Last Thursday night was an interesting night to watch my Twitter feed. Two movies were standing out from from the stream – Pacific Rim and Sharknado. The former is a big budget movie about giant mecha fighting kaiju. The latter is a SyFy Channel movie of the week made for, according to IMDB, one million dollars, featuring sharks in a tornado. No, really, check out the trailer on io9. If I ran a Hollywood studio, I’d be worried about my future.

We here at MuseHack have been tracking the Hollywood bubble, from superhero similarities to the big names questioning the sustainability. The bubble’s due to pop; how big the gooey mess will be even we can’t predict. Three big-budget movies have failed this summer. A SyFy B-movie managed to grab more attention than The Lone Ranger. The people in charge should be asking, “Why?”

Pacific Rim, while finishing behind Despicable Me 2 in North America, earned $US3.6 million, with another $US3.7 million in Asia. That is one night’s gross, the opening late show Thursday night. People are going out to see it; visually, it is like no other movie this summer and features giant robots punching giant monsters. My Twitter stream showed a positive reaction to the movie, including Canadian TV personality Ed the Sock calling it one of the greatest movies ever. Meanwhile, at the other end of the budget, Sharknado pulled in 1.4 to 2 million viewers, low but the viewers reached 350k tweets during the length of the movie, shy of the number of tweets generated by the “Red Wedding” epsiode of A Game of Thrones, an episode that garnered 5.22 million viewers. Both movies feature elements not normally seen in North American entertainment. The mecha and kaiju of Pacific Rim are staples of anime and Japanese cinema, but are rare to see in Hollywood.* Meanwhile, Sharknado had people fighting and being eaten by sharks in a giant tornado; a combination that it’s safe to say has never crossed through anyone’s rational thoughts**.

There must be committees now going on in Hollywood, sitting down, analyzing both Pacific Rim and Sharknado, trying to figure out what makes the movies tick, why their respective audiences are raving on social media, and how to duplicate that success. What the committees might miss is that both movies deliver on their promise; giant robots punching giant monsters and sharks in a tornado being fought against with chainsaws. The movies aren’t deep; even Ed the Sock says Pacific Rim is a movie, not a film. But they bring something different in a summer where checklists are failing and tentpoles are falling. I just don’t expect the committees to realize where the problem is.***

* Outside dinosaurs, which fill in for the giant and the monster, but not the fear of nuclear power that kaiju also have.
** Like kaiju, Sharknado uses fear as a hook for the audience. Instead of nuclear power, the fear is of climate change, of once-in-a-century storms happening several times a decade. And the fear of sharks, thanks to Jaws.
*** I do expect copycat films. There should be a MechaShark vs the HurriKraken in the next few years.

Early in Lost in Translation‘s run, I covered Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The movie, while being successful at the box office, had its problems – awkward moments, odd pacing, weak writing. The entire Star Wars prequel series shared the problems, with a romance between Padmé and Anakin that felt rushed in Attack of the Clones. The sheer amount of events to be covered in just three movies was one of the primary causes; at best, only highlights of the Clone Wars, specifically, the beginning and the end, could be touched. Characters came and went without much fanfare but with backstory connected to the main characters; Clone Commander Cody and General Grievous both appeared from nowhere* but had met Obi-Wan previously.

The Star Wars Expanded Universe may hold the key to fixing the problems the prequels had, though. Instead of patching in details afterwards, the concept of a larger universe could be built up prior to the first production’s release. The idea changes from filling in plot holes and introducing characters who become important in a movie to laying out groundwork for projects that connect as a whole. The rushed romance in Attack of the Clones can be expanded on and given the time it needs in a televison series, which was the case with the Star Wars: The Clone Wars CGI-animated series. The animated series also showed Anakin’s slow fall to the Dark Side, making his Face-Heel Turn in Revenge of the Sith far more believable.

