First of all, welcome to the fiftieth installment of Lost in Translation. I’ve learned a lot about the process of adapting a work over the past almost two years. I’ve watched shows and movies, both good and bad, to try to work out the common factors that work towards a good adaptation. The word “respect” kept popping up over and over.
However, older works do not stand up well to social progress. Pulp-era stories were aimed at a specific audience – men. Older science fiction and fantasy evolved out of those stories and kept the same biases. The main characters were men, and women, if they were in the story, were relegated to supporting cast. Many times, the woman in the story was the damsel to be distressed by the villain.
Times have changed. Audiences expect a more diverse cast. Women aren’t background characters anymore; neither are minorities. Marketing departments have realized this and will insist on adding the missing elements. A good example of a woman being added to a movie is The Hobbit. Galadriel was added in a scene to offset the rest of the entirely male cast. The original story featured thirteen dwarves and a hobbit, all men, going on an adventure. The novel represented JRR Tolkien’s background where men went to war and women tended the homefires.
These days, though, women can serve on the front lines. What was once chivalric is at best quaint and at worst sexist. The audience has changed. What was accepted before isn’t anymore. When it comes to adapting, though, making a change needs to be a delicate operation, especially if the original has a sizable fanbase. Composite characters can be used; audiences tend to understand the need to keep the cast manageable. But gender-switching can cause outrage. The Battlestar Galactica remake was running into this issue by changing Starbuck’s gender. However, as in Galactica‘s case, a well done final product can, if not remove, then ease the issue.
Creators now, though, can help in the adaptation process, and may already be doing so without realizing it. As mentioned above, a diverse cast goes a long way to help the production crew. If the elements already exist, there’s no need to add more. Sure, there are still other problems to deal with, such as studios not believing that a woman can carry an action movie.*
On a more celebratory note, I’ll pose a question. What do you feel were the best adaptations and remakes? What were the worst? And what ones should I take a look at in the future?
Next week, superheroes and origins.
* Conveniently forgetting both The Hunger Games and Tomb Raider.
Happy New Year!
I trust the holidays were well for everyone. I, for one, managed to get out to enjoy a bit of research for Lost in Translation* and took in the sights**. This year, 2013, is going to be filled with adaptations and remakes. Here are some of the coming adaptations.
A Good Day to Die Hard
Bruce Willis is back as John McClane, the hard-luck New York cop who somehow manages to find himself in the middle of a bad situation. A Good Day to Die Hard is the fifth of the series, with the original /Die Hard/ having been based on Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorpe. Die Hard itself changed action movies, allowing the main character to get battered, bruised, and beaten. The previous movie in the series, Live Free or Die Hard, received mixed reactions, most of the problems in it came from the studio wanting a PG-13 rating, cutting the gore and the language (including McClane’s catchphrase).
The Smurfs 2
The lovable three-apple high blue creatures with a limited vocabulary are returning to the big screen. The original adaptation did well enough, thanks to having Neil Patrick Harris and to appealing to a wide audience. This will be the middle movie of a Smurf trilogy.
Despicable Me 2
Although billed as a sequel, Despicable Me 2 is a spin-off from the original movie. The focus switches to the minions, who gained the affection of audiences.
Oz, The Great and Powerful
From Disney, Oz, The Great and Powerful is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, telling the story of the Oz himself and how he got to be the Wizard. The trailer appears to be following the movie continuity of Oz, not Baum’s books. However, more people are more familar with the movie starring Judy Garland (or The Wiz, with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson) than the books. Disney’s recent record on adapatations is excellent, though***.
Beautiful Creatures
The first non-sequel, non-prequel on the list, Beautiful Creatures is based on the young adult novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. If the movie does well, the rest of the Caster Chronicles should follow.
Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
Fairy tales seem to be Hollywood’s go-to source lately. With TV series like Grimm and Once Upon a Time and movies such as Red Riding Hood and Snow White and the Huntsman, darker takes on the tales are popular.****
Evil Dead
With Sam Raimi producing, the remake of the B-movie classic The Evil Dead should draw attention from fans of the original. Raimi is taking what he has learned since filming The Evil Dead and applying it to the remake.
