You see it all the time and we talk about it all the time: our favorite franchises like cartoons, anime/manga, comic books, books and even video games being transferred to a different form of media known as film. Depending on who you talk to, it's either a good or bad on how these movies turn out; its also depending on what is being adapted and how it is being adapted, and in actuality, we've had a lot of good and bad adaptions hand in hand over time and especially nowadays considering that "nostalgia" is in right now.
The way I stand on it: you ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS need to make sure that how you're adapting a established franchise or property is staying in touch with the original source material. I'm fine with certain changes here and there and obviously, things that work in one format don't always translate well to another format and changes need to made in order to suffice, but even with that, you still can't just take something and make it into something that no longer resembles the same property. There are unseen rules to this, and there is also a proper process to doing so, a process that not every single person who is in charge of making these adaptions seem to get, unfortunately.
We've seen numerous times over the years and especially now considering that "nostalgia" is in right now where we've seen some bad flicks based on franchises we love. The first thing that comes to mind would have to be comic book movies, and I have a plethora of examples, including a franchise I already talked about before, that being the Spider Man film franchise directed by Sam Reimi (you should go read that afterwards by the way), and I could also name drop Ang Lee's Hulk, Daredevil, the X-Men film franchise, and Iron Man 3. All of these films and series of films have their respective flaws (the flaws in the Spider Man movies I have specifically stated in my thread) but the universal problems that surround these films is the fact that they take the characters, the settings, and the themes of the comics they adapt and mess them up big time. Characters are OOC, motivations are skewed, purpose and reason of events happening don't make sense or are in poor taste, classic elements that should be in them are ignored and replaced with new things we hate, I could go on and on with this. Bottom line: Hollywood, you're doing it wrong.
Now, I've stated before that changes being made to certain properties is okay, as long as they have a good reason. What do I mean by that? Well, first off, if a certain property is trying to be marketed to a certain group, a director may want to consider telling it in a different way in order to appeal to the, well, appeal of the franchise while at the same time making it better. They could also be doing this because certain things may work in the franchise's original media format and they need to change those things so that they can work on film. There's also the reason of trying to fit certain properties of a franchise together in order to create a linear or an original experience for said films. Examples include Forrest Gump, Into The Wild, the Batman series Nolan), The Man Of Steel, TMNT, Scott Pilgrim Versus The World, The Amazing Spider Man series, The Mask (not Son Of The Mask, blegh), the ENTIRE Marvel Cinematic universe (sans some films here and there IMO), and the list goes on and on with this as well. In the end, not only are these good adaptions, but they are good enough to be called their own thing. It's that kind of mix that signifies a good balance.
And with all of theat, that is all I have to say. Please leave your own thoughts below.
You see it all the time and we talk about it all the time: our favorite franchises like cartoons, anime/manga, comic books, books and even video games being transferred to a different form of media known as film. Depending on who you talk to, it's either a good or bad on how these movies turn out; its also depending on what is being adapted and how it is being adapted, and in actuality, we've had a lot of good and bad adaptions hand in hand over time and especially nowadays considering that "nostalgia" is in right now.
The way I stand on it: you ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS need to make sure that how you're adapting a established franchise or property is staying in touch with the original source material. I'm fine with certain changes here and there and obviously, things that work in one format don't always translate well to another format and changes need to made in order to suffice, but even with that, you still can't just take something and make it into something that no longer resembles the same property. There are unseen rules to this, and there is also a proper process to doing so, a process that not every single person who is in charge of making these adaptions seem to get, unfortunately.
We've seen numerous times over the years and especially now considering that "nostalgia" is in right now where we've seen some bad flicks based on franchises we love. The first thing that comes to mind would have to be comic book movies, and I have a plethora of examples, including a franchise I already talked about before, that being the Spider Man film franchise directed by Sam Reimi (you should go read that afterwards by the way), and I could also name drop Ang Lee's Hulk, Daredevil, the X-Men film franchise, and Iron Man 3. All of these films and series of films have their respective flaws (the flaws in the Spider Man movies I have specifically stated in my thread) but the universal problems that surround these films is the fact that they take the characters, the settings, and the themes of the comics they adapt and mess them up big time. Characters are OOC, motivations are skewed, purpose and reason of events happening don't make sense or are in poor taste, classic elements that should be in them are ignored and replaced with new things we hate, I could go on and on with this. Bottom line: Hollywood, you're doing it wrong.
Now, I've stated before that changes being made to certain properties is okay, as long as they have a good reason. What do I mean by that? Well, first off, if a certain property is trying to be marketed to a certain group, a director may want to consider telling it in a different way in order to appeal to the, well, appeal of the franchise while at the same time making it better. They could also be doing this because certain things may work in the franchise's original media format and they need to change those things so that they can work on film. There's also the reason of trying to fit certain properties of a franchise together in order to create a linear or an original experience for said films. Examples include Forrest Gump, Into The Wild, the Batman series Nolan), The Man Of Steel, TMNT, Scott Pilgrim Versus The World, The Amazing Spider Man series, The Mask (not Son Of The Mask, blegh), the ENTIRE Marvel Cinematic universe (sans some films here and there IMO), and the list goes on and on with this as well. In the end, not only are these good adaptions, but they are good enough to be called their own thing. It's that kind of mix that signifies a good balance.
And with all of theat, that is all I have to say. Please leave your own thoughts below.
Edited by Firaga Sensei