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@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh game of thrones is incredible, if you don't like it's personal but the most important thing that it's storytelling the show and the books do really well
@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh As Luiz said, GoT was fantastic (at least up to season 6ish before they ran out of book material to adapt) and helped elevate the genre by actually showing the real detail, the darkness and complexity of human minds in these worlds. I hope we get many more stories like it. If you don't personally enjoy violence and sex, you're welcome to that opinion - they're just a part of the adult world, and will be a part of any realistic adult media with a sufficiently wide scope (and fantasy tends to have a particularly wide scope - multiple timelines, families, plotlines etc.)
Hollywood in general is ruining everything. What we see is result of writers being constantly ignored by production companies. They can be replaced by AI (sarcasm).
I would jutst say, Hollywood has ruined storytelling. It is not just fantasy... I am completely checked out. I am spending my time tracking down films and series I enjoyed growing up.
Indeed I added these four points that may shed more light on why it so often sucks. 1. The dominant USA warlike paradigm. They make everything into wars against the dar. There's a good guy or girl with a gun, eh sword, or magic vs bad guy eh woman, with eh dark magic, or invaders. Also like GOT, so much is just power chess. Or for kids, we get princesses longing for a shopping spree. 2. All stories work towards the final battle that solves everything (for this season). Predictable snore and bore. 3. Just like the games, they all have the same Western economies, rob or buy what you need. Where are the truly, strange 'what kind of world is this' wonders? With very different cultures, not clichés we immediately get. We need more alternative different worlds filled with new ideas. 4. Further point 1, so often the danger is created by a cruel power unleashing terror on the heroes, making for cheap storytelling The Hunger Games, so much (fantasy) horror has the same thing. Evil gets heroes in cruel trap. Now they have to fight their way out, episode after episode. Consider the real world, even countries full of well meaning people can make life hell for each other and or others.
True. Some of the best Stories Ive Seen the Last decades where the ones that fully embraced what they are. No matter how dumb or silly they could be. They where entertaining and showed Love and respect to what they are
With a lot of modern cinematic fantasy,I find there is a genuine lack of sincerity and respect for the genre; a lot of films feel like they want to make fun of the genre and the people who like it and while a bit of light jabs is all well and good, it comes off as condescending and treating the genre and its stories like a joke. Other times the Game of Thrones effect causes studios to think we need gratuitous swearing, sex and violence and moral grey to make fantasy profitable
@@lordinquisitor6233 Well *friggin* said! It needs respect for the genre and the proper suspension of disbelief, but they can never overreact or overcorrect by pandering to nerds OR condescending to non-nerds/general audiences. And GoT, oh, it knows its audience (or at least did before the disasterpiece of the last season), but the sex and violence, the swearing, always counted me out of their ranks. As much as I want great fantasy stories, I fail to see what actually showing that stuff alongside adds to it. Imply that it happens, show the scheming villains, but it honestly doesn’t need to leave the subtext to make us cheer for the heroes louder.
The reason for the success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the rings, amongst other reasons was the respect he and his writing team had for Tolkien’s work and while they made changes like omitting Tom Bombadil, he made it clear he was trying to **adapt** Tolkien, not subvert or change what Tolkien made for the sake of ‘modern audiences’. The current series (Witcher, Rings of Power and GOT) held no respect for the original source material (Cavil famously being a massive witcher fan and conflicting with Netflix who didn’t give a fig) and think they know better than what they have being given.
@@TheIronarm don't get me wrong I love ASOIAF and the first four seasons of GOT but it's exhausting. Everything is always grim and doom and gloom. And while that can be great, it never lets up. There's never any respite. There never seems to be any light at the end of the tunnel. And it kind of kills the enjoyment. It doesn't make the world feel more realistic, it mostly makes me wonder how any of these characters keep going instead of just offing themselves.
@@VampireNinjaBunnies yeah, grimdark is not, and never has been, enjoyable to me. One of my favorite fantasy movies is Legend, and good golly does that get bleak and scary in the middle, kind of a given with Ridley Scott. Yet literally within the last 20 minutes, with the freaking living embodiment of evil beating the hero soundly, all the heroes working together blast him with a beam of light and are able to banish him into the void, rescue the princess, heal the unicorn, and restore the world to beauty. So cathartic. And I think beyond the scary makeup and settings, there might be one or two minor cusses. It would be no better and likely be worse and less enjoyable if they tried to give it an R rating, like most of the other sword n sorcery from the ‘80s.
I don’t understand why they spend so much money on the rights to a story and then twist and turn it into something totally different than the source materials. I agree 100% with your video. Well said.
They have no clue. It's true. They have people who learned what the audience wants but what they learned is nonsense. See the old Ghostbusters cartoon, where they hired a company to make it more "for children" resulting in a decrease in ratings instead of an increase. Then there is also the artistic part, where people want "to do their thing", they think they know better what is good for the story than the original author or leave their mark, without anyone to stop them. The top management is then detached from everything, they know how to calculate numbers but they are disconnected from the audience and surrounded by bad consultants.. just like Grimmar Wormtongue.
@@TheAkashicTraveller True but soon people won’t be fooled by the name anymore especially when it’s a beloved story. They spend tons of money for the name and then piss off all the fans. We do get smart after a while and won’t take the bait in the future.
How many times do they have to do the same thing for you to get it that it is deliberate? Fantasy is good because it harkens back to the deep traditions of the European Nations, to real historical paganism and esoteric Christianity. They always plaster it with elements that don't fit, the whole woke agenda grab bag so you don't have any media that reminds you of your real culture, to keep you pinned down and isolated in the globalloneyist dystopia they are creating, where you will be an undeferenciated consumer living in a pod and owning nothing, not even a sense of your self, your nation and your culture. I was too political? Though.
When they fired Henry Cavill they said it was because he was too obsessed with the source material, and when he argued with the producers they accused him of misogyny for doing it. They tried to destroy his career and besmirch his character, just because he was an actual fan of the material. Rings of Power could have been so good, but they made changes that make no sense, not just in lore but in characterization. The way the writers portrayed these characters makes no sense and seemed like character assassination. There is a messed up idea in Hollywood that a faithful adaptation of material is boring and they need to be changed. The show writers want to show their own creativity by rewriting things. In my opinion, if they want to tell a different story, they should tell a different story - *their* story with *their* characters! If they want to show their talent and creativity when adapting someone else's story, they should show it by faithfully adapting it to a new medium, which does take talent. Lately there is a bad trend where some studio buys a property, then the writers of the new adaptation deliberately destroy the original characters "because they need to be torn down" and spread hate online for the original fans of whatever franchise it is. It's really just a continuation of the older trend of Hollywood writers throwing out the original book because they think it is more "creative" to do that. It is a reaction where they show open contempt for the original material and the fans thereof, which is kind of nuts IMHO.
I would add, to some extent writers are often used as scapegoats for these changes. But a lot of those decisions are made before the scripts are even commisioned, by producers and showrunners who are really only in it for the money. They are usually the ones calling the shots while the actual writers are there for a paycheck that'll keep them fed until the next week. I am not saying that this is always the case, there are writers who are full of it, but we should watch the discourse and point it to the people who are actually responsible for these messes.
this is the extent of entitlement derived from 'progressive' movement, that is by granting power to borderline mentally ill people who can't handle such powers instead of actually bringing the ideal equality, this results in a lot of power trip not only in daily life but also in industry by women, black people, gay people and trans.
@@maxiguidetti7228 Witcher TV series started ok, but then it start turning into weird direction. Worst, changes contradict the fact that Ciri was doughtier of the Emperor. So making them weird satanists and not Spaniards, make no sense.
Nowadays most Hollywood adaptations feel like bad self-insert fanfiction to me. Like the stuff I wrote when I was 13 and thought that I would make all the right choices that the characters in the books didn't manage to do, and fantasized about who would I be in the worlds I read about (totally not like others, but nothing special just someone with all the powers of all the main cast, etc). From the interviews I've seen, I get the feeling that these screenwriters/directors/actors are just smug about bringing their super special OC to save the main character of the title they're adapting, and they are expecting everyone to clap like seals for their genius "fix-it".
A lot of it is worse than the most generic trash isekai manga. I _like_ generic isekai manga when it's barely passable. But Marvel and most modern fantasy is plain slop, and I find I can't much enjoy it.
My 10 year old has always loved reading. Recently she began reading Harry Potter. When she discovered that they made movies she wanted to watch them. I suggested that she read the book before watching the movie. She listened to me and now she enjoys talking about the differences in the books and movies. I enjoy her ability to compare and contrast them. Our most recent book to movie was The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I never read the Roald Dahl book but my daughter has and she loves to talk during the movie and shout what they did to stay true to the book and what they did different and why she likes which one better. I enjoy these moments with her ♡ We also listen to your videos just for fun & next year will add it to our homeschooling :-)
Great tip to have her read the books first. I personally love both, but there certainly is a difference 🙂 Same is true for the Lord of the Rings. I mean, we have entire characters that are featured somewhat prominent in the books not appear at all in the trilogy for example (like Tom Bombadil)
I would love to watch the Harry Potter and the Hobbit with your daughter. I’m the same way. It’s hard to watch the movie without pointing out how it’s not like the book. I always try to read the author’s version of the story first. Fist bump to your daughter!
You have done a good job in providing literacy to your child. I work in a book store always recommend people to read the original material before jumping to film or TV so they get adaptations are different and maybe more incomplete.
So I am 19 right now. Me and my dad say watch the Movie/Show first then read the book, so you can enjoy the Movie/Show. Instead of nick picking every little detail of it. I speck from experience with the Percy Jackson books and movies. Keep in mind that I was 5 when the first movie came out and loved it and was 7 when the second film came out and loved them both. But when I read the first two books I was nick picking every little detail. This may not work for everyone, but it works with my Dyslexia and ADHD/ADD
I used to think that way too. And yet, all stories need to have a realistic base. You need some realism that brings the familiarity factor in the tale you spin, just so, if only to provoke the necessary suspension of disbelief. As I recently realized thanks to Dusky talks. 😊
I recently finished the Mistborn trilogy for the first time. I realized-I don’t _want_ a big budget live action Hollywood movie. At most I’d like to see a comic book adaptation or animated series.
@@dianehoekstra6880 I think the problem is that the economics just aren't there. As Man Carrying Thing said recently, while animation isn't CHEAP it can at least be cheaper than these live action mega projects.
Another way Hollywood is ruining fantasy: Removing the fantasy from fantasy to try and make it more "Realistic" and "Adult". This is honestly a complex issue. But it's related to multiple factors: -The War on Animation This is one that goes back very far. The idea that animation can be more than just something for kids is... something that has been happening for decades. Hollywood typically treats animation as something that can be made with low effort and they're always deemed expendable by the suits. And over the past couple years? The War on Animation has REALLY gone up. Even though, statistically speaking, those big-budget movies with stunning CGI made by underpaid and ununionised VFX workers have more animation than Roger Rabbit, they're not viewed as "animation". Taking something that's animated and doing it live-action is seen as somehow "improving" it and trying to make it for an "oldre audience". Because of the stigma of animation being "Just for kids". :/ And you can see how this affects not only the adaptations, but even the stuff that's written. It seems almost everyone wants their book to be adapted into a TV series so it can be the next Game of Thrones. And this results in the fantasy parts being... well... removed. Because after all, that way it'd be more easily done in live-action. Shove all the fantastical things aside. -The desire to be more "adult" One reason I am rather underwhelmed with adult fiction as a whole? I was kind of hoping to see some of the creative things given a more mature twist where people try to examine the themes more maturely. Where we have things like a world where some fantastical thing happens and people actually ask how this might affect morality. Instead, however, what I got is largely a non-stop Game of Clones, as well as stuff like "What if the Pevensives were depressed and alcoholic college graduates?", "What if the Fellowship of the Ring said 'fuck'?", "A Critical Role campaign - now with more sex!", "Grey morality - where everyone is a bag of dicks and the heroes are rapists!", "What if Geralt were gay?", and "What if Conan was allowed to have more sex and kill people in more gratuitous ways?". Look, low fantasy has its place, but A Song of Ice and Fire isn't so subversive anymore. It's now bog-standard. Don't be afraid to break away from Tolkein... but don't latch onto GRRM and just copy him at surface level.
Ironically, their quest to make things more adult makes them come off as immature. Like an edgy teen writing a fan fiction rather than an adult exploring the existing themes more deeply.
I feel this more keenly as a consequence of how it was revealed to me, but I am beyond tired of Hollywood dressing dramas and soap operas in fantasy clothing. Just so tired of "we have a complex modern society and magic" but not a single person in that universe is able to get along or communicate with others. If this is what people are like in your story, this should be taking place in the _stone age,_ because there's no blessed way a dozen people chose not to kill each other long enough to *farm,* nevermind write a constitution. Tangentially related to OP, it's frustrating to filter videogames for "adult" when I'm looking for horny stuff and have to wade through all the grimdark and ultraviolence. Would be nice if we could _be_ adult about these things and label them appropriately, without shame. It would help set a precedent for separating "Adult-only media with teenage-level writing" from "Themes of aging and being left behind by an uncaring and fascinated world. This will traumatize your kids."
@@Jikkuryuu Sadly the idea of a complex world where nobody can communicate and everyone hates each other is oddly realistic. *glances out at the world right here*
One of the things I really love about the LoTR trilogy is that Boyens, Walsh, and Jackson are very open about the fact that they *did* start out heading towards some of the adaptation pitfalls that are so ubiquitous nowadays. They've talked about originally having Arwen showing up to fight at Helm's Deep, and even going so far as to film Aragorn fighting an incarnation of Sauron during the final battle in front of the Black Gate...and then ultimately steering back towards a more faithful adaptation of Tolkien's books, because his version was just so good in the first place that their massive changes were making the story worse. So Arwen stays in Rivendell, and a troll gets swapped into the final battle, and the movies are better for it. I don't think fantasy stories should *never* be updated or modernized, but I do think a lot of TPTB on these adaptations need to be more thoughtful about those changes, and most importantly, they need to deprioritize their own egos when adapting someone else's work.
