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From Books To Movies: The ‘Faithful’ Adaption – Opinion

From Books To Movies: The ‘Faithful’ Adaption – Opinion

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Words by Noel Gleeson 

Adaptations are a double-edged sword. A work of art has to impress to be worthy of an adaptation. It will have proven its success. So why deviate from the source material?

Why? Because every storyteller has the ability to bring something unique to the table. If they are given the ability to tell a story within a world they love,  should they not be allowed to exercise it?

Take Game of Thrones as an example. They have deviated wildly from the books at this juncture. Fans have expressed their distaste. Most recently, it was over the fact that Daenerys was shown to be immune to fire in the show. The internet at large was immediately informed that this was not the case in the books. That’s fine – but that does not make David Benioff and Dan Weiss wrong. They have made a change to the character in their version of the tale. Yes, of course this is dangerous. The more liberties are taken, the more the story relies on the adapter’s skill as a storyteller to remain successful. At a certain point, though, riding the coat tails isn’t enough.

daenerys

It’s also creating something new.

That is applause-worthy. There is no obligation to remain entirely faithful to the source material. On the contrary, the news that somebody who loves the source material wants to craft a new story within that world should excite us! What fresh new take are we going to see with the characters we love?

Fanfiction has become increasingly popular in recent years. We clearly love reading other people’s works within the worlds we love; to see what another fan has been able to do with our friends inside the screen. That’s what an adaptation can be. Not a carbon copy – a bold new tale.

Passion can drive a person to react irrationally, and that, I fear is where the problem lies. We get passionate about these stories. And that’s amazing. It’s what brings us together and makes us a community. However, if a storyteller takes a story a person loves to bring it to another medium, any difference they make is met with criticism. And I get it. I really do. They see it as a slight on the story they love. I used to think like that. Until I realised it’s not the same story any more.

As soon as that story is taken from its original home, wherever that may have been, it is a new story now. There are new sets of tools available. Books can bring us into a character’s head like no other thoughts. Games can give us the power to change the narrative. In using the tools available to them in these different media, it’s entirely possible that a character may have different experiences. And after all, what are any of us but the sum of our experiences? If the characters we know in one version of a story are changed by differing circumstances in an adaptation, that’s alright.

eragon

I’ve gone through phases of being on both sides of this argument. I really have. I remember the first time I was sourly disappointed by an adaptation. The horrible Eragon movie. More recently The Golden Compass. But after an initial wave of disappointment, I realised that the books haven’t changed. Those stories, those characters, those worlds, still lie in between those jacket covers. I can still escape there. These adaptations – they don’t change anything about the original source material. They are, as shown at the start of every movie adaptation, merely ‘based on’ the source material.

Adaptations aren’t going to stop any time soon. To look at the movies in the cinema right now, a massive nine are adaptations of one kind or another. And with Suicide Squad, The BFG, American Gods, Good Omens, The Kingkiller Chronicles, His Dark Materials all coming soon, among several others I’m sure, we need to learn not to have our opinions of these fantastical tales sullied. We can enjoy a fresh take on these worlds, a new interpretation, and leave the stories in the source material intact and close to our hearts.

Don’t get cut by the double-edged sword.

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