The key to this approach is to capture the audience’s attention and curiosity. In the past, the goal of a TV series, especially a science fiction series, was to get enough episodes for syndication and enough of a following to justify a movie. Books are routinely turned into films. Right now, there is a massive boom in comic book movies. Even tabletop role-playing games aren’t immune; Gary Gygax had been trying to get his Dungeons & Dragons RPG for two decades. The silver screen has been considered the ultimate production for some time now. However, Hollywood is running into problems. We here at Musehack have been covering it, from The Lone Ranger‘s belly-flop** to movie fatigue to Steve’s look at the inevitable bubble popping. Cable television is getting more attention, thanks to series like Dexter, True Blood, and A Game of Thrones. Even animated series are getting attention. Thus, use the movie as a pilot. Plan out movies to deal with big events in the plot line and use television to deal with reactions, romances, and slower moving yet still needed plotlines. Movies have limited run times; few people will sit for longer than two hours unless the movie is riveting. Television, however, allows for a more expanded plot. If the villain is manipulating people like pawns, a movie will make him or her obvious, while a television series can use subtle moments that lead to the reveal. The Clone Wars is a great example of watching a chessmaster play both sides of a conflict.

Let’s take Star Wars as an example. George Lucas released the original Star Wars first because it was self-contained and it got to the heart of the main conflict. If the movie failed, no cliffhangers would be left dangling. Star Wars would still be the first movie to be released if everything was pre-planned. Get the audience’s attention with leading edge special effects and a classic storyline. Afterwards, a TV series showing the fighting between the Rebellion and the Empire, introducing more setting elements and Vader’s search for the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, with everything leading up to The Empire Strikes Back. People following the TV series would know why the Rebels are on Hoth and the screen crawl would catch others up on events. Following Empire, a new TV series that leads people up to the events of Return of the Jedi, including Luke’s training, the search for Han, and the discovery of the second Death Star. The prequels can follow a similar format. The Phantom Menace introduces the new series, shows the beginning of the fall of the Republic. The follow-up TV series shows Anakin’s training, the budding romance between Anakin and Padmé, and early machinations of Darth Sidious, leading to Attack of the Clones. The next TV series is, essentially, The Clone Wars, leading to Revenge of the Sith. Optional TV series or series of series to bridge the gap between the fall of the Republic and the attack on the first Death Star.

The problem is audience fatigue. Star Trek ran into the fatigue problem when Star Trek: Enterprise lost its audience. Enterprise followed directly after fourteen straight years of Trek, from the beginning of The Next Generation to the end of Voyager, with a seven year period where Deep Space Nine accompanied the other two series***. The franchise should have allowed to lie fallow for a few years, until viewers wanted more instead of just expected a Trek show to be on. A project that incorporated both movies and television would need to be aware of the risk of a falling audience. The other problem is trying to get the audience in the first place. If the first movie fails, the audience for the project may not exist; no studio is going to throw more money into a project that has already floundered. The work put into the setting up the film-and-TV series will go to waste, possibly to be integrated into other works.

Back-filling, for now, may be how movies get plot holes fixed. With Hollywood seeing a burst bubble on the horizon, a new approach may be needed.

Next week, Ma and Pa Kettle.

* Actually, in non-movie works. Grievous first appeared in a Star Wars comic.
** Despite having a shirtless Johnny Depp in leather pants.
*** Three year overlap with TNG, four years with Voyager. Twenty-one years of Star Trek in a fourteen year period, ignoring syndicated reruns of the original series.

A month ago, I discussed adaptations under new names, how a name change can distance the work from the original, and the idea of a work being an adaptation in all but name. I’ve reviewed one movie, Real Steel, that used a name change to create a distance between it and the work it is based on. Real Steel, however, was still built upon the late Richard Matheson short story “Steel”. Today, however, I will look at a movie that only claims inspiration from a work.

Throughout the run of Lost in Translation, I’ve maintained a philosophy looking at both the good and the bad. Good movies can show how to do things well. Bad movies can be a lesson on what not to do, and may still have elements that work. Street Fighter: The Movie was a great example of a bad movie that still had elements where they tried to stay faithful. Even Dungeons & Dragons made an effort to be recognizable. And, yes, everything I review, I watch, read, or otherwise experience. With Alien from LA, I started feeling like Gonzo the Great, suffering for the art. Or maybe I felt more like Statler and Waldorf. Suffice to say, Alien from LA falls under the category “Bad Movie”. If it weren’t for the fine people of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, I don’t think I could have gotten through the movie with sanity intact.