I do think stories from books should be changed when making a movie, but they shouldn't be changed so much it's different story. The changes should come from different medium, movie can capture and show things that book doesn't and vice versa.
Yes. Still, Walsh admitted in documentaries about LoTR that she did not dare to re-read the book before working on the script because she feared being buried under a mountain of material. As a result, some things in the movies do not make much sense. For me, a hardcore fan of Tolkien's writings, even Jackson's adaptation was a bit too far from the source material. Just one example: in RoTK, Gandalf indeed holds Gondor with one hand as a shield against the Enemy while leading a Strider from the North to take the throne with the other. Gandalf even breaks a direct order from Denethor, the military chief, and sends Pippin to light the signal fire. In the book, it is not so. Aragorn does not want the crown. He enters the city after the victory only because he is needed in the Houses of Healing. Hence, the accusation against Gandalf is not real; it is just Denethor’s paranoia, fueled by Sauron through the palantír. For me, the problems highlighted in this video have begun well before the recent flops of certain fantasy adaptations. My theory - the scriptwriter profession is often considered as not very important. Producers even skip professionals in some author cinema, daring to write the scripts themselves. Well, look where it brought Coppola towards the end of Apocalypse Now: he had to pay huge money to Brando to rescue his project by improvising in front of camera! Than, after post-production, he realized one more small scene is missing. He had to get Brando again just to film a single word - Horror, horror, for the last shot. Brando have charged him quarter of a million dollars for that.
So this might be a bit of a tangent, since I'm about to mention a video game or two, but they have stories too and I have noticed that not moving too fast has noticeable effects on the way the audience receives the story. First might be a bit surprising, but it is Borderlands 2. There is a scene which marks the end of the first act. The city is being bombarded with artillery, everyone is panicking, all the characters are rushing to do damage control, then the climax is that the entire city gets teleported away to a new location avoiding total destruction by the artillery barrage. The player watches the city vanish into thin air and hears the last artillery shells strike the empty ground. At that moment the developers stopped the music. They stopped most the sound effects too. The only thing you hear is your own footsteps as you walk away from the scene. Maybe it sounds crazy, but that choice, to mute everything except your footsteps seems like a brilliant choice to me. It gives your brain a moment to catch up, let what you just saw sink in, and to realize you are now walking in an entirely different world, and into act two. The other game I can think of that also pauses the action to great effect is the first Red Dead Redemption. Upon finally completing your mission across the American frontier and being able to reunite with your wife and son, all the action stops. All you do is begin riding your horse toward a home you've never even seen yet. Then a slow, simple, but almost haunting song begins to play. An acoustic guitar and a singer who's voice sounds lonely and exhausted. He sings about how long he's been lost, but has finally realized that the only compass he needs points back toward his home and his love. For several minutes, that's all you do is ride your horse and listen to this simple, sad, but sweet song. Nothing is dramatic is happening, but it makes the impact of the moment so much stronger. I think the point I'm getting at, is the the storytellers in these examples give the audience a moment to feel. Because even a beautifully crafted world with good characters and a good story won't stay with you, if you never have time to feel any of it.
Great examples. Video games are certainly something to mention as well, yes. Just look at Bioware's downfall by dropping storytelling quality and focusing more and more on action. One of the reasons I am SO happy about the success of Baldur's Gate 3 which proved that a slow-paced, turn-based, story-focused, single-player game can be hugely successful after all 🙂
"Most modern fantasy just rearranges the furniture in Tolkien's attic." -Terry Pratchett Or in Modern Audience case, Hooligans invade that attic, mess it and call it art as well as their own creation.
I will never understand how companies can botch handling a golden goose like Henry Cavil. He's a nerd of the gaming genre at heart with major star power who is genuine. All they had to do is give him the creative freedom and just let him cook. Imagine a better Witcher series completing its run only to get an immaculate Warhammer 40k series accurate to the lore with no shoe horned modern day politics. The companies would have made BANK. Who knows what other games would have gotten a proper live action series with him at the helm?
Modern TV writers are fresh graduated from writing courses where shoehorning modern day politics into anything is rewarded, and they do what they had been taught to do. Modern showrunners belong to one of two kinds. People that have no interest at all in the genere, but want to exploit a trend (Rings of Power) and people that have no interest at all in the genere but want to self-insert themselves in the story (The Acolyte).
@@neutronalchemist3241 Having modern politics is one thing, and it can be done well, but it usually isn't these days. Like they might change characters to add diversity, but then they do nothing with that diversity. Or a character who never showed any inclination towards being gay suddenly is - in at least one case I remember the character was horn dogging all the men she could find then suddenly was lesbian. Then they just kill off the gay character anyway without ever exploring it. But meanwhile they never actually get into any real politics. Nothing that critiques society in any way or challenges the power structure. Just some box ticking. If you want diverse characters, you should celebrate and explore that diversity. Show the characters' culture and heritage. Make it meaningful that that character is who they are. As for politics, for all the talk of "wokeness" I don't see it. Disney for instance has never been woke. They don't actually explore themes of oppression or challenge anything. They don't even do good feminism. What is the point of making a character female if they're going to be a horrible character everyone hates and the story is terrible and makes no sense? Princess Leia was a great feminist character. Smart, tough, and unafraid of any of the men. There were good reasons for her competence, and she showed it. She took no nonsense, but she didn't hate men although she had a pretty sharp tongue. She was a role model for generations of girls and an example for generations of boys of why you shouldn't underestimate women and how they can make valuable friends. That's how you do a feminist character. The original She Hulk was good, too. She was competent and smart. Not this stuff where even in the show everyone treats the character like a child and the character acts like one to match. How is that feminism? It's not. It's corporate fakery. Generating drama so people complain online and give the show free advertising. They don't actually care about anyone marginalized. It's the money Lebowski.
Another problem I see in adaptations is, the producers, writers, directors, and even sometimes actors, say, "How can I change this to make this mine?" Instead of, "I'm going to create a faithful adaptation. If you want something that's yours, make something new!
Godzilla Minus One, while not pure fantasy, got everything right which Hollywood gets wrong. Strong themes and characters, emphasis of story over spectacle, etc. etc.
It's absolutely mind boggling how good Godzilla Minus One was for its ridiculously low budget. Imagine how many amazing we could have gotten for the budget of Rings Of Power and alike if those riches had been handed to competent artists!
Well it helps that the director was skilled in two areas. He is a visual effects man himself so he was hands on crafting the computer made action and his back ground is more slice of life movies. He made everything feel real and made us care for the characters. He is working on another Godzilla movie but if it is just about the family in the movie I'd still watch it. It is that good.
I feel that Hollywood is only taking the setting and characters for marketinng and then putting their usual plotstructure over it. A lovestory for the girls, one or two great creatures or battlescenes for the boys and thats it. Doesn't matter which world they adapt its always the same hollow vase they only paint the outside with other characters for marketing.
Fucking hell this isn't even a problem with just Book Adaptations. Take Cats from 2019, It's an Adaptation of the Cats Stage Musical which debuted on West End in 1981, which was wildly successful in part because of it's general defiance of standard plot structures, and Cats 2019 tried to make it a more standard plot-driven narrative, in the process butchering basically everything that made Cats so beloved in the first place. The original Musical structurally speaking has a barebones plot that mainly serves to justify why on earth are we here in the first place, a few other disconnected plot threads, and almost 2 hours of meaningless spectacle. It's structurally more akin to a Circus performance than other more typical Musicals. You see why we have a problem when they decided to try to make a sensical plot for the Cats 2019 movies.
I generally agree with what you say, but you're wrong regarding Dune. There's a lot of areas where it completely derails from the source material and takes way too much time showing "pretty pictures" (or spectacle) to the detriment of what concepts and story has to be told. - Kynes is made a woman and is killed in the desert while fighting harkonnens. In the source material, Kynes is the FATHER of Chani, and he's killed miserably by a spice explosion after harkonnens left him alone in the desert, without a stillsuit. - Jessica is made into a witch who will sacrifice everything, including Paul (after she drinks the water of life, she immediately asks Paul to do so aswell, even though no man has survived this before), to ensure her position of power. In the source material, she's a mother and afraid that the chaos of the situation she's in won't allow her and Paul to survive. When Paul drinks the water of life, she is completely distressed, thinking "what came to his mind! omg!" - Chani is turned into a young rebellious teenager who's not supportive of Paul at all, whereas in the source material she's a loyal love interest who fully supports Paul. - Stillgar is made into an idiot who sees Lisan Al'Gaib every time he looks at whatever Paul does (even the most stupid thing he does), whereas in the source material, he's skeptical at first, and never truly derails into obvious blind faith. - Rabban is killed by Gurney as a revenge for what the Harkonnen did to Atreides' family, even though Rabban was never the cause of what happened to the Atreides. In the source material, Rabban is killed by a mob of angry fremen who revolt against what Rabban did to them, even though he was only the hand oppressing them, and it was really the Baron that was the cause of it. - Alia isn't born, yet she should be, since it's her who kill the Baron harkonnen, not Paul. - etc. If you want a truly good adaptation of Dune, watch the miniserie from 2000-2003: Dune, and Children of Dune. 4-5 hours total. They cover the first 3 books.
Elves as fashionistas and orcs as police. Reminds me of Shadowrun. But that setting is far more about gritty no-nonsense than cramming in modern politics. It's there, like the discrimination of the orks, but it fits better. About rushed narratives, Peter Jackson first tried to sell the books as a two films. They said, "Nah, this is three films." Unrushing for great results. There's a reason fantasy novels are longer than other genres. Cavill carried.
The 3rd point I feel applies to many modern films, not just fantasy. Hollywood is so dead set on having the bonfire, but don't care build the pile before burning it down. Things are so rushed and people don't care about the characters when they die or fall down because they weren't invested in the characters in the first place.
When there was talk of doing an adaptation of Mort by Sir Terry Pratchett, the studio executives met with Sir Terry and said, "We love your book! It's great! There's just one thing. Can we get rid of this Death character?" Studios should not have creative input into things they have no understanding of.
Frieren is overrated and not due the acclaim it has gotten. I originally thought Frieren was going to be an artistic exploration of loneliness and self-growth that was placed in a fantasy setting more akin to something like a Ghibli film, especially with the trailer highlighting her alone journey around the world. Instead of the Indepth, vague, adult show I thought I was going to watch, it ran through the entire course of its adult themes and depth in the first four episodes and went on to air the most simple, basic, fantasy show that fed you all its themes and messages by spoon feeding akin to Dora the explorer. There are many instances where it was so boring that I couldn't finish the episode before it was already a couple of weeks later. The flashbacks of the hero's party are the worst directed parts of the entire show, with characters like Himmel being very boring and lacking in depth, only appearing for a couple of minutes to slowly say some inspirational quote from Tumblr and pretend like its deep. The show tries way too hard to be deep and philosophical but fails miserably and feels cheap. The art and animation in the show is also very good and sometimes bad. Everyone suffers from same face syndrome and the rigid movement feels like a modern, western, splined animation where in all the frames, everyone has the exact same forward-facing look. The biggest struggle in modern animation is the clarity of the animation, which studios like Mappa and shows like Frieren struggle with. Clear animation is the best animation, and it is more appreciated than stupid, flashy, hard to follow fight scenes that are extremely out of place. The disparity between the no action scenes and the action scenes when it comes to animation makes it feel like I'm watching an entirely different show. The non action scenes are so dull, and no character ever moves outside of their model sheets and the action scenes make me want to vomit and give me vertigo like riding a roller coaster. There is another fantasy show called "Dungeon Meshi", or "Delicious in Dungeon," which does a far better job with animation, directing, writing, and made me even tear up at some of the moments, of which Frieren only makes me cringe. Unfortunately, because some high profile youtuber didn't review it, it is not as popular. Frieren ultimately tries to be something it is not and fails miserably, therefore I see no merit or reason as to why the show is as popular as it is aside from all the viewers not having any taste in quality. That doesn't mean it is all bad though, the art is some areas are extremely good, and the directing in the first four episodes were the best in the entire series, but that is about it.
The issue with the hollywood approach is they try to appeal to everyone which alienates... everyone. The Marvel effect is turning everything into thinly-gilded piles of 💩. Interesting at a glance, but without real substance beneath. Then they wonder why every season loses them more and more watchers. Like when GoT went from source material to shock factor.
Writer rooms have been turned into content-factories. Pop-culture was always about balancing economic and artistic interests and this balance has been out of whack for some time now.
"Fantasy should evolve and reflect our changing world." Well...that's a very absolutist statement. New fantasy, written by authors today, COULD if the author wants to, address issues in our current real world. But to claim that it "should"? Why? Not every story needs to be an allegory on real world issues. Some issues are universal and will work regardless of the setting you put them into, and have been a part of society since time immemorial. That doesn't make them outdated today. And some stories can be just that, stories. It's okay for a work of fantasy fiction to simply be enjoyable escapism. In fact, one might argue that such is needed more than ever. Also, forcing political or ideological issues into a work of fiction, could potentially alienate a large audience, so depending on what you are trying to write, it could be a negative thing. Also, voicing our opinion on bad adaptations only causes us to be labelled as "toxic fans" by Hollywood.
@@End-phoenix I’m working on it… I have no resources, no free time, and barely a support structure, but I do have a lifelong love of fantasy cinema, a detailed world I’ve been cultivating since I was 7, and most of a book that I am perfectly aware might be derided as children’s fluff… but I’m working on it. And I know it’s not just me. We’ll right this ship someday, just you wait
Couldn't agree more. I'd wish more film makers would dare to venture into original epic fantasy realms. Doesn't always have to be Rings of Power or the Witcher type of budget of course. Understandable that studios want to see some proof here first (like an established IP), but you don't need hundreds of millions to create a good movie.
