Well, this is fitting.
Having now well-and-truly tapped dry the well of my thoughts regarding horror, schooling, and the barren wasteland of boring in between, likely alongside whatever patience you had for the subject, I find it only fitting to speak on something else devoted to fishing for diminishing returns.
To do this, I must also do something which both excites and terrifies me to my very core.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate.
The topic? Big Screen adaptations of beloved books and animations, and why they’re not the worst thing ever conceived by Hollywood.
Lord have mercy on my soul.
I mean, it’s still a bit of a pill to swallow,isn’t it?
Bar a few recent favorites – like anything shilled out by either Stephen King or a certain head-hunting mouse – poll anyone in your circle of friends, anywhere from 13 to 30, about their least favorite films, and your likely to hear at least three things: A film you actually love, one that traumatized you both in childhood (you know the one), and an adaptation of a book or show they love.
I’m no exception. I distinctly remember at the tender age of fourteen, bursting into such near hysterical rage after first seeing Michael Bay’s adaptation of “I am Number Four”, that I’d swear it still affects my blood pressure to this day just thinking about it.
That said, it’s only with the hindsight of age – and the rage-dampening exhaustion of not being able to fall asleep before 5AM – that I’m able to realize something: I’d never heard of “I am Number Four” or any other book from the “Lorien Legacies” series, before that film came out.
In fact, I didn’t even know it was based on a book.
Where I might follow the series now with a near religious fervor, I’d have never discovered the series if not for that truly terrible film.
And it’s this realization, that made me start thinking.
Adaptations (and to a lesser extent, remakes) are probably some of the most difficult types of films to do well, as instead of merely wrestling with the abstract vision of the writers alone, you have to do so, while also contending with the wild and diverse imaginings of an entire legion of fans, willing to take you to task at the slightest deviations in detail.
For this reason, no matter how well you do, how impressive your effects, or even how much money you pump into the project, you’ll never get the mass positive consensus open to other films – like “Citizen Kane”, or “Casablanca”, or even the original “Star Wars” – because you can’t inform their imaginations, you can only try to live up to them.
However, cliche though it might seem, it’s in this that an adaptation’s value truly lies; Not in standing alone, but, by standing in support.
From “The Godfather” to “The Golden Compass”, regardless of a film’s quality, it can still serve to cast light on a franchise, series, or novel which may have otherwise faded from or failed to capture public conscious, reinvigorating those who loved it while drawing in legions of new fans.
Take it a step further, and they also put the talented men and women behind them into the spotlight as well, allowing them to showcase a sample of their abilities, while also limiting them in a way that encourages the audience to view their work in projects which are far less restrained.
Again, take my own experiences with Michael Bay. While “I am Number Four” may disgust me, it also pushed me to seek out other projects he’d worked on in a bid to justify my new opinion that he was worthless as a filmmaker. A few weeks later, and I’d come across both “The Island” and “Project Almanac”, two films that, despite my continued diskle of the man’s work, I continue to love completely unironically to this day.
I’ll admit, the odds of me shocking any of you into a sudden appreciation for the film-version of “Eragon”, or some other such film is slim at best, but, in today’s culture, when internet chatter and backlash can sink a film before it can even try to set sail beyond its first trailers, I figured I might as well throw my opinion in the mix.
At the end of the day, people are going to think what they want to think about everything they come across, especially the things they love – my only goal here was to give a different take on one of the easiest targets for hate.
All this to say, go back to those adaptations you’ve written off, whatever that might mean for you. Even if they’re as bad as you might remember, you never know, maybe you’ll find something worth your time or interest that’ll make all of that rage a little bit more worth it.
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