I watched it, so you don’t have to.

Alien from LA was inspired by Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, or, more accurately, the 1959 movie adaptation with Pat Boone. Verne is considered one of the founders of science fiction, creating works that explored fantastic parts of the Earth and that inspired scientists and engineers. His works have been translated to many languages, second only to Agatha Christie for sheer numbers. /Journey/ has been made into several movies under its own title and has inspired other works. The book chronicles the search for a route to the centre of the Earth* and the sights seen along the way, including dinosaurs and a prehistoric human. Verne took the time to think about the underground ground world; electrically charged gas for lighting, the dangers of gas build up, the need for food and water. The 1959 movie added elements such as Atlantis to the underground world and a few extra characters, including a duck.

To say Alien from LA borrowed elements from the 1959 movie and the original work would be like saying the English borrowed from other languages; the “borrowing” involved a dark alley and a dagger. With the name change, liberties could be taken with the source material. The story remained more or less the same, someone goes down into a new world underground and discovers what’s there. In the original Journey, the reason for searching was to discover what an alchemist found in an Icelandic volcano. The 1959 movie presented a puzzle in the form of a plumb bob in volcanic rock left by an Icelandic scientist three hundred years earlier. Alien from LA had Los Angeles waitress Wanda Saknussemm, played by Kathy Ireland, trying to find out what had happened to her father on an archaeological dig in Africa. At her father’s dig/apartment**, Wanda reads through her father’s journals and discovers that he may have found Atlantis. Wanda decides to take a look at her father’s basement/dig site and finds a chamber where she falls through a hole into a seemingly bottomless pit.

When she regains consciousness, Wanda finds herself in an underground world and meets up with Gus, who she accidentally saves from being murdered. Gus takes Wanda to Atlantis to help find her father while trying to determine whose voice was the most annoying***. Wanda is, despite the frumpy clothes, obviously an “alien”, a surface world dweller, because of her “big bones”. Along the way. Wanda loses her glasses, cleans up using a steam vent****, and gets new clothes that lets her look like Kathy Ireland should. Wanda gets kidnapped, taken to be sold at the underground underground market, is rescued, finds her father, and, eventually, returns to the surface world mostly a new woman.

To say Alien from LA had problems is an understatement. Shot on a limited budget that had parts of it restricted to Africa, the movie reused several actors in multiple roles. The studio, the Cannon Group, was well-known for B-grade action movies such as the Death Wish sequels and Invasion U.S.A, plus Breakin’ and its sequel, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. By the time Alien from LA was being produced, Cannon’s funds were coming from Michael Milken’s junk bonds, with the junk bond market crashing in 1988. The movie was being used to bring the restricted funds out of Africa. Quality of work wasn’t first and foremost.

In terms of casting, the only real name in the movie was Kathy Ireland. Known at the time for being a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, Alien from LA was her first lead role. Her size, being 5’10” tall, helped land her the role; the director needed someone to look stronger than the thin, underdeveloped Atlantians. Her co-star, William R. Moses, playing Gus, previously played Cole on Falcon Crest and would appear with Julia Roberts in Mystic Pizza later in 1988. The remaining cast was relatively unknown to mainstream audiences.

Visually, the movie did make the underground world and Atlantis look alien. The terrain was more than just a cave while still enclosed and slightly claustrophobic. Buildings in Atlantis were built into the rock walls. The lighting was variable, dim in some areas, bright but tinted in others. Adding to the other-worldliness was an element of government overwatch through a hybrid of George Orwell’s 1984 and the Max Headroom TV series complete with omnipresent television screens with a talking head releasing sanctioned information. The clothes worn by the Atlantians were either functional, as seen with Gus’s coveralls, or completely unconnected to any fashion trend in the 80s or any other period in history. The underground world was definitely its own place, uninfluenced by anything from the surface.