Its interesting to listen to this and immediately think of Ghibli. Knowing that Miyazaki's adaptations are fairly loose at times, or inspired but not directly copied (Howl's for example), yet it doesn't take away from the experience at all. How to Train Your Dragon as well. The adaptations aren't at all comparable to the source, yet the story, the world, the passion, are all so deeply investing that it doesn't matter. And I wondered about why sometimes its fine and sometimes it not and this explained a lot of it. The audience isn't stupid. We know when something is a rich, nutritious meal and when it's empty calorie schlock being fed to keep us quiet. All form, no substance. If it can't even qualify as junk food (so bad its good, guilty pleasure, "it's not a great story but damn is it fun", etc) then why eat? Good stuff, man ❤
My opinion is that good fantasy does two things. First, it asks, "What if?" It is considered fantasy because it is exploring a situation that is not realistic. Second, it remembers that the fantasy being explored is reality to the characters in the story. The writer has to get the readers to understand the characters' reality. This takes time in order to be well done.
There's an excellent example of this in the movie adaptation of C S Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Eustace Scrubb's transformation into a dragon is bought forward in the narrative. This allows for a visually spectacular dragon-vs-sea monster battle, and sacrifices a crucial piece of character development - Eustace's futile but courageous attempt to strike the sea monster with a sword, the first time he displays any inclination to anything other than cowardice and selfishness
I think more fantasy books need to be adapted into jrpg style video games rather than movies or tv series. I could easily see books like Wheel of Time being adapted into a massive jrpg like Dragon Quest, Namco’s Tales or Final Fantasy.
Little corrections... Amazon does not in fact have the source material. Tolkien Estate only sold the rights for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Everything about the Second Age is found in The Silmarillion, which they have announced will never sell the rights of. The Rings of Power's greatest flaw was to try to tell an alternate story of something we already know of. And even if the plot of the show was better, it would've never live up to the expectations of most Tolkien fans. TRoP was doomed to be compared to both Jackson films (which were hated by Christopher and Tolkien Estate both) and the books without much of a chance.
Great comment - and I could have been clearer here, yes. To me the entire choice of going for that Age when they have the Source Material for such much else, was a misguided decision from the beginning. Either I can use the actual lore or I'd have chosen a different approach to a Lord of the Rings show.
@@TheTaleTinkererI think it’s something we have to just accept at this point, nothing will be gained by constantly banging the "it doesn’t match the source material" drum. I know, you know, everyone knows that they have taken liberties with the source material/are not following the Silmarillion. Does it actually matter?
@@TheTaleTinkerer yeah, they had the rights for almost entire Third Age lore. They could've done the history of the Kingdom of Arnor, its shattering, wars with the Witch King of Angmar, and ultimate fall of the North.... They could've shown the golden age of Gondor, and its civil wars... The founding of Rohan, the arrival of Hobbits, the destruction of Khazad-Dum. That time period has so much interesting and epic stuff, and they just chosen to forget about it
@@intergalactic92they didn't "take liberties" with source material - they DID NOT have source material. They were not given the rights. Even if everyone at RoP staff was by some chance a faithful fan of Tolkien, they'd stand no chance in adapting the 2nd Age because they literally had no rights to do so. It means that the very decision to go for this time period was absolutely stupid
Almost entirely wrong. "Everything about the Second Age is found in" the Appendices to Lord of the Rings, to a substantial degree. There are added details in The Akallabêth and Of the Rings of Power; but it is also clear that some of these details-the name 'Annatar' as an obvious example-are permissible under the licensing agreement. But TRoP is clearly not even trying to tell the story chronicled in the Appendices (and other exposition like the Council of Elrond). "Harfoots" (who do not have hairy feet, name notwithstanding) and Gandalf ("Grand Elf"? Seriously???) arriving by meteor with amnesia? It is because the creators felt that they just could not imagine Middle-earth without hobbits and wizards. This isn't a 'rights' issue - it is a failure of their imagination. “It’s like Christmas dinner,” [McKay] explained. “You got your turkey, you got your stuffing, you got your cranberry sauce, you got mashed potatoes. If you don’t have one of those? Here, you’ve got halflings and dwarves and humans and elves, you need a wizard in there to make it really feel like Middle-earth. The question is, which one? So he comes to Middle-earth and at first he doesn’t know who he is. And it was a journey discovery for him. And in some ways also for us at first, we just knew he was a wizard. And then as the pieces really started to come together, he said he’s a wizard who is found by halflings and who becomes really close with halflings.”
One thing that is especially annoying with the streaming services is this rigid, strict adherence to 8 episode seasons. Theres nothing wrong with that run time, but it depends on the story - theres no point stretching out a 6 episode story to 8, or squishing a 12 episode story. The Wheel of Time is a prime (geddit?) example. Now, i think the 2nd season is a considerable improvement on the 1st as a piece of television (its still a loose adaptation) but i can't believe Amazon feel they can truly capture the nuance and atmosphere of the books in such short seasons. It leaves it at time feeling both rushed and slow. And its a shame because there are moments when the show shows real promise.
Many people felt "Game of Thrones" was rushed to a climax that the author hadn't even written. But it had wonderful moments. And they weren't always over the top battle scenes. Tyrion talking to Varus on the parapet...Jaime in the bath with Brienne giving her the reality of how he became "The Kingslayer" and challenging her hitherto rather shallow view of honor. Checking out Bronn...at first view a cardboard character and slowly becoming a very real person with a grounded set of values that, while not exactly shining, fit perfectly into a world where loyalties and duties had to be malleable to survive in a kaleidoscopic reality. He's practically the entire world shown in one character. The length of the series allowed the viewers to catch the complexities at least in the early episodes.
One of the main issues is that a lot of movies and stories today are written by people with no life experience. I'm sorry to say this but going through trauma have benefits when writing stories over people with no experience, because you understand the deep themes and it's consequences, most of all, you don't latch onto the actual moment of trauma but the after effects and the psychology, and you know first hand how it's like and not just from reading about it on memes on social media and some youtube clips and try to implenent it as some kind of representation. It's often very generic and lack details too, as if they just read a manual of the most common effects of whatever trauma or mental issues they try to portray, and also, these things can be portrayed with symbolism. My litterature teacher once said that you can't relate to LOTR because you've never carried an evil ring to a volcano, but it's symbolic and resonate with people who knows how it's like to carry a heavy burden which affects your own mental state and the fear of how good people can turn on you, but also feeling like a burden yourself to those who tries to help you. These symbols also often resonate with people on an unconscious level, because you relate to what emotions the character is going through, not just the cause and the facts around it. Or you don't even understand that, you just root for the heroes to make the world a better place, but if the world really isn't that dark and horrible and the problems isn't portrayed in a real and emotional way, then you don't really care, so that too comes back to the writer knowing wtf they're talking about.
That seems like a lot to assume. If anything writers have become better at writing about the psychology as knowledge of how we work has increased and become more widespread.
@@loganmedia4401 I don't know if you're answering my comment based on books in general or in relation to how Hollywood's writing affect the fantasy genre.
My son loved the “How to train your dragon” series. (I did, too.) But he saw one ad for the film version, and absolutely refused to see the film. He’s 24 now, and still refuses.
This is foremost a live action problem. Screenwriters when it comes to live action fantasy aren't that good at worldbuilding compared to prose writers while the set production staff tends to be more meh than what description paragraphs makes us visualize. It's rare to have a film or show that stands out. Lastly adaptions sell more than original ideas But animation screenwriters and animators are closer to feeling like a book.
Yes, that is exactly why I think that the original authors - or at least experts - should be consulted throughout to make sure that lack of insight doesn't end up ruining everything.
I read all 8 novels in King’s Dark Tower series. Fans of King’s other books NEED to read those, since they serve as the connective tissue revealed to be holding the rest of the skeleton of his previous works together. An integrated fantasy setting that explains more about so many other novels by King, as well as other cultural icons. A wonder of literary achievement.
The best summation I heard about modern big budget fantasy is that the golden Age trilogy of movies adapting berserk did not include the bonfire of dreams scene. They kept the big battle scenes and the “epic” bits, but they could not find in the runtime in three movies for a two minute scene. A scene that many folks consider the emotional core of the series. Edit: sorry about the syntax. It didn’t make sense originally. I was dictating and my phone did not understand what I was saying.
"They kept the big battle scenes and the “epic” bits, but they could not find in the runtime for three movies. A two minute scene that is the emotional core of the series." Is that meant to be one sentence? The second sentence makes no sense and the first one just ends.
There are a lot of cogs in the machine and the process can be derailed at any point in that chain of cogs. 1) Budget. Many of us older folks remember when fantasy movies were low budget affairs with poor costumes, many scenes set in the woods, bad to barely passable acting, etc. 2) Adaptation. It took 3 movies for Jackson's LOTR movies to tell a coherent tale based on Tolkein's novels and there was still a lot left out. Worse, there were still changes made in what they did put into the movies. 3) Producer/director/studio changes. This is the one I've never understood. You get the rights to make a movie based on an established book series with built-in fanbase but you STILL have someone decide they know how to make it "better" and make changes. Hollywood has messed up Percy Jackson's books twice now. Good job Hollywood! Jackson couldn't make LOTR without having elves at Helm's Deep why? Things aren't going to change either regardless of genre. Look at the Resident Evil movies, Uwe Boll's movies, etc.
The problem is that books often don't translate well to film. A scene that works in a book can fall flat in a film. Those can be positive changes. Other times the changes made will be perceived as negative by fans of a book, but they've been done due to test screenings or the studio's knowledge of the larger audience. They may well make the film worse in our eyes, but not for the majority. The ultimate aim is to make as much money as possible and film studios keep doing these things because most of the time their methods work.
@@loganmedia4401 Right, books are capable of showing a character's inner life in ways that movies can't. But there is also a bad-faith argument that's often trotted out, to the effect that different media require different means. This is not untrue, but often the argument is used to paper over a failure to take chances in visual media; to depart from standard Hollywood film structure and try a different way of telling the story. I'm sure it has to do mostly with the risk-averse nature of production companies, but when a plot is completely unrecognizable to fans of the book, something has clearly gone wrong somewhere (or perhaps the film should never have been made).
A thoughtful, articulate, and well-presented video! As a lifelong fantasy reader (THANK YOU for mentioning Earthsea!), I am in complete agreement with everything you say here. I often grumble that if Hollywood converted even a fraction of their visual effects budget into a veteran writers room, the product would be better every time. The visuals-trump-everything approach is the same problem that is eroding the video games industry too, as if actual game design should be just an afterthought.
I personally think the future of fantasy adaptation should be in animation. The best recent fantasy shows have been animated IMO… Arcane, Castlevania, Legend of Vox Machina, Dragon Prince…
"They are afraid if there isn't an explosion or plot twist every 5 minutes we'll change the channel." For me it's the exact opposite. It took me several attempts over the years to finish the last Hobbit movie because the 5 armies fight was so long and boring that I did everything from watching other stuff on phone to falling asleep because I had no interest in it. Several shows and movies have done the same as if the story doesn't draw me in I don't care about the action as I feel no tension since I don't care if they win or lose. And on stories with constant plot twist I got tired of that back with the series LOST and may other "Mystery Box" shows with constant tease or twist but drag you along never giving answers. It's like my time is more important than getting dragged along by someone with nothing to actual say and just doing things for shock value to gullible people who think they will eventually get some big answer when really there is nothing there.
My conclusion is that it’s honestly best if Hollywood just DOESN’T make a film adaptation of certain works. Nowadays, the chances of success are very, VERY slim. Besides, in some cases, making a movie can actually take away from peoples’ enjoyment of a work because what the movie does might contradict the image they’ve developed in their minds of what characters, settings, etc. look and sound like.
What makes a story universal is dealing with ideas and themes that resonate with everyone. That's why Shakespeare is still relevant because his characters and words still speak to people.
Another thing that Hollywood is guilty off is using an existing IP to tell another story. Look at The Watch TV series based on The Discworld series. That series had almost nothing to do with the books.
One of the best adaptations I watched fairly recently is HBO's His Dark Materials. I loved the book for half my life and while I found some characters changed in a very deep level of their personalities (mainly Lyra herself), it was still a very, very good adaptation and it has been modernized from its original settings in such a smooth way I just couldn't not mention it here in the comments.
I agree with your statement at about 6:00 into the video, it's like they mistook the icing for the cake! But, I disagree with you about all the budget going into CGI causing the characters and world to basically not have enough budget. Movies were better before CGI because they didn't have CGI to create cheap spectacles with. A low budget actor can be a good (enough) actor to give a character depth, if the script also provides the dialogue and space for it, and the director gets the right shots and mood music or sound effects for it. The world and characters are the cheapest part of a movie, and as you argue and I agree, are often the most important part of a story.
I ironically came from a separate but related video called "Why are AI Generated Videos So Terrifying?", and it's two answers. 1. The AI, or in this case Hollywood doesn't understand what the source image is, and it doesn't understand reality either, so when they convert the art into video the result is completely alien to the original design. 2. The Uncanny valley. Even though the underlining story, and characters are wrong, in the most horrific way, studios always always always get the visuals correct somehow. This is because they know that people decide whether they are going to watch or not due to the trailer, so they don't mess around. However when the fans do see the story they are almost more horrified due to the uncanniness of the characters then the would have if they A.) used original characters or (B.) visually changed the characters to match the story they were trying to tell. It's the Uncanniness that turns what would be otherwise a middling product into pure nightmare fuel.
An example of modernisation in fantasy working is Pixar’s Onward: it really is what Bright could have been and is a genuinely heartfelt story of the importance of male role models.
It's much bigger than Hollywood itself. It's also the people Hollywood has been catering to. The lazy, disposable, obsessed, basement-dwelling, empty people that feed the soulless corporations.
