A few weeks ago, I looked at the issues surrounding adapting a work to the silver screen. This week, I look at the smaller screen – television.

With movie adaptations, the big sacrifice is depth for time. Few people will sit in a theatre for longer than three hours, meaning that a lot of detail from novels especially gets lost. There just isn’t the time to do worldbuilding. Television allows for the build up of a storyline over a longer period of time, allowing characters to grow, allowing plots to wind around and find fertile ground.

What television lacks compares to movies is budget. A typical movie adaptations will have a large enough budget to cover salaries and special effects*. In a TV series, even the series has an overall cost similar to a blockbuster, that budget needs to be divided over the run of the season. A big effect at the start of the series may drain the FX budget for several weeks or even the rest of the season. There are ways to get around the cost, mainly through creative accounting**, but there is a limit on what can be done. Stock footage helps, to a degree. In the Stargate series, the whoosh of the stargate could be reused through out the franchise, allowing the crew to create different views to give the illusion of new effects. However, in the original Battlestar Galactica, starfighter combat boiled down to mixing up the same stock footage into different orders; there was always a scene where a Colonial Viper fired at the middle Cylon of a three-fighter formation, causing the other two Cylon fighters to break away from each other. With CGI, though, the effects team can create the needed elements once and then animate as needed at a lower cost. When the new budget comes around, the elements can be upgraded, which did happen with the Stargate whoosh.

Television is also very much ratings driven. A seven year arc is rare; studios need to know that the audience will not only be around for season one, but also for season seven, and that later seasons can draw in more people. Depending on the network or cable channel, the series may have two months to establish itself, or just one airing. The days where a show like M*A*S*H could linger near the bottom of the ratings until discovered by audiences is long gone. Shows now need to be instant hits from the beginning or so cheap that even a bottom rating still means the series makes money. The latter is typically filled by reality TV. A series could be cancelled before the planned arc is finished, because of low ratings, a change in the executive suite, or a network retool.  A long arc will be left dangling.

One problem longer works may face is the slow switch from episodic to series arcs that’s happening. Most historical TV series were written so that each episode could stand alone, allowing networks to rerun episodes without disturbing continuity. Soap operas, both daytime and prime time, were the exception to the rule, but the idea of a non-soap that had a longer storyline was unheard of until relatively recently. Some network executives still aren’t fully aware of the idea; Firefly suffered when the series was aired out of order, destroying several storylines.

With the increased time available for a TV series***, it’s very possible that the show will outstrip the original work. Anime is well known for this phenonenom; it would be easier to list the number of series that didn’t outstrip the original manga. The possibility also exists in the North American market. A Song of Ice and Fire could run into this issue. George R.R. Martin can only write so fast and has released five books so far. The HBO adaptation A Game of Thrones has three seasons completed and has been renewed for a fourth, just one book back unless season four covers a smaller portion to give season five breather space. Completed book series won’t have this problem, but a TV series based on those books using the same approach as A Game of Thrones, that is, a book per season, then filler may be needed.

Actor availability is a rare issue, but can crop up. Usually, an actor is signed for the duration of a TV series. However, it is not unknown for an actor to want out of his contract. The reasons vary; conflicts with production staff or even the cast, a break of a lifetime comes up, injury, even pregnancy can require an actor to leave. If the actor is in a critical role, recasting becomes difficult. Movie series have also run into the same problem; in the Harry Potter movies, the death of Richard Harris required Warner Bros. to recast Dumbledore with Michael Gambon. And while most original TV series can write out a character and introduce a new one, adaptations aren’t as flexible if the goal is to remain accurate.

Television brings its own unique problems to adapting a work. With the smaller budget and push for ratings, a movie adaptation looks far better.

Next week, The Mechanic.

* Depending on the effect. Progress in technology allows for cost reductions over time, but early adopters pay more.
** In the first season of The Muppet Show, a prop that was meant to be used just once was used instead in three separate episodes, allowing its cost to also be split split over the episodes.
*** At about 45 minutes per episode and a 13 to 22 episode season, that’s about nine to seventeen hours available for storytelling in a broadcast year.