Beyond sharing the general plotline and using one name, Saknussemm, with Arnold Saknussemm, Wanda’s father, being similar to Arne Saknussemm, the Icelandic alchemist who first discovered the way to the centre of the Earth in Journey, there isn’t much in common, Even adding the 1959 version and its addition of Atlantis, Alien from LA isn’t a good adaptation. However, with the title change, Alien from LA distances itself from the original works to stand on its own feeble merits. It’s just not a good movie.

Next week, another look at the Star Wars prequels.

* Obvious, from the title.
** Don’t ask.
*** Wanda won. She kept her squeaky voice throughout the movie. Gus’s Australian accent came and went, probably trying to escape Wanda’s voice.
**** Steam does not work that way.

Superman has been around for a long time. Last month marked the 75th anniversary of the release of Action Comics number 1, Superman’s first appearance. Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster created the characters for a thirteen page story in the comic, originally an anthology. The story showed the now-classic origin story of a baby sent from a dying planet to be adopted and raised in the American Mid-West to become a champion of the oppressed. An entire genre – superhero comics – built up after publishers noted the success of Superman. Generations have grown up with the adventures of the Man of Steel; Superman has appeared on radio, in serials, in movies, on television (live action and animated), video games, novelizations, and even a Broadway musical. Superman is an iconic character, one of the most recognizable.

In short, people know who Superman is.

This level of familiarity, though, can make it hard to adapt the character. As with other works, like the Incredible Hulk and the Addams Family, what the general public knows about a character doesn’t necessarily reflect the original or any development that has occurred, with the knowledge coming from a popular adaptation. Superman, as iconic as he is, has had iconic adaptations done; the main one in the collective subconscious being Superman: The Movie with Christopher Reeve. The 1978 movie introduced distinctive theme music that is now forever associated with the name “Superman”. All incarnations of Superman since then, including Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Smallville have had nods back to the Christopher Reeve movie. To be fair, Superman: The Movie was well done, captured the feel of the Silver Age Superman, and Reeve did show how a pair of glasses could protect Superman’s secret identity*.

Man of Steel opened last month after a turbulent five year development that saw numerous writers directors approached. Eventually, Zack Snyder was signed on to reboot the movie series instead of continuing from the 2006 Superman Returns. Man of Steel takes the audience back to the last days of Krypton, as the planet died through an ecological disaster, and follows, through flashbacks, Clark’s arrival on Earth and how he adapted to his powers, Clark’s search for who he is, and his choice to protect his new home when the old war finds him. The movie is one part an orphan’s story, one part a refugee’s story, and one part an immigrant’s story.

Given the nature of the story, with an alien refugee hiding from terrestrial authorities, having Lex Luthor as a villain would defeat the purpose of the general theme. First, there is a gross power unbalance between Superman and Luthor; Luthor has far more power available to him just through wealth that he could defeat the Man of Steel before the latter knows something is up, while, in a fight, Superman would have to hold back to avoid looking like a dangerous invader. The choice of General Zod, though, sets up Superman as the saviour of Earth and forces Clark to decide whether he is a Kryptonian or a Human. Having Zod also allows the film to show the destructive potential a battle between Kryptonians and, hopefully, sets up a “World of Cardboard” speech in the next movie or in a potential Justice League film.

As an adaptation, the movie mostly succeeds. The problem, as noted above, is that the general public is more aware of an adaptation than the current comic. As a result, the tone feels slightly off, darker than what the audience may be used to in previous incarnations. At the same time, Man of Steel is a Superman movie, with Henry Cavill’s portrayal of Clark on the mark. It’s just that the story isn’t what people are used to out of the Superman franchise.

Next week, Alien from LA.

* Watch Reeve’s body language as Clark Kent. There’s one scene where he’s about to reveal himself to Lois, taking off the glasses, with a noticeable change in his posture. When he changes his mind and puts the glasses back on, he deflates, slouches, and his voice loses confidence.