Let's also complain about the technology in the movies. If we're willing to assume an 1858 Remington with a swing-out cylinder, we then have to also accept that it swings out to either side, depending on which hand the gun is for. And try not to mix the left gun with the right. And why doesn't the cylinder in the kid's gun fit the frame? If your going to depict weapons, think about the ramifications of the technology. It has to be consistently practical and rational, no matter how cool. If Schwarzenegger complains about the weight, the sword is too heavy for a real blade.
A few years ago i had hoped that someday there would be a show for joe abercrombies the first law trilogy. Now i hope that no Hollywood exec find out it exist:(
I felt this way about the Percy Jackson movies. As someone who read all the books and loved its complex characters and mythology, the movies chose to just speed through everything and change important things for the sake of getting to the cool stuff first. The original series was five books long and (without spoiling anything) the ending was emotional and impactful and actually got me to tear up a little. Meanwhile in the movies, they resurrect Kronos in the SECOND MOVIE (which never happened in the book as doing so would literally destroy the world) and have this big stupid final boss fight where they completely butcher the Great Prophecy that becomes such a huge plot point throughout the series. That was probably the first time I ever walked out of a theater knowing I had seen a truly terrible adaptation of something I loved.
The four eragom books are extremely good but when they tried to make the movie they decided to cramp together the whole growth of eragon's dragon in a few mins, which destroyed the whole relationship between them. They cut out stuff that should be there to make the characters more emersive and feel more real. No wonder the movie for the first book flopped so there never was any movie of the three other books in the eragon series.
“…making it for modern audiences”. Soon as I hear that, I’m out. Where Henry Cavill goes, we the fans will follow. He’s one of us & We look out for our own. Our wallets do the talking for us.
I really like the criticism not just of one single title or director but of an industry approach. I wish it would result in change and improvements. It's clear that affordable sets and average special effects did not prevent Star Trek, Dr. Who or Buffy (TV series) from exciting audiences.
My husband and I both write and read fantasy, and we have often said fantasy should always be a mini-series, not a movie. Let the story take 6-8 episodes and not 90-120 minutes to tell. The recent Uglies movie is a prime example. Everything was surface, and the book was much deeper than the movie.
It's not just fantasy, this has happened in SciFi as well. They destroyed Star Trek by thinking that all the Trekkies and Trekkers loved Star Trek because of the phasers and photon torpedoes. The turned Star Trek into an action franchise, and sure there are lots of people out there who love action movies and TV shows, so there were people who enjoyed it, but the Trekkers were lost. Disney ruined Star Wars. It is just as important as to what is no inside a thing as what is in it to make a thing the thing. A loaf of bread and a cake can both have the same ingredients, but the amounts of each ingredient and how they are mixed can have a huge difference on the outcome and enjoyability of the thing. And while I love a good tuna sandwich, I don't think I'd enjoy a cake with tuna in-between it's layers, especially if that cake is frosted. Especially if I was promised a tadeonal cake or regular tuna sandwich. It's fine for authors and writers to experiment and create new things! Go ahead and try a tuna-vanilla cake if you want! It might even be something that catches on and people enjoy it, but don't create a tuna-vanilla cake and market it as a regular vanilla cake. It's fine to experiment in SciFi, that's what SciFi is about after all! But don't create some generic SciFi and call it Star Trek. Don't make the government evil and authoritarian and dark and call it Star Trek. There's plenty of dark SciFi out there, and I like dark SciFi, but don't create dark SciFi and tell me it's Star Trek, just like don't make a tuna-vanilla cake and tell me it's a normal vanilla cake. I may be willing to try your tuna-vanilla cake, just don't lie to me about it.
Heres a question. Why do we need to modernize anything? Modernization forces story tellers to follow specific rules. Instead let people tell old fashioned stories and any story of their choice. Creativity. Personally sometimes i think old fashioned storys are better. We need to stop assuming that just because we are in q modern era we are automatically smarter then everyone else. It is not true. I actually prefer the old fashioned tales
The "Golden Delicious" breed of apples was carefully cultivated by college/university students and teachers over the course of years. They did this because apples had become cultivated for their appearance on the shelf over every other quality and they were determined to grow good tasting apples. And a few decades later, golden delicious apples are smaller, harder and less delicious than ever. Still look okay on the shelves though.
In adaptations, the characters' motivations are also often reduced to love stories (gotta keep it on a human level), instead of the motivations offered in the books, that are often not on a human scale: to save the world. as if we couldn't relate to a grander purpose than just "i'm doing this to save my damsel / baby"
I think a brilliant example of a novel that raises a giant middle finger to the hollywood spectacle has to be The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Rothfuss manages to make a musical performance more exciting and with more tension than a dragon fight. My only complaint about the series is that it's probably never going to be finished. If you haven't read it yet, what are you doing? Probably my favorite book, and I believe the closest thing to an "action" scene in the books is when the main character, Kvothe, sort of fights, mostly just outsmarts, a pseudo-dragon that can't fly. Seriously, when I remember Kvothe's economic struggles in the first book I get tense. The book manages to have so much tension despite having next to no action. Great book all around, there isn't enough praise in the world to be sung (hah [main character's a bard of sorts]) for this series. Great vid btw.
Thank you for the positive feedback. In regards to "Name of the Wind", I use it here and there as an example but personally was quite disappointed myself though. It just didn't captivate me at all. Even the characters were lifeless to me. And I say that while acknowledging the writing skills of Rothfuss. It just shows how subjective personal preferences are when it comes to creative things. While being completely annoyed by the erotical elements in the book, I was A LOT more surprised and hooked by "Fourth Wing" myself, which I did not expect at all.
1:50 While he is more Science Fiction, I firmly believe that Douglas Adams also deserves a shoutout in that list as well... His world building is also immersive, and harkens to reality in so many abstract ways that have you rethinking teh world as you know it!
You can use the same argument about the manga/light novel adaptation to anime. When they deviate from the source material, it goes bad. Now try to shoehorn this new line back into the main storyline. Rarely works.
Taking characters that are supposed to be evil villain’s are now given back stories to explain that they are actually victims and are oppressed so that we can empathise with them, it seems that the we are supposed to be routing for the villains now! This is a dangerous precedent for society in general. As a child in the 60s, I learned a lot about morals from the films I watched as a child, most of them at the time had a positive moral; in fact Hollywood required a positive moral - the evil doers had to be punished - good triumphed over evil - today not so much. I think one of the reasons why Top Gun did so well recently was because the good guys actual won, this is what people NEED to see and I mean that because it does influence society as a whole.
I'd say that Hollywood still primarily caters to those who want this black and white view of the world. But the simplistic morality of those films was nonsense. The good guys almost never win in the real world. Not because of films, but because the villains often hold the power and money. They're the ones that drag the innocent off to secret locations, torture and murder them, then get away with it. They're the ones that kill hundreds of thousands of people in wars. They make laws to put people in jail for a long time for things that shouldn't even be illegal. The reason there was that requirement to have perfect heroes always triumphing was to deceive people. It also makes sense that films changed to cater for a more mature audience. Top Gun: Maverick was a good film and very entertaining, but the good guys winning is a stretch. Such films are fun and they're entertaining, but thinking adults shouldn't imagine they bear any resemblance to reality. In the real world the military probably lied about the target and then they'll cover the whole illegal operation up. Even if it was a valid target the entire operation was probably completely illegal. On the other hand there is an endless supply of good films aimed at children that do contain more simplistic messages and that's fine. But my children don't learn their morality from films.
I don't see this as excusing them. You can be a victim and still turn out to be a good person. Villains at some point give up to be a good person and become what they are. Giving them a tragic backstory is just showing what happens to people. It is psychological explanation of why this one is a villain.
The really stupid part for me is that they put all this emphasis on action scenes, then go balls to the wall, seventy billion cuts a minute through the fights because apparently none of the budget went toward actually choreographing and filming extended fight scenes.
Adaptation is a veneer on a project used to draw in existing fandom. There are a number of good stories which are bad adaptations, and some others which would have been pretty good stories if they weren't tied to existing IP
I'm unfortunately becoming less and less interested as well. Even Rings of Power I decided to not watch through the entire Season 2 anymore. Simply feels like a waste of time (for me personally at least).
The biggest problem is that Hollywood producers acquire an IP and transform the stories into typical masscult "Save the Cat" plots, basically corncobbing fans by strip-mining the source material for a superficial skin on the same old action-comedy film plot and characters.
4:32 so far we're just railing against adaptation. These are inherent problems when you are adapting anything, the nature of changing media from book to film/tv means some things have to sacrificed e.g. a characters pages worth of inner thoughts and turmoil does not translate well to screen, the vast history of a world which can be explained abstractly has to be communicated through dialogue which can be clunky. If adaptation was easy they would all be 1:1 recreations that would always be good. Given how rare this is shows how difficult this is. Even the best adaptations that people laud have significant inaccuracies when compared to the source material which breeds detraction from certain hardcore fans. What is the solution? Just never make any adaptations? Even if we ignore how many "original ideas" are remixes of even older tales, isn’t this just gatekeeping art and stifling creativity?
I think its telling that even when the authors of good books are the ones to write the script or are actively involved in the process the result ends up mangling the book.
People who don't really care about the source material are being put into places of creating these stories. They'll be put into the position and use the IP to tell the story they wanted to but no one would ever watch, thinking that people will suddenly care about their bad story writing while also not being upside that the main characters the people know and love are either sidelined or killed off.
"The Dark Tower" is an excellent example. Those who read the books went into the film and suddenly hit "wait a minute!" points, asking what happened to [fill in the blank] and "how did we get here already?" Those who hadn't read the books looked at what should have been a rich story and saw...bad guy in black, good guy "Clint Eastwoodesque" gunslinger...things blow up. And then wonder, what was all the hype about? It devolved into just another shoot-em-up with a heavy scoop of utter confusion.
I have read the Witcher books and they do departure a lot from what they were in the beginning. I had the feeling that Andrzej Sapkowski shifted his interest from monsters to politics completely. While the characters stay the same, the world that they inhabit is not the same in the end as it was in the beginning, and not because the circumstances changed. There is basically two separate stories mashed into one. I understood that the adaptation people decided to stick with the monsters.
I wonder how many fantasy adaptations were only successful because of a lack of expectations from Hollywood... Sometimes it feels it's inversely proportional to the budget, but surely it can't be that simple.
Please stop saying "adaption." The word is a-dap-ta-tion. Apart from that nitpick, good video. It makes good points, there is a high proportion of information to talking, and you got right to the topic. Edit: After I posted this, at 13:05 I heard you say adaptation. Let us laugh at me. 😆
I have a problem in that I need someone to root for, and they must be likable. Fantasy movies today either have no likable people or villains who are caricatures of their written selves.
Yeah, that is true. I found the movies to be quite well done too. Not sure how accurate the adaptations were from the top of my head but the movies delivered upon what's necessary for compelling worldbuilding and storytelling (at least for me).
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@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh game of thrones is incredible, if you don't like it's personal but the most important thing that it's storytelling the show and the books do really well
@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh As Luiz said, GoT was fantastic (at least up to season 6ish before they ran out of book material to adapt) and helped elevate the genre by actually showing the real detail, the darkness and complexity of human minds in these worlds. I hope we get many more stories like it.
If you don't personally enjoy violence and sex, you're welcome to that opinion - they're just a part of the adult world, and will be a part of any realistic adult media with a sufficiently wide scope (and fantasy tends to have a particularly wide scope - multiple timelines, families, plotlines etc.)
@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh Isn't that a Bob's Burgers character?
@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh How does she relate to GoT, or to the importance of realism in telling human stories in a fantasy setting? 😜
Hollywood in general is ruining everything. What we see is result of writers being constantly ignored by production companies. They can be replaced by AI (sarcasm).
I would jutst say, Hollywood has ruined storytelling. It is not just fantasy... I am completely checked out. I am spending my time tracking down films and series I enjoyed growing up.
Indeed I added these four points that may shed more light on why it so often sucks. 1. The dominant USA warlike paradigm. They make everything into wars against the dar. There's a good guy or girl with a gun, eh sword, or magic vs bad guy eh woman, with eh dark magic, or invaders. Also like GOT, so much is just power chess. Or for kids, we get princesses longing for a shopping spree. 2. All stories work towards the final battle that solves everything (for this season). Predictable snore and bore. 3. Just like the games, they all have the same Western economies, rob or buy what you need. Where are the truly, strange 'what kind of world is this' wonders? With very different cultures, not clichés we immediately get. We need more alternative different worlds filled with new ideas. 4. Further point 1, so often the danger is created by a cruel power unleashing terror on the heroes, making for cheap storytelling The Hunger Games, so much (fantasy) horror has the same thing. Evil gets heroes in cruel trap. Now they have to fight their way out, episode after episode. Consider the real world, even countries full of well meaning people can make life hell for each other and or others.
The magicians series , ok books and series are good. And thats even a subversion. But also sincere love
Agreed. Same here, nostalgia is great. But there are also some independent studios and creators who still respect the craft of storytelling.
yes I am doing the same thing
True. Some of the best Stories Ive Seen the Last decades where the ones that fully embraced what they are. No matter how dumb or silly they could be. They where entertaining and showed Love and respect to what they are
With a lot of modern cinematic fantasy,I find there is a genuine lack of sincerity and respect for the genre; a lot of films feel like they want to make fun of the genre and the people who like it and while a bit of light jabs is all well and good, it comes off as condescending and treating the genre and its stories like a joke. Other times the Game of Thrones effect causes studios to think we need gratuitous swearing, sex and violence and moral grey to make fantasy profitable
@@lordinquisitor6233 Well *friggin* said! It needs respect for the genre and the proper suspension of disbelief, but they can never overreact or overcorrect by pandering to nerds OR condescending to non-nerds/general audiences. And GoT, oh, it knows its audience (or at least did before the disasterpiece of the last season), but the sex and violence, the swearing, always counted me out of their ranks. As much as I want great fantasy stories, I fail to see what actually showing that stuff alongside adds to it. Imply that it happens, show the scheming villains, but it honestly doesn’t need to leave the subtext to make us cheer for the heroes louder.