The silver screen has been the pinnacle of Hollywood since the early days of Hollywood.  Movies occupy the top rung of the creative hierarchy, towering over television.  Actors work hard to get their big break, looking to move from TV to the big screen.  For adaptations, movies are both a blessing and a curse.  A film adaptation means that an author has reached enough of an audience that a studio has noticed.  On the downside, few books survive the process of being adapted.

Over the past fifty to sixty years, the average length of a book has grown over the past 50 years, with doorstoppers common today.  There are exceptions, naturally; each book of The Lord of the Rings was far longer than the other fantasy novels of the time.  At the same time, The Lord of the Rings became the template for modern fantasy works, leading to series such as The Wheel of Time and A Game of Thrones.  With the increased length comes more detail, more plot points, more action, all of which makes it difficult to put into a feature film.

Typically, a theatrically released movie is from ninety minutes to two hours long, with a few going under to eighty-five or over to three hours.  Any shorter, and the audience starts wondering about the cost of seeing something so short.  Longer, and audience fatigue sets in unless the film is kept tight so that the viewers don’t notice the passage of time.  The time limit means that something from the original work has to give.  Usually, the decision is to remove scenes that will confuse the audience or that don’t add to the plot.  Such partial adaptations can work; Blade Runner, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and Jurassic Park all kept to the core story while still excising elements that detracted from the plot.  However, if the wrong elements are removed, or the story is so intertwined that removing elements causes the story to fall flat, movies can fail.  The Dragonlance animated film is a good example; with a ninety minute running time, the movie felt shallow, missing concepts that made the original work breathe.

The problem grows if the original work is part of a series that isn’t yet complete.  While Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was successful both as a movie and as an adaptation, some parts of the story that became important in later book were removed for the sake of fitting the movie into a decent running time.  With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the studio decided to split the book into two movies to avoid rushing the story in just one.  Likewise, The Hobbit became three movies in part to give the plot the time it needed to unfold.

With short stories and novellas, the problem doesn’t quite go away.  A short story may not have enough plot to last even ninety minutes, requiring padding.  A good example is the Ian Fleming story, “The Living Daylights”.  The story has 007 protecting a Soviet defector from a sniper.  In the movie, The Living Daylights, the original story takes up about twenty minutes of screen time, leaving over one hundred minutes to be filled.

The answer, though, isn’t to stop adapting books.  Given the risk aversion in Hollywood, not adapting anything is off the table.  One solution is to take into account book length.  Going back to James Bond, the movie versions of both Dr. No and Casino Royale stayed close to the original works, with little to no scenes added or removed.  Longer books could be broken into parts, though if the first movie fails at the box office, the rest of the story won’t be filmed.

Another solution is to take a hard look at adapting the work for television.  Whether the work becomes a regular series or a mini-series, the adaptation isn’t as dependant on the vagueries of the international market.  With mini-series, the full novel will be shown in a short span, long enough to get the immediate ratings, but not long enough for the network or cable channel to end the adaptation early.  In a regular series, the adaptation will have the time it needs to build the world and establish characters, but poor ratings could kill the show before the work has been fully aired.  However, cable channels aren’t as beholden to the Neilsens as the broadcast networks are.  Dexter, True Blood, and A Game of Thrones all thrived as series, with each book becoming a season in the series.

Reducing the size of novels is a non-starter.  As mentioned earlier, The Lord of the Rings became not only a classic but also a template for writers inspired by it.  It is rare to find a stand-alone fantasy novel that isn’t a tie-in to a property such as Dungeons & Dragons.  Science fiction does have them, but given the time and effort needed for worldbuilding, recycling the work becomes tempting when looking at building a new universe from scratch.  There’s also the readers’ reaction; the price of books has crossed a point where buyers are expecting not just a good story, but a long one to match the cover price.  A short book just doesn’t have the physical weight that readers want.

In short, the glamour of the movies needs to be balanced with the idea that two hours just isn’t enough time to do justice to today’s works.

Next week, Smokey and the Bandit.

Another year has come to an end.  Adaptations show no sign of slowing down.  What did we learn from 2013?