Adapting popular books isn’t new in Hollywood. Some of the best known movies are based on written works, be they books, short stories, or plays. Historically, the accuracy of adaptation has fluctuated, though some works included a change of name to reflect the differences. It is possible that, right now, we are in the middle of a Golden Age of adaptations, where authors have just enough clout to ensure that their works are adapted faithfully instead of being mined for ideas and left an empty corpse in Hollywood Hills.

Outside Hollywood, studios and directors tend to be more aware of the original work and its audience when it comes to adapting. The approach is to keep the original work in tact where possible, and can be seen in The Guns of Navarone. The original novel, released in 1957 by Alistair MacLean, featured a hand-picked team of specialists being sent to destroy the anti-ship artillery guns on the titular Greek island after previous attempts, including a bombing run, failed to destroy them. At stake, the lives 1200 British soldiers and the British ships being sent to retrieve them before the German offensive starts. Without the guns destroyed, the flotilla would be under a heavy barrage from the guns, out of range of the ships’ own weapons.

The movie follows the plot of the book reasonably closely. Events from the book do show up in the movie. The changes between the two occur in the characters. Captain Keith Mallory, Corporal Dusty Miller, and Andrea, a former Greek colonel all appear and serve in the same roles in both movie and book, with some minor alterations. Supporting characters, though, did see changes, some minor, some massive. Mallory, a New Zealander in the novel, picked up Gregory Peck’s American accent in the movie. Andrea, played by Anthony Quinn, originally was Mallory’s confidante, and didn’t harbour the grudge he had in the movie. Miller was cynical in the book, but David Niven gave him a touch of resigned whimsy. The Greek resistance members Louki and Panayis became Maria and Anna, played by Irene Papas and Gia Scala, respectively. The gender flip allowed the producer to add a romance that didn’t exist in the original novel.

As I mentioned above, the plot remained unchanged. The change from novel to movie meant that different means of keeping up tension had to be used. The destruction of the guns occurred “off-screen” in the novel, leaving the tension to the reaction of the characters as they waited for their explosives to detonate. The movie, though, turned the focus of the tension to the search for the planted explosives and the raising and lowering of the cargo lift, where if the lift dropped down far enough, the circuit needed to detonate the charges would be complete. Camera angles, the tempo of the music, the cuts from the cargo lift to the flotilla to the main characters waiting heightened the tension.

Is the movie version of The Guns of Navarone a perfect adaptation? No; many changes, some for the sake of expanding the demographic to have something for everyone, were made. However, the plot remained unchanged, as did the general feel of the novel. The core ideas – the guns being a danger, the stakes, the race against time – remained. Helping was the quality of the cast*; the odd actor out was James Darren, whose movie works prior to being cast as Spyros Pappadimos included two Gidget movies. However, Darren turned out to be up for the challenge and held his own among the rest of the cast.

The Guns of Navarone has been adapted in other ways, beyond just the movie. A radio play was produced in 1997 for the BBC.  The original Battlestar Galactica had an episode, “The Gun on Ice Planet Zero”, that combined The Guns of Navarone with another of MacLeans’s novels, Ice Station Zebra.  The core story – the race against time by a small team to protect thousands – reaches out and grabs the audience, no matter the format.

Next week, The Man of Steel.

* Today’s cast equivalent would be Daniel Craig, Johnny Depp, and Patrick Stewart, in terms of talent and draw. James Darren would essentially be Rihanna in Battleship except with a better role to work with.

Charles “Chas” Addams had a macabre sense of humour. His one-panel cartoons were mainly around the theme of the mundane meeting the bizarre. From this mind came the Addams Family, first depicted in 1938. The Addamses were a typical American family, just one that enjoyed the darker things in life. Today, the mere mention of the name can trigger the TV show’s theme song as an earworm.

The first adaptation came in 1964, when The Addams Family appeared on ABC as a sitcom, lasting for two seasons and sixty-five episodes. The TV show required Chas Addams to give his characters names for the first time. The series continued to show the family as being macabre, but not dysfunctional. Sure, they were bizarre and creepy, but Gomez and Morticia loved each other, in their own way. The portrayal of the family mirrored Chas Addams’ cartoons, with minor changes: Grandmama was originally Morticia’s mother, not Gomez’s; and Pugsley was more like Bart Simpson in the original one-panel cartoons.

