Although I’m aware that the world of book-to-film (or TV ) adaptations is fraught with tensions of a terrifying scale, I decided that for my post this week, I would put aside my usual pacifist hat and make unqualified judgements on the complexities of turning a book into visual media!
Where fandom is involved, there is usually passion, and where passion is involved there is usually money to be made, but with the steep cost of wrongfully meddling with that passion, there is also a lot to lose. Why not adapt a well-received novel with a hive-mind of a fanbase into a vastly different format? Why not have a TV series, or multi-instalment film series, or an endless number of spin-offs for a successful franchise of books? What could possibly go wrong?
A lot is the answer to that question, in case my sarcasm wasn’t powerful enough, but it does not mean that an awful lot does not go right with book-to-film adaptations. We should always bear in mind that these things are subjective. In fact, I think there are three routes—none of them entirely negative—that these kinds of adaptations can go down: the good, the bad, and the different. These determine the standards adaptations are held to and explain why it seems so easy for them to go wrong. Each route has its ups and downs that are often missed respectively, and I’d like to discuss those with a few examples.
The Good (Or Faithful)
I would define the book-to-film adaptations that are classed as ‘good’ by the majority of fandoms as the ones that are as true to the novel as possible. All the major characters, plotlines, and themes are included. Nothing beloved is too extremely altered or removed, the casting is as close to the wishes of the masses as it can be. The book is enhanced by being brought to the big screen. Everything is perfect, so to speak.
The 1995 BBC mini-series Pride & Prejudice is highly regarded as one of the most faithful book-to-film adaptations, especially of a book so frequently adapted. The chemistry between the characters is excellent, the historical accuracy is mostly on point, and it does not miss a single beat of Jane Austen’s story. Of course, a series always has more time to capture the essence of a novel than a single film does, but often, even endless time is not enough to persuade show writers that it’s possible to include all major points of a story, which is completely fine, though not in this case.
For some, this is the perfect adaptation: a visual translation of a story they already love. Usually, adaptations like this get the best response, especially if the novel it is based on has critical acclaim, like Pride and Prejudice. Why fix what clearly is not broken?
The Bad (Or Misguided)
I think it’s necessary to start this section off with a disclaimer: I struggle to call anything creatively driven bad. I don’t think it’s fair. You may not like something, many people may not like something, but even something that seems objectively bad can redeem itself and find a use.
That being said, adaptations are usually considered bad for two reasons:
- The film is ‘bad’.
- It does not capture the magic of its source material.
When I say the film is ‘bad’, I mean that maybe the acting is a bit off, or the CGI is distracting, or the locations don’t quite fit and even if it stuck to the source material, it would still be considered a lacklustre film.
The second, slightly bigger, and yet more specialised reason a book-to-film adaptation may fall short of expectations is just that—expectations can be very high. People become incredibly attached to their favourite books, to the sense of community and understanding they gain from a passionate love of something. Often these feelings are directly linked to their satisfaction with the story as it is.
Any changes then, however minor, can have a significant impact on the reaction of the masses of existing fans, whether the film itself is good or not. It matters not how good the acting is, how great the soundtrack is. Character A did not say his best line, and Character B always wears black shoes, not navy blue. What a terrible film.
Though many have argued that the newer adaptation of Rebecca (2020) is generally a bad film, I agree with others who argue that it just misses the point of the book as a whole, and is entirely misguided. The film is less dark, going easy on the psychological torment of the female protagonist and on the physical, emotional, and psychological haunting by the dead Rebecca facilitated through the housekeeper she left behind, which is unfortunately the whole point. It’s not a terrible film, but knowing what I know about Daphne Du Maurier’s novel, I can’t bring myself to call it a good adaptation.
The Different (in a Good Way)
This may seem like I’m about to discredit everything I just said, which was that for existing fans of a novel, any difference can be a red flag of epic proportions. But occasionally, a difference will breathe new life into an already wonderful or potentially outdated novel and take something that could not or should not be adapted and make it ever better. Changes can also be made for the sake of avoiding repetition. If you’ve read a book and you know the story, why would you want it rehashed to you?
Obviously, many people would be okay with that, myself included, but we have to remember that they’re adaptations, not copies, and need to appeal to a wide audience, not only the existing fans. If you do want the story to be the same as it is in your head, or on the page, you would have to be content with the source material.
For this one, I have two examples, one being the TV series Shadow and Bone, which is (crucially) an adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse, not just her book of the same name, and because of that, it blends and alters her original stories from the books. This is done not just to make the story more palatable for an updated audience, but also to do the world and amazing characters she has created justice, which (based on the glowing reviews) many people believe it did. It was different, vastly so, but it satisfied the fan base because it celebrated the best aspects of Bardugo’s written work.
Now, hear me out. As a fan, I could say this for any of the Twilight films, but the differences in each film from the books does not take away from how well they adapt everything from the characters to the general atmosphere of the books in the films. Though if we’re talking specifics, the ending of Breaking Dawn: Part Two (2012) differs from the end of the Breaking Dawn book, yet does not really ruin the film.
The alteration in the film’s ending was perhaps an easier thing to achieve for cinema than it would have been in a book and designed in part to shock the already-devoted book fanbase, but also to inject some blockbuster action into an otherwise tense, though devoid of action, scene. It was different, but it worked.
It can be easy to run screaming from a book adaptation when you know something is going to be different, but sometimes it adds value where there was none. Occasionally it ruins everything, but more often than not it’s perfectly fine. An adaptation does not have to stick to every single detail in a story to be good. It just has to do it justice.
What’s your favourite book-to-film or TV adaptation?
Read 'N Riot 