The cracks are starting to show in the big blockbuster adaptation.  Several fizzled on release, including the high-profile The Lone Ranger, followed by R.I.P.D.  At the same time, Pacific Rim underperformed and Marvel’s Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World drew in crowds both domestic and international.  Hunger Games: Catching Fire broke records, but City of Bones and The Host both floundered.  The Host wasn’t a big budget film, made for only* US$40 million, but it barely made a profit and only because of international audiences.

The difference suceeding and failing is the international market.  Domestic returns might cover the cost of making the film, but international audiences will make or break the budget.  The Chinese market is as critical to a movie’s success as the American.  Producers now have to factor in the tastes of Chinese audiences, and, so far, this has led to lowest common denominator.  Adding to the complexity is that the Chinese movie-going public isn’t interested in original characters; they want to see established properties.  Marvel and DC have a huge advantage, and Marvel has been cashing in on it.  Both comic companies have numerous iconic characters.

Over at DC, it appears that the company and its parent, Warner, are trying to cash in as well.  Man of Steel, while it didn’t bring in Iron Man 3 numbers, was successful.  The main problem with the movie was being a shades of grey movie featuring a four-colour character.  Warner appears to not be able to do anything that isn’t Batman, a shades of grey character who has done well in numerous shades of grey movies.  But the big problem at Warner seems to be a lack of communication both internal and external.

Meanwhile, The Lone Ranger is outside the pop culture memory.  The last two appearances of the Lone Ranger were the 1981 The Legend of the Lone Ranger and the 2003 TV pilot, The Lone Ranger, on the WB network.  Both movies were not well received, with Legend having issues beyond just the film itself**.  R.I.P.D. was based on a comic book published by Dark Horse, something the general audience most likely didn’t realize.

The trend of turning Young Adult books into movie series may be waning.  City of Bones, as mentioned above, barely turned a profit, resulting in the release date of the next part of The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes, to be pushed back to 2015.  The problem that both City of Bones and The Host have is that neither are household words like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, or Twilight, all of which were bestsellers long before a studio thought about adapting them.  The Host was relying on name recognition.  Adapted from a book by Stephanie Meyer, who wrote the Twilight series, the studio was hoping that fans of Twilight would flock to The Host.  Numbers show otherwise.  Twilight hit a chord with its audience, who enjoyed the romance between a shell of a girl and a sparkly vampire.  The Host didn’t reach the same level of intense fandom.  Internationally, name recognition of an author depends on whether the body of work has been translated.  The quality of writing can also change during translation.

Over on the small screen, several adaptations keep going.  A Game of Thrones is still a draw for HBO, and AMC has The Walking Dead filling that role.  The now-ended Breaking Bad will have Better Call Saul spun off and will be remade in Columbia as Metástasis.  MTV will produce a Swords of Shannara series, further turning the “M” into an artifact.  ABC’s Agents of SHIELD started strong, but ran into early problems.  Joss Whedon returning to help plus the tie-in to Thor: The Dark World may be helping it.  ABC, being owned by Disney, may have the patience to keep the show going for the full season, in part to help the Marvel movies.  Television may be in a good position to pick up the pieces when the blockbuster bubble bursts.

The international market was key in the success or failure of movie adaptations.  Adaptations featuring a character recognized globally succeeded.  Those that didn’t either squeaked by or outright bombed.

Next week, looking forward to 2014.

* The numbers get weird in Hollywood.  The benchmark for a blockbuster in 2013 seems to be at least US$150 million, with the bigger ones starting at US$200 million.  Keep in mind that Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was made for $100 million.
** What may not have helped the box office is the public battle between the studio and Clayton Moore, who played the first Lone Ranger on TV, over his right to wear the Lone Ranger’s costume in personal appearances.

After over a year of writing Lost in Translation, two items recently stood out. One was the concept of the partial adaptation, as seen with Blade Runner and Scott Pilgrim vs the World. While neither movie adapted everything from their original works, what was adapted was true to the original.

