this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
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Notes to writers and producers.
IF👏 YOU👏 MAKE👏 AN👏 ADAPTATION👏 THAT👏 IS👏 FAITHFUL👏 TO👏 THE👏 ORIGINAL,👏 YOU👏 WILL👏 MAKE👏 LOTS👏 OF👏 MONEY.👏
Witcher died when they started changing things
Rings of Power died when they started changing things
Game of Thrones died when they ran out of source material
Halo died when they started changing things
It has nothing to do with race, or gender, or whatever bullshit you hide behind for your ego trips. Take your ego out of the equation. Stop thinking "I can improve on this". No, you can't. People love this. Just write this. Stop thinking "oh, this would be so much better if I added--" NOPE. Stop. Even if you're extending the canon, consult the original authors. And if the original authors say "this doesn't really match the tone", then FUCKING REWRITE IT UNTIL IT MATCHES THE TONE.
First of all, I agree with everything you said.
However, I think that deviating from the source, or adding stuff, etc, wouldn't be so destructive, if the writing was actually good.
Three Body Problem adapted by D&D, still felt a bit meh, because they made a bunch of changes that were just terrible writing. They didn't understand the source material, so they made the VR stuff alien tech. They made the stars blink, not the cosmic background radiation. The dimension folding fuck up leading to a giant eye over... Earth?... Why did they think that made any sense? It happened on Trisolaris, and it was such a goosebump inducing thing... Did D&D just think it might look cool, and... Since you cannot easily show it without showing the aliens... They kinda went "let's just do it on earth", even though it made no fucking sense whatsoever, because, they wouldn't have any reason to play a fucking prank on earth. Shits and giggles weren't their thing... Gah.
The Witcher suffered because the writing was actually quite bad at times.
Game of Thrones... I mean... I don't know why Dumb and Dumber get their hands on any work whatsoever. They have shown they know nothing of the world and systems they write for, nor characters or development. It's just embarrassing.
Halo, I haven't watched. And Fallout, I just know that Nolan and Joy are absolutely amazing writers. The only concern I had was to what extent people like Tod could fuck things up.
I think what I'm trying to add is that: Good writers can tell very engaging adaptations within the existing constraints of lore, world and rules, but it doesn't need to be existing canon. You can always tell new stories, as long as it sticks to the established rules and world building people expect. Bad writers fail at that, and often need to add contemporary trends where it doesn't belong. The fundamental issue might just be a skill issue.
Good writing is hard. It requires a lot of effort. You need to be congruent with the world and rules you've built so far. Not everyone will notice everything that deviates. Noticing bad writing is catching a lie given the presented imagined premise. Some suspension of belief is of course necessary, or risk being an annoying pedant. But, don't pretend someone is a level headed strategist, who then sends half their army out of a defensive fortification... to fight an enemy who is known to make dead soldiers fight for them. So which is it, do the people in charge know what castles are for, or did they suddenly become dumb as bread to suit some contrived narrative, or perhaps lack thereof?.. Gah..
J. J. Abrams didn't deviate all that much from lore. But my God what a grade A moron he is when it comes to plots points. Thousands of extremely talented master craftsmen, all coming together to tell a story... that only works if you don't think about it at all. And you might wonder which franchise in particular I'm referring to, as both apply.
The Expanse TV adaptation is a master class in doing everything right. TV is a different medium, and you cannot tell the story in the same exact way. But the changes they did, still told the same story, and most changes just suited visual medium better. They even had to off a character because of real life reasons, which was a little bit abrupt, but even so, they managed to adapt to that just fine.
Wheel of Time... weird additions and focus on romantic relationships that detracted from the magnitude and seriousness of the story itself. Maybe I was just a bit too young when I read the books, but I certainly didn't remember it like that, and it made the characters feel weird, and... immature. Also, somewhat intellectually insulting. Personal sacrifice, and love (? I'm looking for a better word...) for someone, doesn't require romantic interest.
I'm rambling.
TL;DR: Good writing good. Bad writing bad. Bad writing != not 100% aligned with source material. Contemporary tropes for no good reason = bad writing. JJ, please stick to directing. D&D... Maybe take up painting? Pretty please?
I guess it's entirely possible that there's just an epidemic of bad writing.
When there's an existing beloved IP, it already had good writing. Being faithful to that = good writing. Not YOUR writing, but good writing.
It's theoretically possible to deviate from that existing good IP and still have good writing...it's just not very likely. Don't bet on it. Stick to the existing good writing.
I think you're right.
