big-sharp-cutty-thing:mother-entropy:cumaeansibyl:arsonforcharlie:oldearthaccretionist:Yup
big-sharp-cutty-thing: mother-entropy: cumaeansibyl: arsonforcharlie: oldearthaccretionist: Yup. There’s a vast difference between adaptations that make thoughtful deliberate changes with regards to the new medium, current audiences and that present an interpretation of the original work where it’s obvious that it’s born out of an affection/ genuine interest in the original work and “adaptations” that take the name and changes it to the point it’s unrecognisable and, in fact oftent run directly counter to the core philosophy, ideas and themes of the original work, where you are left wondering if the “adapters” even read/watched the original and you certainly can’t see any critical engagement with or affection for it remaining in the new work. I actually take great joy in the first category and look forward to seeing how and where they’ve changed things. I also really enjoy thinking about the changes made, and speculating on what the thoughts behind them were. And seeing which bits I prefer from each. The second category on the other hand feels like an incredibly cheap and cynical short-sighted attempt to cash in on existing fan bases without any actual affection for the material that drew them to it in the first place. It’s almost guaranteed to disappoint that group no matter if the rest is skillfully done because it breaks the expectations promised by the name. This is PARTICULARLY true of IPs like Discworld that grapple with philosophy and comment deeply on ethics and injustice and the nature of humanity (good and bad), and where the fanbase is very engaged with the source material and its philosophy. Basically if you want to do the second just admit you wrote your own thing and don’t pretend that it’s an adaptation. also like hard shoutout to the guy who rolled up to not only pratchett’s daughter but a writer who has, herself, worked on multiple different mediums in the same franchise, just going like “yeah i know you had a comment on how you feel the adaptation of your father’s work changed it significantly but…. have you considered………. books and tv are different things?” The problem with a lot of these adaptations is that the people doing them think “this would be more marketable to a larger audience if it weren’t so weird,” and they get rid of a lot of the idiosyncrasies in an effort to make something with a broad appeal to non-fans. The thing is, that larger audience doesn’t know what a Discworld is, and probably doesn’t care enough to look it up. If, on the other hand, they have friends who know about Discworld, they’ll hear about it from word of mouth. Let’s look at me as an example. I know a little bit about Discworld because I’m, y’know, on Tumblr, you pick things up by osmosis. I am the exact sort of person who would ask a friend, “Hey, you read Discworld – you heard anything about this Watch show?” And if the production had shown reasonable respect for the source material, my Discworld friend would be excited to tell me about it. As it stands, I don’t even need to ask, because my Discworld friends have been SCREAMING IN RAGE – which means me, and probably most of the other nerds who only know a little bit about Discworld, have now decided it’s not worth the time. (By contrast, I knew even less about Good Omens before they made the miniseries, but word of mouth persuaded me to watch it, and you all know what happened then.) i had tried a dozen times to read good omens over the years and never could get further than a couple chapters, it just did nothing for me. but the show literally changed my life. it changed how i interact with the world on a fundamental level! and i only watched the show BECAUSE of the explosion of enthusiasm from book fans. i wish producers would wrap their fucking heads around this. reblogging my commentary commentary from my main blog bc it’s relevant here, too. -- source link