The reason for the success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the rings, amongst other reasons was the respect he and his writing team had for Tolkien’s work and while they made changes like omitting Tom Bombadil, he made it clear he was trying to **adapt** Tolkien, not subvert or change what Tolkien made for the sake of ‘modern audiences’. The current series (Witcher, Rings of Power and GOT) held no respect for the original source material (Cavil famously being a massive witcher fan and conflicting with Netflix who didn’t give a fig) and think they know better than what they have being given.
They don't really care about what you want or need, do they? Don't they just feed you whatever nonsense they want to manipulate the masses with?
@@TheIronarm don't get me wrong I love ASOIAF and the first four seasons of GOT but it's exhausting. Everything is always grim and doom and gloom. And while that can be great, it never lets up. There's never any respite. There never seems to be any light at the end of the tunnel. And it kind of kills the enjoyment. It doesn't make the world feel more realistic, it mostly makes me wonder how any of these characters keep going instead of just offing themselves.
@@VampireNinjaBunnies yeah, grimdark is not, and never has been, enjoyable to me. One of my favorite fantasy movies is Legend, and good golly does that get bleak and scary in the middle, kind of a given with Ridley Scott. Yet literally within the last 20 minutes, with the freaking living embodiment of evil beating the hero soundly, all the heroes working together blast him with a beam of light and are able to banish him into the void, rescue the princess, heal the unicorn, and restore the world to beauty. So cathartic. And I think beyond the scary makeup and settings, there might be one or two minor cusses. It would be no better and likely be worse and less enjoyable if they tried to give it an R rating, like most of the other sword n sorcery from the ‘80s.
I don’t understand why they spend so much money on the rights to a story and then twist and turn it into something totally different than the source materials. I agree 100% with your video. Well said.
They have no clue. It's true. They have people who learned what the audience wants but what they learned is nonsense. See the old Ghostbusters cartoon, where they hired a company to make it more "for children" resulting in a decrease in ratings instead of an increase. Then there is also the artistic part, where people want "to do their thing", they think they know better what is good for the story than the original author or leave their mark, without anyone to stop them. The top management is then detached from everything, they know how to calculate numbers but they are disconnected from the audience and surrounded by bad consultants.. just like Grimmar Wormtongue.
Because the name sells. These aren't fiction makers they're are money makers, like almost everything else these days.
@@TheAkashicTraveller True but soon people won’t be fooled by the name anymore especially when it’s a beloved story. They spend tons of money for the name and then piss off all the fans. We do get smart after a while and won’t take the bait in the future.
Same reason they dont make classical architecture or art anymore. Its cultural genocide.
How many times do they have to do the same thing for you to get it that it is deliberate?
Fantasy is good because it harkens back to the deep traditions of the European Nations, to real historical paganism and esoteric Christianity.
They always plaster it with elements that don't fit, the whole woke agenda grab bag so you don't have any media that reminds you of your real culture, to keep you pinned down and isolated in the globalloneyist dystopia they are creating, where you will be an undeferenciated consumer living in a pod and owning nothing, not even a sense of your self, your nation and your culture.
I was too political? Though.
When they fired Henry Cavill they said it was because he was too obsessed with the source material, and when he argued with the producers they accused him of misogyny for doing it. They tried to destroy his career and besmirch his character, just because he was an actual fan of the material. Rings of Power could have been so good, but they made changes that make no sense, not just in lore but in characterization. The way the writers portrayed these characters makes no sense and seemed like character assassination. There is a messed up idea in Hollywood that a faithful adaptation of material is boring and they need to be changed. The show writers want to show their own creativity by rewriting things. In my opinion, if they want to tell a different story, they should tell a different story - *their* story with *their* characters! If they want to show their talent and creativity when adapting someone else's story, they should show it by faithfully adapting it to a new medium, which does take talent. Lately there is a bad trend where some studio buys a property, then the writers of the new adaptation deliberately destroy the original characters "because they need to be torn down" and spread hate online for the original fans of whatever franchise it is. It's really just a continuation of the older trend of Hollywood writers throwing out the original book because they think it is more "creative" to do that. It is a reaction where they show open contempt for the original material and the fans thereof, which is kind of nuts IMHO.
I would add, to some extent writers are often used as scapegoats for these changes. But a lot of those decisions are made before the scripts are even commisioned, by producers and showrunners who are really only in it for the money. They are usually the ones calling the shots while the actual writers are there for a paycheck that'll keep them fed until the next week. I am not saying that this is always the case, there are writers who are full of it, but we should watch the discourse and point it to the people who are actually responsible for these messes.
Ooh - I totally agree with your comment about filmmakers taking out their vendettas against characters.
Scrappy Doo deserved better!!
this is the extent of entitlement derived from 'progressive' movement, that is by granting power to borderline mentally ill people who can't handle such powers instead of actually bringing the ideal equality, this results in a lot of power trip not only in daily life but also in industry by women, black people, gay people and trans.
@@maxiguidetti7228 Witcher TV series started ok, but then it start turning into weird direction. Worst, changes contradict the fact that Ciri was doughtier of the Emperor. So making them weird satanists and not Spaniards, make no sense.
Henry Cavill is the only reason the show was even made and had public attention.
Nowadays most Hollywood adaptations feel like bad self-insert fanfiction to me. Like the stuff I wrote when I was 13 and thought that I would make all the right choices that the characters in the books didn't manage to do, and fantasized about who would I be in the worlds I read about (totally not like others, but nothing special just someone with all the powers of all the main cast, etc).
From the interviews I've seen, I get the feeling that these screenwriters/directors/actors are just smug about bringing their super special OC to save the main character of the title they're adapting, and they are expecting everyone to clap like seals for their genius "fix-it".
A lot of it is worse than the most generic trash isekai manga. I _like_ generic isekai manga when it's barely passable. But Marvel and most modern fantasy is plain slop, and I find I can't much enjoy it.
My 10 year old has always loved reading. Recently she began reading Harry Potter. When she discovered that they made movies she wanted to watch them. I suggested that she read the book before watching the movie. She listened to me and now she enjoys talking about the differences in the books and movies. I enjoy her ability to compare and contrast them. Our most recent book to movie was The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I never read the Roald Dahl book but my daughter has and she loves to talk during the movie and shout what they did to stay true to the book and what they did different and why she likes which one better. I enjoy these moments with her ♡ We also listen to your videos just for fun & next year will add it to our homeschooling :-)
Great tip to have her read the books first. I personally love both, but there certainly is a difference 🙂
Same is true for the Lord of the Rings. I mean, we have entire characters that are featured somewhat prominent in the books not appear at all in the trilogy for example (like Tom Bombadil)
I would love to watch the Harry Potter and the Hobbit with your daughter. I’m the same way. It’s hard to watch the movie without pointing out how it’s not like the book. I always try to read the author’s version of the story first. Fist bump to your daughter!
My niece, who was about 5 at the time, was highly offended by the Jim Carrey version of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas 😂
You have done a good job in providing literacy to your child. I work in a book store always recommend people to read the original material before jumping to film or TV so they get adaptations are different and maybe more incomplete.
So I am 19 right now. Me and my dad say watch the Movie/Show first then read the book, so you can enjoy the Movie/Show. Instead of nick picking every little detail of it. I speck from experience with the Percy Jackson books and movies. Keep in mind that I was 5 when the first movie came out and loved it and was 7 when the second film came out and loved them both. But when I read the first two books I was nick picking every little detail. This may not work for everyone, but it works with my Dyslexia and ADHD/ADD
To quote me: "I don't want realism in my fantasy. I can look out of the window and get a lifetimes' worth of realism."
To quote my old lecturer: "Realism isn't realistic, it is simply a good liar. I prefer fantasy because it is at least honest about the lie."
I used to think that way too. And yet, all stories need to have a realistic base. You need some realism that brings the familiarity factor in the tale you spin, just so, if only to provoke the necessary suspension of disbelief. As I recently realized thanks to Dusky talks. 😊
@@ΕλληΦεαρινου Realistic base isn't the same as realism. Lord of the Rings is infinitely more real than things like Bright ever will be.
I recently finished the Mistborn trilogy for the first time. I realized-I don’t _want_ a big budget live action Hollywood movie. At most I’d like to see a comic book adaptation or animated series.
Animation has a lot of advantages. A big budget live action adaptation COULD do it justice, but what are the odds?
Yeah animation could do it better
@@dianehoekstra6880 I think the problem is that the economics just aren't there. As Man Carrying Thing said recently, while animation isn't CHEAP it can at least be cheaper than these live action mega projects.
Mistborn wouldn't be too bad for live action but I want Stormlight animated. It's too easy to do wrong otherwise
@@tomraineofmagigor3499 Yeah
Another way Hollywood is ruining fantasy: Removing the fantasy from fantasy to try and make it more "Realistic" and "Adult".
This is honestly a complex issue. But it's related to multiple factors:
-The War on Animation
This is one that goes back very far. The idea that animation can be more than just something for kids is... something that has been happening for decades. Hollywood typically treats animation as something that can be made with low effort and they're always deemed expendable by the suits. And over the past couple years? The War on Animation has REALLY gone up.
Even though, statistically speaking, those big-budget movies with stunning CGI made by underpaid and ununionised VFX workers have more animation than Roger Rabbit, they're not viewed as "animation". Taking something that's animated and doing it live-action is seen as somehow "improving" it and trying to make it for an "oldre audience". Because of the stigma of animation being "Just for kids". :/
And you can see how this affects not only the adaptations, but even the stuff that's written. It seems almost everyone wants their book to be adapted into a TV series so it can be the next Game of Thrones. And this results in the fantasy parts being... well... removed. Because after all, that way it'd be more easily done in live-action. Shove all the fantastical things aside.
-The desire to be more "adult"
One reason I am rather underwhelmed with adult fiction as a whole? I was kind of hoping to see some of the creative things given a more mature twist where people try to examine the themes more maturely. Where we have things like a world where some fantastical thing happens and people actually ask how this might affect morality.
Instead, however, what I got is largely a non-stop Game of Clones, as well as stuff like "What if the Pevensives were depressed and alcoholic college graduates?", "What if the Fellowship of the Ring said 'fuck'?", "A Critical Role campaign - now with more sex!", "Grey morality - where everyone is a bag of dicks and the heroes are rapists!", "What if Geralt were gay?", and "What if Conan was allowed to have more sex and kill people in more gratuitous ways?".
Look, low fantasy has its place, but A Song of Ice and Fire isn't so subversive anymore. It's now bog-standard. Don't be afraid to break away from Tolkein... but don't latch onto GRRM and just copy him at surface level.
Ironically, their quest to make things more adult makes them come off as immature. Like an edgy teen writing a fan fiction rather than an adult exploring the existing themes more deeply.
@@logicalchaos7974 it's an insult to actual writing and they know that
I feel this more keenly as a consequence of how it was revealed to me, but I am beyond tired of Hollywood dressing dramas and soap operas in fantasy clothing. Just so tired of "we have a complex modern society and magic" but not a single person in that universe is able to get along or communicate with others. If this is what people are like in your story, this should be taking place in the _stone age,_ because there's no blessed way a dozen people chose not to kill each other long enough to *farm,* nevermind write a constitution.
Tangentially related to OP, it's frustrating to filter videogames for "adult" when I'm looking for horny stuff and have to wade through all the grimdark and ultraviolence. Would be nice if we could _be_ adult about these things and label them appropriately, without shame. It would help set a precedent for separating "Adult-only media with teenage-level writing" from "Themes of aging and being left behind by an uncaring and fascinated world. This will traumatize your kids."
@@Jikkuryuu Sadly the idea of a complex world where nobody can communicate and everyone hates each other is oddly realistic. *glances out at the world right here*
@@Jikkuryuu honestly, now i kinda want a fantasy stone age setting
One of the things I really love about the LoTR trilogy is that Boyens, Walsh, and Jackson are very open about the fact that they *did* start out heading towards some of the adaptation pitfalls that are so ubiquitous nowadays. They've talked about originally having Arwen showing up to fight at Helm's Deep, and even going so far as to film Aragorn fighting an incarnation of Sauron during the final battle in front of the Black Gate...and then ultimately steering back towards a more faithful adaptation of Tolkien's books, because his version was just so good in the first place that their massive changes were making the story worse. So Arwen stays in Rivendell, and a troll gets swapped into the final battle, and the movies are better for it.
I don't think fantasy stories should *never* be updated or modernized, but I do think a lot of TPTB on these adaptations need to be more thoughtful about those changes, and most importantly, they need to deprioritize their own egos when adapting someone else's work.
I do think stories from books should be changed when making a movie, but they shouldn't be changed so much it's different story. The changes should come from different medium, movie can capture and show things that book doesn't and vice versa.
Yes. Still, Walsh admitted in documentaries about LoTR that she did not dare to re-read the book before working on the script because she feared being buried under a mountain of material. As a result, some things in the movies do not make much sense. For me, a hardcore fan of Tolkien's writings, even Jackson's adaptation was a bit too far from the source material. Just one example: in RoTK, Gandalf indeed holds Gondor with one hand as a shield against the Enemy while leading a Strider from the North to take the throne with the other. Gandalf even breaks a direct order from Denethor, the military chief, and sends Pippin to light the signal fire. In the book, it is not so. Aragorn does not want the crown. He enters the city after the victory only because he is needed in the Houses of Healing. Hence, the accusation against Gandalf is not real; it is just Denethor’s paranoia, fueled by Sauron through the palantír. For me, the problems highlighted in this video have begun well before the recent flops of certain fantasy adaptations. My theory - the scriptwriter profession is often considered as not very important. Producers even skip professionals in some author cinema, daring to write the scripts themselves. Well, look where it brought Coppola towards the end of Apocalypse Now: he had to pay huge money to Brando to rescue his project by improvising in front of camera! Than, after post-production, he realized one more small scene is missing. He had to get Brando again just to film a single word - Horror, horror, for the last shot. Brando have charged him quarter of a million dollars for that.