It also annoys me that the explanation for how common bad writing is, is that it still makes a lot of money. JJ can jump on to any beloved franchise, ~~shit on every established rule and charac~~ter, make the dumbest imaginable plot points that serve no other purpose than to move you from one visually pleasing trailer snippet location to the next... and people will go see it, and it'll make a pile of money. So, why should they care?
Everyone sees it the first time, but they tarnish the brand. Game of Thrones is the obvious example, but look at Star Wars. No one is clamoring to see the next Star Wars movie. If your outlook is the next 3 years, sure, bad writing will have a good opening day, but only because you're leeching off the corpse of the previous good releases. If your outlook is to preserve the brand, it's a terminal viewpoint.
You can take bad writing and even if it bombs in America, you can throw it at China and they'll eat it up because they don't know any better. But once a brand is dead, it's dead. China is not coming up with new plot lines. Hollywood and streaming studios are strip-mining the IP of the past because there's an industrywide lack of writing talent, for reasons that I'm too far removed to understand.
Luckily, we're still spoiled for choice. Or, I feel like I am. There are more quality TV shows and movies, than I have time to watch these days.
I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss Chinese media industry. They have made some amazing films. Infernal Affairs, comes to mind. But, I'm the wrong person to come up with examples. I'm sure there are plenty.
Other than that, I agree with you. It's the enshitification equivalent in Hollywood. It's just a bit less engulfing, since good movies and shows can still be made, in spite of some of the watered down drivel and ruined franchises for short term profit margins.
JJ Abrams shits on every established rule and character?
It's more the opposite. He gets to the core of what a franchise is. It's just that the hardcore fanbase builds up these things in their minds to be something they really aren't.
Star Trek was always at it's strongest as a TV series. The best the movies could ever do was take a page from Star Wars and be fun action adventure movies. Star Trek II was about a villain with a super-weapon seeking revenge. First Contact was basically Aliens. Star Trek IV was more of a parody of Star Trek than anything else.
But from the success of Star Trek IV, the exec became willing to put money into a new Star Trek show, and so we got TNG which was better than any of the movies. Similarly the success of JJ Abrams Star Trek meant new Trek shows are being made. Sure the shows are suffering from prequelitis. but new Trek shows are being made and if Star Trek Legacy gets made we might actually have a good Star Trek show on TV again, which is where Trek is at it's strongest.
JJ Abrams made the two best Star Wars movies outside of the OT. Of course the bar is pretty low with Star Wars movies, but still he did better than anyone else in making new Star Wars movies, better than even George Lucas at making new Star Wars. And the ST had interesting things to say about our relationship to the past. But to people that don't really like what Star Wars really is and want it to be something else got really angry about that. And people that have a warped view of the past hate it, but they hate anything new.
I was to about to say the same in less eloquent way. It is worth noting though that The Expanse had both writers of the books heavily involved in the adaptation. You could also see that they drew from Game of Thrones did things, especially with consolidating characters.
I also wouldn't be so fast to judge some series that are far from being over like Rings of Power and Wheel of Time. First one is meh but not offensive. WoT needed heavy cuts to the story because of how long it is but it's still very watchable.
Ah, I loved Wheel of Time. I'm making an effort to forget about it so I'm suddenly surprised by season 3 being done. The deviations from the books didn't ruin it for me, like it seems it did for many. I just found it unnecessary, and mentioned it more as an example of bad writing, and did not mean to imply that all of it was bad. Far from it. Great actors all around, and amazing visual direction, oh, and costume designers! The forsaken, especially Ishamael... the clothing. It's so good, I want to figure out who worked in it. And I don't even care much about that stuff either, usually. They did so many things, absolutely brilliantly. Ending of S1 was very anticlimactic, so I get why that that in particular put people off.
I havent watched Rings of Power. Maybe I should, based on what you're saying.
I didn't understand what you meant by drawing on GoT for consolidating characters. Apologies.
PS: In case I gave the impression of being a miserable piece:
I said it was meh but I guess it's one of the most positive things you can read about it on the internet :D It's okay, baffling at times but has some unexpectedly interesting stuff like early hobbits that make it worth a shot.
Game of Thrones as a book has massive amount of characters which doesn't translate well into TV. HBO show relied on some characters taking over roles of others to reduce the overall amount by a lot. The Expanse did something similar although to a lesser extent, for example with Drummer taking on story roles of Bull and Michio Pa.
I keep seeing this opinion and I must be a weirdo since I think S1 is the best and not very representative of the rest of this series. I must admit I'm a sucker for good world building and scifi detective stories. I almost felt catfished with where the story went from there, thankfully it was awesome on its own too.
