Fans Don’t Actually Want Faithful Adaptations
When readers hear their favorite book or series is getting turned into a movie, they usually say they hope for faithful adaptations. While having a perfect TV show or movie based on the book would be amazing, this term isn’t quite right. I believe what people actually want is a story that is created from the original with passion and love.
Staying Completely Faithful Doesn’t Work
Hear me out. Yes, in theory, 100 percent faithful adaptations sound amazing. You have the perfect idea of how the story plays out in your head, and you’d like to see that come to life.
However, in reality, that doesn’t work all that well. There are moments in stories that just don’t adapt to the screen well, like internal thoughts.
Additionally, everyone sees characters and worlds differently. Even with descriptions, there is room for interpretation.
This means that there are a lot of different ideas for what the world should look like and who should play certain characters, making faithful adaptations hard.
Budgets Are A Concern
Unfortunately, budgets get in the way too. It’s hard to make a fantasy or sci-fi movie accurate on a limited budget. Even animation is expensive, and the cost further means certain scenes and story has to be cut out.
But in reality, I don’t think all of that really matters. I don’t think faithful adaptations are really what fans want anyway. It’s not about copying the story exactly so much as respecting the story.
A lot of adaptations are, or at least seem to be, about making money more than retelling a popular story.
Not Faithful With No Love Vs. Partly Faithful With All The Love
Artemis Fowl is a good example. Except for some names and the basic world, the story was completely different from the book, and there was no love for the original story present.
Unfortunately, many adaptations are like this, giving the whole process a bad rap, such as The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Golden Compass, and Timeline are just a few other examples of stories that are not faithful adaptations but also don’t carry any love for the original story.
But, there are times when they hit the mark, despite not being faithful adaptations. Though it’s a manga and not a book, I think the live-action One Piece is a good example.
There were a lot of doubts about the series being adapted to a live-action, but thanks to the dedicated cast and crew, it came off incredibly well, even with the story cuts.
Some Changes Are Fine
Another example is The Witcher. To be fair, this wasn’t one of those faithful adaptations at all. However, it was incredibly obvious that Henry Cavill had a passion for the story and tried to steer his character and the rest of the story as close to the original as possible, and many people stayed because of him.
But after he announced he was leaving, many fans realized the adaptation would lose any of the love in it.
Holes, To Kill a Mockingbird, Emma, The Princess Diaries, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest all do well to show that certain changes to a story can be done, while still carrying the essence of the original story.
They aren’t 100 percent faithful adaptations, but the adaptations get all of the important parts right.
Someone Will Always Be Upset
That’s why I think fans don’t want faithful adaptations. What they want is a fellow fan’s interpretation of the story. Everyone sees and interprets stories in different ways, which is what makes book discussions interesting.
Adaptations should be a fan geeking out over a story and explaining how they saw the story.
When done this way, though there will still be people upset about certain changes, it makes for a much more pleasant adaptation and one that feels like something more than a quick cash grab.
