In Translation

"The book was better." How many times has this been uttered by literati, hipsters and other assorted snobs? Long the fodder for jokes and oh-so-ironic T-shirts such as those provayed on the website for the library-themed web-comic Unshelved, this bit of conventional wisdom has what looks like an army of evidence supporting it. Every film adaptation of a book has been a cynical cash-grab or so say the nay-sayers. The only problem with this assured certainty is that it is demonstrably wrong. First of all, the assertion is based on a limited and vague definition. How is the book better? In what ways? According to whose definition? How is the film worse? How is it cynical? Is this really provable in an objective sense? If one is referring to the variance and depth of narrative devices, it is true that literature has more available. Though this has more to do with an inherent differences in the two forms. This is not to suggest that films or television cannot do this and do it well it is just more difficult and cannot be done in the same ways as literature. Many fans of the original works will complain that the film adaptation ruined the story or at the very least did not follow the original closely enough. Despite the fact that to do so would be a near impossibility in terms of novel to film adaptations given the limits of time and space put on feature films as opposed to novels. Though this is not to say that page to screen adaptations cannot be done and done very well. Two of the best, most accurate and most well received screen adaptations of written works are the feature film Secret Window adopted from the Stephen King short story Secret Window, Secret Garden from the collection Four Past Midnight and the adaptation of the Douglas Coupland novel J-Pod into a television mini-series. This is also the case with every murder mystery series produced in Britain. All based on novels, each episode is actually closer to a T.V. movie, running between an hour and a half and two hours, with three to six episodes per "series", or season in North America. The Brits are also known for their adaptations of Fantasy novels such as the Harry Potter series which few seem to have much bad to say about and adaptations of the works of Terry Pratchett. Mostly animated, a live-action version being very costly, there is at least one case in which the expense was risked. The 2006 live-action adaptation of the Christmas themed novel The Hogfather. A similar case is the production of The Lord of the Rings headed by Peter Jackson. Notorious for its three parts and interminable runtime the trilogy was a hit with fans who tend to be enthusiastic, vocal and inter-generational.

Sometimes the fans have a point in complaining about changes, such as when producers decided to change the character of John Constantine from a free-wheeling, morally ambiguous London based Occultist into a surly, reluctantly heroic Los Angeles-based Exorcists.  As well as the notorious changing of Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the U.S. market, it being assumed that Americans were unlikely to know what a philosopher is. A lesser known controversy is when, for marketing purposes, the name of Stieg Larsson crime 
novel Men Who Hate Women was changed to The Girl With The 
Dragon Tattoo for the North American market, open references to misogyny, while a major part of the narrative, being considered a bit too distasteful for non-European readers. Which only goes to show that the literary world is also not immune from egregious changes.

Not all changes are for the worse either. Generally, authors know what they are doing when composing their narratives though, as mentioned, literature in the modern context is fairly open, not only in terns of length and depth of narrative but the sort of topics covered and how they end. Anything really goes in terms of novels and largely comics, both of them having let go of the notion of the Happy Ending as the only real option. Films, for the most part, have not. There are, of course, exceptions such as American Beauty, Leaving Las Vegas and just about everything Alexander Payne has ever done. Though such films tend to be seen as "downers" and while usually critically acclaimed don’t tend to play as well with audience, who tend to be looking for something a littlemore upbeat. As demonstrated by film such as 28 Days Later, Taxi Diver and the Troma Studios classic Tromeo and Juliet which had their original endings changed because either producers or test audiences thought they were too dark. There are also cases, particularly in terms of comic-book to film adaptations, such as Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2 and The Losers the changes that were made are the things that the film audiences liked the most, making the film versions better over all. And not all changes are nessicarly bad or unneeded even if fans if the original work do not like them. Such as in the the case of Watchmen. Assumed for years to be “un-flimable” by many, including and especially original author Alan Moore, despite rumors of a film adaptation beginning soon after the original release of the books in the late 1980’s, the results astoundingly good and faithful to the source material. Despite this, there was still much discontent among fans of the comics because of a slight change to the ending. One which makes perfect sense in the context of the narrative, is in no way an ex-machina, has no real impact on the overall message of the narrative, was clearly done for budgetary reasons and was not something that someone who has not the books would even notice.

In all, whether or not the book is "better" than the film adaptation really depends upon on what one is looking for from the narrative. Though really, if all you want is a story that is just like the source material you would really be better off just reading the book and not bothering with any of the adaptions that might come about.