Book to Film Adaptations - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

How often do you see your favorite book come to theatres? Far too often to count, right? It's a technique Hollywood filmmakers have been using for years. It's called an adaptation, and the success of such a film really relies on the source. A successful novel can give birth to a fairly successful film (at least on opening weekend). But how are these films typically received by the public and the fans of the source material? With sharp criticism or disappointment. Occasionally, one rises above and breaks the mold. But why does this happen?

Well, the obvious answer is that fans of the source material, be it a novel, comic book, or anything else, consider the source practically gold-plated. If the source is so great, why do producers feel they must change situations or characters, leave some things out, or put others in? Certainly, adaptations tend to stray from the source, and not many of them are better for it. But do these films deserve the harsh criticism?

In many cases, I prefer the original book to a movie adaptation. But that doesn't mean I hate the film, or even that I wouldn't recommend seeing the film. The biggest problem most people have is that they simply don't understand what goes into making a movie. It's a lot of long, hard work. Quite often, the work doesn't reward itself on the spot. What if you put in a lot of work, make a truly faithful adaptation, and the public still rejects it? Now you've proven your work incredibly futile. Making a movie is tough. Producers are not just looking to dramatically alter the author's intentions. They really are just trying to bring a film to screen.

Also consider that film and print are not the same. I know. DUH! Certain characteristics in novels do not translate well to the screen. How many does it take to describe a character's feelings? Can you show that? If you can show that same feeling, you can drastically cut production time, and run time in the process. So the adaptation can only be faithful to a point.

Plus, the producers and directors often want to bring out what they saw when reading the book. Let's be honest. We don't all view the same occurrence the same way. Some might look at an automobile accident and see, twisted metal, ruined landscape. Others see injured people. Neither view is incorrect, just two different ways to look at the same thing. Novels, especially, work this way, too. A character like Beowulf many see as the spotless hero, the blameless protagonist. But what if he's exaggerating his heroic claims?

We have to give directors and producers leeway to give us their vision. Film is first and foremost a medium of interpretation. I confess I often feel disappointed when I see one of my favorite books in film, but there's always something I find good about the resulting adaptation. Perhaps the best-known and best-executed adaptation in my generation is Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. There were more than a dozen things that Jackson did not include (and I believe could not include due to run times), but the final product still had that enchanting ring of fantasy. No pun intended. Author J. R. R. Tolkien would be very proud.

Some adaptations add material not found in the source material. In some cases, this pads the plot to make the film longer. In other cases, the addition seems clunky or unnecessary. But occasionally, the addition works well. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first of Disney/Walden Media's Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan returns and just like in the book joins in the great battle. He kills the White Witch, then turns to Peter and says, "It is finished." You will not find those three words anywhere in the source material, at least as spoken by Aslan in that scene. The phrase adds to the book, but complements it by including that air of finality. It's over. This is it. Also, given the book's allusions to Christian imagery, "It is finished" makes Aslan more of a Christ figure by having him speak the very words of Christ on the Cross.

Then there's Ang Lee's Hulk. I hate to bring this up, because this film is hated by so many people. I confess. I dislike it as well, but it has certain redeeming qualities. The titular character is portrayed as a conflicted creature created by man, pursued by man, hated by man, and destroyer of man. The conflict actually echoes the big green guy from the comics perfectly. But the movie tried too hard to be a science fiction masterpiece rather than the Hulk. Perhaps that's why so many hate it.

In my lifetime I've seen something on the big screen: adaptations of popular video games. These are often received with sharper criticism that adaptations of novels. Only a few achieve both box office and critical praise. Resident Evil perhaps had the best outing. Super Mario Bros. has garnered so much criticism that Nintendo hates to mention it. The problem lies with the fact that a popular game doesn't stay a single game for long. Games can have sequels, sequels to sequels, spin-offs, and prequels in the space of only a few years. When new of a film adaptation reaches the public, what do the fans expect? Well, they want to see one of the games on screen. But that's impossible in almost every case.

Adapting a game is a lot like trying to sample the menu of your favorite fast-food restaurant. It's impossible to include everything in one sitting. So what do producers do? They take the best elements from the collective franchise and make an amalgamation. This process mixes the elements yet retains them to keep the film somewhat faithful to the source franchise. Of course, this doesn't always work. Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within was slated to be a major hit, bouncing off the success of Squaresoft's popular Final Fantasy game series. But it only loosely amalgamated the elements that make up Final Fantasy. The end result was a science fiction masterpiece, but it wasn't Final Fantasy. Thus, it bombed.

In spite of all the flaws, which are only natural in most cases, occasionally an adaptation can rise to fame so successfully that it actually replaces the source material. When most people think of the Wizard of Oz, images of Dorothy's journey across a magical landscape in her red, ruby slippers instantly come to mind. But those Ruby Slippers were actually silver in L. Frank Baum's novel. Why the change? Well, the film was shot entirely in black-and-white and colorized later (the Technicolor process). Silver was not as flashy as sequined-red. It's a change that completely departs from the source, but has become so ingrained in the public conscious that I daresay most people wouldn't accept a more faithful adaptation.

Planet of the Apes. Well, this is mostly a faithful adaptation, but the source novel features an intriguing framing device. Many do not even realize the existence of the source novel. The book opens on a starship, somewhere in deep space. A husband wife on board the ship retrieve a bottle floating in space. The bottle contains a message, detailing the accounts of a human's struggle on the titular planet. The movie basically adapts the document's message. At the conclusion of the novel, having read the message, the couple dismiss the story entirely, claiming a human could never have such intelligence. The couple are chimpanzees. It's not so much a unfaithful adaption as it is one that has completely dominated popular consciousness, replacing the source novel.

But the mother of all adaptations is Boris Karloff in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. When we think of Frankenstein, we picture a large, hulking, unintelligent, ugly, illiterate, and nearly mute monster. The classic black-and-white film has so dominated our minds that when I read Shelley's novel, I was amazed. In the novel, the creature is not illiterate or mute at all, though he is large and ugly. The creature demonstrates full recognition of his action, proving an intelligence. The Doctor's creation of the monster is not seen. We are told he collected fragments from deceased bodies and assembled them, but no laboratory scene with lots lightning and the creature rising from a slab. It's quite a change.

By my own standard, Karloff in Frankenstein is a terrible adaptation, but it's one that again has embedded itself so deeply in our minds that it's classic.

I mentioned Beowulf earlier. Initially, I took great offense at the recent CGI adaptation. Visually, the film is a masterpiece. Certain expressions look so realistic that I forgot I was watching CGI. But the film departs from the epic poem in that it presents Beowulf as a fallen hero. I'd be willing to let this go for others, but this is Beowulf, one of the oldest pieces of English writing! But, I forced myself to see the other side of the coin. Even though the film departs from the source, portraying Beowulf as such gives the film something not seen in the epic. The issue of actions and consequences become painfully clear. Beowulf goes off to slay Grendel's mother, but sleeps with her instead. Thus, Beowulf fathers the dragon that later threatens his kingdom and kills him. The film paints a cruel picture, but presents a moral lesson in the process. I don't think it's better or worse than the source material, just a unique look at a classic.

In conclusion, adaptations often leave us disappointed, but give the producers and directors some slack. Making a film is hard work, not everything works right on screen, and not everyone reads the same message from the same book. Just give it time. Even the worst adaptation can become the future's classic.