Fast forward to 1991. By this point, most people were more familiar with the television series than the original cartoon, thanks to the magic of TV syndication. The TV series reached the magic number of sixty-five, which would allow a station to re-broadcast the series five days a week for thirteen weeks. However, adapting an adaptation can be troublesome; each iteration introduces interpretation gaps, where the portrayal of a character or even of the tone of the new work is slightly off. Part of the issue is that getting two people to agree perfectly on an interpretation is rare; everyone involved has different experiences filtering and colouring what is being seen. Yet, the original work was available.

Fortunately, the movie makers had read some of the one-panel cartoons. The cast included Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, and a young Christina Ricci in her third movie role ever. Julia took John Astin’s manic portrayal of Gomez Addams and replaced the mania with intensity while still being Gomez. Ricci portrayed an older Wednesday, one that’s more devious and darker than her television counterpart. Meanwhile, Pugsley, originally played by Ken Weatherwax and portrayed by Jimmy Workman in the movie, lost his intelligence and deviousness and becamse the younger sibling. However, the sibling relationship between Wednesday and Pugsley remained intact – Wednesday would try injure Pugsley who would somehow survive and possibly enjoy what was happening.

The plot of the movie followed a scam to take advantage of Gomez and his search for his long lost brother, Fester. Hoping to cash in with a look-alike to pay off a loan shark, Gomez’s lawyer uses the loan shark’s son to pose as Fester. Through machinations, the Addamses are forced to leave their home and deal with the real world. The major problem with the movie was having the Addamses try to adjust to the mundane world, when, in the TV series and the cartoons, it was the mundane that had to make the adjustment. However, when Morticia is taken prisoner and is tortured to give up the AddamsFamily fortune, the classic macabre returns with Morticia complimenting techniques, again, coming from elements in both TV series and cartoon. The end scene, with Morticia knitting a misshapen baby’s outfit comes directly from one Chas Addams’ own cartoons. The name of the new child, Pubert, is reused from the TV series, where it was discarded because it sounded to close to “puberty” and “pubic”, words that were considered unfit for broadcast.

As an adaptation, the movie stumbled a bit by forcing the Addamses to adjust to the rest of the world, a problem corrected in the sequel Addams Family Values, where the cheerful could not stand in the way of the sardonic. However, The Addams Family movie managed to blend the style of the original cartoons with the TV series and kept the feel of both.

The movie and its sequel weren’t the only adaptations. There have been two animated series, a direct-to-video pilot, a rebooted TV series. video games, and even a stage musical. The core has always been a family who, despite their macabre ways, love each other.

Next week, heading back for a classic adaptation, The Guns of Navarone.

Back before I started the Adapting Games, I chatted with Steve on unofficial adaptations; works that don’t share the name and may not even have permission to build on an original. This opened up a wide vista and possibly a can of worms. A good number of such adaptations come from adapting a work that’s long out of copyright protection; the various adaptations and reworks of Shakespeare’s plays are the obvious examples. However, the idea struck me after watching Alien from L.A.*, an adapation of Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, which may be reviewed in later installments.

In a manner similar to slightly changing the name of an adaptation**, the use of a completely different title allows some distance between the original and the adaptation. The change allows viewers to know that the new work won’t be faithful in some manner to the original. If the adaptation is unofficial, it also gives some legal maneuvering room. If the original work is famous or infamous, the new name will prevent potential viewers from leaving, either because of preconceived ideas about the original work or because of real issues with the original. The change of title from Romeo and Juliet to West Side Story allowed the movie makers to change the Shakespearean play set in Renaissance Italy to blue-collar 1950s New York City; the change also could bring in people who, thanks to English classes, felt Shakespeare was too high brow for them to understand. Similarly, if Plan 9 from Outer Space were to be remade, it would need a new name; Plan 9 is infamous for being bad, a quality that gets people to watch it. A good or even a “not bad” version of the movie would lose the charm Plan 9 and Ed Wood fans see in the film.

