How Close Should Films/TV Adhere to Their Source Material?

[James]

We all know that for years (and especially in the case of superheroes), films have taken liberties with their source topic. Whether it be comic book or novel, adaptations to films have had mixed success - some of which can be attributed to the glaring alterations from the orginal concept.

You could name Punisher, Spider-Man (Nick Hammond - Spidey without any super foes), Bram Stoker's Dracula, pretty much any Stephen King novel as one of these flawed films.

However sometimes sticking too close to a source or concept that cannot be interpreted into a film have been plagued with areas which just simply didn't translate (Lord Of The Rings, IMO, had areas which I think stuck too close to the book which might have benefited the film with minor alteration - the same goes for Harry Potter).

Examples of Film/Tv adapted and successfully altered could include such as Blade Runner, The Incredible Hulk (Bixby), Batman, X-Men...

Any ideas? Or am I talking drivel..?

[joker]

i think that for the most part, movies/tv shows should stick as close as possilbe to theri source material. in the case of stephen king, i just dont think his books should be put to film, they'd all be 10 hours long and nc-17 if they were acurate to his books. i think they do just fine on paper.

[Failure]

Somewhere in between LOTR and Jurassic Park 2. I was perfectly content with LOTR's book 2 movie translation. In general, I'd like translations to be pretty darn faithful to the original source. As long as its not like JP2 which was a mockery and had nothing to do with the book, besides dinos and destruction, it's a step in the right direction.

[Calhoun07]

I like for them to stick as close as possible to the original source material, but some liberties they take are understandable. For instance, the yellow and black costumes of the X Men would not have worked well on the widescreen, so I can understand why they changed their costumes. But the liberties taken in Batman and Robin are unforgiveable.

[The Mad Hatter]

I'd rather the movies stick as closely to the source material as possible, but honestly, it depends on the situation and the filmmaker. For example, Kubrick's version of The Shining took many, many liberties with the book, but it still was an incredible movie. So sometimes, radical revisions can work. It's just the numerous times that revisions don't work that bugs me...

[The Guard]

I think you need to keep the essence of the characters. With something like LOTR, you can't change it. add sex scenes every ten minutes etc. But you CAN add little things like the Borumir thing. Look at BATMAN. That was successful because it kept Batman's essence (except killing) while telling a new story.

[Maxie Zeus]

I say that whatever changes are needed to create a good movie (and not just a "good adaptation") are the right ones.

I suppose that, all other things being equal, the film should stick close to the book. But even that strikes me as dubious, if a really good movie can be made after totally reconstructing the original book. Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is a lot different from MGM's "The Wizard of Oz," but I'm not going to complain about even the unnecessary changes.

[pencilsharp]

I view a lot of these adaptations as mere remakes. Take "Miracle on 34th Street." Remember that remake? Remember how much it sucked? Remember "Psycho?" No, probably not.

To put it simply, it's not so much whether a film is faithful or not, it's who is in charge. A creator who is talented in his own right can take (face it now) a mess like LOTR and turn it into something understandable.

On the other hand, let a hack loose at a work, and watch those viewability levels plummet (Punisher, anyone? Anyone?)

Preferably, an adapter will retain as much of his source as possible, while tossing the deitrius and weaker plot points. Watchmen simply can't be completely translated to the silver screen. A TV mini-series, maybe, but where's the money in that? That's the biggest challenge an adapter will have, especially with books: What has to go, and what must stay?

As much as I may gripe and grouse, it is not a job I would wish on anyone, especially ME.

And for anyone I missed, happy HO-HO-HO!

[James]

Originally posted by pencilsharp
I view a lot of these adaptations as mere remakes. Take "Miracle on 34th Street." Remember that remake? Remember how much it sucked? Remember "Psycho?" No, probably not.

To put it simply, it's not so much whether a film is faithful or not, it's who is in charge. A creator who is talented in his own right can take (face it now) a mess like LOTR and turn it into something understandable.