The Takeaway
Originality in Hollywood is still at a low point. However, adaptations have long been a part of the movie scene; the much beloved The Wizard of Oz was released in 1939. People wanting originality may have to look elsewhere, such as books and television, or deeper, at how an adaptation is handled and look for nuance.
Next time, what do I have in my columnses?
* I went to a movie.
** I checked out the posters for upcoming releases.
*** Thor, Captain America, Avengers. The exception is John Carter, which is more of a marketing failure than anything else.
**** Though, darker is relative here. Many popular fairy tales have been cleaned up and made more palatable for children and their parents over the centuries since their first appearance.
First, please accept my apologies for not producing anything for over a month. Life got away from me and needed to be netted. Okay, there were butterfly nets involved. That’s what they told me.
As I mentioned before, I particpated in the National Novel Writing Month. To add to the challenge of writing a novel of at least 50 000 words, I decided to create a story that took in the lessons of Lost in Translation. That is, I wanted to write something that could be easily adapted without worrying too much that there would be much to be altered. Those who want to read Beaver Flight can download it from Google Drive. It is currently unfinished, unpolished, and low on my writing priority list, but will work as an example here.
My first consideration was cast size. While a novel can have a huge cast consisting of main, supporting, and incidental characters, often for adaptations they will get combined and even cut to save on the costs of hiring actors. Thus, my core cast was kept to four characters; Darcy, Renée, Victoria, and Dominique. The story had a Canadian slant to it, in part because I am Canadian and in part to make it easier for the adaptation to get grants from the Canadian government. Cynical, but funding needs to be a concern, especially with an adaptation that requires special effects.
Next, setting. The core idea is a gender-flipping of the classic B-movie trope of Mars Needs Women! However, I wanted to keep the fighting away from Earth itself and possibly the populace kept in the dark. This builds off the limited cast idea above. With an isolated base, replacement characters would take time to arrive. The pilot episode (if Beaver Flight was a TV series) could show the difficulties of getting to the lunar base with its higher budget with later episodes helping to ameliorate the cost of the setting. The moon’s low-gravity is still an issue, though, even in the unfinished manuscript.
Props are going to be an interesting element. Each of the main characters pilots powered armour; something larger than Iron Man‘s suit but far smaller than the traditional Japanese mecha as seen in the various Gundam series or Patlabor. Each suit will be distinctive; Dominique’s needs to be taller since she herself is the tallest character in the story. However, and only implied in the story, the base design of the powered armour is common to all suits, with only the paint and the markings by nation and pilot being the main visual differences.*
Key sets are minimized. The main ones on the lunar base includes the mecha hangar bay, the pilots’ briefing room, Beaver Flight’s shared bedroom, and the cafeteria. Other locations can come up, but aren’t as key. The area outside the hangar bay doors needs to be created, as will lunar landscapes. Fortunately, reuse of graphics and settings will be common.
As mentioned, I’m placing Beaver Flight low on my priority list. I feel that the story doesn’t really fit a novel format. The original concept, I feel, would work better in a more serialized manner, whether it’s a webcomic, TV series, or even a series of short stories. As I neared the 50 000th word of the story, I started adding elements that were meant to appear later, such as the breaking of the secrecy and the appearance of the alien invaders. However, with the manuscript, I can go back, turn the work into something that fits it better, and then polish it up.
In the end, getting the story to a point where it can be adapted without too many problems is extra work. Consideration has to be taken for the more expensive budget elements to try to keep costs in hand. Casts need to be limited; few movies and TV series have a core cast larger than seven. However, getting these elements worked in should make adapting the work easier, keeping the adaptation closer to the original.
Next week, urban fantasy renewal.
* Not used in the manuscript but completely acceptable by my standards – cutie marks on each suit of powered armour to add to the distinctions.