I'm sort of with you on S1 of the Expanse. Miller is such a good character. But, as you mention, it has a very different focus and vibe, and doesn't give the right impression for what comes later. The acting also gets a lot better, as it's sometimes a little bit rough in S1. If I remember correctly, the writers mentioned drawing inspiration from Aliens, which reflects on the more claustrophobic... horror like thematic. None of which stays after S1. So, I tend to plead for people to stick with it though S2.
If it was the opposite shift, that is, "fantastical" in S1, and detective noir in S2 and onwards, I'd probably say the same thing about sticking through S1 even if it didn't hit home.
That said, I do enjoy the more fantastical theme... But Miller... Doors and corners... Mmm, I won't spoil anything for anyone. I'm confident you know exactly what I mean.
Thanks for the clarification on the GoT/Expanse. Hadn't thought about that.
Idk who wrote Fringe, but JJ was involved and that show was great
Hm. He did have a part in it, but I don't know how much. I haven't seen it. I suppose I was too bombastic, and should correct it to "everything JJ has written, that I've seen, has been vapid shit".
Last time I ranted about JJ, someone mentioned that he had made Person of Interest. So, I watched all of it. It was largely pretty good, except for the very weird filler episodes every season, that very much worked against the overarching plot. In any case, turned out that Jonathan Nolan wrote it, who is pretty good at that stuff. JJ is a decent director, so I don't mind that part.
An additional problem (maybe the biggest problem imho) is Amazon and Netflix et al refusing to give them more than 8 episodes per season. For things with a huge amount of source material (e.g. Wheel of Time) this forces the writers to make big changes in order to try to tell a big story in a too short amount of time. Combine this with inexperienced writers or writers who think they can do a better job than the source material, and you've got a recipe for failure, in my opinion.
The Wheel of Time, for example, had many small moments that were amazing, almost perfect, but overall the show ends up being disappointing when so many other parts fail completely.
I stopped watching three body problem after the "universe blinking" nonsense. Watch the chinese version -- mich more faithful (except the cultural revolution and anything bad about china)
Absolutely - Nolan and Joy are incredible, Expanse is master class. However, (and I hate to defend them after GOT ending) D&D aren't the worst - but they are nowhere near these two. The first few seasons of GOT is still fantastic TV. 3 Body Problem had a few issues of missteps in adaptation, but I thought they largely did a good job with the pacing, tone and changes so far. I'd still say it's a good and entertaining show, just not as tight as Fallout or Expanse, since I can point out a few things that don't make a lot of sense.
There are exceptions. The Boys, for instance, succeeded due to it not being a faithful adaptation.
Don't get me wrong, the books are fine for what they are, but the only people who'd enjoy (or even tolerate for more than a couple episodes without getting physically sick) a faithfully adapted Garth Ennis book are probably the same that think Homelander is the good guy, who thankfully seem to be a minority.
Or another one: I very much doubt a faithfully adapted Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep film could have achieved the cult classic status of Blade Runner; as much of a staple of science fiction as Philip K. Dick is, he's a bit of an acquired taste, and most viewers would probably fall asleep halfway through a faithful adaptation, long after having lost any trace of the plot...
To be an exception, you need to know what you are doing. The Boys adaptation works because it is consistent with the world they built. The writers took the material, said "this is neat" threw it in a blender and made something amazing.
Instructions unclear, people are getting tired of video game adaptations.
Fuckin’ A.
I agree so much with this. I would also add X-Men. The cartoons have been so much better than the movies. The movies (yes all of them) might have a few good scenes, but they toned down the comic bookness of it. They as a whole suck.
The cartoons stay killing. Still has the best Phoenix adaptation. The new X-Men 97 shows it can adapt a lot more storylines without skipping a beat.
I mean X-Men TAS/97, Evolution, and Wolverine and the X-Men. All good in their own way. I prefer my 90s baby, but they are all better than the movies.
The thing is Deadpool proved you can make it work. Let's hope Disney learned this lesson too.
What I didn't like about the X-Men movies is they just kept the same and continues the story. And that's a big gripe I have with Marvel too.
Let comics do their thing, have new stories and new arcs instead of some 20+ hour cinematic universe. Its comics, they don't all have the same continuity. And stop telling origin stories, we know how the superheroes became superheroes, and even if the audience didn't, it doesn't matter to be able to tell a story with that character anyway.
Oh but how will you know that Batman's parents were killed when he was a boy?
Witcher lead left. Still getting 2 more seasons.