Partial adaptations allow taking what is adaptable out of a story without having to sacrifice screen time to explaining an odd occurance. Blade Runner is a good example. The original, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, went further in setting up the time and the aftermath of a nuclear war. The nature of religion had changed drastically, with Mercerism and Buster Friendly at odds for the spiritual audience. In a movie, explaining the religions would detract from the main plot line, adding yet another level of complexity to a movie that was already getting the audience to question reality. The addition could have turned away audiences, or, worse, studio execs. The catch with a partial adaptation, especially when the original work is still being made, is figuring out what can be cut. A complete work makes it easy; the adapter can experience the original and pull out the plot threads needed. In larger works, such as the Harry Potter series, removal of a scene in the first book may cause problems several books later.

The other item that came up recently was the order of viewing. So far, I’ve made sure to watch/read/experience the original work first, then watch/read/experience the adaptation. What I’ve run into, though, is that I’ve watched movies that were remakes or adaptations without realizing it. Movies like Bedazzled and The Mummy* were remakes that weren’t touted as such. This brings about a change in methodology.

The normal way, with the original first, would have me looking for differences in the adaptation, looking at how the adaptation differed from the original. With the experiencing reversed, I’d be looking for similarities in the original. The reversal allows for the adaptation to feature on its own, at least at first, with any problems with it coming from script and casting instead of accuracy. The original work is now receiving the judgement instead of the adaptation. In the future, I will make note of when I approach a review backwards, that is, adaptation first. Chances are, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter will be the first work looked at in this manner.

Next week, I am on hiatus. In fact, I am on hiatus for the month of November. I am lining up guest posts, though, and will have an adaptation news round up around mid-month. The reason for the hiatus is NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, where I will be applying what I’ve learned in Lost in Translation to write a novel in thirty days.
* Both remakes starred Brendan Fraser.

Last week, I reviewed Doom, a movie that adapted its source well for the most part but still fell flat. If the parts that didn’t work were fixed, what would happen?

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Okay, a bit of a stretch. Scott Pilgrim and Doom are in two different genres of movie. Doom went with a cross between horror, science fiction, and action. Scott Pilgrim isn’t as easy to define.

Before I get too far ahead, the background. Scott Pilgrim started, as creator Bryan Lee O’Malley puts it, as a “manga-influenced comic”. O’Malley wrote six manga-inspired graphic novels featuring the titular character as he tries to win the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers while still dealing with the rest of his life, his current girlfriend Knives Chau, and the other people in his band, Sex Bob-omb. Complicating things are Scott’s sister Stacey, his roommate Wallace, and life in Toronto. Oh, and Ramona’s seven evil exes. Through the six volumes, Scott must defeat Ramona’s evil exes in order to stay with her.

The movie adaptations, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, is a partial adaptation, like Blade Runner was. The graphic novels take place over the course of a year; the movie treats the time as malleable, with most of the events taking place in a snowy April. The core arc of the graphic novels, Scott dealing with Knives, Ramona, Ramona’s evil exes, and maturing, was kept; the rest had to be removed to keep the movie under two hours. However, that parts that were adapted are taken directly from the comic. “Taken” might not be the accurate word. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World may be the most accurate adaptation reviewed in Lost in Translation. Scenes that do appear in the movie appear exactly as the did in the comic, sound effects and titles included. The comic was the storyboard for the movie. The DVD extras includes a gallery that shows a side by side comparison of a panel in the comic and its corresponding scene in the movie.

Helping with the accuracy of the adaptation was the location for filming. O’Malley used real locations in Toronto in the comic. Edgar Wright, director of this movie and the Cornetto Trilogy, decided that Toronto should play Toronto, something that the city seldom plays. The fight at Casa Loma was filmed at the real Casa Loma, complete with the scaffolding up for the refurbishment the building was undergoing. The Pizza Pizza beside the Goodwill does exist.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World didn’t fare well at the box office, though. Both the comic and the movie can be described as a slice of life fantasy coming of age with video game elements. The movie really didn’t fit into any one slot. It’s a video game movie not based on a specific video game*. It’s a romance, but from the man’s point of view. It’s a comic book movie, without superheroes. The audience needed to know about video games, especially the fighting genre of games, comics, metafiction**, Toronto, television sitcoms, and music. Universal’s marketing department must have gone mad trying to figure out what approach to use to advertise Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The movie is seeing a better reception through DVD, though, becoming a cult hit.

