Home Opinion Midweek Mouth-off: Adapt or die!

Midweek Mouth-off: Adapt or die!

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Put your philosophical cap on because today we expect some deeper contemplation from you…

If we love a book, game, comic, TV series etc. etc. why then are we so excited about a movie version? Why do we care so much about a big screen adaptation when we’ve consumed the original? When we already know the characters and story, why do we want to repeat the experience in a different form? Share your theories below.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Critical Hit as an organisation.

Last Updated: March 27, 2013

5 Comments

  1. Sir Captain Rincethis

    March 27, 2013 at 11:17

    Perhaps it has something to do with affirmation. Having a character construct in your own head is great, but then being able to point at something and go ‘That’s Harry Potter’! allows you to ‘properly’ share it with others. Not to mention when it comes to the visual realm of special effects!

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  2. Tracy

    March 27, 2013 at 11:51

    I’m never excited for any tv / movie adaptation of a print media thing, if anything I actively avoid them. If I don’t / can’t avoid them, I end up telling other people “but that never happened in the book!” or some variation thereof. Yes I’m one of *those* people.

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  3. James Francis

    March 27, 2013 at 18:12

    I think it’s because, at least on paper, if you enjoy something the thrill of experiencing it in a new guise can enhance it even more. Think about it just limited to one medium: comics constantly get adapted in a sense, since they rotate artists and writers. Orson Scott Card or Frank Miller didn’t invent Iron Man or Batman, but their respective takes on the characters were game changers and adored by fans. The problem is not so much the adaptation, but how it differs from your interpretation. This is why I loathe the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie but my brother is a ardent supporter of it.

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  4. Kervyn Cloete

    March 27, 2013 at 23:51

    I don’t mind adaptations at all, because of one thing: it’s an adaptation. I like to see what new vision a creator can come up with for a character or story, and I understand that there will be changes, it won’t be a verbatim copy. As long those certain key root elements about the source is respected, then I say go wild and see where your imagination takes you. That is, of course, as long as it doesn’t take you to that same dark place where they thought up the Super Mario Bros movie.

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  5. Wayne Bossenger

    March 28, 2013 at 14:15

    (apologies for the length, got carried away a bit…)
    For me there are a few points that I love (and a few that bug me) about movie versions of the same story we all know.

    Firstly it’s always fantastic to see how the director envisioned the story that you read in a book. Take “War of the Worlds’ as an example, sure, liberties were taken to bring the story to the 21st century, but the main theme to the film still existed. Things that I envisioned while reading appeared differently on screen, and it was fantastic to see.

    Secondly, its for the fans to a certain degree. Sure, purists will feel offended that so many liberties were taken to adapt a great book into film. “The Hunger Games” for me, is a perfect example. I felt they dumbed Katniss down a bit. I’m not saying they made her stupid, just that some of the things she thinks about in the book wasn’t translated well at all to the film. Scenes like the messages she receives from Haymitch (when in the book she comes up with all those ideas on her own) and when Rue points out the Tracker Jacker nest (again, in the book, Katniss has no help identifying it – if I remember that part right?) nevermind all the things she thinks about while being hunted by killer kids. That being said, I really enjoyed the film. Either the stories are shortened to fit the film time, or the book is divided into 3 films ala “the Hobbit” style and then we leave the cinema wanting more, having to wait for 3 years to finish the story.

    Branching from that point above, watching the comic book films are just fantastic! Even though some of the stories seem silly now as we’ve grown with age (emo spidey comes to mind) I loved them when I first watched them. I got to see all my heroes on the Silver Screen doing their thing, and now that I’m older, seems the characters/stories have gotten darker or ‘more-real’ if that’s possible. Films like “the Dark Knight” are just special…

    Perhaps the one thing that doesnt translate well from a book to the reader is the MichaelBayisms… aka the explosions. It’s fantastic to see the action sequences and epic battles the films bring.

    The one problem, specially regarding the superhero films, is the need to make one every few years. I feel somewhat annoyed when there’s another spider-man film that is different to the original trilogy when it is still so fresh in our minds, but again, I loved it, and prefer this new spidey to the old (that 3rd film was soo bad…). What Marvel are doing now is just fantastic, 1 or 2 marvel films a year is great when the characters differ so much. And all these characters being in the same universe! can’t wait for “x-men: days of future past” and “avengers 2”. They’re taking comic-book heroes to a new level and I hope DC can do the same.

    These stories are very entertaining, and for roughly 3 hours you get some great fun our of it. We also know the story being told to a certain extent, and thus, we know the film wont suck (unless you’re ghost rider…). Thankfully though, I’m yet to read a book that has been butchered at the movies…

    (upon closer inspection seems my points are summarised below somewhat… oh well)

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