Adaptations are everywhere
It’s 2017 (or literally any other recent year) and we basically can’t escape adaptations anymore. Superhero movies and TV shows are not likely to be going away anytime soon, and it’s like The CW aims to be a purely shows-based-on-comic-books network at this point. But whether the series is a remake, or based on a movie, or video game, or a piece of literature – there’s been a lot of successes, as well as a lot of failures.
With the super successful ones, you barely even remember they once just existed in another form – Buffy The Vampire Slayer might be the most notable one (though a lot of people never knew about the movie before the show was made, to be fair). But perhaps there’s also the American versions of The Office and Shameless, which both had successful British counterparts, but the shows evolved into their own thing and thus, after a comparable first season, got great in their own right.
These days, there’s tons out there. The CW alone has their superhero shows, as well as iZombie and Riverdale. Syfy has The Magicians, The Expanse and 12 Monkeys. Netflix has A Series Of Unfortunate Events, 13 Reasons Why, and the upcoming Altered Carbon and The Witcher. Otherwise there’s Fargo, Game Of Thrones, American Gods, The Leftovers, Teen Wolf, The Killing, Bates Motel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Justified, Hannibal, Nikita, Sleepy Hollow, Penny Dreadful, The Walking Dead, Orange Is The New Black… I could go on.
The above ones I mentioned are all adaptations I’d classify as successful (whether or not I liked them myself). They either got multiple seasons, or good acclaim from either fans or critics or both.
But not every adaptation works
Then there’s also CBS’ Under The Dome, the Skins and Misfits remakes, Broadchurch/Gracepoint, and others that I just straight up forgot because they didn’t exist for very long. Granted, I’ve used three remakes in my four examples (and they’re slightly harder), but these days, how do you make an adaptation work?
Studios like adaptations because they’re an easy sell. The project already has fans and people invested before production even starts. You can keep promotion and marketing slightly vague, and it might not need as much because there’s less people that need convincing to go out and watch it.
But adaptations are also tricky, because the project already has fans. And those fans, I can guarantee, are going to be the hardest to please when it comes down to it.
What makes a good adaptation?
I’ve found that (aside from the show being good on its own right) an adaptation works best when it doesn’t need to rely on its source material.
Let me explain.
A good adaptation doesn’t mean that it makes for a good show. A good show doesn’t necessarily make it a good adaptation of its source material. But if you’re going for a good adaptation (as well as a good show), what you need is a good grasp on the source material. You have to be a fan. Not someone who got the project thrown into their lap because the studios really needed someone to make it for them (not a good sign). Show homage to and respect the source, but don’t be afraid to expand or hell, improve upon it. The latter is what may make certain diehard fans turn away, but your show is going to be better off in the long run.
Game of Thrones: faithful, until it wasn’t
I’m going to use Game Of Thrones as my first example, which is immediately contradictory because David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are fans of the books, and were able to expand the world (though in both good and bad ways), and did do the books justice (mostly just in the first season). The show lost me a few seasons ago (though not because of issues I had with the adaptation), so I can’t rightfully comment on the specifics of the later ones when they had no more books to draw from.
But adaptation-wise Game Of Thrones started off very true to its source material. There was a paragraph in the book in which a certain character was thinking something, and you could literally see that character thinking it in the show. They sometimes added things though, with Tywin Lannister and certain scenes with Arya in season two, and they worked out well.
Afterwards though, as soon as season 2, it appeared that there were certain characters they just didn’t get that well (Catelyn and Robb may have been the worst offenders for this). And when they had to sort of make up their own thing when they were running ahead of the books, there were certain decisions for characters that just didn’t work with what we knew of them (Stannis) or fates that befell certain characters in the books now instead happened to characters that narratively and thematically shouldn’t have happened to them (Sansa, and the Cersei/Jaime thing).