Last week, I covered how technology and progress affected vehicles in remakes. This week, I look at vehicles that have featured in projects that haven’t been remade yet.
Akira
The vehicle: Kaneda’s motorcycle.
Currently in the process of being adapted for a live-action movie, Akira was a milestone in anime released to North American audiences. One of the plot elements is Kaneda’s red motorcycle, something that Tetsuo coveted. The motorcycle is obviously powerful and futuristic, with no make or model given. For a live action version of the movie, the motorcycle needs to match the appearance.* Fortunately, without a specific manufacturer to worry about, the producers can approach a number of motorcycle firms for sponsor ship or try to get one of the fan-made models.
Airwolf
The vehicle: The titular helicopter.
Airwolf came out in 1984 on the heels of The A-Team and Blue Thunder and featured a helicopter with hidden weapons and capabilities. The Airwolf itself was a modified Bell 222 helicopter, used for both utility and executive transport. Remaking the series would require keeping the fictional helicopter’s role the same, an attack vehicle capable of blending into an urban airspace. With the Bell 222 no longer in production, another base model would be needed. Fortunately, a Google quick search brings up several suitable models from Sikorsky and AgustaWestland that have similar appearances to the original Airwolf.
The vehicle: The Bluesmobile, a former Mount Prospect police Dodge Monaco.
As mentioned last year, The Blues Brothers was adapted from a series of musical sketches by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi on Saturday Night Live. Elwood (Aykroyd) had to trade their old Cadillac for a microphone, replacing the caddie with a former Mount Prospect police car dubbed the Bluesmobile. The car, a 1974 Dodge Monaco, was chosen because Dan Aykroyd felt it was the hottest police cruiser in the 1970s. In Blues Brothers 2000, the new Bluesmobile was a 1990 Ford LTD Crown Victoria, an ubiquitous vehicle in law enforcement. A remake of the original movie, a daunting challenge in itself because of the music, would need a make and model of car that has been used as a police car. A used Crown Vic from a more recent year would work, as would a used Dodge Charger.
Back to the Future
The vehicle: A silver DeLorean DMC-12, modified.
In the Back to the Future trilogy, crazy Doc Brown modified a DeLorean DMC-12 to become a time machine, powered by a nuclear reactor. The DeLorean had several things going for it – unique appearance and not well known. The former let the car look cool, a different type of sports car than what was normally seen on screen. The unfamiliarity helped with people not knowing about its performance issues. TVTropes lists the car under the Real Life section of The Alleged Car. Doc Brown was crazier than people suspected. A remake of the movies will have to keep the DeLorean in mind; either to keep the signature car or find a new vehicle that fits the same role. Most car manufacturers prefer not to make bad cars; they cost money, either in lost sales or in lawsuits.** At the same time, a car that’s unique would also fill the role well; for example, a Tesla Motors Model X.
Next week, back to the reviews.
* Something has to remain original.
** The Ford Pinto with its exploding gas tank comes to mind here.
As a semi-recurring feature of Lost in Translation, I take time to discuss how adapting, rebooting, and remaking affects the choices made for elements in the project. This week, what happens to a key vehicle when progress makes it out of date? What can be done? Normally, a car is a car, a truck is a truck. However, several works have memorable models that feature prominently, either because the show was based around the car or because the vehicle was chosen specifically for its appearance. Here’s how some remakes handled it.
The A-Team
The vehicle: A black 1983 GMC Vandura van with red stripe and spoiler.
The remake: Reused, then crushed.
In both the original series and the remake movie, the van belonged to B.A. Baracus. The van makes an appearance early in the film as the characters are being introduced and is destroyed when Murdoch accidentally drops a roof ventilation system on it. The appearance of the van helped assure viewers that the original series would be respected. It was replaced by a HMMWV* later in the film.
Knight Rider
The vehicle: A black 1982 Pontiac Trans-Am, modified with front scanner.