So this might be a bit of a tangent, since I'm about to mention a video game or two, but they have stories too and I have noticed that not moving too fast has noticeable effects on the way the audience receives the story. First might be a bit surprising, but it is Borderlands 2. There is a scene which marks the end of the first act. The city is being bombarded with artillery, everyone is panicking, all the characters are rushing to do damage control, then the climax is that the entire city gets teleported away to a new location avoiding total destruction by the artillery barrage. The player watches the city vanish into thin air and hears the last artillery shells strike the empty ground. At that moment the developers stopped the music. They stopped most the sound effects too. The only thing you hear is your own footsteps as you walk away from the scene. Maybe it sounds crazy, but that choice, to mute everything except your footsteps seems like a brilliant choice to me. It gives your brain a moment to catch up, let what you just saw sink in, and to realize you are now walking in an entirely different world, and into act two.
The other game I can think of that also pauses the action to great effect is the first Red Dead Redemption. Upon finally completing your mission across the American frontier and being able to reunite with your wife and son, all the action stops. All you do is begin riding your horse toward a home you've never even seen yet. Then a slow, simple, but almost haunting song begins to play. An acoustic guitar and a singer who's voice sounds lonely and exhausted. He sings about how long he's been lost, but has finally realized that the only compass he needs points back toward his home and his love. For several minutes, that's all you do is ride your horse and listen to this simple, sad, but sweet song. Nothing is dramatic is happening, but it makes the impact of the moment so much stronger.
I think the point I'm getting at, is the the storytellers in these examples give the audience a moment to feel. Because even a beautifully crafted world with good characters and a good story won't stay with you, if you never have time to feel any of it.
Great examples. Video games are certainly something to mention as well, yes. Just look at Bioware's downfall by dropping storytelling quality and focusing more and more on action.
One of the reasons I am SO happy about the success of Baldur's Gate 3 which proved that a slow-paced, turn-based, story-focused, single-player game can be hugely successful after all 🙂
Just finished arcane and this was my major complaint… so much happened and we had no time to feel any of the plot points
"Most modern fantasy just rearranges the furniture in Tolkien's attic."
-Terry Pratchett
Or in Modern Audience case, Hooligans invade that attic, mess it and call it art as well as their own creation.
". . .don’t you care what they’ve done to your book? I tell them, they haven’t done anything to my book. It’s right there on the shelf."
James M. Cain
Love it! :-)
A clever defense mechanism voiced. If this were truly the case with all creators there would be no copyright.
I will never understand how companies can botch handling a golden goose like Henry Cavil. He's a nerd of the gaming genre at heart with major star power who is genuine. All they had to do is give him the creative freedom and just let him cook. Imagine a better Witcher series completing its run only to get an immaculate Warhammer 40k series accurate to the lore with no shoe horned modern day politics. The companies would have made BANK. Who knows what other games would have gotten a proper live action series with him at the helm?
Modern TV writers are fresh graduated from writing courses where shoehorning modern day politics into anything is rewarded, and they do what they had been taught to do.
Modern showrunners belong to one of two kinds. People that have no interest at all in the genere, but want to exploit a trend (Rings of Power) and people that have no interest at all in the genere but want to self-insert themselves in the story (The Acolyte).
@@neutronalchemist3241 Having modern politics is one thing, and it can be done well, but it usually isn't these days. Like they might change characters to add diversity, but then they do nothing with that diversity. Or a character who never showed any inclination towards being gay suddenly is - in at least one case I remember the character was horn dogging all the men she could find then suddenly was lesbian. Then they just kill off the gay character anyway without ever exploring it. But meanwhile they never actually get into any real politics. Nothing that critiques society in any way or challenges the power structure. Just some box ticking. If you want diverse characters, you should celebrate and explore that diversity. Show the characters' culture and heritage. Make it meaningful that that character is who they are.
As for politics, for all the talk of "wokeness" I don't see it. Disney for instance has never been woke. They don't actually explore themes of oppression or challenge anything. They don't even do good feminism. What is the point of making a character female if they're going to be a horrible character everyone hates and the story is terrible and makes no sense? Princess Leia was a great feminist character. Smart, tough, and unafraid of any of the men. There were good reasons for her competence, and she showed it. She took no nonsense, but she didn't hate men although she had a pretty sharp tongue. She was a role model for generations of girls and an example for generations of boys of why you shouldn't underestimate women and how they can make valuable friends. That's how you do a feminist character. The original She Hulk was good, too. She was competent and smart. Not this stuff where even in the show everyone treats the character like a child and the character acts like one to match. How is that feminism? It's not. It's corporate fakery. Generating drama so people complain online and give the show free advertising. They don't actually care about anyone marginalized. It's the money Lebowski.
This is everything I feel about this “modern” era of entertainment
Another problem I see in adaptations is, the producers, writers, directors, and even sometimes actors, say, "How can I change this to make this mine?" Instead of, "I'm going to create a faithful adaptation.
If you want something that's yours, make something new!
Godzilla Minus One, while not pure fantasy, got everything right which Hollywood gets wrong. Strong themes and characters, emphasis of story over spectacle, etc. etc.
Such a good movie!
It's absolutely mind boggling how good Godzilla Minus One was for its ridiculously low budget.
Imagine how many amazing we could have gotten for the budget of Rings Of Power and alike if those riches had been handed to competent artists!
Well it helps that the director was skilled in two areas. He is a visual effects man himself so he was hands on crafting the computer made action and his back ground is more slice of life movies. He made everything feel real and made us care for the characters. He is working on another Godzilla movie but if it is just about the family in the movie I'd still watch it. It is that good.
I feel that Hollywood is only taking the setting and characters for marketinng and then putting their usual plotstructure over it. A lovestory for the girls, one or two great creatures or battlescenes for the boys and thats it. Doesn't matter which world they adapt its always the same hollow vase they only paint the outside with other characters for marketing.
Hollywood blockbusters are mostly made by marketing teams, and directors and screenwriters are given a checklist and forced to do their bidding
Fucking hell this isn't even a problem with just Book Adaptations. Take Cats from 2019, It's an Adaptation of the Cats Stage Musical which debuted on West End in 1981, which was wildly successful in part because of it's general defiance of standard plot structures, and Cats 2019 tried to make it a more standard plot-driven narrative, in the process butchering basically everything that made Cats so beloved in the first place.
The original Musical structurally speaking has a barebones plot that mainly serves to justify why on earth are we here in the first place, a few other disconnected plot threads, and almost 2 hours of meaningless spectacle. It's structurally more akin to a Circus performance than other more typical Musicals. You see why we have a problem when they decided to try to make a sensical plot for the Cats 2019 movies.
I generally agree with what you say, but you're wrong regarding Dune. There's a lot of areas where it completely derails from the source material and takes way too much time showing "pretty pictures" (or spectacle) to the detriment of what concepts and story has to be told.
- Kynes is made a woman and is killed in the desert while fighting harkonnens. In the source material, Kynes is the FATHER of Chani, and he's killed miserably by a spice explosion after harkonnens left him alone in the desert, without a stillsuit.
- Jessica is made into a witch who will sacrifice everything, including Paul (after she drinks the water of life, she immediately asks Paul to do so aswell, even though no man has survived this before), to ensure her position of power. In the source material, she's a mother and afraid that the chaos of the situation she's in won't allow her and Paul to survive. When Paul drinks the water of life, she is completely distressed, thinking "what came to his mind! omg!"
- Chani is turned into a young rebellious teenager who's not supportive of Paul at all, whereas in the source material she's a loyal love interest who fully supports Paul.
- Stillgar is made into an idiot who sees Lisan Al'Gaib every time he looks at whatever Paul does (even the most stupid thing he does), whereas in the source material, he's skeptical at first, and never truly derails into obvious blind faith.
- Rabban is killed by Gurney as a revenge for what the Harkonnen did to Atreides' family, even though Rabban was never the cause of what happened to the Atreides. In the source material, Rabban is killed by a mob of angry fremen who revolt against what Rabban did to them, even though he was only the hand oppressing them, and it was really the Baron that was the cause of it.
- Alia isn't born, yet she should be, since it's her who kill the Baron harkonnen, not Paul.
- etc.
If you want a truly good adaptation of Dune, watch the miniserie from 2000-2003: Dune, and Children of Dune. 4-5 hours total. They cover the first 3 books.
Elves as fashionistas and orcs as police. Reminds me of Shadowrun. But that setting is far more about gritty no-nonsense than cramming in modern politics. It's there, like the discrimination of the orks, but it fits better.
About rushed narratives, Peter Jackson first tried to sell the books as a two films. They said, "Nah, this is three films." Unrushing for great results. There's a reason fantasy novels are longer than other genres.
Cavill carried.
Makes me remember Bright.
@@heitorpedrodegodoi5646 That one had such great potential. It was awesome seeing a Shadowrun inspired work on the big screen.
The 3rd point I feel applies to many modern films, not just fantasy. Hollywood is so dead set on having the bonfire, but don't care build the pile before burning it down. Things are so rushed and people don't care about the characters when they die or fall down because they weren't invested in the characters in the first place.
Every film nowadays is planned with a sequel in mind, hence why almost every new film just feels hollow.
2:00 I know it was probably just your accent, but "Hollowood" seems like a pretty apt name for our entertainment industry recently.
When there was talk of doing an adaptation of Mort by Sir Terry Pratchett, the studio executives met with Sir Terry and said, "We love your book! It's great! There's just one thing. Can we get rid of this Death character?"
Studios should not have creative input into things they have no understanding of.
Fantasy currently only exists in animated media right now, Frieren being everything that we’ve lost over the last 15-20 years
Frieren is overrated and not due the acclaim it has gotten. I originally thought Frieren was going to be an artistic exploration of loneliness and self-growth that was placed in a fantasy setting more akin to something like a Ghibli film, especially with the trailer highlighting her alone journey around the world. Instead of the Indepth, vague, adult show I thought I was going to watch, it ran through the entire course of its adult themes and depth in the first four episodes and went on to air the most simple, basic, fantasy show that fed you all its themes and messages by spoon feeding akin to Dora the explorer. There are many instances where it was so boring that I couldn't finish the episode before it was already a couple of weeks later.
The flashbacks of the hero's party are the worst directed parts of the entire show, with characters like Himmel being very boring and lacking in depth, only appearing for a couple of minutes to slowly say some inspirational quote from Tumblr and pretend like its deep. The show tries way too hard to be deep and philosophical but fails miserably and feels cheap.
The art and animation in the show is also very good and sometimes bad. Everyone suffers from same face syndrome and the rigid movement feels like a modern, western, splined animation where in all the frames, everyone has the exact same forward-facing look. The biggest struggle in modern animation is the clarity of the animation, which studios like Mappa and shows like Frieren struggle with. Clear animation is the best animation, and it is more appreciated than stupid, flashy, hard to follow fight scenes that are extremely out of place. The disparity between the no action scenes and the action scenes when it comes to animation makes it feel like I'm watching an entirely different show. The non action scenes are so dull, and no character ever moves outside of their model sheets and the action scenes make me want to vomit and give me vertigo like riding a roller coaster.
There is another fantasy show called "Dungeon Meshi", or "Delicious in Dungeon," which does a far better job with animation, directing, writing, and made me even tear up at some of the moments, of which Frieren only makes me cringe. Unfortunately, because some high profile youtuber didn't review it, it is not as popular.
Frieren ultimately tries to be something it is not and fails miserably, therefore I see no merit or reason as to why the show is as popular as it is aside from all the viewers not having any taste in quality.
That doesn't mean it is all bad though, the art is some areas are extremely good, and the directing in the first four episodes were the best in the entire series, but that is about it.
I’m sorry it didn’t hit for you like it did for a lot of people. I may disagree about Frieren, but I definitely agree about Delicious in Dungeon!
Anime industry is doing the same thing as Hollywood, a couple of good stories for houndreds of Bad isekais generic fantasy medieval worlds
Pspspspsss... Baldurs Gate... Fear and Hunger.... Pen and paper....
The issue with the hollywood approach is they try to appeal to everyone which alienates... everyone. The Marvel effect is turning everything into thinly-gilded piles of 💩. Interesting at a glance, but without real substance beneath. Then they wonder why every season loses them more and more watchers. Like when GoT went from source material to shock factor.
Writer rooms have been turned into content-factories. Pop-culture was always about balancing economic and artistic interests and this balance has been out of whack for some time now.
It's not just fantasy. They're doing this to all genres.
"Fantasy should evolve and reflect our changing world." Well...that's a very absolutist statement. New fantasy, written by authors today, COULD if the author wants to, address issues in our current real world. But to claim that it "should"? Why? Not every story needs to be an allegory on real world issues. Some issues are universal and will work regardless of the setting you put them into, and have been a part of society since time immemorial. That doesn't make them outdated today. And some stories can be just that, stories. It's okay for a work of fantasy fiction to simply be enjoyable escapism. In fact, one might argue that such is needed more than ever.
Also, forcing political or ideological issues into a work of fiction, could potentially alienate a large audience, so depending on what you are trying to write, it could be a negative thing.
Also, voicing our opinion on bad adaptations only causes us to be labelled as "toxic fans" by Hollywood.
Also doesnt need to be dark ( Terry Pratchet)
Former fans.
I hope we can have more good fantasy cinema, not only adaptation, but also originals.
@@End-phoenix I’m working on it… I have no resources, no free time, and barely a support structure, but I do have a lifelong love of fantasy cinema, a detailed world I’ve been cultivating since I was 7, and most of a book that I am perfectly aware might be derided as children’s fluff… but I’m working on it. And I know it’s not just me. We’ll right this ship someday, just you wait
Couldn't agree more. I'd wish more film makers would dare to venture into original epic fantasy realms. Doesn't always have to be Rings of Power or the Witcher type of budget of course.
Understandable that studios want to see some proof here first (like an established IP), but you don't need hundreds of millions to create a good movie.
@@TheIronarm Good luck with that, I really hope it works out.