The lack of reception, however, does not take away that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World may be the best adapation reviewed here at Lost in Translation. The director kept to the plot of comic, consulting with the creator to ensure that the original vision reached the screen.

Next week, The Amazing Spider-Man.
* There is a video game based on the movie, though.
** Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has shout-outs to the idea of it being a movie and the nature of movies. To quote Scott, “They make movies in Toronto?”

Adapting video games to movies is difficult. Lost in Translation has discussed this before, in a general sense. DOOM is a good example of the problems inherent to adapting video games.

The video game itself, while not the first, greatly influenced the nature of first-person shooters. DOOM also allowed for custom levels, reskinning of the monsters, and multi-player. The studio, id Software, used shareware* for distribution. The player took the role of an unnamed Marine assigned to Mars for assaulting his commanding officer after being given the order to shoot civilians. The Marine then became the only thing between Earth and invading demons. id Software estimated that there was two million paid copies and another ten million copies of the shareware demo of DOOM installed. Considering that the game was released in December 1993, twelve million players is an impressive user base.

With the success of DOOM, id produced two sequels plus interstitial levels for the game. Doom 3 returned to the original game’s plot and expanded on it. The new game also pushed against hardware limitations; not all video graphics cards of the time, 2004, could handle the game. The game’s graphics greatly improved on the original’s, and added lighting as an effect. Players would have to switch from weapon to flashlight and back as needed. Like the original, Doom 3 could be modified, adding custom levels, monster skins, and effects. Extra details were added in the unnamed Marine’s PDA, where emails and phone calls of the missing could be played. Doom 3 was a success, selling 3.5 million copies.

In 2005, Universal released the movie Doom, with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Karl Urban, and Rosamund Pike. The plot involves a Rapid Response Tactical Squad of eight marines being sent to investigate and quarantine a situation involving dead and missing scientists on a Martian research lab run by the Union Aerospace Corporation. As the movie progresses, the fate of the scientists is discovered, as is the realization of what happened to the previous population of Mars. Along the way, monsters appear and attack the marines. An autopsy of one of the dead monsters reveals its human origins. The movie ends with a continuous shot that is based on Doom 3 from the eyes of “Reaper”, Karl Urban’s character.

The movie did not perform well in theatres, getting a decent opening weekend then tanking, not even earning back its budget. Much of the problem was the combination of horror and action, two genres that don’t have much in common. Horror requires suspense and tension to be built through atmosphere and limited viewer information. Action uses tension, but suspense is based on stunt work. It is possible to combine the two, but the atmosphere of a horror movie, which typically involves dark or dim areas with ominous sounds, clashes with the needs of an action movie where lighting needs to show the physical conflict, The nature of the monsters also turned fans of the game off from the movie; instead of demons from Hell, the monsters were changed by the addition of a twenty-fourth chromosome, unleashing the victims’ darker sides. The nature of a movie as opposed to a video game also worked against the movie; players are far more active and involved in a game than viewers are with a movie. Video games are active; players make the decisions and pull the trigger. Movies are passive; even with the first-person shooter segment, the viewers are there for the ride, not making decisions. One last factor is the R rating instead of PG-13. Most studios see PG-13 as the sweet spot; a mature enough rating to get adults in while still not preventing teenagers from getting together and going to it. A movie rated Restricted means that the teen market can’t get in. During the summer, that’s the kiss of death for a movie. In late fall, early winter, it’s not as big a problem, but the loss of potential family movie nights could not have helped Doom.

However, as an adaptation, Doom worked. Barring the change in the nature of the monsters, everything one would expect from DOOM was in /Doom/; the weapons, the appearance of the corridors, the lighting, even the monsters all came from the video game. The BFG made an early appearance, working as a Chekhov’s (big f***ing) gun. The production crew took care to make sure that the visual look of the movie mirrored that of the games. The extras on the DVD are well worth the price and show what the crew did to recreate the video game, including how the first-person shooter segment was shot.