The reboots: In both the 1991 Knight Rider 2000 movie and the 1997 Team Knight Rider series, KITT was transplanted and the original Trans-Am was not seen. For Knight Rider 2000, the replacement was a modified Dodge Stealth camouflaged as a Pontiac Banshee. TKR, however, had KITT in a non-mobile installation. The 2008 Knight Rider updated KITT, giving him a black Ford Shelby GT500KR Mustang.
Knight Rider provides an interesting challenge for updating. KITT, the Knight Industries Two Thousand, was an integral character to the show. Removing KITT removes a large element of the show’s appeal. The original KITT was, as mentioned, a black Pontiac Trans-Am with extra bells and whistles to show the high tech nature of the base car. The 1991 Knight Rider 2000 starts with KITT disassembled, then later placed into a 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air. Not quite the technological marvel, and KITT did remark on the downgrade. Later, KITT received the “Banshee”. With the TKR series, the concept of “one man can make a difference” changed into a team making a difference. The show also had a sponsor in the form of Ford, so all the vehicles were either came from Ford or a Ford subsidiary, which Pontiac was not**. Ford was also the sponsor for the 2008 Knight Rider series, thus the Mustang with two sensor lights instead of one***. However, the Mustang was the Knight Industries Three Thousand, a descendant of the original KITT.
The Dukes of Hazzard
The vehicle: An orange 1969 Dodge Charger with the Confederate battle flag on the roof and the number 01 on the door.
The remake: The same make and model.
The Dukes of Hazzard featured many car chases. The titular characters’ car, the General Lee, appeared in all but one episode, either chasing or being chased. Fortunately, the Charger was already a decade old when the show first aired. The 2005 movie could easily reuse the same model**** as a result. Any differences would be under the hood, usually out of sight of the audience.
Doctor Who
The vehicle: A Type 40 TARDIS with a broken chameleon circuit
The reboot: The same TARDIS
When /Doctor Who/ first aired, the Doctor’s “spaceship” was hidden in a junk yard and disguised as a British police call box. As the show continued, call boxes were phased out of use by British police in favour of radios. However, the Doctor’s TARDIS remained in its form. This was later explained by a broken chameleon circuit, which would allow a properly functioning TARDIS to blend into its surroundings. The Master’s TARDIS had a working circuit and could hide in most terrain. The Doctor did try to fix the circuit, but wardrobes were just as obvious as the call box in the middle of a wilderness. The reboot brought back the TARDIS in its much-loved form, with only the inside changed, reflecting the organic look from the 1996 Fox TV movie. Over the run of the series, the exterior received minor, cosmetic changes, but the essence remained.
Next week, how technological updates will affect more classic movie vehicles.
* aka, the Hum-Vee.
** Pontiac was a brand of General Motors until discontinued in 2009.
*** Like an original Battlestar Galactica Cylon being upgraded.
**** Many 1968 Chargers were totaled in the original Dukes.
Continuing with the comics theme started last week, this week looks at Marvel’s Spider-Man. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the arachnid-themed superhero first appeared in Amazing Fantasy 15 in 1962. Peter Parker, a high school science geek, received his arachnid abilities after being bitten by a radioactive spider while at a science exhibit. The first thing to go through the teenage Peter’s mind when he realized he had these powers was . . . to make money from them. He lived with his elderly Aunt May and Uncle Ben, who were having difficulties making ends meet. Peter’s idea was to become a TV star, complete with costume. However, when given a chance to stop a thief, he ignored it. Later, the same thief robbed and killed Uncle Ben. As Spider-Man, Peter tracked down the thief and stopped him. “With great power comes great responsibility.”
The Spider-Man line of books is probably Marvel’s top selling comics. Long before The Punisher or Wolverine appeared, Spider-Man was the go-to character to draw in new readers to a book, appearing in The Avengers and Fantastic Four as needed. Since his creation, Spidey has appeared in eight separate cartoons, one live-action TV series, a tokusatsu show in Japan, a daily newspaper comic, four live-action feature films, and a Broadway musical. Oddly, despite the popularity of the character, it took until 2002 to get a major motion picture released featuring the web-slinger.
