Adaptations have long been a staple of the entertainment industry while giving all forms of media – especially books and comic books – a new perspective and new life translated from the words on the page to the shapes on screen. As long as there have been adaptations of beloved works, there have been criticisms of those adaptations, with fans of one version of the story unimpressed or dissatisfied with another, and the common complaint being matters of fidelity to the material. We saw an example of this recently with Prime Video The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, with many viewers feeling confused about the series, its commitment to Tolkien’s work, and the various creative liberties taken with the beloved source material. It will likely spark this conversation again when AMC releases its adaptation of the Anne Rice story Interview with the vampire Plus, with trailers for that series already hinting at major changes from the book to the show. But while there is something to be said for wanting an original and carefully detailed adaptation of a beloved work closely aligned with the source – as well as a discussion about adaptation in general – it is important to remember that there must be room for creative freedom in addition to that this creative freedom can To make the original enjoyment much more powerful: mods don’t have to be “perfect” to be “good”.
Adaptations are notoriously difficult, and in many cases, it is nearly impossible to adapt a written work or novel directly on screen. The same goes for video games and music and the reason for this is that every particular medium has its own limitations. There are things writers can do across book chapters that filmmakers can’t do on screen—and vice versa. Even when content creators can take details straight from source to conditioning, they don’t always live up to expectations, either, even when made with great effort. There are technical limitations that come into play there as well. Furthermore, there is also the role of personal experience which can also be a limiting challenge, both in terms of the viewer’s experience and how the adaptation is created.
A large part of any creative work is personal experience and consumer interaction with it. Saying “art is in the eye of the beholder” is cliched, but it’s not wrong. Everyone brings their own perspective to the art they consume. For example, no two people read the same novel and come up with the same ideas, impressions, or even visual ideas about the novel, the story, and the topics it includes. We all carry our personal experiences, biases, and preferences with us. These things influence our experience with art and media—and this same attitude extends to creators who come close to adapting to their “baggage,” if you will.
To this end, adaptations as they are told from different perspectives allow people to experience and explore familiar story themes and elements in new ways. The core of any story or art is its theme, meaning. Edits find ways to make us think about those aspects of stories we like, sometimes in ways we didn’t like before and do so in a way that doesn’t negate or remove past experience with what’s in the source material. It’s just an expansion. And this is an important thing to remember: no adaptation can take away something that already exists. If you don’t like the movie version of your favorite book, your favorite book is still there, waiting for you to return to the world you love.
And that’s another thing about adaptations, even ones that probably don’t work for everyone: they always send people to the source. For some, adaptation may be their first experience with something and, wanting more, searching for the source of the material. It’s something the Interview With the Vampire series executive producer, Mark Johnson, said he hopes will happen with his show and Rice’s novels. For those already familiar, adaptations often send people back to re-appreciate the source — sometimes because they’re unhappy and sometimes because they just want to see the differences. Both cases are victories.
When it comes to adaptations, they don’t have to be “perfect” to be “good”. The protagonist doesn’t have to look exactly as depicted in the book, the villain doesn’t have to have the same backstory, and the adaptation doesn’t have to be a direct version that has value. In the end, mods are just a celebration of something we love and with all the celebrations come in with an open mind, take in what resonates and leave what doesn’t lag behind.
.
[ad_2]