@@TheIronarm love to see it
Its interesting to listen to this and immediately think of Ghibli. Knowing that Miyazaki's adaptations are fairly loose at times, or inspired but not directly copied (Howl's for example), yet it doesn't take away from the experience at all. How to Train Your Dragon as well.
The adaptations aren't at all comparable to the source, yet the story, the world, the passion, are all so deeply investing that it doesn't matter. And I wondered about why sometimes its fine and sometimes it not and this explained a lot of it.
The audience isn't stupid. We know when something is a rich, nutritious meal and when it's empty calorie schlock being fed to keep us quiet. All form, no substance. If it can't even qualify as junk food (so bad its good, guilty pleasure, "it's not a great story but damn is it fun", etc) then why eat?
Good stuff, man ❤
Glad to hear you found something useful in the video - thank you for the feedback 🙂
My opinion is that good fantasy does two things. First, it asks, "What if?" It is considered fantasy because it is exploring a situation that is not realistic. Second, it remembers that the fantasy being explored is reality to the characters in the story. The writer has to get the readers to understand the characters' reality. This takes time in order to be well done.
There's an excellent example of this in the movie adaptation of C S Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Eustace Scrubb's transformation into a dragon is bought forward in the narrative. This allows for a visually spectacular dragon-vs-sea monster battle, and sacrifices a crucial piece of character development - Eustace's futile but courageous attempt to strike the sea monster with a sword, the first time he displays any inclination to anything other than cowardice and selfishness
Saying what needs to be said ... articulately. Bravo. Kudos!
I think more fantasy books need to be adapted into jrpg style video games rather than movies or tv series. I could easily see books like Wheel of Time being adapted into a massive jrpg like Dragon Quest, Namco’s Tales or Final Fantasy.
Little corrections... Amazon does not in fact have the source material. Tolkien Estate only sold the rights for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Everything about the Second Age is found in The Silmarillion, which they have announced will never sell the rights of. The Rings of Power's greatest flaw was to try to tell an alternate story of something we already know of. And even if the plot of the show was better, it would've never live up to the expectations of most Tolkien fans. TRoP was doomed to be compared to both Jackson films (which were hated by Christopher and Tolkien Estate both) and the books without much of a chance.
Great comment - and I could have been clearer here, yes.
To me the entire choice of going for that Age when they have the Source Material for such much else, was a misguided decision from the beginning.
Either I can use the actual lore or I'd have chosen a different approach to a Lord of the Rings show.
@@TheTaleTinkererI think it’s something we have to just accept at this point, nothing will be gained by constantly banging the "it doesn’t match the source material" drum. I know, you know, everyone knows that they have taken liberties with the source material/are not following the Silmarillion. Does it actually matter?
@@TheTaleTinkerer yeah, they had the rights for almost entire Third Age lore. They could've done the history of the Kingdom of Arnor, its shattering, wars with the Witch King of Angmar, and ultimate fall of the North.... They could've shown the golden age of Gondor, and its civil wars... The founding of Rohan, the arrival of Hobbits, the destruction of Khazad-Dum. That time period has so much interesting and epic stuff, and they just chosen to forget about it
@@intergalactic92they didn't "take liberties" with source material - they DID NOT have source material. They were not given the rights. Even if everyone at RoP staff was by some chance a faithful fan of Tolkien, they'd stand no chance in adapting the 2nd Age because they literally had no rights to do so. It means that the very decision to go for this time period was absolutely stupid
Almost entirely wrong. "Everything about the Second Age is found in" the Appendices to Lord of the Rings, to a substantial degree. There are added details in The Akallabêth and Of the Rings of Power; but it is also clear that some of these details-the name 'Annatar' as an obvious example-are permissible under the licensing agreement. But TRoP is clearly not even trying to tell the story chronicled in the Appendices (and other exposition like the Council of Elrond). "Harfoots" (who do not have hairy feet, name notwithstanding) and Gandalf ("Grand Elf"? Seriously???) arriving by meteor with amnesia? It is because the creators felt that they just could not imagine Middle-earth without hobbits and wizards. This isn't a 'rights' issue - it is a failure of their imagination.
“It’s like Christmas dinner,” [McKay] explained. “You got your turkey, you got your stuffing, you got your cranberry sauce, you got mashed potatoes. If you don’t have one of those? Here, you’ve got halflings and dwarves and humans and elves, you need a wizard in there to make it really feel like Middle-earth. The question is, which one? So he comes to Middle-earth and at first he doesn’t know who he is. And it was a journey discovery for him. And in some ways also for us at first, we just knew he was a wizard. And then as the pieces really started to come together, he said he’s a wizard who is found by halflings and who becomes really close with halflings.”
The same is happening in game development. Graphics are prioritized at the expense of everything else.
One thing that is especially annoying with the streaming services is this rigid, strict adherence to 8 episode seasons. Theres nothing wrong with that run time, but it depends on the story - theres no point stretching out a 6 episode story to 8, or squishing a 12 episode story.
The Wheel of Time is a prime (geddit?) example. Now, i think the 2nd season is a considerable improvement on the 1st as a piece of television (its still a loose adaptation) but i can't believe Amazon feel they can truly capture the nuance and atmosphere of the books in such short seasons. It leaves it at time feeling both rushed and slow. And its a shame because there are moments when the show shows real promise.
Many people felt "Game of Thrones" was rushed to a climax that the author hadn't even written. But it had wonderful moments. And they weren't always over the top battle scenes. Tyrion talking to Varus on the parapet...Jaime in the bath with Brienne giving her the reality of how he became "The Kingslayer" and challenging her hitherto rather shallow view of honor. Checking out Bronn...at first view a cardboard character and slowly becoming a very real person with a grounded set of values that, while not exactly shining, fit perfectly into a world where loyalties and duties had to be malleable to survive in a kaleidoscopic reality. He's practically the entire world shown in one character. The length of the series allowed the viewers to catch the complexities at least in the early episodes.
One of the main issues is that a lot of movies and stories today are written by people with no life experience. I'm sorry to say this but going through trauma have benefits when writing stories over people with no experience, because you understand the deep themes and it's consequences, most of all, you don't latch onto the actual moment of trauma but the after effects and the psychology, and you know first hand how it's like and not just from reading about it on memes on social media and some youtube clips and try to implenent it as some kind of representation. It's often very generic and lack details too, as if they just read a manual of the most common effects of whatever trauma or mental issues they try to portray, and also, these things can be portrayed with symbolism. My litterature teacher once said that you can't relate to LOTR because you've never carried an evil ring to a volcano, but it's symbolic and resonate with people who knows how it's like to carry a heavy burden which affects your own mental state and the fear of how good people can turn on you, but also feeling like a burden yourself to those who tries to help you. These symbols also often resonate with people on an unconscious level, because you relate to what emotions the character is going through, not just the cause and the facts around it. Or you don't even understand that, you just root for the heroes to make the world a better place, but if the world really isn't that dark and horrible and the problems isn't portrayed in a real and emotional way, then you don't really care, so that too comes back to the writer knowing wtf they're talking about.
That seems like a lot to assume. If anything writers have become better at writing about the psychology as knowledge of how we work has increased and become more widespread.
@@loganmedia4401 I don't know if you're answering my comment based on books in general or in relation to how Hollywood's writing affect the fantasy genre.
@@loganmedia4401 Knowledge is not experience.
I'm glad you brought up Dune as it's one of my favorite books. Denis Villeneuve did the book justice.
My son loved the “How to train your dragon” series. (I did, too.) But he saw one ad for the film version, and absolutely refused to see the film. He’s 24 now, and still refuses.
That's a shame because the first film and the animated series set after it are really good, if very different from the books. The other films....meh
There are some names in common, but it's otherwise an unrelated, very good story.
@@thornappleteaI agree. He really missed out because though the films were different it was still a very enjoyable story.
This is foremost a live action problem.
Screenwriters when it comes to live action fantasy aren't that good at worldbuilding compared to prose writers while the set production staff tends to be more meh than what description paragraphs makes us visualize. It's rare to have a film or show that stands out. Lastly adaptions sell more than original ideas
But animation screenwriters and animators are closer to feeling like a book.
Yes, that is exactly why I think that the original authors - or at least experts - should be consulted throughout to make sure that lack of insight doesn't end up ruining everything.
I read all 8 novels in King’s Dark Tower series. Fans of King’s other books NEED to read those, since they serve as the connective tissue revealed to be holding the rest of the skeleton of his previous works together. An integrated fantasy setting that explains more about so many other novels by King, as well as other cultural icons. A wonder of literary achievement.
I kinda liked the premise of the movie to be a continuation of the book series and not a retelling of them. Given the end of the series, it fits.
The best summation I heard about modern big budget fantasy is that the golden Age trilogy of movies adapting berserk did not include the bonfire of dreams scene. They kept the big battle scenes and the “epic” bits, but they could not find in the runtime in three movies for a two minute scene. A scene that many folks consider the emotional core of the series.
Edit: sorry about the syntax. It didn’t make sense originally. I was dictating and my phone did not understand what I was saying.
"They kept the big battle scenes and the “epic” bits, but they could not find in the runtime for three movies. A two minute scene that is the emotional core of the series."
Is that meant to be one sentence? The second sentence makes no sense and the first one just ends.
@ I looked back and saw what you meant. I was dictating on my phone and it misunderstood what I was trying to say.
There are a lot of cogs in the machine and the process can be derailed at any point in that chain of cogs. 1) Budget. Many of us older folks remember when fantasy movies were low budget affairs with poor costumes, many scenes set in the woods, bad to barely passable acting, etc. 2) Adaptation. It took 3 movies for Jackson's LOTR movies to tell a coherent tale based on Tolkein's novels and there was still a lot left out. Worse, there were still changes made in what they did put into the movies. 3) Producer/director/studio changes. This is the one I've never understood. You get the rights to make a movie based on an established book series with built-in fanbase but you STILL have someone decide they know how to make it "better" and make changes.
Hollywood has messed up Percy Jackson's books twice now. Good job Hollywood! Jackson couldn't make LOTR without having elves at Helm's Deep why? Things aren't going to change either regardless of genre. Look at the Resident Evil movies, Uwe Boll's movies, etc.
The problem is that books often don't translate well to film. A scene that works in a book can fall flat in a film. Those can be positive changes.
Other times the changes made will be perceived as negative by fans of a book, but they've been done due to test screenings or the studio's knowledge of the larger audience. They may well make the film worse in our eyes, but not for the majority. The ultimate aim is to make as much money as possible and film studios keep doing these things because most of the time their methods work.
@@loganmedia4401 Right, books are capable of showing a character's inner life in ways that movies can't. But there is also a bad-faith argument that's often trotted out, to the effect that different media require different means. This is not untrue, but often the argument is used to paper over a failure to take chances in visual media; to depart from standard Hollywood film structure and try a different way of telling the story. I'm sure it has to do mostly with the risk-averse nature of production companies, but when a plot is completely unrecognizable to fans of the book, something has clearly gone wrong somewhere (or perhaps the film should never have been made).
A thoughtful, articulate, and well-presented video! As a lifelong fantasy reader (THANK YOU for mentioning Earthsea!), I am in complete agreement with everything you say here. I often grumble that if Hollywood converted even a fraction of their visual effects budget into a veteran writers room, the product would be better every time. The visuals-trump-everything approach is the same problem that is eroding the video games industry too, as if actual game design should be just an afterthought.
Thank you for the kind feedback - glad to hear that it resonated with you :-)
I personally think the future of fantasy adaptation should be in animation. The best recent fantasy shows have been animated IMO… Arcane, Castlevania, Legend of Vox Machina, Dragon Prince…
I concur. Animation is the perfect medium for the Fantasy genre.
"They are afraid if there isn't an explosion or plot twist every 5 minutes we'll change the channel."
For me it's the exact opposite. It took me several attempts over the years to finish the last Hobbit movie because the 5 armies fight was so long and boring that I did everything from watching other stuff on phone to falling asleep because I had no interest in it.
Several shows and movies have done the same as if the story doesn't draw me in I don't care about the action as I feel no tension since I don't care if they win or lose. And on stories with constant plot twist I got tired of that back with the series LOST and may other "Mystery Box" shows with constant tease or twist but drag you along never giving answers. It's like my time is more important than getting dragged along by someone with nothing to actual say and just doing things for shock value to gullible people who think they will eventually get some big answer when really there is nothing there.
My conclusion is that it’s honestly best if Hollywood just DOESN’T make a film adaptation of certain works. Nowadays, the chances of success are very, VERY slim. Besides, in some cases, making a movie can actually take away from peoples’ enjoyment of a work because what the movie does might contradict the image they’ve developed in their minds of what characters, settings, etc. look and sound like.
Nobody is forcing anyone to watch it.
What makes a story universal is dealing with ideas and themes that resonate with everyone. That's why Shakespeare is still relevant because his characters and words still speak to people.
Another thing that Hollywood is guilty off is using an existing IP to tell another story. Look at The Watch TV series based on The Discworld series. That series had almost nothing to do with the books.
One of the best adaptations I watched fairly recently is HBO's His Dark Materials. I loved the book for half my life and while I found some characters changed in a very deep level of their personalities (mainly Lyra herself), it was still a very, very good adaptation and it has been modernized from its original settings in such a smooth way I just couldn't not mention it here in the comments.
I agree with your statement at about 6:00 into the video, it's like they mistook the icing for the cake! But, I disagree with you about all the budget going into CGI causing the characters and world to basically not have enough budget. Movies were better before CGI because they didn't have CGI to create cheap spectacles with. A low budget actor can be a good (enough) actor to give a character depth, if the script also provides the dialogue and space for it, and the director gets the right shots and mood music or sound effects for it.
The world and characters are the cheapest part of a movie, and as you argue and I agree, are often the most important part of a story.
I ironically came from a separate but related video called "Why are AI Generated Videos So Terrifying?", and it's two answers.