Sometimes the name change comes from translation. Changing the setting of the original work can force a twist. The Western The Magnificent Seven was based on the Japanese movie, The Seven Samurai. The core of feudal honour of the samurai became personal honour for the gunmen; katana were exhanged for revolvers. Yet, The Magnificent Seven still tells the same story as The Seven Samurai. The switch in language, in era, in tone still allows the original story to reach a new audience. This is where many localizations fail. The cast gets “Americanized”, but the background is left as is, creating a jarring dissonance. The live action Akira may be a victim of this, even during pre-production. It is not enough to move the action to New York City; Tokyo is as much a character in Akira as the titular character. If the makers still want to move the story to New York, they’d be better off re-titling the movie after the main character and adjusting the story to reflect the character of New York.

For older works long out of copyright protection, changing the name creates a distance that helps separate the new work from the old. As mentioned, West Side Story places Romeo and Juliet into an at-the-time modern New York***. Romeo Must Die turns the play into an action movie. The animated film Romie-0 and Julie-8 turns the cast into robots; Gnomeo and Juliet turns them into garden gnomes. Each title lets the audience know what the twist is in advance. Shakespeare’s plays tend to receive a disproportial number of adaptations by other names. Disney’s The Lion King is based on Hamlet. The musical Kiss Me, Kate is based on The Taming of the Shrew. Part of the reason for the updating is that the plays are presented as written works in English classes, not as performed works; Shakespeare’s entire library then gets seen as a very high brow form of entertainment for a limited number of people. The adaptations are then seen as being simplified for a larger audience.

In future installments, I’ll take a look at a few adaptions in other names and see how well they stack up to direct adaptations.

Next week, the Addams Family.

* Well, the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 take on it.
** For example, Real Steel.
*** West Side Story started on Broadway in 1957 before being adapted as a film in 1961.

Welcome to Lost in Translation‘s quick – wait, not so quick – series of adapting games to television and film. The series grew, but now it’s time to wrap up.

Part I – Video Games
Part II – Boardgames
Part III – Tabletop Role-Playing Games
Part IV – Adapting Games to Games
Part V – Adapting Games to Games: Tabletop RPGs

Wrapping Up

The core through the series kept going back to the key to adapting anything: respect for the original. In the case of games, there just happened to be a few elements that don’t exist in other media. Game mechanics do create a feel for a game; a game of Battleship should be different from a game of Parcheesi while a game of Clue should be different from a session of Vampire: The Requiem*. Video game adaptations also have to factor in that many viewpoint characters are there to represent the player and have no pre-determined personality. Tabletop RPGs allow the players to create their own characters. Boardgames may not even have a being beyond a marker.

Game adaptations have ranged from successful (Mortal Kombat, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), failures (Dungeons & Dragons, The Legend of Chun Li), and the in between (Battleship**, Street Fighter). When an adaptation works, the new work captures the feel of the original. The failures, though, seem to miss the point completely or have no respect for the fans of the original. Warner Bros. is developing a new movie based on D&D, with the project originally working on adapting the RPG’s predecessor Chainmail. With luck, the scriptwriter has played the game and can bring the feel through to appease fans while still not alienating the audience that doesn’t play.

This series barely scratched the surface. I focused on television and movies, but skipped past books. Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October began with the Games Designer Workshop wargame Harpoon. Red October would go on to be adapted as a movie, which then got adapted as a wargame by TSR. The Wild Cards series of books got its beginnings in a Superworld campaign with George R.R. Martin as the GM; in 2007, Green Ronin picked up the license for an RPG based on the setting. Works get adapted, then the adaptations are adapted. Pull one thread and the next thing you know, you have half of a different medium following like cats chasing a laser dot.*** With the proliferation of gaming, whether board, role-playing, card, or video, more and more creators are going to find inspiration in what they play. Amazon’s foray into publishing fanfiction (see Steve’s thoughts, parts one and two for more), we could be seeing more game adaptations in a few years.

Next week, an adaptation by any other name.