Doom isn’t a bad movie. Like Battleship, it’s also not a good movie. Doom may be, though, a rare example of a good adaptation still failing at the box office.

Next week, Scott Pilgrim

* The first episode was free as a demo. Further episodes had to be paid for.

Philip K. Dick is the most adapted science fiction writer, with eight novels having been transformed into movies and TV series. Some of Dick’s key elements, the questioning of what is real, what is humanity, and what is God, make it difficult to keep the original story intact. The results have been mixed; Minority Report borrowed from Dick’s short story “The Minority Report” but created its own ending. Total Recall was based loosely on “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”.

The 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is typical of Dick’s works. Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who specializes in hunting rogue androids who blend in with humanity, takes up the search to find and “retire” (read: kill) six Nexus-6 androids while dealing with a home life that is falling apart. Because androids blend in so well with the human populace, several different tests have been created to help determine who is real, including the Voight-Kampff empathy test. Deckard starts his investigation at the Rosen Industries, manufacturers of the Nexus-6 line, where he meets Eldon Rosen, head of the Rosen Association, and his neice, Rachel. Rosen insists that Deckard should give the Voight-Kampff test to Rachel. When she fails, Rosen says it’s because she grew up on a colony ship heading to Proxima that had to turn back.

Meanwhile, one of the escaped Nexus-6 androids, Pris Stratton, has moved into an apartment building with just one other occupant, J.R. Isidore. Isidore is a genetically damaged driver for an animal repair shop; his disability, brought on by radioactive fall-out, prevents him from leaving Earth. Pris befriends Isidore, and uses him to try to stop Deckard from retiring herself and her fellow escaped androids. Interwoven are elements of the setting, a post-nuclear war Earth where radiation is tracked by weather satellites, animals are artificially created because there are so few left, Mercerism where adherents can feel the suffering of Wilbur Mercer as he climbs a mountain while rocks are thrown at him, and off-world colonization.

Ridley Scott’s adaptation, Blade Runner, has had several versions. The theatrical release had Harrison Ford narrating in a voice over and a happy ending using scenes cut from The Shining. The narration was asked for by the studio and added after test audiences had trouble following the movie. An international theatrical release had more violence, including on-screen eye gouging. In 1992, a “director’s cut” – in realty, a workprint prototype – was discovered and screened at an LA film festival. The print did not have the full soundtrack with Vangelis’ music, using a temp track from Planet of the Apes instead, but was successful enough to convince Warner Bros. to create a proper director’s cut with input from Ridley Scott. This cut removed the voice over and the happy ending and added a dream sequence involving a unicorn. Scott, however, was busy at the time, so could not put his full attention on it. Finally, in 2007, he did get the time and put together the Final Cut that included some newly reshot footage and some redubbing. It is the Final Cut that will be reviewed; it is the version that is closest to what Ridley Scott wanted to make.

Blade Runner is definitely an adaption of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but the movie doesn’t adapt everything from the book. Some changes, such as the year the story is set, were made to reflect that time has passed since the book’s first release. In 1968, 1992 was a distant future, especially with the Cold War threatening to turn hot and nuclear. In 1982, while the Cold War was still happening, it was starting to build back up through tensions; nuclear war was still a possibility but not as immediate. Deckard was no longer a bounty hunter but a former police operative known as a “blade runner” who tracked Replicants who escaped to Earth. Deckard’s bounty hunter comrade, Dave Holden, became another blade runner, one still working with the police. J.R. Isidore became J.F. Sebastian, a genetic designer with Methuselah Syndrome, a genetic disease causing his body to age faster than normal. Rosen Industries became the Tyrell Corporation, with the founder’s name changing to match. Little details, mostly. Other elements were removed completely; Mercerism isn’t shown or mentioned. Deckard’s wife appears only in a photo, though no explanation was given on his marital status.

