's why I disagree" reply, but I slowly realized that I kinda agree. Sword Art Online was a pretty bad anime, but SAO Abridged used the same characters and plot points to tell a different type of story and was absolutely terrific
I think the main problem I have is with the scale. If you're remaking something, and you're expecting more people to see the new thing than saw the original, then you should stay faithful to the original (not shot for shot remake, but keep things as close as reasonable) I think I feel this way because if I were an author, I'd be crushed if more people saw the bastardized version of my life's work than saw my original.
There is also the issue with a large majority of recent remakes being quick cash grabs. These do nothing but tarnish the original work by driving away people who may have eventually seen the original.
While I agree in general, different mediums have different strengths and weaknesses, and different appeals. For example, a book is great at telling intricate stories, but will generally fall flat when trying to create an exciting spectacle. Even if the story is very similar, these different strengths (esspecially, but not exclusively when the material is tweaked to account for it). The Lord of the Rings movies come to mind as a good example of that. The books create a cohesive world with intrecate details everywhere whereas the movies, feature so many stunning scenes that you just can't do justice with words alone at the cost of many of these details. You can cover the same story without major core changes while providing a very different and still worth-while experience.