On the other hand, let a hack loose at a work, and watch those viewability levels plummet (Punisher, anyone? Anyone?)

Preferably, an adapter will retain as much of his source as possible, while tossing the deitrius and weaker plot points. Watchmen simply can't be completely translated to the silver screen. A TV mini-series, maybe, but where's the money in that? That's the biggest challenge an adapter will have, especially with books: What has to go, and what must stay?

As much as I may gripe and grouse, it is not a job I would wish on anyone, especially ME.

And for anyone I missed, happy HO-HO-HO!

Watchmen will be interesting. I look forward to watching that develop - that's a feel that could be very good - or totally awful. A difficult assignment - as is The Preacher. I hear that ones got the go ahead once more....

[The Guard]

Anyone want MY Watchmen script while we wait?

[Calhoun07]

What I really want to read is the Twilight Of the Heroes treatment Alan Moore wrote!

And the only way I want to see Watchmen get made is if Terry Gilliam does it and he can do it the way he wants to: as a 12 hour movie. And that entire 12 hour movie needs to be released all at once.

[Nightflower]

As a note, if a movie sticks to close to the source, people are also not happy with that. Some critics accuse the director of "playing it safe" when it came to reviewing Harry Potter. *shrugs* I can't add anything new to this argument, I think most people would like movies to be faithful to whatever source it's from.

What about video games though? Some games (especially older ones) don't really have a plot...or only a basic one, at least. For example, Super Mario, which many people know and love, is basically "save the princess". Of course, the movie sucked and blew, but that's beside the point.. :o

But Final Fantasy was nothing like the games. What's up with that?

[James]

Originally posted by Nightflower
As a note, if a movie sticks to close to the source, people are also not happy with that. Some critics accuse the director of "playing it safe" when it came to reviewing Harry Potter. *shrugs* I can't add anything new to this argument, I think most people would like movies to be faithful to whatever source it's from.

What about video games though? Some games (especially older ones) don't really have a plot...or only a basic one, at least. For example, Super Mario, which many people know and love, is basically "save the princess". Of course, the movie sucked and blew, but that's beside the point.. :o

But Final Fantasy was nothing like the games. What's up with that?

Mario was a funny one. In a way it attempted to adhere to the game yet came out as a very uninviting and disasscociated film.

Final Fantasy was crazy. With such excellent source material - what the hell happened? Even from a cynical approach, a closer tie in to the games would have made for a more secure profit.

Made the film more interesting to those who had seen the game and promoted the game for the people who had seen the film. Not necessarily a transcript of one of the games (as they are all different), but followed the successful formula.

Setting it in a technological future - not a good idea, the games best success was proved to be in a fantasy element.
No summons. The summons, in all formats, are not a trademark of the game. If you are using a title of any film, I think you have to keep in the key elements that made the original source successful.
The film identified with pretty much one character. FF has always been about groups.
Finally, the score - surely, one of the games KEY successes - and critically acclaimed areas - was it's musical composition - why was Uematsu's work - if not himself composing in the film?
Crazy.
And they wondered why it got such a lukewarm performance compared to the games recent successes.

Key point: If you are doing a film - look to the key successes of the SOURCE.

Like the idea of a 12 hour Watchman film. Something I could watch, man. Geddit? ho ho.

[The Mad Hatter]

I think Final Fantasy's problem was that the movie didn't share the same strengths of the series. The games usually have fascinating characters... the movie didn't. The dialogue is crisp in the games... in the movie, it clunked.

Not to mention that the theme of mysticism, spirituality and the nature of existence that's evident in many of the games was handled pretty darn badly in the flick. With the exception of Star Wars, mysticism doesn't work well in a technologically advanced setting, but it seems more at home in a more traditional fantasy setting.

That, and the fact that I wouldn't have attempted a photo-realistic CGI movie for another 10 years, since we don't have the technology to do it realistically yet...