Despite the changes, the movie holds to the core of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The hunt for the androids, the Voight-Kampff empathy test, the budding humanity in the Nexus-6 escapees, Tyrell Corporation trying to create an android that can pass the Voight-Kampff test. The visual look of the movie matches the feel of the novel. Blade Runner isn’t a shot for shot adaptation; the movie is as much Ridley Scott’s vision as it is Philip K. Dick’s, but the issues examined – what is real, what is human – come through clearly in both. The end is where the two works diverge the most. In the novel, Deckard returns home to his wife after meditating in Oregon and finding a toad, Wilbur Mercer’s favorite animal. In the movie, Deckard and Rachel leave his apartment to go, well, Scott left that up to the audience.

Is Blade Runner a good adaptation? For the most part, yes, even with the changes. It helps that the movie is a visual feast. Blade Runner has inspired numerous creators, from TV and movies to video games to tabletop RPGs to music. The movie melded film noire with science fiction, predicted several trends and technologies. Blade Runner is a masterpiece on its own. As an adaptation, it picks and chooses from the original novel, taking what it can do and leaving the bits that won’t work.

Next week, the September link round up of adaptation news.

Cracked looks at movies being remade.
The article is a month old, but the list has Point Break, Day of the Dead, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and two separate Jungle Book adaptations. Point Break will remove the surfing element, replacing it with extreme sport, thus making the title an artifact. League is being developed as a TV series, which may fit the original comic better. Yes, that will make League a remake of an adaptation.

Another adaptation coming: The Exorcist.
The Exorcist, originally a book but adapted as a movie where it is better known, may be returning as a TV series. The idea is still being shopped around, but networks and cable stations are at least intrigued.

Five hundred new fairytales discovered.
Disney now has even more stories to animate. The tales were found in a German archive. Franz von Schönwerth collected the tales in Bavaria around the same time the Brothers Grimm were. One of the formerly lost tales, “The Turnip Princess” is now online at the Guardian’s site.

Steven Spielberg negotiating rights for The Grapes of Wrath.
The Steinbeck novel turns 75 next year and many producers and directors are trying to get the rights to film it. The book was adapted once before, by John Ford in 1939.

The Hollywood Meltdown continues. Spike Lee talks with John Berman on CNN on why originals aren’t being made and the future of movie making.
The big issue is that Hollywood studios now need the international market to turn a profit on big budget blockbusters. In China, audiences don’t go out to original movies but will flock to characters they already know. Thus, major comic book movies (except R.I.P.D.) and sequels do better there than unknown characters. Lee is also turning to Kickstarter to fund his next movie, seeing crowdsourcing as not that much different as raising money for his first joints, except he doesn’t have to lick as many stamps this time.

The question the studios have to consider is, “Is this movie worth the money being spent on it?” If The Hangover III cost US$103 million while The Phantom Menance cost US$115 million, there’s something wrong. (For comparison, the first Hangover only cost US$35 million to make and performed better in theatres compared to the third movie in the trilogy.)

Spielberg, who has noted the oncoming implosion, is predicting that it may cost more to see movies like Iron Man than to see Lincoln after the meltdown, with filmmakers Lee and George Lucas agreeing.
Next week, Blade Runner

After wrapping up the Avengers Adaptation series last week, I started wondering what was in store for adaptations of comic books. If you’ve followed along here at MuseHack, you’ll have noted the posts about the movie meltdown coming. From Spielberg to Cracked.com, the current bubble is predicted to pop, possibly as early as 2015. Meanwhile, Marvel Studios and Warner Brothers have a number of big screen adaptations in planning. Add in companies like Dark Horse Comics, and the comic book movie looks to be a mainstay until the pop.

First, Marvel Studios has a number of sequels related to The Avengers, including Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Outside the Avenger titles, Marvel’s taking a risk with Guardians of the Galaxy, based on an older title of space-faring heroes. Another risk, though linking back to The Avengers, is the Ant-Man movie. Marvel did succeed with the movies leading to The Avengers despite the characters being lesser known. What may help is Marvel Studios using existing storylines from the comics. That still leaves the question on whether audiences are willing to give the non-sequel movies a shot. Summer of 2013 has audiences not turning out for the big-budget blockbusters as they had in the past.