Rings of power is about to have a second season.
Got started to suck because D and D rushed 2 seasons to try to work for Disney, which was pulled.
Fallout is popular because it's good. All of the above changed a ton from the source. Only niche fanboys care how accurate something is and they don't move the needle on popularity.
Game of Thrones didn't suck because D&D rushed things. It started to go downhill as early as season 5, when they ran out of source material. People overlooked it initially because Game of Thrones had such a strong hype train. The last two seasons were just so blatantly bad that no one could ignore it anymore.
GoT had problems before that. They didn't just run out of source material, they deliberately skipped a lot of it, mostly magic related.
And witcher and rings of power and GOT are absolutely bombing.
Fallout (the show) is popular because it's good. Fallout (the show) is good because it religiously follows the tone of the original source. The original source was good.
That's the point. Fanboys exist for an IP because it was good in the first place. More accurate = more good, because the original was good. It's not just meaningless partisanship or fanboyism. You already have a good story. Just tell that story. Vary on that theme.
TLoU is changing a lot but it's excellent
I've never played the game but all I ever heard was that it was an extremely faithful adaption, and that the last episode is almost a 1 for 1 translation from the game to the show.
Yeah the only big thing they changed was how they handled Bill and Frank, and they made a beautiful bottle episode of it so it worked really really well for the translation to tv.
The changes are more complimentary to the original, and with Druckmann planning them so maybe that's key
This is spot on. What I would add is that even lazy or easy writing can be saved by an understanding of the tone and background of the show.
My favourite example of this is The Big Bang Theory. A lot of people hate it because it's a show that glorified nerd culture in a poor way, but ultimately it's just a sitcom that exemplified that good people have their own struggles that aren't dissimilar from each other - whether it's a struggling actress making their way, a postdoc worker struggling to make their mark, or a genius that learns that ignoring personal growth will affect him professionally. It packs this into a basic plot for several seasons, and then writes an entire new prequel that is more of the same - except with enough tweaks to show that Sheldon's retelling of events was due to his own naiveté in what it's like to raise a family. It might not win Emmy's or be studied for decades after like The Wire, but the writers knew the material and knew how to stay faithful to the core story.
It is often so obvious when a show has an idea for a beginning and an end, but nothing in-between (Good Place), or when a show is basically just a bunch of ideas and no plot (Lost). I'd probably say that you need good writers, not necessarily good writing, to make a good show.
Died? It barely got one season.
The best season of the TV show was season 6, when the writers could finally start paying plot lines off rather than stringing people along.
It's interesting that people are saying that this is so faithful, considering that they totally messed up the history of the California region. >!The series basically took place in NCR, but they just lazily disregarded the whole rebuilt NCR civilization and turned it into the east coast Bethesda wasteland. So what, did the NCR collapse back into wasteland in a decade or so too? Give me a break.!<
It's literally canonical.
It put Shady Sands in LA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(American_TV_series)
https://www.gamesradar.com/is-the-fallout-tv-show-canon-bethesda-games-todd-howard/
Being canon is not the same as being faithful. Bethesda Fallout games have not been faithful to the original games despite now being canon. The show, despite being relatively good, can be canon and also can not be faithful to the first 2 games.
The Bethesda games are the series now. They're exponentially more popular than the first two.
And? It doesn't make the older games disappear. Bethesda choosing to go their own way instead of being faithful to the original games does not invalidate the fact that Bethesda, and by extension the show, is not faithful to the original and breaks lore continuity. As for my personal opinion on the matter I've accepted since Fallout 3 that the lore is fucked and doesn't really matter anymore.
This doesn't really shouldn't even need addressing. This is something people say when they have no actual arguments. You're comparing games that are literally a decade apart. No shit modern Fallout games are more popular than Fallout 1 and 2. Gaming in general is exponentially more popular than what it was back in the 90s. Diablo 2 is considered one of the best looters ever, it sold over a million units in the first few weeks and got a Guinness world record for it. Fallout 3 sold 4 times as many units in the first week. That should give insight into how unbelievably pointless your comparison is.
And popularity doesn't mean good. COD is one of the most popular franchises in the world, nobody is singing praises of COD (at least not since the 1, 2 and Modern Warfare).
You does really should get out more.
I go out enough, thanks for the fake concern. But unlike you I don't go out with the purpose of becoming clinically brain dead. There's more to life than being the cool guy who has nothing to say.
That has nothing to do with them completely botching the location of Shady Sands.
It would have worked if it was Adytum. Maaaaaybe even the Hub. But not Shady Sands.