I recently read an article about Percy Jackson being well-received by audiences because it’s a good adaptation. I’m glad. I have hope that producers might finally be beginning to understand you can’t just buy the names from the book and throw out all the contents.
Now, let me begin by saying I haven’t read Percy in like 15 years (since the first few books came out). And I haven’t seen Disney’s adaptation. But this made me think of others.
I use Hunger Games as an excellent example of an adaptation true to the book but still falls short for movie audiences. It’s very true to the books for the most part. Minor changes and adaptations, but the major notes and themes hold true. It struggles because of the point of view and the main character. In the books, Katniss is taciturn. Because the PoV is first-person this isn’t a big deal. We know what she’s thinking, she doesn’t need to speak it.
The movies stay true to this, and to people who haven’t read the books they felt the Katniss character was stiff and hard to relate to. Whereas, almost every person I’ve talked to who has read the book agrees that is a perfect representation of the Katniss character. She isn’t terribly likeable one-on-one. She doesn’t know how to bond with people. It’s a theme in the book that she doesn’t understand human connections very well. She isn’t charismatic like Petra.
People who had read the book liked the movies, but as a movie it struggled. I get it. I agree.
Lord of the Rings took some pretty powerful creative changes from the book. And it was still immensely popular because every one of those changes stayed within the themes of the book. The characters still felt true, and the major plot elements (both points and themes) remained intact. It proves changes can be made.
Then you look on the other hand at Game of Thrones and “little” changes here or there caused greater and greater rifts between the original book material and the “movie.” And the book-readers became more and more unhappy.
And this is really the key. There are, in my opinion, 3 important pieces any adaptation needs to keep at the fore.
1. Characters. Characters need to stay true to their motivations or their personality. Hermoine in Harry Potter was pretty different movies-to-books, but felt very similar in a LOT of ways because they kept her true to her personality.
2. Plot points. Keeping key beats and patterns can make a huge difference. I remember when the movie Eragon came out. I hadn’t been a huge fan of the book, but I wanted more dragon movies. And…. I was like “where’s the book.” At all. It’s like they took the name and the fact there would be a dragon and threw out the rest of the book. And then were surprised when it flopped.
3. Themes. This one is probably either the easiest or hardest. And really, if you aren’t bringing the original author in to discuss it with your writing room and keeping them around to answer questions… I think you are doing a disservice to both the author and the movie if you don’t. Whether this is pride and prejudice (looking at the Kiera Knightly version where I think they missed some of these marks hard) or the hobbit (also missed a lot), you can see which movies floundered here.
I also think these are missed most often because many of the people who are making decisions about movies don’t care about the books. It’s either a producer/director who might have their own vision (Avatar: the last Airbender), or some kind of executive who just wants to make money (too many to name), or just too many people trying to pull strings in different directions. Either way, they miss the mark and then seem confused why their project didn’t hit that grand success when it’s based on such a popular book.
Dream by Day 