All of these wouldn’t really be bad if the show hadn’t been so faithful from the start. If they had changed certain aspects of the characters and their story and their motivations and what made them them, then they could have made certain changes make much more sense. Except now you had to see these things happen to characters that originally started out as characters you already loved.
Game of Thrones is a great show, at least production-wise, but I don’t think it has a great grasp on their characters and that’s where it loses me. As good as the books are.
When changes improve the show
Talking about ~faithful adaptations, American Gods approaches it a bit differently. It’s supposed to become a show that could go up to 4 or 5 seasons, yet it is only one book. So the show moves a little slower, but they add more content and development for certain characters that the book lacked, and so in that aspect the show becomes stronger, and an interesting watch for people who were already familiar with it.
The Leftovers in the meantime also only had one book to draw from, but they exhausted that book by the end of the first season. Remarkably, the show only became stronger as soon as they had to come up with their own material, as season two was one of the most incredible seasons of any TV show ever.
A favorite of mine that only lasted for two seasons was Legend of the Seeker, based on the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind – which also got a lot of flack because the show was very tame compared to the books. The show was more in line with Hercules and Xena rating-wise. Essentially, what the show kept was the characters and their general traits, as well as a few of the general plot outlines of the first few books.
Was Legend of the Seeker a good adaptation? Nope! Was it a decent and enjoyable show to watch on Saturday? Hell yeah! And honestly, the series the show was based on just wasn’t very good, and I ended up welcoming the changes after going through the first four books.
Preacher: when change makes it better
What actually inspired this post – I’ve started reading the Preacher comics a few days ago, and just finished them today. I think Preacher is one of those cases where they get the feel of it right, and they get their own characters and who they are really well, but I wish they wouldn’t follow the comic, or at least certain events.
This is slightly biased, as the comics put a certain character in a bad light and I wouldn’t want to see that particular thing happen on the show, as I really like that character.
What feels right in the comics, and feels right for those characters, doesn’t necessarily feel right for the show. In a way, having your storyline already set out for you feels a lot like planning out your whole show in advance and having to stick to that because otherwise the show wouldn’t work.
An example for this is Mr. Robot or even Westworld. That’s not a thing that will always work. Maybe a certain recurring character steals the show so much you’d prefer for them to be a regular, but there’s really nothing for them to do as you already have your story. Maybe your third most important actor has to leave the show. Suddenly you don’t have them to do that certain thing in that particular episode anymore.
Some of the best parts of shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul happened because things didn’t go according to plan. They had beginnings and endings, but not every beat mapped out – and it worked.
A faithful adaptation isn’t always the best choice
A faithful adaptation of Preacher simply could never have worked. The comics get straight to the action, with little to no info about who the characters are or exactly why they’re doing what they do. The show instead spends an entire season on character setup. And granted, the first season wasn’t perfect, but the idea was brilliant – and it made the second season much stronger.
The show also humanizes characters that the comics played for laughs. Tulip becomes more than Jesse’s girlfriend with a gun. Odin Quincannon becomes a real person instead of a caricature. Arseface (Eugene) becomes someone you sympathize with instead of someone who’s just a punchline.
As for season two, which starts to follow the comics more closely, we’re still not being fully faithful. And that’s a good thing. They’ve already made changes to The Saint Of Killers, Fiore and Deblanc, perhaps Angelville and Jesse’s past. So far, I’ve liked all of them. I hope it stays that way.
*It could very well be that next year or in two years I’ll write about the disappointment of Preacher :) *
Final thought: embrace the shift
Don’t just rely on your source material. Welcome changes. The choices a source material character makes don’t necessarily make sense for that same character in your show. Maybe because of the actor’s portrayal, their chemistry with others, or just unforeseen circumstances.
Especially for TV shows – they grow and change and improve constantly.
And don’t be mad when a show changes something about your favorite book or comic. If the creator and crew are fans, it’s almost a guarantee that they’ve thought about it, debated it, and decided that this was the best way forward. And there’s probably a good reason why.