Maybe not so oddly. The CBS series The Amazing Spider-Man from 1978 performed well in ratings but was costly to film due to the stunts required. In the comics and cartoons, Spider-Man swung between the tall skyscrapers in Midtown Manhattan. Recreating that safely required a lot of work, especially when CGI wasn’t even a consideration yet. However, technology pressed on, and many dangerous effects could be done far safer with the magic of computers.* By 2002, though, CGI had gone long past the experimental stage and into regular use.
Sam Raimi was approached by Sony to direct the Spider-Man film adaptation. Raimi himself had been a fan of the comic as he grew up, and worked to keep the feel of the movie to the original. Several changes were made, though. Instead of being bitten by a radioactive spider, the attacking arachnid was now genetically modified, reflecting the fears of the day. Instead of Gwen Stacy, Mary-Jane Watson was the love interest, though Mary-Jane would be far better known by the younger followers of the comics. The Green Goblin had a change in his costume origin, though the appearance harked back to his comic book likeness.
Despite Raimi not having used CGI in the past, he learned quickly, and had the web-slinging scenes turn into a ballet, complete with a shout-out to the 1960s era Spider-Man cartoon at the end. The mix of live action and CGI succeeded in bringing to life the wise-cracking hero’s unusual means of travel through New York.
The movie’s plot covered two elements. The first was an updating of Spider-Man’s origin, as mentioned above. The second involved the Green Goblin and an adaptation of “The Night Gwen Stacy Died” (Amazing Spider-Man 121). Both elements allowed Raimi to introduce some of Spidey’s supporting cast, including J. Jonah Jameson and his staff at the Daily Bugle. And, just as mentioned in last week’s Iron Man review, the villain didn’t steal the movie. Spider-Man, as a character, was interesting enough to carry the movie, despite Willem Dafoe’s portrayal of Norman Osborn.
The movie was a hit. It made over US$100 million in its opening weekend. But, as mentioned before, financial success is not an indication of a adaptational success. What is an indication is respect towards the original, helped greatly by Sam Raimi being a fan. The changes made reflected the times the movie was made in. In the 1960s, radiation was the boogieman feared by the general populace. Two superpowers sat in a war of escalation that would culminate in the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962, two months after Amazing Fantasy 15 was released. The line, “With great power comes great responsibility,” may not have been a lesson for just Peter. However, 2002, forty years later, the biggest threat to mankind wasn’t nuclear Armageddon, but genetic tinkering of food crops.** Radiation was understood, genetic modification was a wild card to the general public. The change in the origin was meant to resonate with the audience, allowing them to get the same feeling as readers of the first Spider-Man story did.
Overall, Spider-Man was a successful adaptation. The changes reflected modern realities and the need of an audience to have not followed a comic for forty years to understand everything happening in a movie.
Next week, a guest spot by Serdar Yegulalp.
* Watch as ones flip into zeroes before your very eyes!
** The Al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre occurred after filming completed.
In 1956, Richard Matheson had his short story “Steel” published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, later published in Steel and Other Stories. The story told of a former boxer, “Steel” Kelly, who turned to robot fighting with an older model and how Kelly steps into the ring to raise money to fix the robot. The brutality of boxing wasn’t minced, nor was Kelly’s desperation. Every body blow could be felt while reading. Interestingly, the story predicted the existence of a robot fighting league long before shows like Battlebots (2000) and Robot Wars (1998).
In 2011, Touchstone and Dreamworks teamed up with several other companies to adapt the story to the big screen. The movie, called Real Steel, followed a former boxer who was trying to raise money to fix his old robot. However, the movie breaks away from the original story at this point. Instead of following a washed-up boxer into the ring to fight a robot, the story focuses on the gulf between Charlie Kenton and his son Max. The movie more or less follows the formula for father-son bonding after being estranged, using the robot fighting leagues to symbolize how the two become more attached. The ending did deviate from most boxing movies; instead of a knockout, the final fight ends up being decided by the judges.
