It’s 1963, and La Planète des Singes is published in France. Five years later, its 1968, and “Planet of the Apes” debuts on the big screen, triggering a series of five films. Decades later, it will have been rebooted twice. Its 2005, Män Som Hatar Kvinnor is printed in Sweden. Four years later, it’s 2009, and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” premieres in Swedish theaters. By 2011, its two sequels have been released, and the series is nearing its English remake debut.
You must be thinking to yourself, “What does this all mean?” Well, if you haven’t caught on, these are all examples of a process called adaptation, and Hollywood is pretty keen on that process these days.
Sure, its not always Hollywood that’s at fault. Sometimes it goes in the complete opposite direction. Perhaps you’ve read a book with a sticker on the cover, selling the fact that whats between those covers is “based on the hit movie.” Or maybe you popped on the TV to catch a glimpse of Alex O’Loughlin taking Jack Lord’s place in “Hawaii Five-0.”
Nonetheless, there’s enough adaptation going around to make Charles Darwin proud. But when it comes down to it, which one is better? The original? Or the adaptation?
Now that’s an argument that is making quite the stir among the headlines these days. Especially amongst all those pent-up, wrinkled film critics and hardcore fans. Sometimes, the adaptations and remakes strike rock bottom when the ratings roll in, but hey, if you hit rock bottom hard enough, you bounce.
Take, for instance, Michael Bay’s “Transformers” trilogy. A series of movies that, ratings-wise, did horribly, never going over 60% on film buff website Rotten Tomatoes, or lingering around its lower-middle class ratings in the New York Times. But amidst its strong sexual appeal and testosterone-inducing clashes of clustered metal, it raked in enough money and determination to promote an entire trilogy.
That’s not to say the original “Transformers” series was a shimmering goldmine, but it definitely got better ratings, from a critic and nostalgic standpoint. And to think that the entire franchise was adapted from a Hasbro line of transforming toys.
Adaptations really spawn from all sorts of things these days, don’t they? There’s a series of books adapted from the Halo games, adaptations of Shakespearean literature set in modern day starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and, well, all those movies adapted from series upon series of Marvel’s and DC’s independent property.
As far as big screen adaptations go, they often warrant a decent amount of exposure to the original source material, whether the adaptation is terrific or just terrible.
Oh, so you want an example of that? “The Dark Knight.” The 2008, Christopher Nolan blockbuster reeled in $1,001,921,825 worldwide, and took the reigns of #9 in the Internet Movie Database’s top 250 movies, trailing behind such films as The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather, which placed #1 and #2 on IMDB’s list, respectively… both of which are also adapted from a short story and a novel, respectively.
“The Dark Knight” set an extremely high bar for comic book adaptations, and pulled in many new people to the series of Gotham’s caped crusader. In all honesty, it could have just been because of the late Heath Ledger, but let’s not jump to conclusions.
Past “The Dark Knight,” the next comic book adaptation is ranked as #111. And you know what it happens to be? Of course not, that’s why you’re reading this article. It’s “Batman Begins,” the 2005 prequel to #9.
But, as stated before, there do exist rather terrible examples of adaptations.
From 1986’s “Howard the Duck,” based off the little-known Marvel creation of the same name, to 1987’s “The Garbage Pail Kids Movie,” adapted from a series of vile children’s trading cards, to the infamous works of German director Uwe Boll, it goes without saying that the adaptations scrape the bottom of the cinematic gene pool more than anything else.
The rise or downfall of adaptations can start at the very announcement of the film, as well. First impressions matter a lot in the relationship between film and viewer, especially if its an adaptation of critically acclaimed material.
Two weeks ago, at the Southdale AMC, trailers rolled before a film. One of the trailers opened with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as lackluster police officers, and then the trailer took a sudden turn.
The audience responded in a mixture of agonized groaning and nostalgic awe as the words “21 Jump Street” were brought up by one of the other characters, making very clear that this film was an adaptation of the TV series from the late 80s.
As the trailer came to an end, the audience was still cracking up over the fact that a movie based off of the Johnny Depp-starring TV series was going to see the light of day. At this point, it appeared to receive a generally approved reaction… though that could’ve just been the pre-film viewing adrenaline talking.
Not all adaptations receive the same reception, however.
Alan Moore, writer of highly-praised series such as “Watchmen,” “V for Vendetta,” and “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” has publicly stated numerous times that “[his works] weren’t ever designed to be films,” and has denied any connections to the adaptations of his various series.
Frank Darabont, writer and director of the previously mentioned “The Shawshank Redemption,” voiced dissatisfaction on the way AMC was adapting “The Walking Dead” series of graphic novels into a TV series, known for stating “If [AMC] do move ahead with what they’re talking about, it will affect the show creatively, in a negative way.” Darabont went on to say AMC left him with a slew of “silly notes” before ultimately firing him from the show’s production in late July.
Despite a certain Stephenie Meyer’s positive views on the adaptations of her work, the films have received a somewhat notoriety for being… well, terrible. But that’s not speaking for all of her pale, glitter-covered fans, of course!
Whatever the impact and results warranted by film adaptations, there’s no sense in arguing that there isn’t an abundance of them. As of mid-November, 6 of the 14 films showing at Southdale AMC were adaptations.
Be it the more obvious adaptations, like “Footloose” and its 80’s counterpart, or the more obscure ones, such as “Real Steel” and it’s 1963 “Twilight Zone” origin, its quite obvious that adaptations are slowly adapting the way movies blossom into being.
“I’m always fascinated to see how people interpret other people’s work,” commented South alumnus and Southdale AMC employee Ben Cannon. “Especially from one medium to another.”
“I don’t necessarily have a preference, so long as it has some originality to it,” added Cannon. “If it had an interesting take on the source material, then I would be just as excited to see it as an original work.”
“[Adaptions] don’t seem to make a ton of difference,” noted Cannon on their effect on the box office. “Except the theatre is so filled with adaptations that the original rarely get a chance to even play.”
Cannon works anywhere in the theatre from box office to concessions, and deals with filmgoers wherever they happen to be, at one time or another. His favorite adaptation? 2005’s “Sin City,” based of the early 90’s graphic novel series of the same name.
“The incredible style of the original comics, paired with the extra dimension of human actors makes it extremely compelling,” opined Cannon. “It simultaneously stays true to the source material and is fascinating in its own right.”
However, the sheer amount of adaptations is getting to the 2010 South graduate.
“Its getting tiring,” concluded Cannon. “When the ratio of adaptations and sequels to originals is 10 to 1, it gets a little stale.”
While adaptations appear to come out on top, looming over lingering sparks of originality, its probably just because they stand out. You’ve heard of them before, they’re the popular kids at school. Nobody pays attention to original dorks in the corner, not until someone with a lot of money comes around to adapt their beauty.
However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In this case, the filmgoer. In the end, its just a matter of taste. While some adaptations slop around their own crescendo of cinematic crap at the bottom of a dark well, others rise into the spotlight, shimmering with striking success.