1. The AI, or in this case Hollywood doesn't understand what the source image is, and it doesn't understand reality either, so when they convert the art into video the result is completely alien to the original design.
2. The Uncanny valley. Even though the underlining story, and characters are wrong, in the most horrific way, studios always always always get the visuals correct somehow. This is because they know that people decide whether they are going to watch or not due to the trailer, so they don't mess around. However when the fans do see the story they are almost more horrified due to the uncanniness of the characters then the would have if they A.) used original characters or (B.) visually changed the characters to match the story they were trying to tell. It's the Uncanniness that turns what would be otherwise a middling product into pure nightmare fuel.
An example of modernisation in fantasy working is Pixar’s Onward: it really is what Bright could have been and is a genuinely heartfelt story of the importance of male role models.
Thank you, I was going to comment the same thing.
These aren't problems with fantasy but Hollywood overall.
It's much bigger than Hollywood itself. It's also the people Hollywood has been catering to. The lazy, disposable, obsessed, basement-dwelling, empty people that feed the soulless corporations.
With the Dark Tower.....
I was a newcomer..... and was not confused one bit.
Let's also complain about the technology in the movies. If we're willing to assume an 1858 Remington with a swing-out cylinder, we then have to also accept that it swings out to either side, depending on which hand the gun is for. And try not to mix the left gun with the right.
And why doesn't the cylinder in the kid's gun fit the frame?
If your going to depict weapons, think about the ramifications of the technology. It has to be consistently practical and rational, no matter how cool.
If Schwarzenegger complains about the weight, the sword is too heavy for a real blade.
A few years ago i had hoped that someday there would be a show for joe abercrombies the first law trilogy. Now i hope that no Hollywood exec find out it exist:(
Actually, Joe I believe has been in discussion for awhile on making a movie out of the first book
@@chrisdiokno5600 They're looking at Best Served Cold.
Bright seemed like the writers’ Shadowrun campaign that they just put onscreen with no adaptation
This is a great discussion. I don’t necessarily agree with some of your points but it definitely gave me something to think about overall.
I felt this way about the Percy Jackson movies. As someone who read all the books and loved its complex characters and mythology, the movies chose to just speed through everything and change important things for the sake of getting to the cool stuff first. The original series was five books long and (without spoiling anything) the ending was emotional and impactful and actually got me to tear up a little. Meanwhile in the movies, they resurrect Kronos in the SECOND MOVIE (which never happened in the book as doing so would literally destroy the world) and have this big stupid final boss fight where they completely butcher the Great Prophecy that becomes such a huge plot point throughout the series. That was probably the first time I ever walked out of a theater knowing I had seen a truly terrible adaptation of something I loved.
The four eragom books are extremely good but when they tried to make the movie they decided to cramp together the whole growth of eragon's dragon in a few mins, which destroyed the whole relationship between them. They cut out stuff that should be there to make the characters more emersive and feel more real. No wonder the movie for the first book flopped so there never was any movie of the three other books in the eragon series.
“…making it for modern audiences”. Soon as I hear that, I’m out. Where Henry Cavill goes, we the fans will follow. He’s one of us & We look out for our own. Our wallets do the talking for us.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to pop corn atop of my wizzard hat with a name tag on it.
Good points. I got distracted by the constant looking to the side and down.
Good stuff, my man. You have a new subscriber.
I dont watch or read fantasy. But that video awakened me to some shit i didnt know. Great video.
Glad that you liked it / that it was helpful for you - thank you for taking the time to leave that feedback 🙂
I hope there’s an avennue that presents a better alternative by the time my debut work is finished and hits the shelves.
I really like the criticism not just of one single title or director but of an industry approach. I wish it would result in change and improvements. It's clear that affordable sets and average special effects did not prevent Star Trek, Dr. Who or Buffy (TV series) from exciting audiences.
My husband and I both write and read fantasy, and we have often said fantasy should always be a mini-series, not a movie. Let the story take 6-8 episodes and not 90-120 minutes to tell. The recent Uglies movie is a prime example. Everything was surface, and the book was much deeper than the movie.
It's not just fantasy, this has happened in SciFi as well. They destroyed Star Trek by thinking that all the Trekkies and Trekkers loved Star Trek because of the phasers and photon torpedoes. The turned Star Trek into an action franchise, and sure there are lots of people out there who love action movies and TV shows, so there were people who enjoyed it, but the Trekkers were lost. Disney ruined Star Wars.
It is just as important as to what is no inside a thing as what is in it to make a thing the thing. A loaf of bread and a cake can both have the same ingredients, but the amounts of each ingredient and how they are mixed can have a huge difference on the outcome and enjoyability of the thing. And while I love a good tuna sandwich, I don't think I'd enjoy a cake with tuna in-between it's layers, especially if that cake is frosted. Especially if I was promised a tadeonal cake or regular tuna sandwich.
It's fine for authors and writers to experiment and create new things! Go ahead and try a tuna-vanilla cake if you want! It might even be something that catches on and people enjoy it, but don't create a tuna-vanilla cake and market it as a regular vanilla cake.
It's fine to experiment in SciFi, that's what SciFi is about after all! But don't create some generic SciFi and call it Star Trek. Don't make the government evil and authoritarian and dark and call it Star Trek. There's plenty of dark SciFi out there, and I like dark SciFi, but don't create dark SciFi and tell me it's Star Trek, just like don't make a tuna-vanilla cake and tell me it's a normal vanilla cake. I may be willing to try your tuna-vanilla cake, just don't lie to me about it.
1st time viewer, great video!
Thank you for the positive feedback - always encouraging to hear something like that 🙂
@@TheTaleTinkerer YW
Heres a question. Why do we need to modernize anything? Modernization forces story tellers to follow specific rules. Instead let people tell old fashioned stories and any story of their choice. Creativity. Personally sometimes i think old fashioned storys are better. We need to stop assuming that just because we are in q modern era we are automatically smarter then everyone else. It is not true. I actually prefer the old fashioned tales
The "Golden Delicious" breed of apples was carefully cultivated by college/university students and teachers over the course of years. They did this because apples had become cultivated for their appearance on the shelf over every other quality and they were determined to grow good tasting apples.
And a few decades later, golden delicious apples are smaller, harder and less delicious than ever. Still look okay on the shelves though.
They're fine here.
In adaptations, the characters' motivations are also often reduced to love stories (gotta keep it on a human level), instead of the motivations offered in the books, that are often not on a human scale: to save the world. as if we couldn't relate to a grander purpose than just "i'm doing this to save my damsel / baby"
I think a brilliant example of a novel that raises a giant middle finger to the hollywood spectacle has to be The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Rothfuss manages to make a musical performance more exciting and with more tension than a dragon fight. My only complaint about the series is that it's probably never going to be finished. If you haven't read it yet, what are you doing? Probably my favorite book, and I believe the closest thing to an "action" scene in the books is when the main character, Kvothe, sort of fights, mostly just outsmarts, a pseudo-dragon that can't fly. Seriously, when I remember Kvothe's economic struggles in the first book I get tense. The book manages to have so much tension despite having next to no action. Great book all around, there isn't enough praise in the world to be sung (hah [main character's a bard of sorts]) for this series. Great vid btw.
Thank you for the positive feedback. In regards to "Name of the Wind", I use it here and there as an example but personally was quite disappointed myself though. It just didn't captivate me at all. Even the characters were lifeless to me.
And I say that while acknowledging the writing skills of Rothfuss. It just shows how subjective personal preferences are when it comes to creative things.
While being completely annoyed by the erotical elements in the book, I was A LOT more surprised and hooked by "Fourth Wing" myself, which I did not expect at all.
It’s similar in video games. This is exactly how I feel about the Zelda games on Nintendo Switch (the big open world ones at least)
Well done video essay, thank you.
1:50 While he is more Science Fiction, I firmly believe that Douglas Adams also deserves a shoutout in that list as well... His world building is also immersive, and harkens to reality in so many abstract ways that have you rethinking teh world as you know it!
The second Dune was an atrocity. It all occurred in less than 9 months....really?
It was truly awful. I don't understand how they managed to make the first one so good, and then the second was just pure garbage.
You can use the same argument about the manga/light novel adaptation to anime. When they deviate from the source material, it goes bad. Now try to shoehorn this new line back into the main storyline. Rarely works.
Taking characters that are supposed to be evil villain’s are now given back stories to explain that they are actually victims and are oppressed so that we can empathise with them, it seems that the we are supposed to be routing for the villains now! This is a dangerous precedent for society in general. As a child in the 60s, I learned a lot about morals from the films I watched as a child, most of them at the time had a positive moral; in fact Hollywood required a positive moral - the evil doers had to be punished - good triumphed over evil - today not so much. I think one of the reasons why Top Gun did so well recently was because the good guys actual won, this is what people NEED to see and I mean that because it does influence society as a whole.
I'd say that Hollywood still primarily caters to those who want this black and white view of the world. But the simplistic morality of those films was nonsense. The good guys almost never win in the real world. Not because of films, but because the villains often hold the power and money. They're the ones that drag the innocent off to secret locations, torture and murder them, then get away with it. They're the ones that kill hundreds of thousands of people in wars. They make laws to put people in jail for a long time for things that shouldn't even be illegal.
The reason there was that requirement to have perfect heroes always triumphing was to deceive people. It also makes sense that films changed to cater for a more mature audience.
Top Gun: Maverick was a good film and very entertaining, but the good guys winning is a stretch. Such films are fun and they're entertaining, but thinking adults shouldn't imagine they bear any resemblance to reality. In the real world the military probably lied about the target and then they'll cover the whole illegal operation up. Even if it was a valid target the entire operation was probably completely illegal.
On the other hand there is an endless supply of good films aimed at children that do contain more simplistic messages and that's fine. But my children don't learn their morality from films.
I don't see this as excusing them. You can be a victim and still turn out to be a good person. Villains at some point give up to be a good person and become what they are. Giving them a tragic backstory is just showing what happens to people. It is psychological explanation of why this one is a villain.
The really stupid part for me is that they put all this emphasis on action scenes, then go balls to the wall, seventy billion cuts a minute through the fights because apparently none of the budget went toward actually choreographing and filming extended fight scenes.
Adaptation is a veneer on a project used to draw in existing fandom. There are a number of good stories which are bad adaptations, and some others which would have been pretty good stories if they weren't tied to existing IP
I'm unfortunately becoming less and less interested as well. Even Rings of Power I decided to not watch through the entire Season 2 anymore. Simply feels like a waste of time (for me personally at least).
The biggest problem is that Hollywood producers acquire an IP and transform the stories into typical masscult "Save the Cat" plots, basically corncobbing fans by strip-mining the source material for a superficial skin on the same old action-comedy film plot and characters.
4:32 so far we're just railing against adaptation. These are inherent problems when you are adapting anything, the nature of changing media from book to film/tv means some things have to sacrificed e.g. a characters pages worth of inner thoughts and turmoil does not translate well to screen, the vast history of a world which can be explained abstractly has to be communicated through dialogue which can be clunky. If adaptation was easy they would all be 1:1 recreations that would always be good. Given how rare this is shows how difficult this is.
Even the best adaptations that people laud have significant inaccuracies when compared to the source material which breeds detraction from certain hardcore fans.
What is the solution? Just never make any adaptations? Even if we ignore how many "original ideas" are remixes of even older tales, isn’t this just gatekeeping art and stifling creativity?
I think its telling that even when the authors of good books are the ones to write the script or are actively involved in the process the result ends up mangling the book.
It’s sad that modern movies have no respect for the source materials on fantasy books.
People who don't really care about the source material are being put into places of creating these stories. They'll be put into the position and use the IP to tell the story they wanted to but no one would ever watch, thinking that people will suddenly care about their bad story writing while also not being upside that the main characters the people know and love are either sidelined or killed off.
About the "Patience Problem", there is a reason why one of the mottos of Stormlight Archive is "Journey before Destination".
When we voice our concerns, we are called bad names, and not to watch if we dont like it. Hollywood needs to be humble again.
"The Dark Tower" is an excellent example. Those who read the books went into the film and suddenly hit "wait a minute!" points, asking what happened to [fill in the blank] and "how did we get here already?" Those who hadn't read the books looked at what should have been a rich story and saw...bad guy in black, good guy "Clint Eastwoodesque" gunslinger...things blow up. And then wonder, what was all the hype about? It devolved into just another shoot-em-up with a heavy scoop of utter confusion.
Well said, it needed to be said, but corporate hollywood will ignore it in their hubris.
No, they'll ignore it because the profits are rolling in.
I have read the Witcher books and they do departure a lot from what they were in the beginning. I had the feeling that Andrzej Sapkowski shifted his interest from monsters to politics completely. While the characters stay the same, the world that they inhabit is not the same in the end as it was in the beginning, and not because the circumstances changed. There is basically two separate stories mashed into one. I understood that the adaptation people decided to stick with the monsters.
Hollywood has always been shit at adaptations. In the past decade theyve really proven how disgusting they are.
There are a few good ones though. Perhaps more by accident than design.
I wonder how many fantasy adaptations were only successful because of a lack of expectations from Hollywood... Sometimes it feels it's inversely proportional to the budget, but surely it can't be that simple.
Please stop saying "adaption." The word is a-dap-ta-tion. Apart from that nitpick, good video. It makes good points, there is a high proportion of information to talking, and you got right to the topic.
Edit: After I posted this, at 13:05 I heard you say adaptation. Let us laugh at me. 😆
I did say "adaption" a few times, you weren't wrong here. Appreciate the feedback and glad you liked the video in general 🙂
I have a problem in that I need someone to root for, and they must be likable. Fantasy movies today either have no likable people or villains who are caricatures of their written selves.
A film series that worked well in my opinion was the Panem adaptation (although they unnecessarily divided the third novel into two parts).
Yeah, that is true. I found the movies to be quite well done too. Not sure how accurate the adaptations were from the top of my head but the movies delivered upon what's necessary for compelling worldbuilding and storytelling (at least for me).