Real Steel is the one movie I’ve been looking to review in this column. As an adaptation, it’s a failure. The story and the characters are changed greatly to the point where there’s very little beyond the backstory of how robot fighting came to the fore. At the same time, despite the formulaic plot of a father and son working past their estrangement, the movie is worth watching because of solid performances from Hugh Jackman (Charlie) and Dakota Goyo (Max) and well done special effects of the robot gladiators.
As an adaptation, the movie fails early. As mentioned, the story and characters were completely changed from the original short story. Instead of Kelly going into the ring, the closest Real Steel shows Charlie boxing is in the final fight, using the “shadow function” of Max’s robot to keep the ‘bot going against the favourite and self-updating Zeus.* Even the tone of the story was different. “Steel” had an air of desperation as Kelly did everything he could to get his robot repaired, even if it meant injury and death. Real Steel had an undercurrent of hope that built up as father and son bonded.
However, the movie does show that while a film might not be a good adaptation, it can still be worth watching. As above, every actor in the movie gives strong performances. The special effects are well done and believable. The boxing scenes are well researched, with the film makers having Sugar Ray Leonard as a consultant. A difference can be seen between the robots managed by fighters and the ones programmed by programmers, with the latter going for more flash. What helps the movie is that the original story was fifty-five years old and relatively unknown to the target audience. Changes could be made and the audience wouldn’t know the difference.
Overall, Real Steel pays lip service to the original work, using ideas from the short story to build a completely different one. As an adaptation, it’s a failure. But the movie shows that even a bad adaptation can be a good movie, provided that the audience isn’t aware of the original work and that the studio puts an effort into making the film.
Next time, hopefully off into the black.
* In a perfectly good example of missing a twist, Max’s robot Atom could have had his shadow function turned on while facing Zeus in a case of Zeus constantly having to outfight itself. However, narrative requirements needed Charlie to fight.
A milestone passed by me back in May – a guest post by me about the nature of adaptations, reboots, and remakes. Coming up in July is the one year anniversary of Lost in Translation here on Fan To Pro. Over the past year, a number of remakes and adaptations were reviewed as I tried to find out what made them work and what made them fail. The key, as this column keeps repeating, is respect. Respect for the original work, for the fans, for the original creator.
Respect is not the only key. Although related, support is also an issue. Unless the body backing the remake/adaptation is on board, a lot of hard work can be tossed during post-production. At the same time, a studio can put their weight behind a project that probably shouldn’t have been greenlit in the first place, or can interfere with the best of intentions only to create a problem. Examples of post-production meddling for the worse can be seen in Johnny Mnemonic and John Carter. In the former, an executive had the movie re-edited after filming was completed, turning a cyberpunk story into a minor action movie. With John Carter, the film was essentially denied by a new executive, with minimal promotion and even the cutting of the title (from John Carter of Mars, a name that actually means something in the realm of science fiction fandom). However, having execs on board doesn’t make things a smooth sail. Flash Gordon had Dino Di Laurentiis’ full attention, including “helpful” suggestions such as getting casting suggestions from his wife, and input (monetary and creative) from Bob Guccione of Penthouse fame. Fortunately, the director had some leeway with minor characters and recruited from Britain’s stage actors.
How can a studio properly support a project while still get a good return on investment without interfering too much?
Be Aware of the Existing Fandom
While a smaller part of the total audience a studio wants, the existing fandom will have some of the loudest reviews and the Internet tends to amplify. While it is true there will be fans that won’t be happy at all with an adaptation or a reboot, the goal is to make sure that most objections will be answered in the final product. Michael Bey’s Transformers had a short mollification of the fanbase after the announcement of Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime.*
Know the Original
People going to see a reboot or an adaptation will already have some idea of the original. With a popular franchise, such as Superman or Harry Potter, pop osmosis means that even people unaware of the original will know details, like Superman being from Krypton or Harry goes to Hogwart’s for wizard lessons. Deviating from these details will cause outcry. The studio should save the alternate universe-style stories for later works, once it has proved that it can handle the original work to everyone’s satisfaction. Batman does not dress up in bright clothes. Captain Jean-Luc Picard doesn’t immediately arm phasers at the first sign of an anomaly and definitely won’t be the first to fire a torpedo. Characters need to be familiar, even if making changes to them. Too far out of character and the audience will wonder why the work wasn’t made under a different name.