* Less blood drinking in Clue, ideally.
** Battleship wasn’t a bad movie in and of itself. It didn’t live up to expectations or to the budget it had.
*** There was a metaphor here, but it got lost.

Welcome to Lost in Translation‘s quick series about the ins and outs of adapting games to television and film.* As seen since the first post, if something is popular, someone else will want to adapt it to a different medium. Today, 2013, the most likely medium to adapt from elsewhere is the Hollywood film.

Part I – Video Games
Part II – Boardgames
Part III – Tabletop Role-Playing Games
Part IV – Adapting Games to Games

Adapting Games to Games: Tabletop RPGs

Two weeks ago, I went through how to adapt boardgames and video games as other games, leaving tabletop role-playing games aside for later. A few minutes of quick, barely scratching the surface research later had me wondering just what, exactly, had I gotten myself into.

Back in 1974, Tactical Studies Rules released Dungeons & Dragons, based on a miniatures wargame called Chainmail. Since then, D&D has been the most popular and best selling RPG released, the 800 pound gorilla of the industry. When computer gaming appeared, many games, including Rogue and its imitators**, emulated the feel and, at times, the mechanics of the RPG. Similar adventure games, such as the Ultima series and the Bard’s Tale series, owe their existence to D&D. The influence of D&D is still felt today, with terminology*** appearing in games like The Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, and Diablo, not to mention the concept of a Massive Multiplayer Online RPG (aka, the MMORPG). Two MMORPGS, Everquest and World of Warcraft eventually had tabletop RPGs released, both based on the Dungeons & Dragons third edition open gaming license. A third, Neverwinter Nights was an SSI-licensed game based on Neverwinter in the Forgotten Realms and was available on AOL in the early 90s.

TSR and Wizards of the Coast eventually did license official video games. Strategic Simulations Inc, now owned by Ubisoft, created a series of games based on both the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance settings. At least one project, Curse of the Azure Bonds was created as a video game, an adventure module for the RPG, and a tie-in novel, with all three having good reception on release. When WotC bought TSR and released D&D3E, Bioware received the license and released the Baldur’s Gate series of games.

D&D isn’t the only tabletop RPG, though. Other RPGs have been adapted as well. White Wolf‘s Vampire: The Masquerade has had two video games released – Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption. Hero Games’ Champions was the original inspiration for City of Heroes, which led to the Champions MMORPG. GDW’s MegaTraveller had two games, The Zhodani Conspiracy and Quest for the Ancients, both based on elements in the Third Imperium setting.

The goal, as it was back in Part III is to keep the feel of the tabletop experience. However, since many RPGs are simulating a genre already, care must be taken to avoid the added filter that the game might need. The game mechanics can be hidden away in the code; the player doesn’t need to know why he or she missed the dragon with the crossbow shot, just that the dragon’s full attention is now on the player’s character. Since there’s no guarantee on the type of character that will be played, since that will be the player’s choice, the writers will need to have the plot come from a non-player character, with the PC out to thwart the evil plans. If a game comes with a setting, the feel of the setting needs to be replicated. Fortunately, most RPGs come with illustrations, which should allow the video game designers to get a visual feel of the game. When done well, the game is successful. If not, fans of the game may avoid the video game.

This holds even if the RPG is being adapted as a boardgame. Vampire would not work well as a boardgame; the elements of the RPG include the struggle to keep the monster within in check, political machinations, and keeping the mundane world unaware that the supernatural exists and is hostile, none of which is easy to portray on a board. D&D, however, has had several boardgames based on the elements of exploring a subterranean maze and killing the evil creatures who dwell within. Ideally, an adaptation should fit within the setting, or one of the settings, of the game, feature iconic character types, and be representative of a typical game if possible.

Next week, the series wrap up.

* And theatre, though I’d be surprised if someone made that leap.
** Known as “roguelikes”, and includes Larn, Hack/, Nethack. and Diablo.
*** A non-exhaustive list of examples: Class, Level, Hit Points, attribute names

Between life interfering and the sudden realization that Part V of the Adapting Games series will involve delving into the history of computer gaming, Lost in Translation will be delayed a week.  My apologies to everyone.