Author Topic: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???  (Read 5643 times)

Offline mark

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #30 on: April 23, 2017, 01:54:53 PM »
This is a panel at Silicon Valley Comic Con :) Unfortunately I only went on Saturday.

Adaptation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Sunday April 23, 2017 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Is it a crime to make female Ghostbusters? A slap in the face to fans? What about a massive rethinking of print series like Earthsea or Superman? New Battlestar Galactica or Westworld? What about Star Trek? When do the old name and new premise play “bait and switch” and offend classic fans? Can the new version become definitive? In essence, do Cylons have to be chrome?

Offline perc2100

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #31 on: April 24, 2017, 10:31:11 AM »
I'm generally easy: if the film/TV show works on its own it's a good adaptation.  Someone mentioned THE GODFATHER as one of the great adaptations, and that's true: there was some pulp GARBAGE in the book that Coppola wisely dumped (for example, the sub-plot revolving around Sonny's....well, a specific organ).
GOODFELLAS is a perfect adaptation, IMO, of "Wise Guys" and is insanely close to the true-story original book.  I was shocked how well that translated, and it's amazing just how few details were changed (basically names are slightly different).

I also think the original IT miniseries is a good adaptation, albeit with some big problems in the pacing of the 2nd half (and the fact that the big-name adults actors were no where near as interesting as their child counterparts).  The way the writers broke up the book story-form was brilliant, even finding the perfect end-point stinger.  It looks like the new movie will stick to a very similar formula, focusing mainly on the kids (or maybe entirely) and saving the adult story arc for another film.  The mini captured the dark tone brilliantly for a 1990 network production (Part 1 ended in a freaking suicide!), and their version of Pennywise worked for the medium in a way that I think would be horrible for film (IMO Pennywise the Curry version is incredibly sanitized compared to the far more vicious Pennywise in the book)
With that adaptation, I don't think King's novel would work NEARLY as well if told in the straight linear fashion, and conversely I think adapting "It" exactly like the novel's format would be incredibly problematic.

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #32 on: Today at 10:52:12 AM »

Offline perc2100

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #32 on: April 24, 2017, 10:37:38 AM »
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This is a panel at Silicon Valley Comic Con :) Unfortunately I only went on Saturday.

Adaptation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Sunday April 23, 2017 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Is it a crime to make female Ghostbusters? A slap in the face to fans? What about a massive rethinking of print series like Earthsea or Superman? New Battlestar Galactica or Westworld? What about Star Trek? When do the old name and new premise play “bait and switch” and offend classic fans? Can the new version become definitive? In essence, do Cylons have to be chrome?

Oh yeah, great topics in this panel!  I liked the latest GHOSTBUSTERS and would love to see a film in that world that didn't have to a) set up the world and b) give a million winks to the original 2 films.

I LOVED the modern BSG, and really liked S1 of Westworld.  Re-imagining previous worlds is a great way to expand on already established ideas.  That's why something like, say, westerns that were remakes of samurai films worked so well: starting with basic ideas and reworking them in other genres or contexts for the audience of the time.  LOGAN worked so well not because it was anywhere near an adaptation of "Old Man Logan" or other comics, but because it took themes from western movies and kind of subverted the comic genre a bit.  To answer that final question, Cylons certainly to NOT have to be chrome; and the fact that Ronald Moore's version of BSG is a sequel of sorts to the original (in concept) is a nice example of expanding a world while doing your own thing for modern times.

Offline dcuodust

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #33 on: April 26, 2017, 12:48:45 PM »
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Some I like a lot more than I thought I would: Hannibal, Man in the High Castle
Great things that came from not-so-great (IMHO) material: Die Hard, the Bourne series
Things I liked but don't like as an adaptation: Shawshank Redemption, I Am Legend.
Quirky adaptations that still worked: Tristam Shandy, O Brother Where Art Thou.
Ones that make me curl into a ball and cry: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Spirit.

Some I like a lot more than I thought I would: GotG, X-Men, X2, X3, Logan, GoT, Captain America: Civil War
Great things that came from not-so-great (IMHO) material: TWD Seasons S2-5, BSG, The Expanse S1
Things I liked but don't like as an adaptation: Don't fully understand the premise and am pretty sure I disagree with what I understand the premise to be
Quirky adaptations that still worked: Batman, Batman Returns
Ones that make me curl into a ball and cry: X-Men: First Class, DoFP, Apocalypse, every Fantastic Four, TWD S6-7
Crappy adaptations from crappy material, i.e. just plain crap: Every Iron Man, every Avengers
What are you, Worf? Do you tremble and quake with fear at the approach of combat? Hoping to talk your way out of a fight like a Human? Or do you hear the cry of the warrior, calling you to battle, calling you to glory like a Klingon?
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Offline FBS

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #34 on: April 26, 2017, 01:14:18 PM »
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Thanks for the link! I often find the same to be true about things like comics based on video games, at least in terms of motivation. Injustice would be a counterexample. Like many of the comments on io9 I liked the first Silent Hill and the first Resident Evil, RE especially had some nice gaming nods.