Make Sure the Creative Staff is Aware
Usually, the creative staff – the writers, the directors, the cast, the crew – are aware of the above points. Sometimes, the creative staff is part of the fandom and understands what needs to be done. Sometimes, especially when the adaptation originates from the top down, creative staff need a reminder that they’re dealing with an existing work, not something completely new. Before Superman Returns, there were several false starts on a Superman movie. Part of the problem were writers and directors wanting to give the Man of Steel new powers or wanting to take existing characters and change them into something unidentifiable. Fortunately, DC and Warner Brothers pulled the plug before anything could get started. The companies realized that the property was too valuable to muck up and that their audience would turn away.
Guide; Not Interfere
Micromanaging a project is a great way to get people irritated, no matter what the field. At some point, the studio will have to trust the cast and crew to get things done. It’s one thing to get weekly or even daily updates, including film snippets. In fact, it’s a good way to head off a problem before it begins. However, getting hourly updates or even spending time on the set and second guessing the director will just increase tension and possibly get some of the crew to walk out. There’s a fine line, but guidance has always worked better in employee-labour relations.**
Know When to Fold
Sometimes, a train wreck is the only outcome. Part of the battle is knowing when to scrap a project as being a total write-off. There is no good reason to throw good money after bad; a bad movie is a bad movie, and, sometimes, a script doctor or a different director is just not going to make a difference. Ideally, problems should be identified early enough to pull the plug (assuming the issues aren’t fixable). However, economics can sometimes get in the way. The studio may have sunk several million into the project and shareholders will demand a return on their investment, even if the project isn’t likely to even bring in the original budget. At this point, the best that can be done is to find the takeaway from the mess for future works.
There are other elements of support. Budgeting is important, but just like there can be too little, there can be too much. Selecting a director, a writer, crew, and cast can be an artform, making sure that the different people can meld together. Like respect, studio support for an adaptation can make a huge difference in the success of a work.
Next week, adapting in the black.
* Also helping, multiple series of Transformers that had their own continuity. The fandom was able to accept the film franchise as yet another continuity.
** Employee/Labour relations, however, can be filed under slash fic. “Oh, Labour, your ability to keep the factory running just turns me on, you big stud.”
Board game adaptations aren’t new, but we’re going to see more coming over the next few years. How successful the coming movies are as adaptations will depend on how well they depict game play. Not necessarily the mechanics of the game, but what the game represents. Take, for example, the movie Clue, based on the game of the same name. The game Clue had players go from room to room, checking clues to discover who killed Mr. Boddy; essentially, a murder mystery given game mechanics. The movie Clue, while being light comedy, kept to the essence of the game, with a murder to be solved with the iconic characters from the game in the movie. The Week has an overview of board ganes we can look forward to seeing on the big screen. Let’s take a closer look at the titles to figure out if an adaptation is possible.
Monopoly
The classic game of buying, selling, and bankrupting the other players for the whole family. Ridley Scott has been tagged to direct the movie, described as a group of Trump-like greedy wannabe real estate titans. Given the trigger for the 2008 Crash, the popping of the housing bubble caused by real estate speculation, the movie just might work. However, some elements, such as auctions, might fall by the wayside. With Ridley Scott directing, the movie may be well worth seeing, even if the Monopoly name is being used to bring people into the theatre.