Marvel Studios isn’t the only studio adapting Marvel titles. Fox has the rights to the X-Men and related titles and characters and have released The Wolverine and is working on X-Men: Days of Future Past combining the original X-trilogy with X-Men: First Class. Sony has the rights to Spider-Man and has rebooted the series.

Over at Warner, owner of Marvel’s Distinguished Competition, the success rate of movies depends on whether it centres around Batman. Man of Steel underperformed at the box office. The Green Lantern fizzled. Catwoman bombed. The Dark Knight trilogy did do well, though. The advantage Warner has is that it holds all the rights to the DC characters. If they need a character, they have the access. However, the lesson that Warner learned is that dark, grey, and gritty is the way to go, leading to Man of Steel. Warner’s next adaptation is based on World’s Finest, a Batman-Superman movie. Meanwhile, a Justice League movie may be on its way, thanks to the success of The Avengers, but this would put Warner into the position of catching up with Marvel. With The Green Lantern‘s middling success and the studio having no idea what to do with Wonder Woman, that leaves the rest of the classic team in limbo. Aquaman would need a Dini-verse makeover. The Flash would mean trying to pick which Flash* to use. There is a Flash movie in the works for 2016, though.  The character does not work in a grim and gritty story. Other than Batman, the Green Arrow has had some success through the TV series Arrow

Adding to the movie implosion of 2013 is R.I.P.D., an adaptation of a Dark Horse comic of the same name. The comic doesn’t have the same name space in pop consciousness, so the failure of the movie shouldn’t impact the title. However, by being off the pop culture radar, the movie had to rely solely on marketing, a problem plaguing several releases over the past few years, including John Carter. While Marvel Studios, Fox, Sony, and Warner have the money to get word of a movie out to everyone if they wish**, a lesser movie won’t get the money behind it. R.I.P.D. did have marketing, but audiences stayed away.

Marvel managed to capture attention using the Avengers Initiative and high quality movies. Warner needs to play catch up without looking like a Marvel imitator, making the success of a Justice League movie difficult.

Next week, Blade Runner

* Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West have all taken up the mantle of the Flash in DC Comics.
** For a counter-example, see John Carter. Please.

Apologies already. It has been too hot this past week to think without breaking a sweat.  Today will be an overview of upcoming adaptations.

First, though, over at Anime, Brains, and Culture, Tamara looks at the translation issues when localizing anime, and has examples of Japanese localizations of American animated works. Well worth the listen.

Meanwhile, The Lone Ranger is not doing as well expected. It’s not even reaching the mind space of people on social networks, unlike the cheaply done Sharknado. The marketing department must be wondering what went wrong – the movie has Johnny Depp shirtless, in leather pants, and channelling a Western version of Captain Jack Sparrow. That last bit may be what is turning people off, though. Another possibility, raised by Canadian TV personality Ed the Sock*, is that the the movie may have been mis-marketed. In Mr. the Sock’s own words, “As a serious western, The Lone Ranger fails. But it’s a comedy. Did you get that feeling from promos?”

R.I.P.D. is opening to poor reviews. In a move that screams, “This is a bad movie,” reviewers received their review copies hours before opening. Reviews are not good. The movie is based on a comic published by Dark Horse Comics, and is not as well known as works from Marvel and DC.  The trailer shows a concept that would work better as a TV series, not a 96 minute feature film.

Peter Suderman over at Slate has discovered why movies all feel the same. Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! inadvertently provided the formula Hollywood has been using to make movies, especially big budget adaptations., down to the number of pages needed. While the book wasn’t meant to be the foundation of a Hollywood script, that’s what it became.

In the tabletop world, Shadowrun‘s fifth edition was released in .pdf format, with hard copies coming later in the summer. Catalyst Game Labs is working with Topps (the license holder), Cliffhanger Productions (for the MMO) and Harebrained Schemes (for the console game) to deliver an update of a classic tabletop RPG that mixes cyberpunk with Tolkien-style fantasy.

Next week, the weather should cool off enough for me to give Firefox a review.

* Canada can’t afford real TV personalities.