Sometimes I will read things that I think would make better video games than movies. Princess of Mars is the example I always come back to, and it has so many elements like an RPG. There's some intro stuff you don't care about, then you wind up naked in some weird place. You have these new abilities that you have to learn how to use. You unlock achievements, you get a pet, at some point you learn a color code that is important later on. There's even a stealth level. Plus the John Carter of the books doesn't really have any sort of personality, when they made it into a movie they had to give him one.
 

There's a great chat between Stellan Skarsgård and the director/cowriter Erik Skjoldbjaerg where Skarsgård talks about the ideas and potential that were lurking there, worth watching for the look on the director's face.

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Insomnia is a complicated one, I definitely see where Nolan took the ideas in the original film and made a better movie overall but I don't know how I feel about the difference in the main character's decision at the end. The way things end in the original was so deliberate and unconventional, it's always going to bug me that they changed it.

There were a number of Scandinavian subtleties in the original that I liked but could not survive the transposition, happy to trade that for the wonderful (and mostly subdued!) pairing of Pacino and Robin Williams.

No argument on Let the Right One In, I really should read the book at some point.

Dare we discuss Thomas Harris?
Harris is a tough one.
Great writer but difficult to convey his complexities on the screen. Only one or two directors have managed it.

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Offline FBS

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #35 on: April 26, 2017, 01:18:25 PM »
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This is a panel at Silicon Valley Comic Con :) Unfortunately I only went on Saturday.

Adaptation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Sunday April 23, 2017 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Is it a crime to make female Ghostbusters? A slap in the face to fans? What about a massive rethinking of print series like Earthsea or Superman? New Battlestar Galactica or Westworld? What about Star Trek? When do the old name and new premise play “bait and switch” and offend classic fans? Can the new version become definitive? In essence, do Cylons have to be chrome?

People really can't leave The Ghostbusters film alone can they?!
It was an entertaining and funny sequel. It's a sequel, not a remake or reboot.

It really angers me that people hate on that film for reasons that don't make any sense.

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Offline AzT

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #36 on: April 27, 2017, 09:00:39 PM »
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People really can't leave The Ghostbusters film alone can they?!
It was an entertaining and funny sequel. It's a sequel, not a remake or reboot.

It really angers me that people hate on that film for reasons that don't make any sense.

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Nope; the negativity even got to Paul Feig:

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“You have to go in knowing you’re not going to please everybody, but you want to make something cool for the next generation,” Ché told Feig.

“Before Ghostbusters, I had this really lovely relationship with the internet,” Feig said, addressing the internet backlash more directly. “When that first volley of just terribleness came in, honestly it threw me off for a couple of years-I wasn’t used to it-where I could go back in a time machine now, I just would go, ‘Don’t even read it, just put it away,’ and I never would have referenced it. That was the biggest mistake I made. A year in, I took on one of the trolls, and they can fire at you for a year. You dare say one thing back at them, and it’s all over. You’re a victim and you’re a monster...”

“It is frustrating, because why is there any kind of litmus test on this?” He asked.

Offline Chris

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #37 on: April 27, 2017, 09:20:48 PM »
Watching Assassins Creed right now.  I'm filing it under the heading of bad.  :)

Offline dcuodust

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #38 on: April 29, 2017, 08:18:21 AM »
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People really can't leave The Ghostbusters film alone can they?!
It was an entertaining and funny sequel. It's a sequel, not a remake or reboot.

It really angers me that people hate on that film for reasons that don't make any sense.

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With Ghostbusters it is misogynists and white supremacists - who we euphemistically call men's rights advocates and the alt-right, respectively - who created the s**tstorm. I haven't seen it, but I cannot imagine it being worse than the second Singer X-Men trilogy.
What are you, Worf? Do you tremble and quake with fear at the approach of combat? Hoping to talk your way out of a fight like a Human? Or do you hear the cry of the warrior, calling you to battle, calling you to glory like a Klingon?
- Gowron, Chancellor of the Klingon High Council

Offline AzT

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #39 on: April 30, 2017, 07:52:13 PM »
Expanding upon the importance of comic book context for film / tv adaptations point that Maggie Thompson wrote about in February; great background on Rocket (GOTG got him right):

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Offline Chris

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #40 on: May 07, 2017, 06:29:31 PM »
One book that I think would be perfect for a single season adaptation is Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising.

It would too much do put into a movie, but would be perfect for one of the cable single season TV shows.

Offline mark

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #41 on: September 14, 2017, 04:24:22 PM »
Resurrecting another old thread, mwahahaha.

Death Note on Netflix is an interesting one, it's come up in discussions at work a few times and there are very different reactions depending on whether or not people have read the manga or seen the anime. People whose first exposure to it was the Netflix version tended to like it, everyone else (including me) not so much.

Offline FBS

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #42 on: September 15, 2017, 12:51:21 PM »
Never read/saw the Manga. However, I like the film. It gets a bit Twilight at times but it still has enough to keep it going.

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Offline Angology

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Re: Adaptations, the good, the bad, the ???
« Reply #43 on: September 15, 2017, 07:38:32 PM »
I guess I am an outlier. I have seen the anime, and love it. I enjoyed the movie in spite of that. I can't think of a way to express it that doesn't sound condescending to the anime fans that didn't like it (I do get where they're coming from), so I will leave it at that. I will say that the actor that played L was great! That might be why I liked it.


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