Risk
This is an odd one. The original game had players marshalling armies across the globe, trying to achieve total world domination. The illustrations on the cards showed infantry, horseback cavalry*, and cannon artillery more appropriate for a pre-World War I conflict, possibly even pre-US Civil War.** Updating the setting to the modern era would introduce elements that aren’t in the game – air and naval assets. Cavalry can be updated to the modern equivalent, since the game abstracts battles for playability. But that leaves the question of the story itself. Will it tell the tale of the men in the trenches or on the front lines? Or will it be about the men at headquarters, having to make hard choices? And will the story focus on battles of key locations, like Indonesia, gateway to Australia, and Argentina, the last line of defense against North America?***
Candyland
Candyland is usually most people’s first board game. It was designed so that very young children could play it and learn their colours. No dice are involved. The only skill needed is to recognize the different colours. Game play involves drawing a card and moving to the next instances of the colour on the card. First player to the end of the board wins. Other than being in a land made of candy, there’s not much to the game. Wikipedia has the current attempt as being an Adam Sandler project without details of what’s happening in it. The best adaptation for the game, though, seems to point towards a Wacky Races -style race through a land made of candy. Really, there’s not much to the game to hang a plot from.
Jumanji
Jumanji is the odd one out, the thing that’s not like the others in this entry. Originally, Jumanji, the movie, was based on a short story with the same name by Chris Van Allburg. The titular game never existed beyond the fiction of the story. Part of the charm of the movie was not knowing what was happening until the revelation. A remake will lose some of that charm, but strong writing could work around that. However, the original story was published in 1981 with the movie being made in 1995. The movie performed well at the box office and will still be remembered by the general public. And, with the film coming after the popularity of home movies through first VHS and later DVD, people who loved the movie will have a copy and can just pop it into their home entertainment system. The new movie’s crew will have to work hard to improve on the original just to be considered as good due to nostalgia.
Reaching?
As Steve mentioned, Hollywood’s current risk-adverse craze for adaptations is going to run out of major works and will need to find new sources. Games, from classic board games to tabletop RPGs to video games, won’t be ignored. What games would you like to see adapted and how?
Next week, a breather as I prepare a new batch of columns.
* As opposed to modern cavalry (i.e., tanks, APCs) and what the horseback guys became in WWI (pilots).
** My guess of the era – the War of 1812.
*** What players find critical on the board may not reflect what is critical in a real war.
Reviews & Revues
Apologies again. The reviews will return. Life can sometimes conspire against me.
However, I noticed an ad on the bus ride home recently, leading me to realize that I’ve completely ignored one adaptation completely – musical theatre. A number of works have been adapted, from comic books (Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark) to alternate interpretation of a character from a movie adapted from a book (Wicked). It’s not a new idea – Andrew Lloyd Webber made his career adapting other stories to stage musicals, including Jesus Christ, Superstar and Phantom of the Opera. However, the source has changed.
The ad mentioned earlier was for Young Frankenstein: The Musical, based on the Mel Brooks movie parody of Frankenstein and other horror standards. Today’s musical is more likely to adapt from pop culture. Among the properties mined are Evil Dead and Disney’s Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. The switch to theatre brings in a different restrictions than in other media. There is no post-production to add in CGI. There are no second takes. There are no multiple camera angles. The stage adapation has to be able to take the existing work and boil it down so that the invisible fourth wall is believable.
Looking Forward
It’s an adaptational summer movie season. Coming soon, The Avengers, taking Marvel Comics’ Ultimate Avengers and bringing it to the silver screen. The movie follows a string of hits, including Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. Two characters won’t be in it, Ant-Man and Wasp, and it appears that they’re being replaced by Hawkeye and Black Widow. Also now being advertised, Men In Black III. Given the length of time since the second movie, I’m hoping the existance of the movie means the writers had what they thought was good idea for a story instead of an exec saying, “Let’s exploit the franchise.”
Future Plans
One thing I have been trying to find is a work that didn’t successfully adapt a work but was still popular enough to be considered a success, either financially or critically. Real Steel looks like it’d fit the bill; the original short story was about human boxer taking the place of his broken down android in a robot boxing league while the movie was more heart warming for the family. Other suggestions will be welcomed.
Next week, Lost in Translation will return . . .
